What Caused the Civil War?: Reflections on the South and Southern History

What Caused the Civil War?: Reflections on the South and Southern History PDF Author: Edward L. Ayers
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393285154
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
“An extremely good writer, [Ayers] is well worth reading . . . on the South and Southern history.”—Stephen Sears, Boston Globe The Southern past has proven to be fertile ground for great works of history. Peculiarities of tragic proportions—a system of slavery flourishing in a land of freedom, secession and Civil War tearing at a federal Union, deep poverty persisting in a nation of fast-paced development—have fed the imaginations of some of our most accomplished historians. Foremost in their ranks today is Edward L. Ayers, author of the award-winning and ongoing study of the Civil War in the heart of America, the Valley of the Shadow Project. In wide-ranging essays on the Civil War, the New South, and the twentieth-century South, Ayers turns over the rich soil of Southern life to explore the sources of the nation's and his own history. The title essay, original here, distills his vast research and offers a fresh perspective on the nation's central historical event.

What Caused the Civil War?: Reflections on the South and Southern History

What Caused the Civil War?: Reflections on the South and Southern History PDF Author: Edward L. Ayers
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393285154
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 224

Get Book

Book Description
“An extremely good writer, [Ayers] is well worth reading . . . on the South and Southern history.”—Stephen Sears, Boston Globe The Southern past has proven to be fertile ground for great works of history. Peculiarities of tragic proportions—a system of slavery flourishing in a land of freedom, secession and Civil War tearing at a federal Union, deep poverty persisting in a nation of fast-paced development—have fed the imaginations of some of our most accomplished historians. Foremost in their ranks today is Edward L. Ayers, author of the award-winning and ongoing study of the Civil War in the heart of America, the Valley of the Shadow Project. In wide-ranging essays on the Civil War, the New South, and the twentieth-century South, Ayers turns over the rich soil of Southern life to explore the sources of the nation's and his own history. The title essay, original here, distills his vast research and offers a fresh perspective on the nation's central historical event.

Slavery: Cause and Catalyst of the Civil War

Slavery: Cause and Catalyst of the Civil War PDF Author: U. S. Department U.S. Department of the Interior
Publisher: CreateSpace
ISBN: 9781503320406
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 28

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Book Description
The role of slavery in bringing on the Civil War has been hotly debated for decades. One important way of approaching the issue is to look at what contemporary observers had to say. In March 1861, Alexander H. Stephens, Vice President of the Confederates States of America, was quoted in the Savannah Republican: "The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution African slavery as it exists amongst us, the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the 'rock upon which the old Union would split.' He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. "[Our] foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition." Today, most professional historians agree with Stephens that slavery and the status of African Americans were at the heart of the crisis that plunged the U.S. into a civil war from 1861 to 1865. That is not to say the average Confederate soldier fought to preserve slavery or the average Union soldier went to war to end slavery. Some fought on moral grounds. Some fought because they felt their way of life and prosperity were threatened. Others fought to preserve the Union. Soldiers fight for many reasons-notably to stay alive and support their comrades in arms. The North's goal in the beginning was the preservation of the Union, not emancipation. For the 180,000 African Americans who ultimately served the U.S. in the war, however, emancipation was the primary aim. The roots of the crisis over slavery that gripped the nation in 1860-1861 go back well before the nation's founding. In 1619, slavery was introduced to Virginia, when a Dutch ship traded African slaves for food. Unable to find cheap labor from other sources, white settlers increasingly turned to slaves imported from Africa. By the early 1700s, in British North America, slavery generally meant African slavery. Southern plantations using slave labor pro-duced the great export crops-tobacco, rice, forest products, and indigo-that made the American colonies prosperous. Many Northern merchants made their fortunes either in the slave trade or by exporting the products of slave labor. African slavery was central to the development of British North America.

Slavery Was Not the Cause of the War Between the States

Slavery Was Not the Cause of the War Between the States PDF Author: Gene Kizer (Jr.)
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780985363277
Category : Fort Sumter (Charleston, S.C.)
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
This book proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that the North did not go to war to free the slaves or end slavery. The North went to war because it faced economic annihilation and a Southern competitor that controlled the most demanded commodity on earth: cotton. The North's economy was based mostly on manufacturing for the South and shipping Southern cotton around the world. Cotton alone was 60% of U.S. exports in 1860. When the South seceded, the Northern economy began a dramatic collapse, and by war time, there were hundreds of thousands of hungry, unemployed Northerners in the street --- and the "tocsin of war" sounded. Economically ignorant Northern leaders then passed the astronomical Morrill Tariff that threatened to destroy the Northern shipping industry by rerouting trade away from the high-tariff North and into the low-tariff South. The Morrill Tariff was like pumping gasoline into an already raging fire. Abraham Lincoln was the first sectional president in American history. He was president of the North, and the North was clamoring for war. He saw an opportunity to start it without appearing to be the aggressor, so he took it. Thus, he started a war that killed 800,000 men and wounded a million. The idea that the good North was so outraged over slavery that they marched armies into the South to free the slaves is an absurdity of biblical proportions and this book proves it. This is an exciting, fast-paced 360 page book using over 200 sources with everything cited in footnotes and a bibliography. Part I proves that the economic annihilation of the North was what drove Lincoln to start the war. Part II proves the right of secession, which Horace Greeley believed in until he realized that secession meant an economic catastrophe for the North. Part III is the famous treatise by Charles W. Ramsdell, "Lincoln and Fort Sumter," which proves conclusively that Abraham Lincoln started the War Between the States. Slavery was not the cause of the War Between the States, and this book makes the irrefutable argument. Here's what Dr. Clyde N. Wilson says about this book: Historians used to know - and it was not too long ago - that the War Between the States had more to do with economics than it did with slavery. The current obsession with slavery as the "cause" of the war rests not on evidence but on ideological considerations of the present day. Gene Kizer has provided us with the conclusive case that the invasion of the Southern States by Lincoln and his party (a minority of the American people) was due to an agenda of economic domination and not to some benevolent concern for slaves. This book is rich in evidence and telling quotations and ought to be on every Southern bookshelf. Clyde N. Wilson, Emeritus Distinguished Professor of History, University of South Carolina.

The War Before the War

The War Before the War PDF Author: Andrew Delbanco
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0735224137
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 482

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Book Description
A New York Times Notable Book Selection Winner of the Mark Lynton History Prize Winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award Winner of the Lionel Trilling Book Award A New York Times Critics' Best Book "Excellent... stunning."—Ta-Nehisi Coates This book tells the story of America’s original sin—slavery—through politics, law, literature, and above all, through the eyes of enslavedblack people who risked their lives to flee from bondage, thereby forcing the nation to confront the truth about itself. The struggle over slavery divided not only the American nation but also the hearts and minds of individual citizens faced with the timeless problem of when to submit to unjust laws and when to resist. The War Before the War illuminates what brought us to war with ourselves and the terrible legacies of slavery that are with us still.

Slavery as a Cause of the Civil War

Slavery as a Cause of the Civil War PDF Author: Edwin Charles Rozwenc
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Slavery
Languages : en
Pages : 118

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Book Description
'The documents in the first group bring to mind several important questions about the way the slavery question functioned in the minds of public leaders between 1857 and 1861. The second group provides us with an opportunity to sharpen our thinking about the slavery question by analyzing the efforts of modern historians to appraise the slavery question as a casual factor in the coming of the Civil War."--Introduction.

Slavery as a Cause of the Civil War

Slavery as a Cause of the Civil War PDF Author: Edwin Charles Rozwenc
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Slavery
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description


The Causes of the Civil War

The Causes of the Civil War PDF Author: Kenneth Stampp
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0671751557
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
Presents debate on the issues and events leading up to the American Civil War.

It Wasn't About Slavery

It Wasn't About Slavery PDF Author: Samuel W. Mitcham
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1621578771
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
The Great Lie of the Civil War If you think the Civil War was fought to end slavery, you’ve been duped. In fact, as distinguished military historian Samuel Mitcham argues in his provocative new book, It Wasn’t About Slavery, no political party advocated freeing the slaves in the presidential election of 1860. The Republican Party platform opposed the expansion of slavery to the western states, but it did not embrace abolition. The real cause of the war was a dispute over money and self-determination. Before the Civil War, the South financed most of the federal government—because the federal government was funded by tariffs, which were paid disproportionately by the agricultural South that imported manufactured goods. Yet, most federal government spending and subsidies benefited the North. The South wanted a more limited federal government and lower tariffs—the ideals of Thomas Jefferson—and when the South could not get that, it opted for independence. Lincoln was unprepared when the Southern states seceded, and force was the only way to bring them—and their tariff money—back. That was the real cause of the war. A well-documented and compelling read by a master historian, It Wasn’t About Slavery will change the way you think about Abraham Lincoln, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the cause and legacy of America’s momentous Civil War.

Uncle Tom's Cabin

Uncle Tom's Cabin PDF Author: Harriet Beecher Stowe
Publisher: Xist Publishing
ISBN: 1623958415
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 473

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Book Description
The Little Story that Started the Civil War “Any mind that is capable of a real sorrow is capable of good.” ― Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin Uncle Tom's Cabin; or Life Among the Lowly, is one of the most famous anti-slavery works of all time. Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel helped lay the foundation for the Civil War and was the best selling novel of the 19th century. While in recent years, the book's role in creating and reinforcing a number of stereotypes about African Americans, this novel's historical and literary impact should not be overlooked. This Xist Classics edition has been professionally formatted for e-readers with a linked table of contents. This eBook also contains a bonus book club leadership guide and discussion questions. We hope you’ll share this book with your friends, neighbors and colleagues and can’t wait to hear what you have to say about it. Xist Publishing is a digital-first publisher. Xist Publishing creates books for the touchscreen generation and is dedicated to helping everyone develop a lifetime love of reading, no matter what form it takes

What This Cruel War Was Over

What This Cruel War Was Over PDF Author: Chandra Manning
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307267431
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 364

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Book Description
Using letters, diaries, and regimental newspapers to take us inside the minds of Civil War soldiers—black and white, Northern and Southern—as they fought and marched across a divided country, this unprecedented account is “an essential contribution to our understanding of slavery and the Civil War" (The Philadelphia Inquirer). In this unprecedented account, Chandra Manning With stunning poise and narrative verve, Manning explores how the Union and Confederate soldiers came to identify slavery as the central issue of the war and what that meant for a tumultuous nation. This is a brilliant and eye-opening debut and an invaluable addition to our understanding of the Civil War as it has never been rendered before.