Meanwhile, back at the ranch A couple of weeks ago, I entered a discussion of the origins of the Civil War. Both William Sulik and Douglas Turnbull took me to task for claiming that slavery was not the proximate cause of the war. Doug's commentary can be found here, while William's can be found here.
I made a mistake in terminology in making my point, and need to clarify. (Notice I slickly avoid using the words, 'I was wrong?' This is a skill which must be mastered if you wish to survive in punditry)
One of my tasks at work is to perform root cause analyses for incidents and accidents which occur during the performance of a job. If I look at the War Between the States as such an incident, it is apparent that the proximate cause was the election of Abraham Lincoln, who was seen by the South as beholding to abolitionist groups. This represented a threat to the economy of the Southern States, which were already being pressed by the tariff and tax policies, which favored the indutrialized Northern states. Therefore, the threat of forced abolition was indeed a contributing cause to secession, and the war which followed.
However, in accident analysis, the proximate and contributing causes are secondary to the root cause. Correcting either of the first two will not prevent further accidents, although it may mask them. You have to address the root cause. In the case of secession, the root cause was the continuing battle between State Sovereignty vs. the role of the Federal government. This conflict was the dominant force shaping the first one hundred years of our history. We have to remember that secession was a concept adopted by the Southern states, and actually originated in New England, and for similar reasons, although in this case tariffs, not slavery, was the main issue.
It is easy to make the case that the War between the States was actually a war fought between the States and the growing power of the Federal government. Since the end of the war, it is clear that the Federal government is increasing it's power at the expense of the states, to the point where Seward's comment after Appomatox, "State's rights are dead," has come true.
Posted by Rich at February 21, 2002 10:13 AM