So readers, after thinking through Seward, Calhoun and Lincoln, do you think there was some way the Civil War could ahve been avoided? Do you think slavery could have come to an end w/o war? If so, how long would it take? Would five (or ten or fifty) more years of slavery have been better than war?
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
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9 comments:
I believe...there was no stopping a civil war. Many people opposed slavery and others didn't. It was just a matter of time when conflict was going to start. Many attempts were tried to stop slavery, but they all ended in failure. So what I believe was only time had to tell when someone had the guts to do something about it.
Civil war may have been postponed, so to speak, a couple of years but eventually slavery would come to an end. With new generations would come new ways of thinking towards human life.
Thank you for the invitation.
I think there was no way to stop civil war. As more and more people started to oppose slavery, it was necessary to fight to preserve The United States of America. The emancipation of the Black Americans was a turning point of the American society and very important part of our modern society time. If slavery had continued for more years, our modern society would not be what it is today. It would be still living on the past and Obama would not be running for president.
I really dont believe that the Slavery could have been avoided because none of the parties involved wanted to back down from their ideas. The war waa the only way that the southerns would come into any sense....and still after the Civil war the southerns still believed in slavery and didnt believe they were wrong....If the war wouldnt of started slavery would of ended many years after.
Civil war in southern and northern conflict couldn't have been avoided. As I know, this conflict had existed during the colonial period, two different development path and two differentd system, have lots of contradictions.
Civil war influenced the United State which was most power of industrial and agricultural on the world.
After the emancipation of the black, they had the political citizenship and the right to vote. Civil war in the history of the United States is meaningful.
I think it was best to have the civil war. The North and South both had strong beliefs and it seemed like no one was going to change. Also, the African Americans were suffering with being slaves. Having this war was the final "straw" of ending slavery even thought it didn't racism it was a step. something had to be done...
Thanks for the great question Prof. Swihart. The Civil War was inevitable, but it is not clear that slavery is inextricably linked to its root causes. Wasn't Lincoln was more than willing to work closely with border slave states to ensure the unity of the Union? I think I read somewhere that Missouri was actually the last state to abolish slavery--in 1865, and they fought for the North. Weren't Northerners afraid of the cheap Black labor from the South replacing cheap white labor in the North? Isn't the economics of the whole thing a main cause--like many other wars...
I think war was the unions only chance to finalize the decision of slavery. I think that either way slavery would have been abolished due to the amount of people supporting the abolition of slavery and the amount of people living in the north. It would have been nice to not have a civil war, but there would have been no final decision on whether slavery would have continued.Also the slaves were at their final wits. They had no rights, were doing large amount of work for no salary and that is not giving them a opportunity to live.
From reading the following speeches from Calhoun, Seward, and Lincoln the civil war was to be anticipated. Calhoun’s speech says that the South is weak and only the North has the power to save the union if they chose to but if not ultimately the states will have to separate in peace. Seward went on to discuss the tension between the slave and free labor system and when it comes down to it one will overcome the other. And Lincoln in his first inaugural address with all his effort to influence and win over the South to stay in the Union by supporting the fugitive slave clause and telling the south they had nothing to worry about since he has no purpose to interfere in their institution of slavery that didn’t help. The North holding the slavery as sin and denying their freedom and as the south held slavery as the plan of God to enslave African Americans the civil war couldn’t have come any sooner.
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