CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES OF THE CIVIL WAR.
Why Our Country Is.
Before 1861, the United States, in theory, was a country. But Americans' loyalty remained with their states. And while they were willing to go along with this great experiment in Constitutional democracy, they preferred to view the country as a collection of independent states, each retaining the option to separate from the federal government.
Respected public figures and Constitutional interpreters took opposing sides on this issue -- and it did not just involve the Southern states. Massachusetts and New York, for example, also gave serious consideration to leaving the Union.
The issue of racial slavery brought these feelings for state self-government to the forefront. Slavery, which kept four million black Americans in bondage, was protected by the Constitution. It was legal in 15 states, as well as in the District of Columbia.
By the middle of the 19th century, as the Northern economy became more manufacturing-based, the importance of slavery diminished for these states, to the point where it was abolished in that part of the country. The agricultural powerhouse of the South, however, which accounted for three-fifths of all American exports, was made possible by slave labor.
So while the North extolled the virtues of free labor, their industries thrived on the products of Southern slaves.
At the same time, the antislavery movement, which had gained momentum in the early part of the century as a series of moral and cultural reforms, shifted into politics. That shift polarized the country.
The dynamics of westward expansion changed the political landscape even further. Battles raged over whether states entering the Union would be slave or free. It was an issue for which men and women would risk everything.
In 1861, those battles erupted into war.
By the time the last shot was fired in 1865, more than 620,000 soldiers lost their lives in the Civil War -- as many as all of the nation’s other wars combined through the middle of the Vietnam conflict. Tens of thousands of Southern civilians were dislocated or displaced, creating an enormous refugee crisis. The South was economically devastated, while, in the North, the end of the war sparked massive economic expansion.
The war decided, once and for all, the question of Union or disunion -- and made the United States a reality. Historian Shelby Foote summarized it this way: Before the war, people used to say, "The United States are." That was considered the grammatically correct way to describe a collection of independent states. After the war, people said, "The United States is." The war made us an "is."
The Civil War also made possible the 13th amendment to the Constitution, which decided, once and for all, the issue of slavery. Our national conversation about race occurs on a vastly different level because of the 14th and 15th amendments -- also made possible by the Civil War. These amendments proclaimed, once and for all, the rights and benefits of citizenship, and banned race as a reason for disenfranchisement.
North met South in the Civil War, and they, in turn, became one nation, indivisible, committed to liberty and justice for all.
