What mainly caused the Civil War?

[SPC]

I'm not making any sense? Your the one that contradicts yourself and points to imaginary clauses in the Constitution prohibiting secession! You have not disproved my arguments, you just continue to cling to the argument that secession is a breach of contract, even when I show the ridiculousness of that view!

Again, you're talking yourself in circles.  You haven't made any real points, you just say, "No!" whenever I say anything and reword your previous posts.  You've lost.

You have not shown me the place in the Constitution where it bans secession, and if you cannot show me that clause, then that right is given to the states by the 10th Amendment. Until you show me the clause banning secession, you have not won your argument.

Breach of contract - a legal concept in which a binding agreement or bargained-for exchange is not honored by one or more of the parties to the contract by non-performance or interference with the other party's performance.

1. The contract does not prohibit secession. Therefore, the Southern states' secession can not be considered to be a breach of contract.
2. What happens of the federal government breaches the contract by violating the Constitution. Surely you will recognize then that, since the federal government didn't honor the contract, the states have no obligation to do so either.
3. As I have pointed out before, though you ignored it, by your absurd definition of 'breach of contract', divorce and job quitting would both be illegal, since the wife/worker would be 'breaching the contract'. Your definition, if applied to civil contracts, would not be accepted anywhere short of totalitarian societies.

[SPC]

It's like talking to a brick wall.  Done.  I've proved my point.  Most rational people will see it as valid.

You still have not answered question #3. It would seem that you cannot rationally answer that question without conceding your point, so you choode to ignore it instead. I only ask of you to tell me how a social contract is different from any other contract, and if one can leave a marital contract or a labor contract, why can't one leave a social contract?

[DanielX]

The immediate cause of the Civil War was the election of Abraham Lincoln, a Republican - at the time, the party was largely anti-slavery. Though Lincoln did not start out as an outright abolitionist, he did campaign against expansion of slavery into the territories. After several years of rising tensions, arising from both slaveowners and abolitionists taking an increasingly hard line, with the planter regions of the South (stretching from South Carolina to Louisiana) being the biggest home of the "fire-eaters", and New England and the northern Mid-Atlantic states being the main home of the abolitionist movement. The Dred Scott decision (which is what screws the "states rights" argument over - it basically nullified any state anti-slavery laws as long as any other state permitted slavery), the rise of the Underground Railroad, the differing reactions to John Brown, the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the resulting "Bleeding Kansas", all worsened things by a lot.

States rights and tariffs were definitely factors as well, in aiding the alienation of the south and the north. However, slavery was the top issue. Without slavery, the Civil War wouldn't've happened.

As for my opinion, I've given it before - I am uncertain that the Union could prevent the Confederacy from seceding. However, post-1863 the Union was clearly in the moral right - chattel slavery is evil, and in my opinion the legal practice thereof is a fundamental violation of the social contract between a state (nation or otherwise) and its citizens - therefore there is no such thing as a legitimate state with legal slavery, and the Confederate states (and several Union states) had no right to exist.

[TomC]

Not that the Confederate states were right, but it was most definitely about states rights.

[Associate Justice PiT]

Not that the Confederate states were right, but it was most definitely about states rights.

     Tell me, how much of an issue do you think states' rights would have been if it had not been for slavery?

[CARLHAYDEN]

Not that the Confederate states were right, but it was most definitely about states rights.

     Tell me, how much of an issue do you think states' rights would have been if it had not been for slavery?

Quite a lot!

First, there were the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions, where those states sought to nullify federal legislation having nothing to do with slavery.

Second, a number of New England states were contemplating nullification with respect to the War of 1812.

Third, South Carolina (while Jackson was President) sought to nullify a tax scheme injurious to the south.

And those are just actions before the war between the states.

[DownWithTheLeft]

Not that the Confederate states were right, but it was most definitely about states rights.

Tell me, how much of an issue do you think states' rights would have been if it had not been for slavery?

If not slavery than tariffs.  The South depended on slavery for their economy, they were mad that the Union was trying to mess with their economy through tariffs, slavery, and other things.  The war was fought because the South felt the North was trying to screw it over, that arouse from many things, one of which happened to be slavery.

[Associate Justice PiT]

Not that the Confederate states were right, but it was most definitely about states rights.

     Tell me, how much of an issue do you think states' rights would have been if it had not been for slavery?

Quite a lot!

First, there were the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions, where those states sought to nullify federal legislation having nothing to do with slavery.

Second, a number of New England states were contemplating nullification with respect to the War of 1812.

Third, South Carolina (while Jackson was President) sought to nullify a tax scheme injurious to the south.

And those are just actions before the war between the states.

Not that the Confederate states were right, but it was most definitely about states rights.

Tell me, how much of an issue do you think states' rights would have been if it had not been for slavery?

If not slavery than tariffs.  The South depended on slavery for their economy, they were mad that the Union was trying to mess with their economy through tariffs, slavery, and other things.  The war was fought because the South felt the North was trying to screw it over, that arouse from many things, one of which happened to be slavery.

     I see. Let me put it this way though. If neither slavery nor tariffs existed, would the South still have been angered enough by the North to secede? This is an honest question; I don't know a great deal about the antebellum South.

[CARLHAYDEN]

Not that the Confederate states were right, but it was most definitely about states rights.

     Tell me, how much of an issue do you think states' rights would have been if it had not been for slavery?

Quite a lot!

First, there were the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions, where those states sought to nullify federal legislation having nothing to do with slavery.

Second, a number of New England states were contemplating nullification with respect to the War of 1812.

Third, South Carolina (while Jackson was President) sought to nullify a tax scheme injurious to the south.

And those are just actions before the war between the states.

Not that the Confederate states were right, but it was most definitely about states rights.

Tell me, how much of an issue do you think states' rights would have been if it had not been for slavery?

If not slavery than tariffs.  The South depended on slavery for their economy, they were mad that the Union was trying to mess with their economy through tariffs, slavery, and other things.  The war was fought because the South felt the North was trying to screw it over, that arouse from many things, one of which happened to be slavery.

     I see. Let me put it this way though. If neither slavery nor tariffs existed, would the South still have been angered enough by the North to secede? This is an honest question; I don't know a great deal about the antebellum South.

Yes.

If you examine history, both the statements of Lincoln in the first two years of the war, and the actions (or lack thereof) clearly indicated that slavery was NOT the causus belli.

What was really at stake was the Lincoln and his associates regarded the south as a colony of the north.

Southerners understandably feared that Lincoln would not abide by the constitution, and history has shown they were right.

[SPC]

If the war really was all about slavery, then how come the South's general, Robert E. Lee, opposed slavery?

[Associate Justice PiT]

If the war really was all about slavery, then how come the South's general, Robert E. Lee, opposed slavery?

     I agree that it wasn't all about slavery, but I'll answer your question anyway. He led the Confederate Army because he wanted to defend his homestate of Virginia.

     President Lincoln in fact asked him to lead the Union Army, but Lee refused since he couldn't bring himself to lead an army against Virginia.

     As an aside, Thoreau would have considered Lee a wuss. As Thoreau said in his essay "Civil Disobedience," if you find a law to be unjust, you have to fight it, not go along with it. Thoreau in fact went to jail once for refusing to pay a poll tax that might have helped fund slaveowners.

[jokerman]

Why (and how) exactly is this thread still going?

[Associate Justice PiT]

Why (and how) exactly is this thread still going?

     Necroposting, it would seem.

[The Man From G.O.P.]

I have the answer!


Secession



/argument

[Associate Justice PiT]

I have the answer!


Secession



/argument

     Oh yeah!? I have a better answer!


People.



     Beat that!

[DownWithTheLeft]

After considering it very carefully, and reading a few propaganda books, it may very well have been a Jewish conspiracy

[The Man From G.O.P.]

After considering it very carefully, and reading a few propaganda books, it may very well have been a Jewish conspiracy

Illuminati ftw

[SPC]

After considering it very carefully, and reading a few propaganda books, it may very well have been a Jewish conspiracy

I hope you're joking. TO my knowledge, Judah Benjamin was the highest ranking Jew of the war.

[DownWithTheLeft]

After considering it very carefully, and reading a few propaganda books, it may very well have been a Jewish conspiracy

I hope you're joking. TO my knowledge, Judah Benjamin was the highest ranking Jew of the war.

Obviously I'm joking, but its about as much of a main cause as slavery is, which is 0%

[Associate Justice PiT]

After considering it very carefully, and reading a few propaganda books, it may very well have been a Jewish conspiracy

I hope you're joking. TO my knowledge, Judah Benjamin was the highest ranking Jew of the war.

Obviously I'm joking, but its about as much of a main cause as slavery is, which is 0%

     Eh, I'd give slavery 5% credit. Just because Frederick Douglass is that awesome.

     Not to mention it was one item on a veritable laundry list of things that the South didn't like. Not significant, but not a non-factor. Excuse me if that made no sense.

[Torie]

Without slavery, there would never have been a Civil War, period. In addition, the South would not have fallen behind so acutely economically leading up to the Civil War (which was what precipitated it; the South realized it was now or never, and it turned out never because the South waited on decade too long). The South would have been more forced to live off productive industry. 

During the 1850's, in percentage terms, the US had the highest immigration levels in its history, before or since, and almost all of it went to north of the Mason Dixon line. The die was cast.