What caused the Civil War?

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A google search for "what caused the civil war" turns up 17,900,000 results. Tariffs, "State's Rights", and slavery are all mentioned heavily in the first few pages of results...but a conclusive answer as to the PRIMARY motivation for succession and war is hard to ascertain.

To solve this problem, I decide to go to primary sources...or to get as close to them as possible. I know Lincoln was president during the Civil War, but just so we have the primary players listed, I do a google search:

civil war president lincoln and vice president

I skip through until I find this: http://www.history.com/topics/abraham-lincoln-assassination

Which not only gives us the name of Lincoln's VP (Andrew Johnson), but also his Secretary of State (William H. Seward).

For the Confederates, I do a similar search:

confederate states president and vice president

And quickly I find this: http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/Jefferson_Davis_Vice_Stephens.htm

Which tells me it was President Jefferson Davis and Vice President Alexander Stephens.

Now I need a date, so I can get quotes and speeches from the right general time frame.

beginning of civil war

Right off, I get this: http://international.loc.gov/ammem/cwphtml/tl1861.html

The following is a quote:

"January 1861 -- The South Secedes.

When Abraham Lincoln, a known opponent of slavery, was elected president, the South Carolina legislature perceived a threat. Calling a state convention, the delegates voted to remove the state of South Carolina from the union known as the United States of America. The secession of South Carolina was followed by the secession of six more states -- Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas -- and the threat of secession by four more -- Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina. These eleven states eventually formed the Confederate States of America.

February 1861 -- The South Creates a Government."

(end quote)

This is covering secession, which led into the war. It suggests that slavery was the reason for succession. To find out if this is true, I decide to look for statements given by each of the states listed saying why they chose to secede.

South Carolina Legislature 1861 text reason for secession

I'm looking for actual text. I find it, but it's dry and gives no reasons. I also find this on page 2 of my search, however: "Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union"

http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/secession_causes.htm

This begins by discussing the concept of State's Rights--but it ties them directly to slavery. It cites the fourth article of the constitution: "No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due", and goes on to say "This stipulation was so material to the compact, that without it that compact would not have been made. The greater number of the contracting parties held slaves, and they had previously evinced their estimate of the value of such a stipulation by making it a condition in the Ordinance for the government of the territory ceded by Virginia, which now composes the States north of the Ohio River."

In other words, the states could dissolve the Union if the Union broke its promises...and by not sending escaped slaves back to their owners, they were breaking their promise. The remaining text hinges on this claim.

So in South Carolina, it was State's Rights and slavery, in tandem: the Union's refusal to return escaped slaves was seen as a violation of the Union's promise (by way of the constitution), and therefore South Carolina was withdrawing from the Union.

I search again, this time for Mississippi.

Mississippi Legislature 1861 text reason for secession

I find a gold mine: http://www.constitution.org/csa/ordinances_secession.htm All the ordinances of secession, and this little nugget:

"The ordinances of secession were the actual legal language by which the seceded states severed their connection with the Federal Union. The declarations of causes, given elsewhere on this Web site, are where they tended to disclose their reasons for doing so, although only four states issued separate declarations of causes."

Okay. So four states said WHY they seceded, and we've already hunted down the reasons of one. Three left to go. For some reason, I can't find the declarations of causes for secession on that website, so I type
declaration of causes of secession

The first link is this one: http://sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war/reasons.html

It tells me the states that gave their reasons for secession were Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas.

So what did they say?

Georgia's second sentence is this: "For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery." It goes on to say "A brief history of the rise, progress, and policy of anti-slavery and the political organization into whose hands the administration of the Federal Government has been committed will fully justify the pronounced verdict of the people of Georgia."

This mentions State's Rights also, but again, it is slavery that is the wedge, and State's Rights that is seen as the resolution to the problem caused by the abolitionists.

Mississipi begins with these two sentences:
"In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world."

It goes on to expressly say that the threat to slavery was why they chose to leave the Union and to go on at length about how the Union has attacked slavery. State's Rights are not the issue here.

Texas quickly addresses slavery as well. Speaking of Texas, the document states:
"She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery-- the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits-- a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time."

But it also complains of Indian and Mexican threats, which it feels the Union is not helping to protect it from: "The Federal Government, while but partially under the control of these our unnatural and sectional enemies, has for years almost entirely failed to protect the lives and property of the people of Texas against the Indian savages on our border, and more recently against the murderous forays of banditti from the neighboring territory of Mexico; and when our State government has expended large amounts for such purpose, the Federal Government has refuse reimbursement therefor, thus rendering our condition more insecure and harassing than it was during the existence of the Republic of Texas."

It then appeals to State's Rights, but like Georgia, Texas stresses that it is leaving the Union because it disagrees with the Union's handling of certain issues, slavery being a--if not the--primary one.

"In all the non-slave-holding States, in violation of that good faith and comity which should exist between entirely distinct nations, the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party, now strong enough in numbers to control the affairs of each of those States, based upon an unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color-- a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of Divine Law."

Notice that, time and again, Confederate states refer to the South as slave-holding states and the North as non-slave-holding states. This is, of course, one of the most easily definable differences between the North and South.

So every state that gave a reason for secession listed State's Rights and slavery. In the majority of these, it was made very clear that the REASON they were calling upon State's Rights WAS slavery.

Or so it would seem.

These states, having separated from the US, set up their own constitution. I type in
confederate states constitution differences

I got this: http://sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war/csaconst.htm which is a direct comparison between the US constitution and the Confederate Constitution.

The Confederate constitution includes stronger wording for State's Rights and also mentions slavery: "No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed."

But there are plenty of other differences, too, many of them having nothing at all to do with slavery. So what was the major point...the "cornerstone" of it all? I personally have heard of the "cornerstone" speech, so I'm putting some of my own knowledge into the search, here, but that's definitely allowed when you're trying to find truth on the internet. I type in

cornerstone of confederate constitution

and get that speech. It's here: http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?documentprint=76

It was given by the Vice President of the Confederacy in March of 1861. Stephens begins by enumerating the differences between the US Constitution and the Confederate one. Then he says this:
"But not to be tedious in enumerating the numerous changes for the better, allow me to allude to one other though last, not least. The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution African slavery as it exists amongst us the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution."

So Stephens outright says that slavery was the immediate cause of the Civil War. He goes on to say:

"Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth."

So the Vice President of the Confederacy not only stated that slavery was the cause of the Civil War, but also that the new government was founded upon the idea that the "negro" was lesser than the white man.

So what was Lincoln saying around the same time? Where was he? According to our timeline: http://international.loc.gov/ammem/cwphtml/tl1861.html before Lincoln was inaugurated, the South had seized Fort Sumter, but not shots had been fired. Things were intense, and getting worse, but war had not officially begun.

So what did Lincoln say about all this in his acceptance speech?

Lincoln's presidential acceptance speech

http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres31.html

"It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that—

I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so."

Lincoln makes it clear, first and foremost, that his intent is to preserve the Union. To that end, he speaks at length about slavery.

More on his stance on the Union:
"I hold that in contemplation of universal law and of the Constitution the Union of these States is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments. It is safe to assert that no government proper ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination. Continue to execute all the express provisions of our National Constitution, and the Union will endure forever, it being impossible to destroy it except by some action not provided for in the instrument itself. 12
Again: If the United States be not a government proper, but an association of States in the nature of contract merely, can it, as a contract, be peaceably unmade by less than all the parties who made it? One party to a contract may violate it—break it, so to speak—but does it not require all to lawfully rescind it?"

So while Lincoln was an abolitionist, and it is clear from his later actions that he was against slavery, at his inauguration, his most pressing concern was the state of the Union. Slavery seemed to be the sticking point.

Going back to our time line, Fort Sumter is fired on by southern forces very quickly after Lincoln's inauguration. Who was the aggressor is a matter for debate; the Union is holding onto Union forts, but they are in Southern territory. The Southerns fired the first shots...but felt the Union was being aggressive by holding troops on Southern territory.

The first full-fledged battle was in July of 1861, and in that case, it was the North advancing into Southern territory.

Conclusion:

The South struck a symbolic blow by seizing Union forts on Southern land, but the North instigated the first official battle. The North wanted the Union restored while the South insisted that the states involved in the Confederacy had every right to secede.

Documents from the time of secession routinely refer to the fact that the confederate states were linked by their slave-holding. In every state that gave official reasons for secession, slave holding was given as the primary reason, and each time, slave holding was tied to State's Rights. At issue was the North's harboring of runaway slaves and the spread of abolition; the Southern states felt that those two things went against the constitution, and therefore the Southern States were justified in applying their State's Rights and pulling out of the Union.

Whether the North's main interest was in abolishing slavery or simple re-unification of the states is a matter of debate, but there is no doubt that the driving impetus behind the South was slavery.