Civil War Era: Slavery

Among the main reasons why the American civil confrontation came to pass was because of the issue of the abolition of slavery in the United States. This was a situation which many of the southern states could not accept, mainly due to the fact that their economies depended heavily on slave labor. They believed that if slavery was abolished in their states, then there was a likelihood of economic collapse. To counter this challenge to their economy, mainly from the northern states of the union, whose economies did not depend on slaves, the southern states declared themselves to be independent of the union and instead chose to create their own. These came to be known as the Confederate states, all of whose members were slave owning states. This situation led to the coming to prominence of two men, whose views on slavery were entirely opposite of one another. The first is Abraham Lincoln was among the biggest proponents of the eradication of slavery in all the states within the union. The other is Jefferson Davis, who was a principal proponent of the institution of slavery and believed that it was a necessary part of the economy at the time. It is these two men who shall be discussed in this paper in relation to their positions on the institution of slavery.

The institution of slavery lasted for over three hundred and fifty years in what is today the United States until it was finally abolished in the eighteen sixties. It was one of the most brutal and dehumanizing institutions in the annals of the human race with the greatest victims being the African slaves. African slaves were imported like commodities from Africa to work in the large white owned plantations due to the fact that they could withstand those European diseases which normally killed the Indian slaves. Moreover, the ability of the Africans to work in the harsh conditions of a hot sun was seen to be an added advantage for their conversion to slaves. Europeans used various means to justify their enslavement of Africans, and one of these was that the bible stated that they were the children of Ham and that they had been cursed to be slaves to the other races that were descended from Noah. Another justification was the belief that Africans were subhuman, that they were inferior to the white race and that because of this, it was justifiable to treat them in any way one wanted because they had no human feelings at all. These highly mistaken concepts ensured that the slavery continued, and many Africans were brought to America and forced to undertake tasks under extremely harsh and brutal conditions for the sake of making a profit for their masters. It is for the purpose of ending this institution that the American Civil War took place, and despite the many lives that were lost, it was finally achieved with the defeat of the Confederate states in 1965 (Johnson 1242).

Abraham Lincoln was a firm believer that the establishment of slavery was evil and that it had no place in the United States. From the commencement of his political vocation, he often stated that he was against slavery. At a time when there was often heated debate concerning whether slavery should be allowed in the new states that joined the union, Lincoln was one of those who believed that such a thing was not to be allowed. He quoted, on several occasions, the principles of democracy as had been laid out by the Declaration of Independence (Guelzo 313). He stated that this declaration, in itself, made slavery unlawful because it considered all human beings to be equal, none being the master of the other. Jefferson Davis, on the other hand, was a firm believer in the institution of slavery and often stated that it was a fundamental part of the economic well being of the southern states (Coles 898). Since slavery was what kept the economy of the south running, and this not only benefitted the states of the south alone, but the whole union, Davis believed that it was not to be abolished. Moreover, he did not believe in the equality of all men because he stated on various occasions that the black slaves were not intelligent enough to be treated equally. In direct opposition to Lincoln’s view, Davis stated that even the founding fathers were slave owners who had seen it fit to maintain the institution. If indeed these men had been against it, then they most likely would have abolished it when they formulated the constitution of the union. Since this was not the case, then they must have viewed slavery as a vital part of the American economy. Lincoln countered this line of argument by stating that while the founding fathers may have retained slavery, they had only done so because they believed that the institution would inevitably come to be abolished in time (Robey 184). In later years, Davis, still a firm believer in slavery also stated that it was inevitable that it would come to an end within two or three generations at the most. It seems that Davis came to realize that the inevitability of the end of this institution in the south despite its prominence.

Lincoln, in the years before ascending to the presidency, once declared that although he was against slavery, he did not know how best to end this institution (McDaniel 1062).  He thought that calling for the abolition of slavery would make those states, which practiced it, embrace it even more firmly. This, he believed, would make the situation for the slaves much worse than they already were. Some have criticized this statement, saying that Lincoln must have realized the economic significance of this institution, hence his reluctance to suggest ways to end it effectively. Despite this, once he gained the presidency, Lincoln took an active role in ending slavery by signing the Emancipation Proclamation. This proclamation effectively outlawed this institution within the United States, and it shows just how much thought Lincoln must have put in coming to make this decision (Dirck 382). It shows that Lincoln believed that the Federal government had the moral authority to make those states which practiced slavery to end it.

While many in the non slaveholding north supported this declaration, many in the south viewed it as the federal government’s attempt to interfere with their internal affairs (Oppenheim 65). The biggest advocate of this viewpoint was none other than Jefferson Davis, who was a staunch believer in the right of all the states within the union to make their own decision without interference. He believed that all the states in the union had joined it voluntarily, and this gave them the independence to decide what was and what was not best for them. If the federal government were to keep interfering in the domestic dealings of the states, then these states would inevitably lose their sovereignty, defeating the purpose of the formation of the union. He is noted to have stated that since all states had joined the union of their own free will, they also had the right to leave it if they felt that their interests were not being represented in a manner to their liking. Furthermore, Davis believed that the decision to end slavery lay with the individual states themselves, and not with the federal government (Roark 735). It is extremely likely that it was because of this stance that when the southern states chose to leave the union, they chose him to be their leader. His vision was to maintain slavery in the Confederate states and to expand this institution south into Mexico as this new slave owning federation grew.

It can be concluded that both Lincoln and Davis recognized that the ending of the institution of slavery, in the United States, was inevitable. Their point of view on how it would end is what brought them into conflict. Lincoln wanted to see the immediate ending and emancipation of all the slaves in the union while Davis, on the other hand, was of the view that although the end of slavery was inevitable, it was to be allowed to die a natural death. Each of the states which had instituted it was to make the decision on whether to abolish it or not. In the matter if abolition, however, one would go with the ideas of Lincoln, who stated that maintaining slavery in the United States would be a mockery of the democratic ideals on which the federation was founded. Moreover, it was not right to keep the black people slaves just because of their skin color or the belief that they were less intelligent than the whites. Such beliefs were by the time of the American Civil War, become outdated, and one would speculate that it was inevitable that this conflict took place. It was a war, not only to force the emancipation of the slaves in the south, but also one to destroy those beliefs which kept the democratic progress of the United States bogged down.