The Coming of the American Civil War

The American Civil War is traditionally categorized as a war about slavery. North's victory and the subsequent release of slaves led to a glorification of the war in the modern consciousness as a war between "good" (Northern States) and "evil" (the South) where the good prevailed, thereby assuring freedom, cohesion and association as much of our time, so that President Lincoln's holdings formed the model for President Barack Obama ahead of his inauguration as the 44th U.S. president. One thing is that it can be questioned whether the slaves actually experienced an improvement in their lives after the war. However, the theme here is another, as it sought investigated whether the purpose and rationale for the war in fact had even these glorious themes which are stated in the deafening interpretation of the importance of the war in the posterity.

This leads to the following questions:

Can the purpose and background of the American Civil be attributed to a conflict on discrimination and view of humanity rather than to a conflict on property and territories?

• This isn't really a question. The answer is "yes": any interpretive approach to a phenomenon as large as the Civil War is possible. Moreover, the particular interpretive approach proposed isn't novel: it's the received wisdom.

• A question, for our purposes, is an inquiry with an answer, not an interpretation seeking validation. So "Can one see Denmark as a country that offered unique resistance to the German occupation authorities' attempts to arrest and deport Jews to be murdered in the lagers?" is not a question. Of course one could "see" Denmark in that context, and equally one could "see" it in another context altogether. "Did King Christian X wear a yellow star in public?" is a real question, and the answer is "no," according to the statements of the current queen.

• So what we want here is an actual question, requiring the discovery and capture of primary sources from which an answer can be rigorously derived. "How did the Supreme Court avoid ruling on the imprisonment of disloyal newspaper editors by President Lincoln?" "What theories of the constitutionality of secession were expressed in 1860, and how did the Supreme Court ultimately rule on the central constitutional issue of the war?" "Why did supporters of the Fourteenth Amendment believe the Thirteenth was insufficient constitutional basis for the Civil Rights Act?" Etc.

1. Background

2. Research

2.1 The Wilmot Proviso 1846-47

2.2 California's annexation as the 31st state of the Union 1849

2.3 The Dred Scott case 1857

2.4 Fear of recognition of CSA by England 1862

2.5 The Gettysburg Address 1863

3. Conclusion