because the union was not satisfying its needs.
they felt they were being ignored and that they could be better off alone
in an nutshell, the southerrners would rather kill other americans than do their own work.Why did the South secede from the Union during or before the Civil War in the U.S.?
They felt that states' rights was in jeopardy, particularly because Lincoln entered office. (Also, the North did need slaves. They (indirectly) made money off of Southern agriculture.)
First it is a myth that the North was full of factories. Ohio and the rest of what we know as the Midwest was full of farms as well. Cities like Cleveland, Chicago, Detroit and Indianapolis, were not very big. All gaining size post Civil War.
Second is about slavery. Yes this did divide the states, but the south did not secede because of it. They seceded because, of high taxes. They were getting next to nothing for the cash crops (cotton, and tobacco), and yet paying huge prices for goods made in the northeast factories. Only a small percent of southerns owned slaves.
The states that seceded did so in two waves. Wave one started with South Carolina, and was mainly made up of the deep souther states. This was over high taxes. The second wave started with Virgina and the rest of the states that did seceded and this was over federal troops being raised to go to Charleston SC.
Hoped I helped
You cannot believe the amount of ink that's been spilled over this (which is my excuse for the lengthy response that follows--since I also hope to respond to other views-- I do hope you can follow IT) Your uncertainty is certainly understandable.
Note first, that there were TWO waves of secession --and the reasons for the two were not quite the same. The border states, such as Virginia, that seceded AFTER Fort Sumter and Lincoln's call for troops (that is, after the Civil War had begun) did so in order to support their Southern brethren... mostly from bonds of kinship and culture. But they did not wish to do so, and tried to avoid it.
Thus THE "reason(s) for secession" boil down to those of the seven states of the DEEP South which seceded first.
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Now the "simple" answer to this question s SLAVERY.
Many think that's TOO simple or even wrong... but when you start to look at it closely you discover that it explains all the other answers. . . and there were leaders on both sides who made that very clear at the time.
The other answers you are likely to get are things like "states rights", "Lincoln's election" and "economics". Now all have something to them. But those who use them often fail to look at WHY these issues prompted secession and war. In every case, if you go back, it was SLAVERY that caused these other things to even BE issues, at least to be issues big enough to break up the Union.
The "states rights", "Lincoln's election" and "economics" answers all have something to them. But those who use them often fail to look at WHY these issues prompted secession and war. In every case, if you go back, it was SLAVERY that caused these other things to even BE issues, at least to be issues big enough to break up the Union.
In particular, when someone insists that "states rights" was the issue 'and not slavery' they seldom explain which exact "rights" of the states were at issue! (By the way, to say "the right to secede" is absurd, even circular -- who would secede ONLY to assert the right to secede??!)
In fact, a look at the formal documents of the time, and the statements of Confederate leaders make it clear that the CENTRAL "states rights" issues revolved around the right to own slaves! I am not saying that all who make the "states rights" argument are ignorant or deliberately misleading (though some have advanced the argument specifically to justify the Confederacy and condemn the North).
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For those who believe slavery was NOT the true cause of secession, the best answer is to look not only at the political speeches of their leaders in the 1850s (including their THREATS to secede if any "Black Republican" was elected President), but at the OFFICIAL statements of Southern states and their officers WHEN they seceded. In fact, they make it clear that securing SLAVERY was central to THEIR purpose!
The central part of slavery in the North-South controversies of the 1850s in unmistakable --esp, over whether SLAVERY would be allowed in the territories. Indeed, by 1856
Look first of all at the statements of the states that LED the way in seceding, where they make very clear how central slavery was (the right to hold slaves, the fugitive slave laws, etc). Just read the Declarations of Causes of Seceding States - South Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia and Texas.
http://members.aol.com/jfepperson/reason鈥?/a>
And note that the "violations of states rights" they refer to are specifically related to slavery issues!! So again, saying "it was about states rights" in the abstract, as if slavery was not THE central "states rights" concern, is at best misleading.
Note again, as I pointed out at the start, that statements of various leaders of border states who joined the Confederacy LATER, or of officers like Lee, who followed their states, does nothing to disprove the causative role of slavery in the conflict. The reason for which these men (or even the states) joined the Confederacy, and their own purposes in fighting are not the same as the CAUSE of the conflict, which has much more to do with the statements of leaders of the FIRST states to secede!
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See also [Confederate Vice President Alexander H. Stephens: Cornerstone Address (March 21, 1861)
Speaking of the draft Constitution for the Confederacy he notes the following:
"taking the whole new Constitution, I have no hesitancy in giving it as my judgment, that it is decidedly better than the old. Allow me briefly to allude to some of these improvements. The question of building up class interests, or fostering one branch of industry to the prejudice of another, under the exercise of the revenue power, which gave us so much trouble under the old Constitution, is put at rest forever under the new. We allow the imposition of no duty with a view of giving advantage to one class of persons, in any trade or business, over those of another. . . .
"not to be tedious in enumerating the numerous changes for the better, allow me to allude to one other-though last, not least: the new Constitution has put at rest forever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institutions-African slavery as it exists among us-the proper status of the ***** in our form of civilization. THIS WAS THE IMMEDIATE CAUSE OF THE LATE RUPTURE AND PRESENT REVOLUTION!! [emphasis mine]. . . .
"Those ideas [of the founders], however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the idea of a Government built upon it-when the "storm came and the wind blew, it fell." Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the ***** is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and moral condition. . . ."
http://civilwartalk.com/cwt_alt/resource鈥?/a>
I made sure to include Stephens remarks about the revenue/tariffs issue, which had long been a bone of contention between the sections. Indeed, at an earlier stage of the North-South conflict THIS "states rights" issue was at the fore, esp. in the "nullification crisis" with South Carolina, John Calhoun, etc. So we can see that there was a BROADER clash between North and South about a set of economic issues (and policies based on them).
But by the time of the Civil War it is undeniable that slavery was the focal point of the clash, and what actually caused the break -- as Stephens himself explicitly states!!
Perhaps some of the confusion about this whole question is that some miss or forget that though 'slavery' was at the heart, we are NOT talking about some abstract issue of the right to own slaves, but about a whole integrated way of life and economic SYSTEM that had been built in dependency on slave labor and that increasingly clashed with the Northern 'free labor' system. To some degree BOTH sides felt somewhat threatened by the other (Northern workers were adamant about "free soil" in part because they feared slavery would hurt THEIR chances to compete for work). In other words, there is much truth to those who say it was a political-ECONOMIC clash.
But make no mistake, at the heart of THAT clash was the institution of slavery. Not to say there would not have been the merchant vs. agrarian sectional competition, political clashes, etc., but would they ever have led to such extreme steps? To secession and Civil War? I think not. Only the issue of slavery could and di impel that radical a step... precisely as many had long predicted it might.
(In the second chapter of David Potter's classic *The Impending Crisis, 1848-1861*, he makes this point very well.)
States rights were being shifted lower in importance all the time.
The country was pretty balanced in slave states vs. non slave states, then it was determined that no new slave states would enter-that would have killed all power for the slave states to influence gov't in a few years.
Urban vs. rural living gave the north greater power in most elections.
Basically, all the power of the south was being taken away at the federal level. Some of it was natural changes in worldwide economics and technology, some was specifically targetted to stop their influence.
Since they saw the US as a voluntary grouping (as did the North when they threatened to seceed many times before, the South just gave in to their demands), they pulled out and determined to start a gov't where they were still alowed representation and would be in the future.
Basically slavery was no longer needed in the north because they had an abundance of Irish, jewish, and Italian immigrants that could be worked to death much cheaper than buying and maintaining slaves which could be quite expensive................the south had very little immigrants and so they still thought they needed slaves to pick cotton for the 1percent of southerners that were wealthy plantation owners
The American Civil War (1861鈥?865) was a war between the United States (the "Union") and eleven Southern states which declared that they had a right to secession and formed the Confederate States of America, led by President Jefferson Davis.
See more details in the reference below under "causes of the war"
The main reason however, a reason typically not stated in historic references, it is that the southern leadership did not foresee the value coming from the industrial revolution.
Specifically all previous democratic societies (Rome, Greece) and feudal societies (kingdoms in Europe, France, England, Spain) were built on the backs of either slaves or vassals that had no voting or any other rights especially the say so in the government of the land.
Experience prior to the industrial revolution thus simply stated that one can not have a viable economy for the society without vassals or slaves. Since the States in the union just made up their mind that they are not willing to be vassals to king George or anybody else - bringing in slaves was seen as the only viable option for an economically viable society.
state regulation(south) vs. federal regulation(north)
South thought individual states were losing their powers, b/c the north wanted more federal goverment.
John C. Calhoun coined the term "state's rights". In fact a common sentiment at the time was, "we should have freed the damn slaves, then seceded". Southern states did not like the Federal policies of the time, so they thought they had a right to secede from the union. They wanted to preserve their way of life and many thought secession was the answer.
Southern politicians feared the policies of the north, after the election of Lincoln and the other memberes of the Republican party.
Southerners were convinced that they needed slaves to compete with the North. Their "peculiar institution", an euphemism for slavery had run its course, and they did not still recognize it. Most of the countries in the world at that time had abolished slavery, the United States was one of the last countries to abolish it and it required a Civil War to do it. There was also the prevalent feeling that whites were superior to blacks and they used to Bible to justify it (Noah's sons). The reason that most Southerners will give you and quite a bit of Northerners also, is over the question of states rights. The Southern states had the belief that joining the Union was a voidable contract. A state had the right to withdraw from the Union since it joined it voluntarily in the first place. What sometimes is lost in that argument is that the "state right" that caused the withdrawal from the Union was the issue of slavery. Since the beginning of the Republic, slavery was the main issue of contention between Northern and Southern states. Several compromises were reached during the early to mid 1800's that postponed the eventual Civil War, that everybody knew was going to happen at some point in the history of the U.S. So in a nutshell, the Confederacy believed strongly that they could secede from the Union for whatever reason, the U. S. said, no, you cannot. Therefore a Civil War settled the question. Once you join the Union, you are in it for the duration of the Republic.
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