Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic War and Economics.

Sorry to break it to you but the US Civil War was about economics.

I'm sure I can find several articles agreeing with ANY reason all backed up with long bibliographies.

Two second search of the web yielded many sites supporting the economic idea and many focusing on slavery. However take a minute to look at any of the discussions of slavery as a cause and fairly quickly they start talking about the economics of slavery.
Economic History Services web site
encardia

Here's another assertion for which I present no supporting facts and is therefore suspect; ALL wars are based in economics. They just sell it to those who will die in the war with other excuses. No one want to go die to protect someone else's pocketbook.

BTW I present no supporting facts because I'm too lazy to bother assembling a bibliography.


"This is an assertion which has no supporting facts and is therefore suspect."

I'll go one step more, this is an assertion for which there can be no supporting facts and is therefore based in a personal bias! Unless of course you are a beta reader and Shayne brings this POV out later in the story.

The Japanese sailors and soldiers would certainly have said so. But the US Government blamed and punished the Japanese business leaders.

"On August 1941, the crisis ca... strategic reserves would run dry."


"The economic depression even ...nt in a World War more inevitable."

The American Civil War was principally about power. States rights (south) vs. strong Federal government (north). If the south had won, America would be a very different place now. Tied into that was the economic factor. The south did not have a viable economy without slavery, whereas the north, due to the industrial revolution, did. Agriculture vs. manufacturing.
BTW, wikipedia has a very interesting and comprehensive discussion about war through the ages. A lot of study has been devoted to this aspect of human nature. The United States has four war colleges (Naval Academy, Air Force Academy, West Point and the National War College [http://www.ndu.edu/nwc/]) which go beyond the "get it done now" phase to philosophical analysis of the cause and effects of war.
Artemis

Philosophy of History 101 (or was it 401) ? So many different theories of causation, multiple causation, primary causes vs secondary causes, catalysts etc, etc, etc.

But you know what, I'm thinking it's too much testosterone.

c.

Well, I've always been a fan of testosterone.

Artemis
Knowledge is Power

What Artemis wrote about the US Civil War being about power is correct, that the base of the conflict was states' rights versus Federal control. But Patrick is also correct when he says that the war was based in economics. The economy of the South was tied to slavery, and Northern attempts to end that "peculiar institution" were viewed as both abuses of power and interference with the rights of the sovereign states to rule themselves.

But neither of those underlying causes was the flashpoint for the war. There was no crisis at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 over economics or central power which threatened to destroy the convention. There was, however, a crisis concerning how to count the slave population for taxation purposes and for determining how many representatives each state sent the House. You'll find a compromise solution to the problem in the rule that a slave was to count as three-fifths of a person both for taxation purposes (money flowing out of the state to the central government) and for population count (representation to the central government). Without this compromise, the Southern states might have made good on their threat to abandon the convention permanently. It saved the convention but only postponed the resolution of the conflict.

In 1839, the slave ship Amistad suffered a mutiny off the coast of Cuba and was apprehended off Long Island, New York, instead of delivering the "cargo" to its destination. It took a ruling by the US Supreme Court to uphold the lower court's judgment that the kidnapped Africans were not slaves, but free, and allowed to return home. This case inflamed passions on both sides of the slavery debate and generated both positive and negative impact on African slaves in the South.

In 1820, the Missouri Compromise was passed in the US Congress and signed by President John Quincy Adams. It allowed Missouri to join the Union as a slave state and Maine as a free state, and stipulated that future states joining the nation would have to be paired as one slave, one free. It also prohibited slavery north of longitude 36 degrees 30 minutes in the Louisiana Purchase, which covered everything from the Mississippi River west to the Rocky Mountains.

In 1850, the Compromise was extended to allow California to enter the Union, and the Fugitive Slave Law was passed. It provided that an escaped slave captured in free territory or a free state had to be returned to his or her owner. One of the consequences of both of these series of bills was that Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky was never elected President, although many historians today believe he might have been a very good one. Another consequence was that war, which was close to starting, was avoided for the moment.

In 1846, the slave Dred Scott sued for his freedom, basing his case on the fact that his master had died while living in free territory and the fact that Scott had lived in free territory for many years while serving his master. The case was finally resolved in 1857, when the US Supreme Court ruled 7 to 2 that Scott was not a citizen because no slave or descendant of a slave could be a citizen and therefore had no legal standing to sue for his freedom. This outrageous ruling widened the split between slaveholding states and abolitionists, as well as overturning the 1820 Missouri Compromise by declaring that slavery was legal in all the states derived from the Louisiana Purchase. The ruling pushed the wedge deeper between the two sides.

On May 22, 1856, Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts was badly beaten by South Carolina Congressman Preston Smith Brooks following an anti-slavery speech Sumner made concerning whether or not to admit Kansas as a free state or a slave state. Sumner also deeply insulted Andrew Butler of South Carolina, to whom Brooks was related.

On October 16, 1859, John Brown led a raid at Harper's Ferry, Virginia, to steal weapons from the US Army arsenal and arm the slaves for a violent revolt. The raid was a total failure and Brown was hanged for treason and inciting and armed rebellion, but it terrified and infuriated Southern slave owners who were deeply concerned about a slave revolt. (Several brief and unsuccessful local revolts did take place in the 1850's. All were quickly and violently wiped out.) Brown's legacy was that of a martyr to abolitionists and a bogeyman to supporters of slavery. And once again, the incident inflamed passions on both sides.

The election of Abraham Lincoln to the Presidency in 1860 solidified the split. Lincoln was personally and politically opposed to slavery, although he repeatedly said he'd rather it die a natural death than be forced out of existence. (That may have been campaign rhetoric, but we'll never know for certain.) Several Southern states vowed to secede from the Union if he were elected, then renewed their vows when he was inaugurated. It's no coincidence that Fort Sumter, Virginia, was shelled less than two months after Lincoln took office.

My point is simple. While there were indeed issues of political power and economics involved in the beginning of the Civil War, no one caned or sued or shot anyone over them. This discussion reminds me of one I've had with several people over the years, that the Civil War was really about states' rights. Maybe so, but the issue of slavery was the one which made people mad on both sides. Financial influence was and is important in American society, but we didn't go to war with ourselves to determine the value of the dollar. Without slavery, the political issues pushing us towards war didn't exist. Without slavery, the economics of the different regions by themselves would not have caused the conflict, nor would the political conflicts of the day pushed the various states towards an armed conflict. Slavery was bound up in the very life's blood of the old South, and nothing less than major surgery - or a civil war - would have uprooted it.

Patrick wrote:

No, that's not correct. Japan in the 1930's was ruled by the Emperor in name only. The day-to-day operations of the government, the basic policies, and the course of the nation were all determined by the military, specifically the Imperial Army and Imperial Navy. They didn't always agree on how to get it done, of course, but they were in agreement that Japan must modernize and escape from its feudal past, and that such a course would probably lead to war.

Remember that Japan was essentially stuck in a political and technological time warp until 1853 when Commodore Matthew Perry forcibly landed in Naha port and began a negotiation which opened the nation to foreign trade. By 1860, the Japanese leaders realized (and admitted to themselves) that they were in no position either militarily or technologically to fight the Western powers. They therefore set out to modernize their country as fast as they could, which meant compressing about three centuries of scientific and social development into as short a time frame as possible.

The radical conversion of Japan from an agricultural nation to a modern industrial one was validated in the minds of Japan's leaders during the 1904-05 Russo-Japanese war, where the Japanese defeated the Russian fleet and kept the Czar's forces from occupying the Kurile Island chain north and east of Japan's main islands. The nation's participation in World War I on the side of the Allies also helped the nation move forward technologically, but not politically. These events helped solidify the Japanese military's stranglehold on the political process.

It was the Japanese military - mainly the Army - which involved the nation in armed conflict in China. The Chinese nation was essentially a collection of warlords who didn't mind someone else coming in an knocking off some of their competition, so the Chinese nation as a whole never engaged the Japanese in war, even during the years of American involvement. It was in response to this aggression that the Western powers established the materials embargo against Japan to encourage them to withdraw from China.

The Japanese military viewed this action as an insult, while the Western powers viewed it as a negotiating tool. This conflict of viewpoint continued until the Pearl Harbor attack in December 1941, which all but eliminated isolationism as a political option in the US. Admiral Yamamoto, who planned the attack, commented that he "feared that they had done nothing more than awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve." His comment was indeed prophetic.

Had Japan negotiated over the Chinese situation, World War II might have had a very different outcome. But because the nation still had a code of honor left over from the Samauri warrior class, the leaders felt that they could not respond to being thwarted with anything less than overwhelming force. Economics certainly played a large part in beginning the Pacific phase of WWII, as did the various political entities involved, but it was as much the conflicting world views of the two major nations involved as anything else.

This conflict also played a part in the different ways Japan and the US viewed prisoners of war. If a Japanese soldier surrendered, he was a coward and no longer worthy of life. He was expected to sell his life dearly and die before being taken by the enemy. Americans, on the other hand, viewed surrender as what you did when you had no reasonable chance to either win the battle or withdraw. The few Japanese prisoners taken during the Pacific campaign were usually either wounded or starved out, but they gave up a treasure trove of information because they were never trained to deal with interrogation. American POWs were brutalized, used as slave labor, starved, abused, and often murdered, because the Japanese viewed them as without honor and therefore unworthy of any human kindness.

And because of their views of surrender, the Japanese hated "wasting" resources on prisoners. If there wasn't enough food to feed the guards and the prisoners, the prisoners went without. Americans considered this behavior barbaric and reacted accordingly both during the war and after it.

The war in the Pacific was not just over economics or over political power. National pride also figured strongly in the road to the conflict as well as the conduct of the war, as did the strikingly different ways Easterners and Westerners viewed both themselves and each other. Carol is right when she says that there are many interlocking causes and sub-causes involved. (Blaming it on testosterone, though, is overly simplistic, not to mention just a bit patronizing.)

As long as one person or tribe or nation has something that another person or tribe or nation wants - for whatever reason - armed conflict is a possibility. Economics was one of the contributing factors towards the war, but it wasn't the only one.

Also to add:

A fear of Japan being the next China (and being at the risk of being taken over) also pervaded the political environment of the time, possibly even more than the continuities posed to "samurai honor" (in fact there's a lot of theories going on about how this highly popularized idea of "Japanese honor" was in itself part of the government propaganda machine to reign in the scandalousness of the previous period--Taisho which has been compared to the 'roaring twenties'/Weimar Germany. And this is without taking into account the general ickiness of orientalist Western scholarship where a lot of these ideas of "samurai honor" come from).

The paranoia over being invaded by the Western powers went up every time the economy fell, exacerbated by what they saw the British doing in China. There's a fabulous, if disturbing novel on all these tensions called Shanghai. I heartily recommend it.

These were just notes to add. I would certainly agree that war can't be pinpointed to one thing. And also, (shhh don't tell historians ) history itself is a construction. The way we order events and make a coherent (hi)story is always something that bears more on our present than it does on our past.

alcyone

Ah, the 'Whig interpretation of history' pratfall again. or is it the 'beauty is in the eyes of the beholders' pratfall.

Seriously, though, and to prove Alcyone's point I'm going to offer a Canadian observation - why not just accept the secession of the original 7 states - negotiate the terms of separation, etc and move on? There was some attempt at this, I know, but the bellicose won the day . (for example, while Lincoln said , (in his inaugural address?) he wouldn't go to war, he was secretly beefing up the federal forces at Fort Sumter - was he playing an entrapment game?)

Here in Canada, we have had Separatist governments in Quebec, Quebec is now mostly represented in our federal parliament by its own political party, the Bloc Quebecois, and the province has many powers of an "independent" state. This has all evolved over time, of course. No one here ever imagines that were a separatist Quebec government to "secede from the union" that we would go to war over it. Quebec independence is happening slowly and peacefully.

Is the difference the issue of slavery? it's tempting to think that, but to do so is to fall into the interpretative trap that Alcyone warned us of. Although the abolition movement had a lot of support in the North, it did not have anything resembling majority popular support. (the best selling Uncle Tom's cabin not withstanding). As well, the Emancipation Proclamation wasn't issued until well after the war had started, and applied only to those slave states who had seceded.

Not going near the Chinese . Japanese issues. The more I studied and read, Chinese history especially, the more complex it seemed and the less I understood. There be dragons (sorry for the ethnocentric pun)

At one point I would have argued against the following point, but I no longer know when I read history whether it's a mistake to filter our perceptions through our own experiences. Doesn't bringing our 'self' serve as a bridge to the past, allowing us then to explore and search for greater understanding and truth? But whose truth?

c.

Terry posted:
But there was discussion, as he later points out. In the excellent book "John Adams" and the equally excellent TV mini series, the Adams family was opposed to slavery and farmed their farm themselves. (They weren't a commercial operation, however, just supporting their family's needs). The slavery issue was there, but for the bigger purpose of forming a new government, it was tabled. Nonetheless, it simmered for many years.

If you go to Williamsburg these days, they have very excellent dramatization of the role of the House of Burgesses in forming the new country. That was really an economic argument and the key issue was taxation. The revenue was going to England and not staying in the colonies.

Other interesting facts about the Civil War come from West Point. All the generals on both sides were classmates within a few years of each other. It is not inconceivable that there was a bit of rivalry and one-upmanship going on as the two sides squared off.
I quote from the preface to Rise to Rebellion by Jeff Shaara:
And women spoke not at all. So one can attribute the beginning of the Civil War to a lot of hubris.

Do not forget that at the Battle of Manassas, the elite of Washington rode to the battlefield in their carriages with picnic baskets and family to observe the battle as if it were Disneyland. Few understood what really had begun.

Artemis
BTW, The Killer Angels is one of the best books ever written about the Battle of Gettysburg and what led up to it. Yes, it is a novel, but it takes you to the battle in great detail. If you have ever visited Gettysburg you will have a much greater understanding of the events that unfolded much to the confusion and consternation of both sides.
BTW2 If you want to make an arguement in the Pentagon or the halls of Congress in Washington, D.C., you couch in terms of similies of the Civil War. e.g. "The bill is going through the House like Sherman took Atlanta."

Terry,
This is not a sarcastic response. Bibliography?


Artemis,
Thank you for the cites.

Pratfall is a funny word. I keep getting a mental image of someone falling slapstick-tyle.

I have no clue what the "Whig interpretation of history" is--I'm not very well-versed in Western history. Shameful, I know, but there's only so many hours in a day. There is a pretty famous book called Metahistory where Hayden White examines the way classical philosophers/historians Nietzsche, Hegel, Herder, Marx, Burkhardt,etc) organized history based on narrative. Boy did that ruffle historians' feathers! Literary critics loved him though. Naturally.

I don't think we much have a choice when we read anything. Our position (both individual and collective) always affects our interpretation of anything whether we like it or not. But it's not all bad indeed, its a very ethical approach to try to understand difference (temporal in this instance). The problem, according to critics, is precisely when we don't account for ourselves and our position. This is really important to consider when speaking from a position of privilege. (So in a lot of current feminist anthropology for ex., the introductions will be full of run downs of the author-- ideologies, commitments etc, it's not perfect, nothing is, but its a gesture towards an even more ethical frame especially when dealing with other communities the researchers aren't part of).

Apart from questioning whose "truth," ( ) there is also a question of how it will be put to use and who stands to gain from that as knowledge (because when you elevate anything to "truth" status it's always going to be wielded as a standard for something). There are always dragons.

alcyone

EDIT: For anyone interested in Japan and this time period, I recommend Kenneth Pyle's The Making of Modern Japan and my personal favorite (I squee all over him) John Dower's War Without Mercy. Pretty much that and Embracing Defeat (which won a Pulitzer) made him one of my biggest academic crushes.

You're welcome, Patrick. Michael Shaara wrote "The Killer Angels" first.
Michael died of a heart attack in 1988 at the age of 36. His son took up the mantel and wrote "Gods and Generals" and "The Last Full Measure" as bookends to fill out the story of the Civil War.
I highly recommend all three.

Artemis

I've always been interested in Chinese history given that I was born in Taiwan. The civil war that ensued after the fall of the Qing Dynasty was the reason behind why the Chinese didn't see the Japanese as a threat. In fact Chaing Kei Shek thought that Mao and his communist forces posed an even bigger threat to China than the invading Japanese army despite what happened in Nanking (which I won't go into it's too upsetting). Had it not been for the Xian Incident in which Chaing's own troop's kidnapped him and demanded that he and Mao join forces and fight the Japanese it would have been a whole different picture.

Japan's expansion into Asia had more to do with the fact that the country itself had limited natural resources. It's desire to take the Philippines and the abundance of natural resources such as rubber was the reason behind the air attack on the US Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbour.

The Chinese Civil War was not actually about ecnomics. Yes it does play part and I do believe that the Wall Street crash did play part in the origins of WWII. However, the Chinese Civil War had been going on since the collapse of the Qing Dynasty in 1911. Officially the Nationalists were in power, but few people accepted them. Peasants tended to side with the communists so really the war in civil war in China was more a power struggle between the two political parties.