American Civil War: Issues and Interpretation

(This essay contains the various Historical positions and debates regarding the Civil war. However to attempt any
question on the Civil War, please supplement this answer with basic facts and description of the series of events ;and
developments in sectional politics taking place in USA in the 19th century)

The nature and causes of the American Civil War has evoked a lot of controversy and historical debates. Several scholars
have put forwarded divergent opinions to understand the nature of the civil war. However despite the vast body of
materials dealing with the civil war, historians have been unable to come to any agreement as to why the war occurred
in the first place, and importantly disagreements over the problem of the civil war seem to be as sharp today as they
were when the conflict began. In order to understand the changing nature of historiography on the topic, it is important
for us to first look into some of the contemporary views and how they perceived the Civil War. It is also imperative for us
to keep in mind that the changes in historiography on the issue should not be seen in isolation but rather needs to be
seen in the context of the changing social political and economic environment at the time when these historians were
writing and the various ideological influences they were subjected to.

In the decades immediately following the end of the war in 1865, several authors published their own evaluations of
the causes of the war. According to many later scholars most of these authors participated indirectly or directly in the
war and hence their books represented an attempt to justify their own actions and those of their respective sections.
Hence when they looked at the war, they viewed ‘it in terms of a conspiracy.’ According to contemporary northern like
Henry Wilson, the Southern secessionists were men dedicated to the cause of the advancement of slavery, regardless of
the harm to the rest of the nation. Hence for most of the Northern writers, the war resulted from a conspiracy of slave
owners committed to an immoral intuition and in response the north was defending the union and the constitution
against the unprovoked and immoral aggression of the south. On the other hand, Southern Writers argued that the war
was not a moral conflict over the issue of slavery, but the basic cause of the war was the unconstitutional and aggressive
acts of the north which used its power for political and economic gain and was determined to destroy the south and its
institutions. They argued that Abraham Lincoln and the republic party deliberately provoked the conflict by their
aggressive and unwarranted actions in 1860 and 1861, thereby forcing the south to defend the constitution as well as
their rights. For these reasons the Southerners refused to accept the term Civil war or the War of the Great Rebellion as
both implied that the south was wrong and instead used terms like ‘War Between the States.’ At the same time a third
group of contemporary scholars were developing the concept of a ‘needless’ or ‘avoidable conflict’. People like
President James Buchanan who was critical of the activities of both the north and the south, argued that the cause of
the civil war was to be found in the long, active and persistent hostility of the abolitionist on one hand and on the other
hand the corresponding antagonism and violence with which the advocates of slavery resisted these efforts and justified
its preservation and extension up till the period of secession. To put it simply such a view argued that there was no
substantive issue important enough in 1861 to necessitate a resort to arms, the war had been fought on by extremists
of both sides. These three contemporary views on the causes of the civil war set the stage for the historical debate that
began at the end on the 19th century and continues till date.

The first major attempts to explain the causes and nature of the civil war which was free from the bias and bitterness of
contemporary writers came from a generation of historians who published extensively in the 1890’s. For them, unlike
contemporary writers, the civil war was history rather than a part a current events. The writings of these authors also
need to be seen in the context of the growing tide of American nationalism in the late 19 th and early 20th century. It was
also a period when politically both North and the South had come to a conclusion that the war was a blessing in disguise
resulting in phenomenal industrial growth, and the intense sectional strife that had hindered the growth of the nation at
last had been put to rest. It is in this context that the Nationalist School emerge that tried to provide a more balanced
and less partisan picture of the war, which for them cemented bonds of American nationality. The most dominant
Nationalist Interpretation was provided by James Ford Rhodes whose multivolume history of the United States between
1850- 1877 became a classic. According to him the civil war was an ‘irrepressible conflict’ between the North and the
South, and the South had been clearly in the wrong. For him slavery was an immoral institution and the South had
fought the war to extend slavery. However despite his northern sympathies, he modified considerably his own partisan
approach in his discussion of the south. He argued that slavery had prospered because of technological progress and
the cotton gin had prevented the peaceful abolition of slavery. Further he distinguished between the institution of
slavery and individual slave owners, thereby clearing the latter of any crime and insisted that they were deserving of
sympathy rather than criticism.

Rhodes general approach was also followed by other nationalist historians, many of whom were native southerners. In
simplest terms, for the Nationalist school, the causes of the war were less important than its result. Southern
nationalist scholars emphasized nationalism, sectional conflict, and integration of the south into national virtue by which
they were able to benefit from industrialization and prosperity. They were never critical of the South, but they
condemned slavery and secession, However their condemnation of slavery did not rest on moral considerations based
on equality between blacks and whites, but instead they condemned the institution because it had prevented the south
from making progress in economic , cultural, social and political life. Woodrow Wilson argued that that the South
remained outside the spirit of Nationalism, primarily because of slavery and consequently it developed differently from
the rest of the country which brought about differences which could not be resolved.

Another prominent nationalist historian was Edward Channing who argued that two distinct social organization
represented by the agrarian slave economy of the South and industrial wage system of the north had emerged which
could not continuously live side by side under the walls of one government. In a more general sense, The nationalist
historians wrote about the civil war as an irrepressible conflict. They approved the outcome of the war and felt that the
growth of industry was a significant development made possible by the unification of North and the South. The sectional
approach to history that developed in the early part of 20th century reinforced this concept.

By the early 20th century the dominance of the nationalist school of civil historiography was challenged by the rising
progressive school. They began to study American history in terms of conflict between democracy and aristocracy and
between the haves and the have-nots in America. Prominent among them include Charles M Beard, who emphasized on
the emergence of economic slavery in the post-civil war period. According to Charles and Mary Beard, in their
publication ‘The Rise of American Civilization, 1927’, the resort to arms in 1861 caused by secession was merely a
façade for much more deeply rooted conflict. For them the Civil war was essentially a ‘Social War’ ending in the
unquestioned establishment of a new powers in the government; where the capitalists, laborers, and farmers of the
North and the west drover in the national government and the planting aristocracy of the South. Such a social upheaval,
for them was similar to the puritan and French revolution and according to him can be termed as ‘The Second American
Revolution’. Unlike the Nationalist Interpretation, The progressive school historians condemned the results of the civil
war. They argued that as a consequence of the civil war, between 1865 and 1900, was the American economy came to
be dominated by ruthless and immoral capitalists who thought of nothing but their own aggrandizement. According to
Matthew Josephson, the post war period saw the rise of what he calls the ‘Robber barons’ as the rich capitalist class
exploited the poor masses for their own benefit. Such an interpretation of the civil war needs to be seen in the context
of the demands made by the progressives for bringing about democratic reforms in the society; and the need to provide
a rationale for such an unjust society.

A more radical economic interpretation of the civil war came about in the period of the economic depression on the
1930’s which saw the emergence of a new group of Marxist scholars who went far beyond the Beards in stressing the
importance of economic factors. However unlike the Beards, these new group of Marxist Historians were not critical of
the results of the war. They argued that the war had destroyed the slave power and prepared the grounds for the
triumph of Capitalism which is a necessary parallel to the inevitable triumph of the Proletariat. They periodized
American History within a Marxist framework and were convinced that the end of the Capitalist system was fast
approaching.

At a period of time when the Nation was going through a phase of economic depression and dominated by the
progressive and Marxist school of thought who were critical of the economic policies of the state, and were fighting for
more even distribution of wealth , simultaneously two other schools of historical approach also arose. The first of these
schools came out of the resurgence of native southerners in their own section, which generally took form of a loosely
defined Romantic Movement. The Movement attempted to portray the Southern way of life as being far better than
the urbanized and industrialized way of life that seemed to characterize the 20 th century America. In the 1930’s, a
symposium titled ‘I’ll take my stand’ was publish by 12 southern writers seeking to show the superiority of the agrarian
south over the north. The Rise of Southern Nationalism in the 1930’s was however best mirrored in the works of native
historians like U.B Phillips, Charles W Ramsdell and Frank L. Owsley who set to portray the south in a much more
sympathetic light which in a way resembled in the confederate accounts written in the 1860’s and 1870’s. In the
simplest term, these scholars tended to idealize the South and its institutions, while at the same time portraying the
North in hostile and even ravage terms. According to Owsley, the basic cause of the civil war was the egocentric
sectionalism in the north. He argued that the North destroyed the sectional balance of power by insisting on its own
dominance and it failed to respect the dignity and self-respect of the people of other sections. He was particularly critical
of the Abolitionist and accused them of provoking the entire population of the north with their lies. He denied that the
slavery was the cause of the war.

The second dominant school of civil war historiography in the 1930’s was the ‘Revisionist School.’ Their basic
assumption was that war in general and the civil war in particular was evil. Even more significant was their underlying
belief that the war had been avoidable and that there were genuine alternatives for political leaders on both sides.
Hence for most Revisionist Historians, the Civil war was an avoidable and ‘repressible conflict.’ Although evident from
the 1920’s and in the works of the biographers of Buchanan and Douglas, the most mature formulation of the revisionist
hypothesis was provided by scholars like Avery Craven and James G Randall. For both Craven and Randall were
convinced that the civil war was a repressible conflict and the results of the war never approximated the supposedly
noble struggle for which the war were fought. Both equated war with pathological emotions and irrationalism and
therefore explained the coming of the war in terms of the failure of the generation of the 1850’s and 1860’s.

For Craven, sectional differences – economic, political or social cannot explain the causes of the war as many other
countries had pronounced sectional dissimilarities without social strife. He further argues that the sectional differences
could have been solved through political means but were magnified and emotionalized until they could no longer be
dealt with rational terms. He further denies slavery as a cause of war, and blames false assumptions and political leaders
on both sides, for molding antagonistic public opinions. Similarly Randall rejected the approach that romanticized war.
For him also the war was a ‘needless one’ and the nation could have continued and slavery could have been abolished
without the war if not for the mistakes of the blundering generation. Such an interpretation needs to be seen in the
background of the enormous destruction caused in aftermath of the First World War and the many political benefits that
war failed to achieve which eventually led to the rise of totalitarian and fascist regime.

Though this approach of understanding the civil war remained dominant throughout the 1940’s and 1950’s, several
scholars like Samuel Elliot Morrison began to challenge its basic premises. A group of scholar argues that though war
could never be good in themselves, sometimes not to go for war in certain cases was a far greater evil. However the
criticism of Anti-war historian were most logically put in in an influential article by Arthur M Schlesinger. He was
particularly hostile to the revisionist thesis. He criticized the revisionist historians by arguing that if war could have been
avoided, what alternative course American leaders should have followed. According to him, there were three other
alternatives; South might have abolished slavery all by itself, slavery might have died because it was economically
unsound , or that North might have offered some form of emancipated compensation. However according to him either
all three were unattainable or inadequate. He blamed revisionist historians and argued that revisionism is connected
with the modern tendency to seek in optimistic sentimentalism as an escape from the severe demands of moral
decision.

In this period, a shift in historiography became apparent through the works of a new school led by scholars like Allan
Nevis. This group sought to merge elements from both Nationalist and revisionist traditions. While acknowledging the
significance of economic factors in the lead-up to the war, Nevis resisted a strict economic interpretation. Instead, he
contended that the Civil War could have been avoided. However, the deep-rooted issue of slavery, compounded by
challenges in racial reconciliation, created fundamental differences between the North and the South. Given the
Southern states' reluctance to take steps toward ending slavery, Nevis argued that the war ultimately became an
unavoidable outcome..

It was in the 1960’s that the traditional approaches and questions began to be undermined and there was a shift from
the somewhat static conceptual framework. The rise of the ‘new political history’ deemphasized the issue of slavery In
terms of its relationship with the American society. Hence with this new approach, the problem of slavery in these
territories, though by no means ignored, lost its central position as historians began to study social, cultural, ethnic and
religious cleavages, voting behavior, voter participation and political ideology. For Instance, Joel H Sibley insisted that
competing ethnic, religious , and cultural traditions and groups were central to political developments in the 1840’s and
1850’s,sectional disputes over slavery occupied a distinctively subordinate position. To elaborate, he argued that
antebellum politics revolved around native and immigrants, as well as protestant and catholic struggles and over the
consumption of liquor which was more significant than the sectional conflict over slavery. According to lee Benson, the
ethno cultural concerns transcended differences between classes and sections. Michael F Holt combined a behavioral
with an ideological analysis. Though he conceded that the sectional conflict over slavery was crucial, he deemphasized
the conflict over the institution of slavery and argued that most Americans were preoccupied with their republican
ideology and alleged threats to its survival.

Several other scholars in recent historiography have also enhanced our understanding of the civil war. A number of
recent studies have also demonstrated that sectional antagonisms were exaggerated. James L Huston attempted to
demonstrate how economic difficulties reinforced sectional conflicts. Mark W summers argued that the Republican
Party exploited the fears that a ‘slave power conspiracy’ was bent on destroying representative democratic institutions,
thus using it as a political tool to strengthen its appeal in the northern electorates. Kenneth M Stampp on the other
hand emphasized the rigidity and ineptitude of President James Buchanan which was responsible for intensifying the
sectional conflict.

While the causes of the Civil War remain debated, the persistent view is that slavery played a central role. Eric Foner
argues that the major source of North-South conflict was the extension of slavery into new territories. He emphasizes
the complexity of the war's causes, rooted in the American political system and conflicting social and economic values.
Foner concludes that despite its profound impact, the Civil War achieved the founders' goal of creating a single nation.
Scholars generally agree on its complexity and recognize it as a pivotal moment in U.S. history, ushering in a unified
nation and paving the way for progress and prosperity.