Talk:American Civil War/Archive 6

Kansas in 1864 map
While the Bleeding Kansas incident was important in the origins of the war, by 1864 Kansas was firmly in the Union camp. (For example, they voted 75% for Lincoln in the election of that year.) Therefore having a special color for Kansas in that map is unnecessary and confusing. I would suggest simply making it dark blue like the other Union states. MarcusGraly 21:11, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

I would make the change. Kansas joined the union long before any of the southern states attempted to withdraw, I don't see the logic in it having a seperate color on the map. In 6 months nobody has come along to disagree with you.SJMNY 08:11, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

France
Im not sure but i think that France was involved in the war is that right?NO! thanks
 * I'm not a civil war buff, but you may be thinking of the American Revolutionary War. The French sent troops and supplies.  Darry2385 01:34, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Wasn't there also a rumor about a southern ship going to France filled with gold to buy their support that disappeared? I honestly can't remember which side France was on during the War, or whether Britain or even Spain got involved. Shalorian20 14:58, 30 April 2007 (UTC)


 * There were DOZENS of nations involved in the American Civil War. Imperial RUSSIA even sent her troops over (on the side of the Union). Not many people know this side of the American Civil War. I guess people just want to think of it as just U.S. brothers fighting one other.
 * On a side note, U.S. Britian, France, Germany, Japan, Canada, etc sent their troops and supplies during Russias own Civil War. Not many people know this either. HISTORY IS AWESOME!

-G

Russia sent a squadron of ships to show symbolic support for the Union and visited several American ports. They did not send material support. Gcal1971

Yes France (and Great Britain) tried to give finacial support to the CSA (not sure if they attempted to send millitary help), but their ships were stopped in a blockade, and the both nations did not wish to spark a war with the US. So yes, they were involved.Canutethegreat (talk) 01:34, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

I maybe be wrong about this, but wasn't the whole thing that France, Britian, etc were waiting to see if it would be a stalemate or an outright victory for one side or the other? If it was outright victory, then nothing could be done, but I believe that I read somewhere that if it stalemated (or the South won a major victory, but not a killing blow obviously) that they would step in, say "the South is it's own country, it's over, leave them be"?. If I remember correctly, they were still mad at the Union for the Revolution. If I'm way off base on this, someone correct me please. Walkingghost (talk) 02:01, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes both countries were very involved, in fact, if it weren't for the institution of slavery, Great Britain would have recognized the South right from the beginning because Britain's Parliament admired the planter aristocracy of the South, while the common people of Britain did not, probably France would also have joined support as well. It also depended on some imperative battles that the CSA ended up losing, had they won at Antietem or Gettysburg, they would have practically ensured their independance. 75.70.160.69 (talk) 03:11, 20 December 2007 (UTC) D. T.


 * I doubt it, and I believe most of the commentary that France would have gotten involved (in the serious size of the French involvement in the War for Independence) ignores the multitude of commitments that Napoleon the III had already extended himself on, including his disastrous Mexico escapades, the involvement in China and Vietnam (as well as smaller interventions in Japan and Korea). As for Britain, despite then Prime Minister Henry Temple's sabre rattling after the Trent affair, the most consistent message out of Canada's military operations was that not only were they singularly unprepared for initiating an aggressive war against the union, but that they hardly had enough to defend themselves if they did provoke the Union.
 * Admittedly, historical hindsight is 20/20, and perceptions at the time did give credence to the possibility of European intervention. But perception and fact, especially when it comes to possible What-If? scenarios, is important. European intervention was always tenuous, and was out the window by 1863. And foreign intervention would not alleviate the Confederacy of systemic problems that riddled it, including a haphazard railway system, a patchwork of factories, inadequate food production, and numerical inferiority. The numbers simply didn't add up. SiberioS (talk) 04:41, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Intro is Wrong/Slanted and Rambling
The casualties seem high, maybe this is speculation including indirect or war related deaths too? either way it should be cleaned up but the article is locked. Also, the role of slavery in the outset of war is overdone in the intro, and not accurate as many historians have shown, Lincoln was orignally indifferent to slavery, and he only made the delcaration to free the slaves after the bloody battle of Antietam, in what was at least a partly politcal move to bolster support for the war by abolitionists and keep France and England from supporting the Confederacy (since both states had banned slavery). The main cause of the war, was the the idea of state's rights v.s. the United states hegemony in the form of Washington D.C.'s rights to enforce it's policy. Preservation of the Union was Lincoln's main goal by all accounts and the article's intro should reflect this reality. 71.192.101.77 20:06, 20 April 2007 (UTC)JohnHistory

Lincoln's war goals were responses to the war, not causes. Cause precedes effect. Also, how many of Lincoln's speeches and letters did you read? He said that slavery was wrong many times long before the war, although he wanted to keep the border states on the Union side when the war began.Jimmuldrow 00:12, 21 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Lincoln also said his primary goal was to save the union. Slavery was not even tertiary in his mind as a justification for the war.  He knew it would not survive in the long run.  As it stands, the intro is unbiased but saving the union should be mentioned first as a cause for the war.  Slavery was far more important to other northern hawks than it was for Lincoln.JoeCarson 10:53, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Uhm, Lincoln's war goals ARE the war. If he doesn't choose to invade, there is no war.AlexMc (talk) 07:58, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

President elect Lincoln said the following about slavery in the territories:
 * There is no possible compromise upon it, but which puts us under again, and leaves all our work to do over again. Whether it be a Mo. Line, or Eli Thayer's Pop. Sov. It is all the same. Let either be done, & immediately filibustering and extending slavery recommences. On that point hold firm, as with a chain of steel.

Lincoln also said that on the issue of slavery expansion:
 * Let there be no compromise on the question of extending slavery. If there be, all our labor is lost, and, ere long, must be done again. The dangerous ground—that into which some of our friends have a hankering to run—is Pop. Sov. Have none of it. Stand firm. The tug has to come, & better now, than any time hereafter.

The need to save the Union was a result of the war, not a cause.Jimmuldrow 15:52, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

It takes some time to read a large amount of Lincoln's letters and speeches, and some of the better biographies of Lincoln, such as the one by David Donald. But they are necessary for understanding the overall picture.Jimmuldrow 15:56, 21 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I believe Lincoln's most revealing quote on this issue is:


 * My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and it is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could do it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that.


 * Clearly, Lincoln's desire to preserve the Union was the ultimate cause of the war.  The war would not have begun, were it not for his obstinance on that single issue.JoeCarson 23:46, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

The intro is rambling, and the edits I made did not compromise its informative value. Judicious use of language could really help us trim it down without losing information. Copperheads need not be mentioned in the intro, and the CSA clearly believed they had a right to secede if they attempted to do so.JoeCarson 23:50, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Lincoln's Letter to Greeley (August 22, 1862) was written one month before Lincoln issued his preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, and many months after the decision for emancipation was made. The historian Loewen said that high school history books emphasize Lincoln's Letter to Greeley, and often leave out his "personal wish that all men everywhere could be free." Loewen said there are political groups in states like Texas that only allow high school history books that have the right values.Jimmuldrow 00:49, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Also, as mentioned above, Lincoln's "obstinance" applied to slavery expansion as well as preserving the Union. Lincoln's Letter to Greeley wasn't written until late in 1862, after the issue of emancipation had already been decided, and applied to the coming Emancipation Proclamation as opposed to slavery expansion into the territories, and Lincoln's "personal wish" was part of his Letter to Greeley.Jimmuldrow 18:10, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Also, the intro mentions that Confederates thought they had a right to secede.Jimmuldrow 18:15, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

I am not arguing that Lincoln's views on slavery were not a contributing factor, but they were not nearly as important to him as they were for the CSA. Slave owners who had so much invested in that abhorrent practice were afraid of a president who so strongly opposed slavery. This was probably the primary cause of Southern secession, but it was not the primary cause for Lincoln's belligerence. We should be clear in making a distinction between Southern justifications for secession and Northern justifications for war.JoeCarson 13:34, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

I certainly agree with JoeCarson, the INTRO needs to be editted. It is not only rambling, but not factual and highly slanted in it's viewpoint. From the first section alone the South is demonizied instead of merely being discussed. Here is a link to a very good article discussing everything. Being a southerner i was actually offeneded by the intro due to the misrepresentation of history and it's tone. The start of the Civil War was purely political and economical. Slavery didn't become involved until much later. That should certainly be made clear in the introduction and not in the clarification section. Shalorian20 14:56, 30 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Take a look at a quote from the link you cited as a "good article":


 * "Although slavery was at the heart of the sectional impasse between North and South in 1860, it was not the singular cause of the Civil War. Rather, it was the multitude of differences arising from the slavery issue that impelled the Southern states to secede. ... The new republic claimed its justification to be the protection of state rights. In truth, close reading of the states secession proclamations and of the new Confederate Constitution reveals that it was primarily one state right that impelled their separation: the right to preserve African American slavery within their borders. (emphasis in original)


 * This certainly negates your claim that slavery wasn't involved until much later. The war was caused by the secession crisis. Session was most immediately caused by the election of Abraham Lincoln, who ran on a platform of restricting further expansion of slavery into the territories. Other justifications for secession cited by the Southern states were either directly related to slavery or were indirectly related -- economic differences between the two regions that were exacerbated by the use of slave labor in the South and political differences that essentially boiled down to Southern fears that they would be outvoted in the Senate someday unless slavery continued to expand into newly admitted states. It is impossible to imagine any scenario that would have caused war if slavery had been removed from the equation. Although it is correct to say that Lincoln's primary stated motivation was initially the restoration of the Union, and not the abolition of slavery, that does not mean that slavery was not the proximate cause of the war. I do not believe that the intro to this article is all that well written, but it is certainly closer to the mark than you have been led to believe. Hal Jespersen 23:46, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

It seems to me both inaccurate and unfair to state: "The American Civil War (1861–1865) was a civil war between the United States (the "Union") and the Southern slave states".

Inaccurate because the Union comprised several Slave States (Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland and Missouri did not leave the Union. West Virginia joined the Union as a slave state in 1863 after seceding from Virginia).

Unfair because the War wasn't over slavery but over State Rights and especially the right to secede for the people of specific States from the Union. It is obvious that this right has been lost for all members of the Union since then. The Hartford Convention might not anymore happen after 1865 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartford_Convention).

Emancipation did occur only in 1862, while quick victory was not in sight for the Union, in order to give more hardship to the rebels. The slaves held by non-rebel slave owners were kept in bondage until after the war ended. I don't even know if the Emancipation applied indeed to slave owners from rebel States whose land was behind Union lines - Louisiana, Mississipi, parts of Tennessee since they weren't anymore considered as "rebels" (maybe someone can tell). Depending on the controversed assessments there were between 3 and 30% of slave owners in the South. Meaning that more than 70% of southerners did not own slaves in 1861. Most people knew that the 'peculiar institution' was about to vanish on its own since African Slave Trade was forbidden and actually prevented by British and French Navies. Despite claims of extension from some Southerners. I believe that Slavery turned out to be the Achilles' Heel of the confederacy by preventing her efforts to get recognition abroad (especially from the sympathetic to her cause French and British - while Russia and Prussia bent on the Union side) and eventually leading to the collapse of the CSA.

One might find more honest to write: "The American Civil War (1861–1865) was a civil war between the United States (the "Union") and the Southern states" over individual States right to secede from the Union and to adopt their own laws. Perpetuation of Slavery in the South was enough of an issue to cause 11 Slave States to secede in 1860 and 1861 to form the Confederate States of America. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lagoonfish (talk • contribs) 07:15, 2 November 2007 (UTC)


 * The article mentions at the top the fact that border states had slavery and fought mostly for the Union. As for the rights' of states that South Carolina said were violated by the Union, see the Secession of South Carolina sub-article. All of their specific complaints were about slavery. And South Carolina was not an exception to the rule.Jimmuldrow 16:13, 4 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Whether or not a majority of Southerner's owned slaves is irrelevant, especially considering the marked wealth of said slave-holders to their non-slave holding brethren. The argument that slavery was on its way out is also untrue, and I point you to the book The Final Victims by James A. McMillin which puts to rest the idea that slave importation was nary a trickle before the foreign trade ended, and that by the time it was stopped, the slave population was sufficient to maintain and even expand. Suggesting that slavery was on its way out also presents something of a contradiction; if it was on its way out, and was deemed economically irrelevant, why go to bat over the various compromises? Why be concerned with whether new territories became free or slave states? Suggesting that slavery was "on it's way out" flies in the face of over 60 years of actions by Southern politicians leading up to the Civil War, and paints them as either beholden to a very narrow interest (plantation slave holders) or out of touch with their own constituency. SiberioS (talk) 03:19, 8 January 2008 (UTC)


 * It is appropriate to point out that the Deep South states that seceded before Fort Sumter had a ratio of 38.2 slave holders per 100 households (and in Mississippi the number was 45.5 per 100)--this can easily be calculated from the 1860 Census (available online.) Considering that many if not most of the others either could not afford slaves, were economically linked with those who did, or were likely kin to slaveholders the level of dependence on the instutition was much greater than commonly understood.  The South was not moving in any way toward any sort of emancipation.  In fact it had grown increasingly intolerant of even the suggestion of it.  The reason for leaving the Union at that time was because Lincoln had pledged to deny the expansion of slavery into the territories--meaning that no more states would opt for it.  It wasn't because slavery was threatened directly in the states at the time. Red Harvest (talk) 02:33, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Causes of the war
This article is extraordinarily misleading. It represents the main cause of the American Civil War as a dispute over slavery. This is a rewrite of history which is flattering but false. While anti-slavery sentiments were rife during this time, they were not the cause of the war. Like the American Revolutionary War, issues of representation and taxation, in this case levees on goods from England, formed the basis of the dispute. The initial battle of the civil war was a naval battle precisely because the US Navy was trying to prevent ships from smuggling goods from England after the future Confederate states rejected the tariffs on international goods being imposed by the US Congress which was controlled by the populous future Union States. This monetary dispute over the rights of individual states versus the power of the union led to secession and the following war. Anti-slavery sentiments promoted fervent feeling in the North, however this did not lead to a proclamation of emancipation for slaves until late in the Civil War. The Emancipation Proclamation came at a time when the Confederate forces were roundly defeating the Union forces. It was hoped by the Union that freeing the slaves in the Confederate states would result in an uprising that would turn the tide of the war.

There is absolutely no reason to have all of these sub-sections in this article when there is already an article about it outside of this article. The early summary should be inclusive enough so that their doesn't need to be 18 subsections, especially when many of the subsections are seemingly redundant.72.50.176.87 02:16, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh wow. The causes section is longer than the section about the actual fighting of the war. --Xtreambar 19:26, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

The Rejection of compromise sub-section looks more redundant than the rest to me. Would anyone mind if I merged the part that's not redundant with something else, and eliminated the rest?Jimmuldrow 01:38, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

LOL...this article is nothing more then propaganda, if the Union was so interested in Black rights then maybe they should have done something in their own states. The section of “Causes of The War” has over 10 sub sections of claiming slavery was the cause while it barley has a sentence for the REAL causes that led to war.

Who ever wrote this article is obviously working on a premise that if they say it enough times it will turn into reality. This section if not the entire article is redundant if not entirely fictional. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.243.211.138 (talk) 18:49, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Given the times in which the war was fought, the desire to end slavery did not necessarily mean abolition. Just because the abolitionists were prominent does not mean they were numerous, or even influential. It has been postulated by more learned heads than mine that the opposition to slavery was as much economic as anything else. In short, slavery was the root cause of the war - why else did the South leave? Slavery. But it was not primarily a moral battle, no matter how it got painted, even then by some. I can't see why we can;t leave the causes as stated, but merely remark that it was not necessarily abolitionist (oer se) in nature.FlaviaR 05:40, 18 September 2007 (UTC)


 * The article does mention the different groups in the North (border states, Copperheads, War Democrats, Republicans and Abolitionists) and a brief description of their views. Different groups had different points of view, so it's incorrect to assume that all Northerners agreed with this or that opinion. The Republicans won a majority vote in Northern states, so they were more important to explaining secession than other groups at the time. Many free-soilers opposed both slavery and slaves, and opposed slavery expansion because they thought that free labor and slavery couldn't coexist.  But moderate Republican leaders such as Lincoln emphasized moral and political opposition to slavery, calling it a "monstrous injustice" and a "cancer."Jimmuldrow 15:19, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I realize that I lack eloquence in my writing, and I may be biased, but here is what I see as the cause of the war.
 * Confederate troops were expelling Union troops from a Confederata state after giving them ample time and multiple
 * oppertunities to leave. Lincoln then invaded trying to "take back" the Forts in what was then a foreign country.

The rest of that is (like someone else said) propaganda. If someone wants to call it part of the causes of succession, you'd not be entirely right, but go ahead and move it to there and we'll debate on that. If you read the declarations of succession, you'll see that they speak of states rights. Walkingghost (talk) 02:25, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.88.10.193 (talk) 18:58, 18 December 2007 (UTC)


 * someone please either remove this giant unsigned edit that is just a copy+paste from somewhere or at the very least reformat it so that it doesnt cause you to need to scroll the page to the right 100 feet to read the whole thing. SJMNY (talk) 20:13, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

The War Between the States began because the South demanded States' rights. The Congress at that time heavily favored the industrialized northern states to the point of demanding that the South sell is cotton and other raw materials only to the factories in the north, rather than to other countries. The Congress also taxed the finished materials that the northern industries produced heavily, making finished products that the South wanted, unaffordable. The Northern States and their representatives in Congress had only listened to the problems of the South, and stopped these practices such as taxation without representation of Great Britain, then the Southern states would not have seceded and the war would not have occurred. Most southerners did not even own slaves nor did they own plantations. Most of them were small farmers who worked their farms with their families. They were fighting for their rights. They were fighting to maintain their lifestyle and their independence. There are so many issues that were intensely during this time. Slavery was one of them, but it was not the primary cause of the war. The primary causes of the war were economics and states' rights. Slavery was a part of those greater issues, but it was not the reason the Southern States seceded from the Union. It certainly was a Southern institution that was part of the economic system of the plantations, and because of that, it was part and parcel of the economic reasons that the South formed the Confederacy. The economic issue was one of taxation and being able to sell cotton and other raw materials where the producers wanted to, rather than where they were forced to, and at under inflated prices. The South was within their rights.

Total equality was another matter. He did not say they had a right to complete equality with white American citizens. In the September 18, 1858 debate, Lincoln said:

"I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races - that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And in as much as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.

This letter is a summary of a conversation which President Abraham Lincoln had with three Kentuckians: Governor Thomas E. Bramlette, Albert Hodges and Archibald Dixon. Hodges was the editor of the Frankfort Commonwealth and Dixon served in the U.S. Senate from 1852 to 1855. Bramlette had protested the recruiting of black regiments in Kentucky. The letter offers an excellent glimpse into Lincoln's thinking about his constitutional responsibility and why he changed his inaugural position of non-interference with slavery to one of emancipation. He said, "I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me."Lincoln closed with a reference to slavery that is reminiscent of his inaugural address of 1865: "If God now wills the removal of a great wrong, and wills also that we of the North as well as you of the South, shall pay fairly for our complicity in that wrong, impartial history will find therein new cause to attest and revere the justice and goodness of God."

Executive Mansion, Washington, April 4, 1864. A.G. Hodges, Esq Frankfort, Ky. My dear Sir:

You ask me to put in writing the substance of what I verbally said the other day, in your presence, to Governor Bramlette and Senator Dixon. It was about as follows:

"I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I can not remember when I did not so think, and feel. And yet I have never understood that the Presidency conferred upon me an unrestricted right to act officially upon this judgment and feeling. It was in the oath I took that I would, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. I could not take the office without taking the oath. Nor was it my view that I might take an oath to get power, and break the oath in using the power. I understood, too, that in ordinary civil administration this oath even forbade me to practically indulge my primary abstract judgment on the moral question of slavery. I had publicly declared this many times, and in many ways. And I aver that, to this day, I have done no official act in mere deference to my abstract judgment and feeling on slavery. I did understand however, that my oath to preserve the constitution to the best of my ability, imposed upon me the duty of preserving, by every indispensabale means, that government -- that nation -- of which that constitution was the organic law. Was it possible to lose the nation, and yet preserve the constitution? By general law life and limb must be protected; yet often a limb must be amputated to save a life; but a life is never wisely given to save a limb. I felt that measures, otherwise unconstitutional, might become lawful, by becoming indispensable to the preservation of the constitution, through the preservation of the nation. Right or wrong, I assumed this ground, and now avow it. I could not feel that, to the best of my ability, I had even tried to preserve the constitution, if, to save slavery, or any minor matter, I should permit the wreck of government, country, and Constitution all together. When, early in the war, Gen. Fremont attempted military emancipation, I forbade it, because I did not then think it an indispensable necessity. When a little later, Gen. Cameron, then Secretary of War, suggested the arming of the blacks, I objected, because I did not yet think it an indispensable necessity. When, still later, Gen. Hunter attempted military emancipation, I again forbade it, because I did not yet think the indispensable necessity had come. When, in March, and May, and July 1862 I made earnest, and successive appeals to the border states to favor compensated emancipation, I believed the indispensable necessity for military emancipation, and arming the blacks would come, unless averted by that measure. They declined the proposition; and I was, in my best judgment, driven to the alternative of either surrendering the Union, and with it, the Constitution, or of laying strong hand upon the colored element. I chose the latter. In choosing it, I hoped for greater gain than loss; but of this, I was not entirely confident. More than a year of trial now shows no loss by it in our foreign relations, none in our home popular sentiment, none in our white military force, -- no loss by it any how or any where. On the contrary, it shows a gain of quite a hundred and thirty thousand soldiers, seamen, and laborers. These are palpable facts, about which, as facts, there can be no cavilling. We have the men; and we could not have had them without the measure." And now let any Union man who complains of the measure, test himself by writing down in one line that he is for subduing the rebellion by force of arms; and in the next, that he is for taking these hundred and thirty thousand men from the Union side, and placing them where they would be but for the measure he condemns. If he can not face his case so stated, it is only because he can not face the truth."

I add a word which was not in the verbal conversation. In telling this tale I attempt no compliment to my own sagacity. I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me. Now, at the end of three years struggle the nation's condition is not what either party, or any man devised, or expected. God alone can claim it. Whither it is tending seems plain. If God now wills the removal of a great wrong, and wills also that we of the North as well as you of the South, shall pay fairly for our complicity in that wrong, impartial history will find therein new cause to attest and revere the justice and goodness of God.

Yours truly,

A. Lincoln

The war did enable Lincoln to "save" the Union, but only in a geographic sense. The country ceased being a Union, as it was originally conceived, of separate and sovereign states. Instead, America became a "nation" with a powerful federal government. Although the war freed four million slaves into poverty, it did not bring about a new birth of freedom, as Lincoln and historians such as James McPherson and Henry Jaffa say. For the nation as a whole the war did just the opposite: It initiated a process of centralization of government that has substantially restricted liberty and freedom in America, as historians Charles Adams and Jeffrey Rogers Hummel have argued – Adams in his book, When in the Course of Human Events: Arguing the Case for Southern Secession (published in 2000); and Hummel in his book, Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men (1996).

Only the United States and Haiti freed their slaves by war. Every other country in the New World that had slaves, such as Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela, freed them in the 19th century peacefully. The term Civil War is a misnomer. The South did not instigate a rebellion. Thirteen southern states in 1860-61 simply chose to secede from the Union and go their own way, like the thirteen colonies did when they seceded from Britain. A more accurate name for the war that took place between the northern and southern American states is the War for Southern Independence. Mainstream historiography presents the victors view, an account that focuses on the issue of slavery and downplays other considerations. Up until the 19th century slavery in human societies was considered to be a normal state of affairs. The Old Testament of the Bible affirms that slaves are a form of property and that the children of a slave couple are the property of the slaves owner (Exodus 21:4). Abraham and Jacob kept slaves, and the New Testament says nothing against slavery. Slaves built the pyramids of Egypt, the Acropolis of Athens, and the coliseums in the Roman Empire. Africans exported 11,000,000 Black slaves to the New World – 4,000,000 to Brazil, 3,600,000 to the British and French West Indies, and 2,500,000 to Spanish possessions in Central and South America. About 500,000 slaves, 5 per cent of the total number shipped to the New World, came to America. Today slavery still exists in some parts of Africa, notably in Sudan and Mauritania.

Britain heralded the end of slavery, in the Western world at least, with its Bill of Abolition, passed in 1807. This Bill made the African slave trade (but not slaveholding) illegal. Later that year the United States adopted a similar bill, called the Act to Prohibit the Importation of Slaves, which prohibited bringing slaves into any port in the country, including into the southern slaveholding states. Congress strengthened this prohibition in 1819 when it decreed the slave trade to be a form of piracy, punishable by death. In 1833, Britain enacted an Emancipation Law, ending slavery throughout the British Empire, and Parliament allocated twenty million pounds to buy slaves freedom from their owners. The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer rightly described this action as one of the greatest acts of collective compassion in the history of humankind. This happened peacefully and without any serious slave uprisings or attacks on their former owners, even in Jamaica where a population of 30,000 whites owned 250,000 slaves.

The Constitution of the Confederate States of America prohibited the importation of slaves (Article I, Section 9). With no fugitive slave laws in neighboring states that would return fugitive slaves to their owners, the value of slaves as property drops owing to increased costs incurred to guard against their escape. With slaves having a place to escape to in the North and with the supply of new slaves restricted by its Constitution, slavery in the Confederate states would have ended without war. A slave's decreasing property value, alone, would have soon made the institution unsustainable, irrespective of more moral and humanitarian considerations.

The rallying call in the North at the beginning of the war was "preserve the Union," not "free the slaves." Although certainly a contentious political issue and detested by abolitionists, in 1861 slavery nevertheless was not a major public issue. Protestant Americans in the North were more concerned about the growing number of Catholic immigrants than they were about slavery. In his First Inaugural Address, given five weeks before the war began, Lincoln reassured slaveholders that he would continue to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act.

After 17 months of war things were not going well for the North, especially in its closely watched Eastern Theater. In the five great battles fought there from July 1861 through September 17, 1862, the changing cast of Union generals failed to win a single victory. The Confederate army won three: First Bull Run (or First Manassas) on July 21,1861; Seven Days – six major battles fought from June 25-July 1, 1862 during the Union army's Peninsular Campaign that, in sum, amounted to a strategic Confederate victory when McClellan withdrew his army from the peninsula; and Second Bull Run (or Second Manassas) on August 29-30, 1862. Two battles were indecisive: Seven Pines (or Fair Oaks) on May 31-June 1, 1862, and Antietam (or Sharpsburg) on September 17, 1862. In the West, Grant took Fort Donelson on February 14, 1862 and captured 14,000 Confederate soldiers. But then he was caught by surprise in the battle of Shiloh (or Pittsburg Landing) on April 6-7, 1862 and lost 13,000 out of a total of 51,000 men that fought in this two-day battle. Sickened by the carnage, people in the North did not appreciate at the time that this battle was a strategic victory for the North. Then came Antietam on September 17, the bloodiest day in the entire war; the Union army lost more than 12,000 of its 60,000 troops engaged in the battle.

Did saving the Union justify the slaughter of such a large number of young men? The Confederates posed no military threat to the North. Perhaps it would be better to let the southern states go, along with their 4 million slaves. If it was going to win, the North needed a more compelling reason to continue the war than to preserve the Union. The North needed a cause for continuing the war, as Lincoln put the matter in his Second Inaugural Address, that was willed by God, where "the judgments of the Lord" determined the losses sustained and its outcome. Five days after the Battle of Antietam, on September 22, 1862, Abraham Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation. The Emancipation Proclamation was a "war measure," as Lincoln put it. Foreign correspondents covering the war recognized it as a brilliant propaganda coup. Emancipation would take place only in rebel states not under Union control, their state sovereignty in the matter of slavery arguably forfeited as a result of their having seceded from the Union. The president could not abolish slavery; if not done at the state level, abolition would require a constitutional amendment. Slaveholders and their slaves in Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware, Tennessee, and parts of Virginia and Louisiana occupied by Union troops were exempt from the edict. Slaves in the Confederacy would be "forever free" on January 1, 1863 – one hundred days after the Proclamation was issued – but only if a state remained in "rebellion" after that date. Rebel states that rejoined the Union and sent elected representatives to Congress before January 1, 1863 could keep their slaves. Such states would no longer be considered in rebellion and so their sovereignty regarding the peculiar institution would be restored. As the London Spectator put it, in its October 11, 1862 issue:

"The principle [of the Proclamation] is not that a human being cannot justly own another, but that he cannot own him unless he is loyal to the United States."

Regarding slaves in states loyal to the government or occupied by Union troops, Lincoln proposed three constitutional amendments in his December 1862 State of the Union message to Congress. The first was that slaves not freed by the Emancipation Proclamation be freed gradually over a 37-year period, to be completed by January 1, 1900. The second provided compensation to owners for the loss of their slave property. The third was that the government transport freed Blacks, at government expense, out of the country and relocate them in Latin America and Africa. Lincoln wrote that freed blacks need "new homes [to] be found for them, in congenial climes, and with people of their own blood and race." For Lincoln, emancipation and deportation were inseparably connected. Secretary of the Navy Gideon Wells wrote in his diary that Lincoln "thought it essential to provide an asylum for a race which he had emancipated, but which could never be recognized or admitted to be our equals." As historian Leone Bennett Jr. puts it in his book Forced Into Glory: Abraham Lincoln's White Dream (2000), "It was an article of faith to him [Lincoln] that emancipation and deportation went together like firecrackers and July Fourth, and that you couldn't have one without the other." Congress refused to consider Lincoln's proposals, which Horace Greeley in the New York Tribune labeled whales' tubs of "gradualism, compensation, [and] exportation." None of the Confederate States took the opportunity to rejoin the Union in the 100-day window offered and the war continued for another two years and four months. Eight months later the 13th Amendment was ratified, and slavery ended everywhere in the United States (without gradualism, compensation, or exportation).

Black and White Americans sustained racial and political wounds from the war and the subsequent Reconstruction that proved deep and long lasting. Northern abolitionists wanted southern Black slaves to be freed, but certainly did not want them to move north and live alongside them. Indiana and Illinois, in particular, had laws that barred African-Americans from settling. The military occupation and "Reconstruction" the South was forced to endure after the war also slowed healing of the wounds. At a gathering of ex-confederate soldiers shortly before he died in 1870, Robert E. Lee said, “If I had foreseen the use those people [Yankees] designed to make of their victory, there would have been no surrender at Appomattox Courthouse; no sir, not by me. Had I foreseen these results of subjugation, I would have preferred to die at Appomattox with my brave men, my sword in my right hand.”

Why were business and political leaders in the North so intent on keeping the southern states in the Union? It was, to paraphrase Charles Dickens, solely a fiscal matter. The principal source of tax revenue for the federal government before the Civil War was a tariff on imports. There was no income tax, except for one declared unconstitutional after its enactment during the Civil War. Tariffs imposed by the federal government not only accounted for most of the federal budget, they also raised the price of imported goods to a level where the less-efficient manufacturers of the northeast could be competitive. The former Vice-President John C. Calhoun put it this way:

"The North had adopted a system of revenue and disbursements in which an undue proportion of the burden of taxation has been imposed upon the South, and an undue proportion of its proceeds appropriated to the North the South, as the great exporting portion of the Union, has in reality paid vastly more than her due proportion of the revenue."

In March 1861, the New York Evening Post editorialized on this point:

That either the revenue from duties must be collected in the ports of the rebel states, or the port must be closed to importations from abroad, is generally admitted. If neither of these things be done, our revenue laws are substantially repealed; the sources which supply our treasury will be dried up; we shall have no money to carry on the government; the nation will become bankrupt before the next crop of corn is ripe. There will be nothing to furnish means of subsistence to the army; nothing to keep our navy afloat; nothing to pay the salaries of public officers; the present order of things must come to a dead stop. Given the serious financial difficulties the Union would face if the Southern states were a separate republic on its border engaging in duty-free trade with Britain, the Post urged the Union to hold on to its custom houses in the Southern ports and have them continue to collect duty. The Post goes on to say that incoming ships to the "rebel states" that try to evade the North's custom houses should be considered as carrying contraband and be intercepted.

Observers in Britain looked beyond the rhetoric of "preserve the Union" and saw what was really at stake. Charles Dickens views on the subject were typical: Union means so many millions a year lost to the South; secession means the loss of the same millions to the North. The love of money is the root of this, as of many other evils. The quarrel between the North and South is, as it stands, solely a fiscal quarrel.

Karl Marx seconded this view: The war between the North and the South is a tariff war. The war is further, not for any principle, does not touch the question of slavery, and in fact turns on the Northern lust for sovereignty.

The South fought the war for essentially the same reason that the American colonies fought the Revolutionary War. The central grievance of the American colonies in the 18th century was the taxes imposed on them by Britain. Colonists particularly objected to the Stamp Act, which required them to purchase an official British stamp and place it on all documents in order for them to be valid. The colonists also objected to the import tariff that Britain placed on sugar and other goods (the Sugar Act). After the enactment of what was called the "Tariff of Abomination" in 1828, promoted by Henry Clay, the tax on imports ranged between 20-30%. It rose further in March 1861 when Lincoln, at the start of his presidency, signed the Morrill Tariff into law. This tax was far more onerous than the one forced on the American colonies by Britain in the 18th century. Lincoln coerced the South to fire the first shots when, against the initial advice of most of his cabinet, he dispatched ships carrying troops and munitions to resupply Fort Sumter, site of the customs house at Charleston. Charleston militia took the bait and bombarded the fort on April 12, 1861. After those first shots were fired the pro-Union press branded Southern secession an "armed rebellion" and called for Lincoln to suppress it. Congress was adjourned at the time and for the next three months, ignoring his constitutional duty to call this legislative branch of government back in session during a time of emergency, Lincoln assumed dictatorial powers and did things, like raise an army, that only Congress is supposed to do. He shut down newspapers that disagreed with his war policy, more than 300 of them. He ordered his military officers to lock up political opponents, thousands of them. Although the exact number is not known, Lincoln may well have arrested and imprisoned more than 20,000 political opponents, southern sympathizers, and people suspected of being disloyal to the Union, creating what one researcher has termed a 19th century "American gulag," a forerunner of the 20th century's political prison and labor camps in the former Soviet Union. Lincoln denied these nonviolent dissenters their right of free speech and suspended the privilege of Habeas Corpus, something only Congress in a time of war has the power to do. Lincoln's soldiers arrested civilians, often arbitrarily, without any charges being filed; and, if held at all, military commissions conducted trials. He permitted Union troops to arrest the Mayor of Baltimore (then the third largest city in the Union), its Chief of Police and a Maryland congressman, along with 31 state legislators. When Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney wrote an opinion that said these actions were unlawful and violated the Constitution, Lincoln ignored the ruling.

Lincoln called up an army of 75,000 men to invade the seven southern states that had seceded and force them back into the Union. By unilaterally recruiting troops to invade these states, without first calling Congress into session to consider the matter and give its consent, Lincoln made an error in judgment that cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans. At the time, only seven states had seceded. But when Lincoln announced his intention to bring these states back into the Union by force, four additional states – Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas – seceded and joined the Confederacy. Slavery was not the issue. The issue was the very nature of the American union. If the President of the United States intended to hold the Union together by force, they wanted out. When these four states seceded and joined the Confederacy rather than send troops to support Lincoln's unconstitutional actions, the Confederacy became much more viable and the war much more horrible. From the time Lincoln entered politics as a candidate for state legislature in 1832, he championed a political agenda known as the "American System." First advocated by his idol and mentor, Henry Clay, it was a three-part program of protective tariffs, internal improvements, and centralized banking. This program "tied economic development to strong centralized national authority," as Robert Johannsen puts it in Lincoln, the South, and Slavery. Lincoln believed that import tariffs were necessary, at the expense of consumers. He believed that American industries needed to be shielded from foreign competition and cheap imported goods. The "internal improvements" he advocated were simply subsidies for industry, i.e., corporate welfare. Abraham Lincoln was the first president to give us centralized banking, with paper money not backed by gold.

The Constitution of the Confederate States of America forbid protectionist tariffs, outlawed government subsidies to private businesses, and made congressional appropriations subject to approval by a two-thirds majority vote. It enjoined Congress from initiating constitutional amendments, leaving that power to the constituent states; and limited its president to a single six-year term. When the South lost, instead of a Jeffersonian republic of free trade and limited constitutional government, the stage was set for the United States to become an American Empire ruled by a central authority. In starting his war against the Confederate States, Lincoln was not seeking the "preservation of the Union" in its traditional sense. He sought the preservation of the Northern economy by means of transforming the federal government into a centralized welfare-warfare-police state. The failure of the South to win the War for Southern Independence was a blow to liberty.

Paroled from the prison camp at Johnson's Island, Ohio shortly before the end of the war, my grandparent Louis Hicks walked, barefoot, back to North Carolina to his home named "Liberty Hall" in the town of Faison. But instead of enjoying a new birth of freedom, he and his family, along with other people in the South, had to endure a twelve-year military occupation and an oppressive Reconstruction instituted by radical republicans. Reflecting on the War for Southern Independence let us hope that the Confederate Battle Flag that Louis Thomas Hicks North Carolina regiment carried with it into battle at Gettysburg, with the cross of Scotland's patron saint emblazoned on it, will come to be viewed in the 21st century, not as an badge of slavery, which it is not, but as a symbol of opposition to centralized government power and tyranny.

Notes: The Confederate Battle Flag has 13 white stars superimposed on a blue Cross of St. Andrew, centered on a red backdrop. Each star represents a state that seceded from the Union, which includes Kentucky and Missouri, the last two states to be admitted into the Confederacy in late 1861. Throughout the war, however, they remained largely under Union control. St. Andrew was the younger brother of St. Peter and is the patron saint of Scotland.

The population of the United States in 1860 was 31,101,000, of which 21,244,000 lived in the North and 10,957,000 in the Confederacy. In the Confederate states 5,447,000 of these people were white, 133,000 free black, and 3,951,000 were slaves. There were 320,000 deaths in Union forces, 3.2 percent of the total male population; and 300,000 deaths in the Confederate forces, 9.7 percent of the (white) male population. This death rate, with the current population of the United States 284,050,000, would be equivalent to 6.5 million men being killed today. Most of those killed were teenagers and men in their 20s.

In his First Inaugural Address, for United States Lincoln uses the term Union. In his Gettysburg Address, however, instead of Union he uses the word nation, which implies a closer association of states under centralized control, as opposed to a looser association connoted by the word Union, of separate and sovereign states. Likewise, in his Second Inaugural Address Lincoln only uses the word Union when referring to the country as it was when he gave his First Inaugural Address four years earlier, before the war began; he uses the word nation for the country it had become in 1865. In these two later speeches he says that the war was fought to preserve the "nation," that the "nation" shall have a new birth of freedom, and that we must bind up the "nation’s wounds." In a civil war the warring sides battle for control of the central government. The term "civil war" was coined in England in the 17th century to identify the war fought between supporters of Charles I and the Parliamentarians led by Oliver Cromwell for control of the government. The South had no designs on the federal government of the North, headquartered in Washington, D. C. It did not want to run that government. The breakaway Southern States asserted their independence, like the American colonies did from Britain eighty-five years before, formed their own Confederate States of America and placed their seat of government in Richmond, Virginia. The American Republic was founded on the concept that all men are created equal, with inalienable rights to life, liberty and property. Black slaves, being sentient human beings, should therefore be as equally free and independent, with equality under the law, as White human beings; but, as slaves, they were also someone’s property and subject to the due process of law in that regard. Federalist Paper No. 54 addresses the problem of counting slaves in the population with regard to legislative representation, concluding that slaves are divested as "two-fifths of the MAN" and three-fifths as capital, or property.

After the war Robert E. Lee also wrote, "The best men in the South have long desired to do away with the institution [of slavery], and were quite willing to see it abolished. But with them in relation to this subject is a serious question today. Unless some humane course, based on wisdom and Christian principles, is adopted, you do them great injustice in setting them free." (Thomas Nelson Page, Robert E. Lee: Man and Soldier [New York, 1911], page 38.) Lee did not own slaves (he freed his in the 1850s), nor did a number of his most trusted lieutenants, including generals A. P. Hill, Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson, J. E. Johnston, and J. E. B. Stuart. The source references for these quotes can be found in Charles Adams book When in the Course of Human Events: Arguing the Case for Southern Secession. Colonists also objected to the search and seizure of their property without a specific warrant, and to being denied the right of trial by jury, which the British instituted to help them more easily catch and imprison smugglers who avoided paying taxes on imported goods.

Suggested Reading Books

Charles Adams, When in the Course of Human Events: Arguing the Case for Southern Secession (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000) In this book Charles Adams does to our understanding of the Civil War what Copernicus did to our ancestors’ understanding of the solar system. The sun does not rotate around the Earth and slavery did not cause the Civil War. Adams presents a compelling case for the true, financial cause of the war. A must read.

Jeffrey Rogers Hummel, Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men: A History of the American Civil War (Chicago: Open Court, 1996) With extensive documentation and in an erudite fashion, the author shows how the Civil War was, indeed, a disaster for liberty. The bibliographic essays at the end of each chapter all alone are worth the price of the book.

Francis W. Springer, War for What? (Nashville: Bill Coats Ltd., 1990) A little known but very insightful view of the Civil War published a year before the author died at the age of 92. He puts the African slave trade, import tariffs, the South’s two-crop economy, Lincoln, and the true nature of the war into clear focus, anticipating Adams groundbreaking work by a decade.

David Gordon (Editor), Secession, State & Liberty (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1998) Eleven articles on secession based on papers presented at a conference on this subject by the Ludwig von Mises Institute in 1995. Those by Donald Livingson, Steven Yates, Murray N. Rothbard, Thomas DiLorenzo, and James Ostrowski are particularly important. Lerone Bennett, Jr., Forced Into Glory: Abraham Lincoln’s White Dream (Chicago: Johnson, 2000) Bennett debunks the standard view of Lincoln as "the great emancipator." He shows tat Lincoln believed Blacks to be an inferior race. Consequently, they could never have equal "political" rights with White people and be given the full prerogatives of citizenship. The author presents irrefutable evidence that Lincoln wanted to have freed Blacks transported, at government expense, out of the country and relocated somewhere else.

Articles By Thomas J. DiLorenzo: * "The Great Centralizer: Abraham Lincoln and the War Between the States" (Fall 1998) * "Lincoln�s Economic Legacy" (February 9, 2001) * "Trade and the Rise of Freedom" (January 31, 2000) * "Henry Clay: National Socialist" (The Free Market, March 1998) * "Libertarians and the Confederate Battle Flag" * "Birth of an Empire" (The Free Market, July 1997) By Joe Sobran * "Slavery in Perspective" (May 31, 2001) * "McCarthyism and Lincolnism" (April 26, 2001) * "The Ultimate Lincoln" (April 5, 2001) * "Lincoln with Fangs" (February 8, 2001) * "Slavery, No; Secession, Yes" (January 16, 2001) * "How Tyranny Came to America" By others * Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., "Genesis of the Civil War" (May 11, 2000) * Tibor R. Machan, "Rethinking the Civil War" (May 7, 2001) * Steven Yates, "The Great Struggle: Republic or Empire" (February 3, 2000)

I dont know how to sign yet. chipfsu30


 * Wikipedia's article on Joe Sobran says he's a conservative that made some anti-semitic remarks.Jimmuldrow (talk) 04:35, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

...dont you think a comment of this length is a little bit rediculous? Xaedra (talk) 15:23, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

First off its spelled ridiculous. It ridiculous bc this article talks just about slavery. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Chipfsu30 (talk • contribs) 23:15, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Aftermath
This section should include notes about memorials, fraternal groups, location in american culture (i.e. books, movies, documentaries), veterans affairs, and such. --Xtreambar 19:21, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
 * No it shouldn't. The article's too long to take more than one or two.  That said, it certainly would make an interesting separate article, and should be linked to in the aftermath section.   MrZaius  talk  11:45, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

TooLong
Current article length: 85131 bytes, stripping the external links, see also, infobox and headers, after I cut about 8k this morning. The intro could definitely use a bit of work, in terms of length. Anything else sitting around that could be cut or trimmed? MrZaius talk  11:45, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

There will be complaints from some if the intro is shortened, especially if this article gets another review. Reviewers like long intros to articles of this length, and even require them.Jimmuldrow 19:46, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

The introduction needs shortening, but other than that it seems very good. For research projects it is nice to have detailed (even if lengthy) articles.
 * Could be worse, really. 85k is in the "Probably should be divided (although the scope of a topic can sometimes justify the added reading time)" range per Article size.  Any cuts past the ones made this morning probably wouldn't work very well, intro included.  That said, it might be possible to trim another couple of kilobytes out of the causes of the war without losing much content.  MrZaius  talk  22:47, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree. Shortening is good up to a point, but there is a diminishing point of returns.Jimmuldrow 00:02, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I see that the warning box has been removed, to which I have no objections, but it is still a very lengthy article. Length is OK when needed, but let me point out that the sections on causes/origins, which are supposed to be summaries of Main articles Origins of the American Civil War, Timeline of events leading to the American Civil War, History of slavery in the United States, and Abolitionism, comprise about 4,000 words or 26K of text, almost a third of the article. Heck, the "Overview" section that starts talking about the war itself doesn't occur until you're halfway through! The whole point of sectioning an article, as described in WP:SS, is to summarize the Main articles, not repeat their contents with slight reductions. The guidance is "Longer articles are split into sections, each about several good-sized paragraphs long." The SS article uses World War II as an example of sectioning. That article's Causes sections are one quarter the length of the ACW article's. (The overall WWII article is about twice the size of the ACW, but that's understandable because it was a much more complex war.) So although I am not clamoring to reduce the article much myself, due primarily to partisan fervor that erupts periodically, it certainly cannot be said that all the possible trimming has occurred already. Hal Jespersen 00:30, 3 May 2007 (UTC)


 * A little more trimming might be a good thing. As far as causes is concerned, the articles for Abolitionism, Slavery, John Brown and Origins total 229K, so these were distilled to a more compact format to a large degree, although maybe a bit more could be done. Over-trimming might be a bad thing, though.Jimmuldrow 03:13, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

This article is very long, almost, too long. Would this be an appropriate article to place the tag?


 * I beileve I gave my opinion on this above, but the causes of the war section seems to be more Causes of Succession. Maybe that should be a seperate article. The last paragraph points at the cause, but gets tooo easily buried amongst the other stuff. Reading down, it even says "was the final tirgger for succession" refering to Lincoln's election. That admits that while successiona and the causes of the war maybe be closely linked (in that succession was a contributing factor to the Union reaction), they are not one and the same. I'm not the most fimilar with Wikipedia's tags, but seems to fit that section in my opinion. Walkingghost (talk) 02:42, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Table of Contents
It's messed up on the page. Section 2 and down aren't indented and don't disappear when you click "hide" to the left of the title ("Table of Contents"). I have no idea how to fix it or request to fix it, so please someone else step in here. --Georgethedecider 03:04, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Putting the ToC on a 23 section page on the right below two infoboxes is a bad mistake. I've left it on the right, but above the other boxes. (This is not a fix for the length of the article, which needs at least ruthless summarization of every existing section, and moving any material not otherwise covered into existing or new "Main articles".) --Jerzy•t 16:48, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Trying float left. Revert if it looks too messy. It might actually work here with the warbox. At resolutions greater than 1024x768 it looks okay. IMHO. I do agree that having the toc so far down looks wrong, but I've been the page advocate for TOCRight. BusterD 17:20, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
 * A more radical change than i was willing to hazard, but looks good to me. --Jerzy•t 00:21, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

For Dummies

 * My friend brought up a nice idea for wikipedia (and i'm posting it here because it would really help war articles). There needs to be a "For Dummies" section, or possibly an "In a Nutshell" section.  You may say the first paragraph is like that, but really the first paragraph just gives you an introduction.  It may seem very un-encyclopedia-like, but i think it would stilll be useful to the millions of people just going to wikipedia to get a general understanding of things.  The whole civil war may be too hard a subject to cover, because of how broad it is.  But it would be very helpful for people researching individual battles, to have a small section explaining the whole thing, because reading the entire article gets confusing when all you want to know are the bacics (as I already have figured out from doing several projects on myself).  There is just too much info on small details that get in the way. G man yo 04:32, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

The links on the left of the article include a link to the Simple English version of the American Civil War. People keep asking for this, and it would be nice if someone knew of an appropriate way of making it more clear that the option exists.Jimmuldrow 05:50, 12 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I would say that most of us spending time editing Wikipedia are dummies. :-) The standard for what is called the lead (or "lede," as some journalists write) section -- the one or more paragraphs that precede the first section header -- is that it is supposed to be a summary of the entire article, not simply an introduction. There is some sentiment that a future printed version of Wikipedia may consist only of such lead sections, so they have to summarize the salient points of the article. Now I will be the first to say that many Wikipedia articles violate the standard currently, but I think it is a worthy goal and it is one that I have been attempting to adhere to in the articles I write or upgrade. Hal Jespersen 18:07, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

??? ""whole civil war may be too hard a subject to cover, because of how broad it is""
 * ummm...then why have an encyclopaedia...wat makes this civil war so much more complex then any other civil war that occurred or is occurring. Simple: Post War(causes), War(size, death), Outcome. The problem with this article is that it’s all Propaganda and that’s why it doesn’t make any sense. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.243.211.138 (talk) 18:59, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

insert please
Can someone please put the following into the article, I don't know where to put it. I got it from notes in my history class and I think it might be useful (FYI, I have some tags in there):

303hrs x3,841,000 bales 1,163,823,000 hrs = 48,492,625 days = 132,856 yrs!! (citation needed for all)

Thank you! Sincerely, Sir intellegent - smartr tahn eaver!!!! 23:49, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Long-term economic factors
First, I don't think it should be "U.S. Population"--Possibly "Total" Population instead? Second, this table proposes that ALL members of the North were white, which logically COULDN'T have been the case. Third, should it be "Exports as a percentage of GDP of each"? Or "Exports, relative to total US Exports"?

Just a few issues like those that I was confused on.

Also, where is the source for this/these? Thanks. TrevorRC 12:46, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

There weren't very many African Americans in the North back then. A few, but not many. Unless you count the border states, perhaps.Jimmuldrow 15:08, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Maryland
--- There is a mention of Lee's Maryland Campaign that frames it as an "invasion of the north." Can this be changed to "invasion of Union controlled territory?" From a letter written by Lee to Davis:

"If it is ever desired to give material aid to Maryland and afford her an opportunity of throwing off the oppression to which she is now subject, this would seem the most favorable."

At the time of the Civil War, Maryland was considered part of the South (and some still believe it is), so Union controlled makes more sense in this context. Here is a link to the letter:

http://aotw.org/exhibit.php?exhibit_id=8 ---


 * Maryland was not part of the South, it was a so-called "border-state", in that it formed the cross-over between North and South, an area in which both cultures mixed. It was not part of the Confederacy, and therefore Union territory. Lee invaded it, thereby invading the Union. 82.176.216.87 12:57, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Leaders
Over on the table in the right of the page under where it says commanders under the union side, there should be all the commanders including George McClellan and General Burnside due to the fact that Grant did not come in until after Gettysburg.


 * One of the disadvantages of these summary boxes is that one is required to greatly simplify information in order to fit. To be correct, the Union generals listed should be Winfield Scott, George B. McClellan, Henry W. Halleck, and Ulysses S. Grant. These men were the generals in chief of the Army; I don't know enough about the command history of the US Navy off the top of my head. (Burnside was one of the commanders of the Army of the Potomac, not the U.S. Army.) On the Confederate side, it is murkier. Robert E. Lee is remembered as the premier general, but he was only in command of a single army from June 1862 until the spring of 1865, when he became general in chief. The box is correct if it is interpreted to be the commanders at the conclusion of the war. Hal Jespersen 23:06, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Please Fix!!! The link at the bottom of the page listed General Scott under Union Generals, it is correct that he was a General during the war, but when you click on the link it goes to the other Winfield Scott, who preceded the war. The General during the war was Winfield Scott Hancock, so that link needs to be changed.Thanks75.70.160.69 (talk) 03:14, 20 December 2007 (UTC) D. T.


 * Both Winfield Scott and Winfield Scott Hancock were generals during the Civil War, the former general-in-chief until November 1861. Hal Jespersen (talk) 15:03, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism
There is vandalism on the front page showing that the Civil War happened in 2000-2006 instead of 1861–1865. Gautam Discuss 18:41, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

John Brown's raid
As important as it may be, I think 477 words (including "For Ken Chowder he is "at certain times, a great man", but also "the father of American terrorism." [58] -- a blog site http://files.blog-city.com/files/M06/158072/b/chowder.pdf) on it in an article on the Civil War is quite excessive. --JimWae 06:45, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
 * No one doubts that the raid was an important event leading to the war, but it was not part of the war. We already have Origins of the American Civil War and Timeline of events leading to the American Civil War. We should try to keep the "causes" section in this article as short as we can. ·:· Will Beback  ·:· 07:52, 14 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Would anyone be upset if the top half of the John Brown sub-article was moved to the main article on John Brown?Jimmuldrow 18:38, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

John Brown should be added to the Origins of the American Civil War. To state that he is an important event leading to the civil war is an understatement. You have this madman willing to kill for abolition, the south was terrified and they saw this... fanatacism of the north as a major reason to secede. Xaedra (talk) 15:22, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Military Factor/Leadership
At reference 134 - it is noted that Davis kept Bragg after two retreats but McClellan was replaced with expedience. This is untrue to a fault. McClellan's disastrous handling of the Peninsula campaign prohibited any early Northern victory. While perhaps a master of organization, McClellan was a constant liability to Lincoln, who replaced him as soon as he had a suitable replacement. McClellan only remained commander as long as he did because the other Northern generals were strategically and tactically bankrupt in mindset.

At reference 98 - That Neely article is in dispute with a number of articles on total war, in particular, with Walter. Neely's article, while well researched, is an opinion piece, and cannot be used a definition of war strategy. It is contended by most historians currently that the civil war was NOT a total war and that the Northern nor Southern generals did NOT grasp the concept of total war. Total war involves dehumanization and demonization of your opponent. The two combatants were if anything sympathetic at times.

Please clean this up - - - this article is mostly factually correct, but at critical points, there is quite a bit of revisionist bias. Often the assumption is made in this article that the South never had a chance. This cannot be made as fact, only as speculation, and contested speculation at that.

I Snow I 17:56, 19 June 2007 (UTC)Snow

Missing Data
How about some real figures on slavery in the North in terms of numbers. One figure says negligible another says not applicable ... which is it? Suggesting small numbers as negligible arguably introduces POV regarding correctness/incorrectness of slavery leaning toward the former.

Statues & flags
The Legacy section used to have text about continuing controversies over erecting statues of Lincoln in the South, the predominance of statues of Confederate generals, and the retention of Confederate flags within state flags (and on license plates). Though "hot-topics", these are all relevant to an understanding of the legacy of the conflict --JimWae 20:29, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
 * That kind of discussion is probably more appropriate for the neo-Confederate article. But this article should link to the neo-Confederate article as well.Verklempt 22:10, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure that neo-Confederate is the best place for all of that material, as many folks support the display of the CSA statues and flags who are not necessarily so gung-ho as to be classed with "neo-Confederates". Is there another article on the legacy of the war, or on the place of CSA memoribilia in the modern South? One of those might be better. ·:· Will Beback  ·:· 22:53, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
 * The rank and file supporters may not qualify as Neo-Cs, but usually the major agitators in the most notorious controversies are the neo-C groups.Verklempt 01:47, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion about neo-Cs addresses only Lincoln statues - not the incorporation of the CSA flag into state flags & license plates (nor the predominance of statues to CSA members). As we know, people object to the flag especially continuing to be part of state regalia. That is clearly beyond neo-C category --JimWae 04:28, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Proposed reformatting of template
Below is a proposed new format for this template. It is based on Template:World War I and Template:World War II. This template will appear in the collapsed mode, unless overridden when it is placed on a specific page. This will be less bulky and more in line with other active templates and will allow it to be placed on most related pages in a less conspicuous manner. I removed the categories from the template (except the main ACW category) since categories do not appear on most other templates; I left the main category and all of the other categories are on that link anyway. I also removed most of the people leaving only the top 11 for each side (an arbitrary number, and I don't really know if I have the correct 11 on there). I also removed "Prisons" due to spacing. Other than as stated above, I did not alter any of the content (if I did, it was unintentional). Please feel free to change/add/delete the content. If there are no objections, I will replace the current template with this one after awhile. Please do not agree or disagree on this page, rather please place comments on the template talk page for consistency's sake.--Old Hoss 04:02, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Naming of war
It seems to me that, however good this article has been judged by a most respectable community, it needs some repair. For, outside the United States of America, the term "American Civil War" is very misleading. There have been many "American Civil Wars" -- everywhere from Uruguay to Quebec. To call the United States of America Civil War, "the American Civil War" may sound definitive in some Wichita classroom, but the term is wholly overbroad from a non-United States of America reader. If Wikipedia purports to be accurate, then it is the job of Wikipedia writers and editors to overcome the erroneous terminology -- doubtless learned from well-meaning but lackadaisacal classroom texts -- and correct even the very name of this horrendous, historical struggle. It was the United States Civil War. It was not the American Civil War. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Avidbrowser (talk • contribs).


 * Sorry, but "American Civil War" is by far the most common name for the conflict in the English language. For Wikipedia to shun this name in favor of some lesser-used one, all in the name of making some kind of political statement, would be a fundamental violation of the principle of NPOV. 68.40.65.164 05:37, 16 August 2007 (UTC)


 * 92% of the people in this country believe in God and heaven. By your logic, this means that it would be completely neutral to put "God is real and atheism is false" on the atheism page.AlexMc (talk) 07:49, 22 November 2007 (UTC)


 * It is also a rather silly argument in this context as, unlike many other uses of "America" where this semantic argument works, "The Civil War" of any country (where this naming convention is used) would be named for the sovereign juristiction in which it ocurred e.g. (making some up) The Canadian Civil War, The Mexican Civil War etc. the only time where "America" is used to identify a single sovereign nation is in the case of the USA. Dainamo 14:53, 18 August 2007 (UTC)


 * It's even know as American Civil Warr in other countries and lenguages. Here in Spain is named Guerra Civil Americana or Guerra de Secesión. It's a strongly nationalist name, but there are lots of this kind of things in History. --81.32.24.74 15:25, 9 October 2007 (UTC)


 * IMHO the War of Secession is the most widely used over the World.

The use of American Civil War is an acceptance of the Union point of view, the same way as calling the 1975 Fall of Saigon: the 'Liberation of Vietnam', would be an acceptance of the North Vietnamese point. The Second American Revolution following the Confederacy point. Lagoonfish 06:09, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
 * In Spain is usually known as Guerra de Secesión (War of Secession), although Guerra Civil Americana (American Civil War) and Guerra Civil Estadounidense (US Civil War) are sometimes used as well.--89.100.213.192 01:21, 7 November 2007 (UTC)


 * The American Revolutionary War isn't called "The British Civil War", how is this any different? It's one country trying to become independent of another.Cameron Nedland (talk) 17:41, 11 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Anyone who thinks about it knows that it was not a civil war, but rather, as was said, a war of Secession or a Second American Revolution. Morte42 (talk) 10:01, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Again, this is the same circular logic that others have used, that seceding in a defacto sense (ie the raising of armies, control of cities, setting up a new government etc) means that the moment the hostilities of a civil war starts, its no longer a civil war, because there are "two countries" at war. This is bumpkis, and would essentially rob the term of its meaning. More to the point, all of this dicussion is water under the bridge, since its been decided, after excruciatingly long debate (highlighted above and in the talk archives) that this will be the title of the page. SiberioS (talk) 06:33, 13 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I never stated that it needed to be changed, just that by direct definition, it is incorrect. Morte42 (talk) 02:44, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Worth mentioning
Many of the principal officers, blue and gray alike, had attended West Point during roughly the same period of time and had fought alongside each other during the Mexican War. Knowing how the other guy operated was not as much an advantage when HE knew how YOU operated as well. knoodelhed 08:21, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Intro
I'm not in love with this line:

The Union, comprising free states and border states and led by President Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party, opposed the expansion of slavery[1][2][3] into territories owned by the United States, which increased Southern desires for secession.

While the Republican Party undeniably opposed the extension of slavery into the territories, I don't know that this view was shared by the entire Union. It would be rather suprising to me if the border states, which were pro-slavery, were opposed to the extension of slavery. I'm not sure that the whole Union side, border states included, was bound by any goal other than that of preventing the South from seceding. Funnyhat 05:31, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

True enough. This was mainly an issue for the Republicans and other free-soilers.Jimmuldrow 14:26, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

This article reads like neo-liberal propaganda. I am afraid it may be in need of scrapping. It is far too easy to be subjective on an article of this kind, considering the extremist views of both Northern and Southern sympathisers and editors. This article is meritorious neither of being considered documentation of historical fact, nor of a "Good Article" rating. Those who insist on editing this article, may first consider scrapping it, spending a decade or so reading the necessary texts, and then rewriting it. This really is just a fairy tale. It's very sweet and there's a good guy and a bad guy and a princess who needs to be saved, but it's not real.

Of course this makes me a neo-Confederate ignant hothead becuase everybody agrees this is how it happened as opposed to someone who appreciates a well balanced and honest article.

It may be, for the sake of objectivity, appropriate to consult some of the users who have been chased from here for being too Confederate for their opinions on the matter, instead of sending them all to the Lost Cause page. It would certainly provided more of an even balance to this otherwise one-sided article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.72.110.11 (talk) 15:05, 17 September 2007 (UTC)


 * As for "reading the necessary texts," see Notes at the end of the article.Jimmuldrow 20:16, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

I fear that did not address the concerns brought up at all, Jim. I don't mean to fan the fires of hate here, but the article is rather one sided. The Confederacy seceded largely due to economic oppression and conflicting interpretations of the Constitution with the war following as a dispute of the sovereignty of this new state, yet the opening paragraph doesn't say this once, instead throwing the word "slave" at us three times. Southern ideology rarely seems to be accurately represented in the article at all without qualifiers that defeat the statement. Even basic statistics are skewed; the article states that devotion to medical science aided the Union when in fact the Confederacy was more successful in the field of military medicine, though accidentally (Confederate surgeons would frequently use raw cotton to treat wounds. This was then disposed of, reducing the spread of infectious germs. Union surgeons reused rags, thus spreading germs.). I do not mean to imply that the article needs to show extreme sympathy towards the Confederacy, but a healthy median should be striven for. The article currently lacks (at least in my eye) a firm NPOV ground. Mr. G. Williams 00:33, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

You might be right about medicine. Both sides were bad at that sort of thing back then. But what did leading secessionists have to say for themselves in their declarations of reasons for secession, speeches, editorials and so forth?Jimmuldrow 06:14, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Also, "reading the necessary texts" is the concern that's encyclopedic, which is that information should be from well-respected sources, with appropriate in-line references.Jimmuldrow 22:59, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

I am very sorry to say that the article is decidedly NPOV. My university dissertation, both decidedly less biased and incredibly mediocre, had a larger, more balanced bibliography and did not read like a teenage rant. This article smacks of the vilification of one's defeated enemies and certainly adheres to the age old cliché that history is written by the victors. There is a relatively large amount of primary source material missing, the secondary and tertiary sources used are hardly non-partisan, in some cases admitting biases themselves and as for your comment on "well-respected", well may I remind you firstly of the original "the world is round" theorists, and how little they were respected (in fact as villified as I have seen some "Lost Cause" editors branded here) as well as Schopenhauer's comment on truth; "First it is ridiculed, then violently opposed and, finally, accpeted as self evident". Users have been blocked for their points of view. Censorship of that kind usually shows that the Censor is trying to hide something or cannot prove his/herself. Forgive me for saying this, but if there is doubt surrounding an issue it should be debated through reason and the use of what facts we have access to, not through user blocks and censorship, hence my proposal to ask for help from the "Southern Sympathisers". At least that will give some balance to this awkwardly one sided article. Discuss through the disagreements and, if necessary, open discussion pages for each separate issue to be debated to death. But please do not sell this blurry fiction as fact. 62.72.110.11 (talk) 18:02, 28 November 2007 (UTC)


 * It's hard to claim this "history [was] written by the victors" when everyone has the ability to edit it. With that in mind, it's unclear exactly what you think we should do to give this entry a more NPOV.  If primary sources are missing, and you've already written a dissertation on the subject, it would be much simplier to enter the material yourself rather than rely on someone else locate, read and enter sources de novo.  I can assure you that new entries won't be reverted if they are supported by verifiable references.  Again, without specific suggestions for article improvement, we can't use reason to debate your concerns.  Regards,  AlphaEta  14:22, 29 November 2007 (UTC)


 * If more primary source material was added for the reasons given by Southern leaders of secession at the time secession began, I don't think "Southern Sympathisers" would like it. The article does include short quotes from two Southern declarations of reasons for secession.Jimmuldrow (talk) 23:14, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Sherman's & Sheridan's war crimes
The sections relating Sheridan's burning of the Shenandoah Valley, and Sherman's destruction of Atlanta and northeastern Georgia, should be edited to reflect the fact that both acts are, and were, war crimes. Vonnie1 22:19, 13 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I think that if you consult war crime in Wikipedia, you will see that a war crime is a violation of international law, which was not applicable in the 19th century. Furthermore, destruction of economic infrastructure (farms, livestock, factories, etc.) would not be considered a war crime even today. If it were, many of the officers in the World War II US Army Air Corps would be in prison, for instance. Neither Sheridan in the Valley nor Sherman in Georgia ordered the widescale murdering and raping of civilians that would be needed to have their actions be considered war crimes today. Hal Jespersen 00:14, 14 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Sherman enacted a policy of Total War (civilian targets are 'legitimized' in total war, $100 million by Shermans own estimate and over 50,000 southern civilians killed as directly and indirectly) Targeting non military related civilian targets IS a violation of the rules of war. This adoption of Total War as legitimate and standard procedure was a relatively rare thing till this time and was hereafter established as part of our doctrine of war as can be evidenced in nearly every war the United States took part in following the Civil War. The murder and pillaging was known and condoned by several high ranking officers. Are you saying that a man must order the killing of a peoples for it to be considered a crime, but if it is done and condoned that it is not?
 * the man claims through his own journals later in life that his actions were indeed war crimes. Yet here you are defending him...
 * General Sherman claimed that the fire had been started by retreating Confederate troops, a claim that was denied by Confederate officers as well as Columbia’s citizens.
 * Union Lieutenant Thomas Myers wrote from Camden, S.C. after the burning of Columbia:
 * "My dear wife.we have had a glorious time in this State. Unrestricted license to burn and plunder was the order of the day.gold watches, silver pitchers, cups, spoons, forks, etc are as common as blackberries. The terms of plunder are as follows: Each company is required to exhibit the results of its operations at any given place, -one-fifth and first choice falls to the share of the commander-in-chief and staff, one-fifth to the corps commanders and staff, one-fifth to field officers of regiments, and two-fifths to the company."
 * Then Myers continues:
 * "Officers are not allowed to join these expeditions without disguising themselves as privates."
 * then:
 * " General Sherman has silver and gold enough to start a bank. His share in gold watches alone at Columbia was two hundred and seventy-five."
 * You Sherman apologists will surely discount documented eye witness reports and quote the Generals own self serving diaries:
 * "The country was sparsely settled, with no magistrates or civil authorities who could respond to requisitions, as is done in all the wars of Europe; so this system of foraging was simply indispensable to our success."

Rubbish. This is an outright lie. Atlanta, Columbia, and towns surrounding, had documented elected officials. It was taught at West Point that such behavior was illegal and many of HIS OWN OFFICERS state the the blame he placed on the confederate general for the burning of Columbia was absolutely false.
 * Your white washing is ridiculous. And many 1970s/60s northern liberals who compared Sherman/Lincolns bloodbath with the United States similar horrible behavior in Vietnam agree with ME.Darrin (Thorsmitersaw) —Preceding signed but undated comment was added at 22:09, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

With regard to who burned Columbia, while it's still difficult to know which side set the first fire, Sherman's bummers set some and other fires were started by Confederates burning cotton to keep it from getting seized by the federals. Confederates also set fires that got out of control in Richmond by burning tobacco and explosives so the federals couldn't get them.Jimmuldrow 00:31, 28 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Massive numbers of war crimes were committed by both sides, as in every war. Listing them would require a large book in itself, and with murky laws of war to say the least, there is a large grey (no pun intended) area. In every crime, both sides commit war crimes, and the winner is always right. It is not necessary to list them in an article like this, especially since they weren't considered war crimes (just "unbecoming of gentlemen") at the time. 82.176.216.87 13:04, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

GA Sweeps Review: On Hold
As part of the WikiProject Good Articles, we're doing sweeps to go over all of the current GAs and see if they still meet the requirements of the GA criteria. I'm specifically going over all of the "Conflicts, battles and military exercises" articles. I believe the article currently meets the majority of the criteria and should remain listed as a Good article. In reviewing the article, I have found there are multiple issues that need to be addressed, and I'll leave the article on hold for seven days for them to be fixed.
 * 1) The lead should be condensed down into four or five paragraphs. While summarizing content, see if there is some information that can be trimmed to help cut the intro down. See WP:LEAD for more guidelines.
 * 2) "Brown believed that the South was on the verge of a gigantic slave uprising and that one spark would set it off." Consider rewording "one spark would set it off", unless he said that, and if so, add a citation for the quote.
 * 3) In the "End of the war 1864–1865 section", move one of the images as text shouldn't be sandwiched between two images.
 * 4) In the "Anaconda Plan and blockade, 1861" and "Threat of international intervention" sections, some information is duplicated about the blockade runners. Reword as it only needs to be covered once due to the length of the article.
 * 5) The inline citations should be better formatted to include author, title of newspaper/journal/website used, as well as accessdate. Consider using the citation templates at WP:CITET for inline citations #6, 8, 34, 41-3, 59, 61-2, 73, 88, 110, 123, 132, 139. (based on this revision)

Needs inline citations:
 * 1) "Lincoln did not propose federal laws against slavery where it already existed, but he had, in his 1858 House Divided Speech, expressed a desire to "arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction"."
 * 2) "Both North and South assumed that if slavery could not expand it would wither and die."
 * 3) "In 1862 he added emancipation because it permanently removed the divisive issue that caused secession."
 * 4) "Since fewer than 800 of the almost 4 million slaves escaped in 1860, the fugitive slave controversy was not a practical reason for secession"
 * 5) "Brown's raid, says historian David Potter, "was meant to be of vast magnitude and to produce a revolutionary slave uprising throughout the South.""
 * 6) "The Charleston Mercury read that on the issue of slavery the North and South "are not only two Peoples, but they are rival, hostile Peoples.""
 * 7) "Buchanan asserted, "The South has no right to secede, but I have no power to prevent them.""
 * 8) "In his inaugural address, he argued that the Constitution was a more perfect union than the earlier Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, that it was a binding contract, and called any secession "legally void"." Citation for "legally void" part.
 * 9) "Lincoln rejected any negotiations with Confederate agents on the grounds that the Confederacy was not a legitimate government, and that making any treaty with it would be tantamount to recognition of it as a sovereign government."
 * 10) "With the scale of the rebellion apparently small so far, Lincoln called for 74,000 volunteers for 90 days."
 * 11) "It was in this battle that Confederate General Thomas Jackson received the nickname of "Stonewall" because he stood like a stone wall against Union troops."
 * 12) "McClellan and Lee fought at the Battle of Antietam[99] near Sharpsburg, Maryland, on September 17, 1862, the bloodiest single day in United States military history."
 * 13) "Lee's army suffered some 28,000 casualties (versus Meade's 23,000)."
 * 14) "Grant was tenacious and, despite astonishing losses (over 66,000 casualties in six weeks), kept pressing Lee's Army of Northern Virginia back to Richmond." (for casualty numbers)
 * 15) "The fall of Atlanta,[115] on September 2, 1864, was a significant factor in the reelection of Lincoln as president."
 * 16) "The 13th amendment,[134] ratified December 6, 1865, finally freed the remaining 40,000 slaves in Kentucky, as well as 1,000 or so in Delaware." (for slave numbers)
 * 17) "Entry into the war by Britain and France on behalf of the Confederacy would have greatly increased the South's chances of winning independence from the Union."
 * 18) The second paragraph in "Analysis of the outcome" needs a source.
 * 19) "About 190,000 volunteered, further enhancing the numerical advantage the Union armies enjoyed over the Confederates, who did not dare emulate the equivalent manpower source for fear of fundamentally undermining the legitimacy of slavery." (for 190,000 number)

Although the article has plenty of sources, the inline citations I request above are mostly for quotes and verifying numbers of troops, casualties, etc. If you disagree that any of the statements don't need citations, then make mention of it here. If possible, if there is another citation that is being used for another statement that covers one of the above, feel free to use that. If some books are not available to you, consider using online sources to address these issues. If there are great strides in addressing the above issues, I may extend the seven days as this article has a lot of work put in it and I don't want to delist it for these few problems. If these are not addressed within seven days, the article may be delisted. However, if it is improved after it has been delisted, it may be nominated at WP:GAN. If that is the case, let me know once you have renominated it and I'll rereview the article for you. If you have any questions or need help in clarification of what I listed above, let me know on my talk page. Although the above review may look overwhelming, the points I raise for the best of intentions in further improving the article. I'll be sending out messages to the WikiProjects of this page and several of the main contributors to help ensure that everyone is aware of the hold and can hopefully work together in further improving the article. Regards, --Nehrams2020 03:17, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Regarding item #5 at the top, I tried to add what info I could find for various web sites. Not every web site has all the information desired. I especially don't understand what's needed for the following items in the list for the version you mentioned: 34, 88, 110, 123, 132, and 139.Jimmuldrow 01:15, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

GA Sweeps Review: Pass
I believe the article currently meets the criteria and should remain listed as a Good article. I've already fixed two of the citations for you, so I'll finish the rest as it shouldn't be too difficult to fix (I think I must have messed up the numbering anyway, I meant the ones that are just web links). You did an excellent job in improving the article by adding the citations. This article should seriously consider going to FA eventually after you've had a few outside editors give the article a good copyedit. If you have any questions, let me know on my talk page and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. I have edited the article history to reflect this review. Regards, --Nehrams2020 07:00, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Deletion of Long Section Regarding Fort Sumter
I can't agree with the decision to delete this information. The circumstances leading to the decision of the Union to defend Sumter and the CSA to attack it are not simply details of another battle, but is the culmination of the long preceding section on the origins of the war. Since this occurred in the midst of a short deadline GA review, and since the revert seems to have been made in good faith, I did not immediately restore it. However I will do so absent some logical explanation for the deletion. Tom (North Shoreman) 15:27, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Slavery sole cause of war??
I have to agree with previous posters that this article would have one believe that the war was fought exclusively over the issue of slavery. While slavery was a major, it was not the only factor, and was not the ONLY major factor.

The issue of tariffs on imported goods was a HUGE factor in the war. This factor was almost certainly an equal factor to slavery in the war. The issue of States Rights is mentioned, but only skirted around.

I don't want to sound rude or insulting, but without a larger write up of the taxation and tariff issues, this article is a farse and is extremely biased almost to the point of out right propaganda.

Please expand some information on the tariff issue!
 * First, please sign your notes. Second, when you boil it all down, if there had been no slavery, there would have been no war. In THAT sense, slavery was the only cause for the war. Many will say "states rights" was the over-riding issue. Well what did the "states" want the "right" to do? Answer: keep slaves. And really, they also wanted the "right" to see slavery expanded into the new territories. No, it wasn't chiefly about "states rights" at all. The only MAJOR cause for the war was slavery. Period.K. Scott Bailey 20:22, 12 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I believe it is generally accepted in professional historical circles, that the war was caused by the growing difference in culture and organization of North and South ever since the late 18th century. The subject of slavery then served as the catalyst for the war to start. If you read pre-war documents by both sides on the North-South conflict, the issue of slavery is always present, either as a main subject or as an indirect, subsidiary one: the Southern lifestyle as inferior/superior, the spread of slavery as the subject of the states' rights discussion. While it was certainly not the ONLY cause, it was definitely the one that was SEEN by the parties involved as the most important. It would be unhistoricist and thus unprofessional to deny that, and almost like "the Whig interpretation of history" to project backwards underlying causes we view with a modern eye, and calling them 'causes'. 82.176.216.87 13:09, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

It is good that you've added more causes because it is HIGHLY inaccurate to state or even suggest that slavery was the sole cause of the civil war. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Xaedra (talk • contribs) 15:19, 21 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree, I find it very hard to believe that citizens of the northern states would volunteer to face death, and kill fellow countrymen all for the sake of freeing black people, especially when taking into consideration that racism toward blacks was evident throughout the northern states later on and well into the 20th century. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.139.143.164 (talk) 22:59, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Except, oddly enough, that they did, though not for wholly altruistic reasons. Many in the north believed that slavery imperiled free laborers, and undermined the wages and position of craftsmen. Indeed, why pay a white man a wage when you could buy a black to do it (what little factories existed in the south were often staffed by bondsmen; ie slave labor rented out to factories)? With the Dred Scott decision throwing open the possibility of slavery and slaves being able to not only move into the territories, but also back into the Northern free states, you can see the reason why slavery was feared, even by those in the working class (notably, the precursors to modern trade unions enthusiastically supported the Union effort and feared the possibility of white indentured servitude coming back). SiberioS (talk) 07:08, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Might I add to this that there were many reports of slaves fighting for the Confederacy, despite the promise of "freedom" should the Union win. No one would fight for their own demise unless there was something bigger (see:more important) behind it. Slavery was just the political cover for the War, much like WMDs and Terrorism for the Iraqi War. Morte42 (talk) 10:09, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Read my response to your similar point above; where are they in the record? Why aren't they listed among war dead as soldiers, in the pension rolls, and why then did Davis issue executive orders to wack David Hunter and others (notably Benjamin Butler in this order )for raising a unit from former slaves? Why did it take to the waning days of the war for the Confederacy to issue and order to raise black troops if they had been fighting all along? And why was there so much hostility to it? Simple. Because there weren't any enlisted black soldiers in the Confederacy. The idea of arming slaves went counter to the whole entire argument of what the South's society was based on, and could also create havoc if slaves were not to be obedient. SiberioS (talk) 07:08, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Where are the facts???
This topic seems to have been written by a biased Northern educated individual that left out lots of facts.

The South had over 70,000 Black troops, BOTH SLAVES AND FREEMEN (Free blacks that too owned slaves!) Also the North had slaves (which was neglected to mention) and the North controlled the slave trade (Rhode Island and New York were main ports of importing slaves) and weren't friendly to them either. There were black codes in the North and that is the reason for the "underground" railroad! If they were so accepting, there wouldn't have been a need for an underground railroad! There needs to be a little more fact checking before posting on a subject of such debate and research by school children. As well as, the South had a Black cabinet member, I don't remember his name, but he was a great friend of Jefferson Davis and even drove his funeral carriage when J. Davis died. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.57.126.141 (talk) 14:44, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Add those "facts" in. See how long they last.K. Scott Bailey 19:11, 13 October 2007 (UTC)


 * The fact that the border states had slavery was mentioned more than once, including the first paragraph. The Northern role in the slave trade happened decades before the war. Also, the article mentions that civil rights and voting rights were not the issue.Jimmuldrow 16:18, 14 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Wow. The topic starter didn't get a single one right. 82.176.216.87 13:10, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Those facts are not exactly accurate and I would suggest that you do not add them as of yet.


 * Not exactly accurate is an understatement. There were no black troops (and we're not including the slaves that were taken by commanding officers to the front, or forced to maintain plantations) fighting in the Confederacy, and while the idea was proposed in the waning days of the war, no serious action was taken on it due to the collapse of the Confederacy. By that point, the Union had already fielded numerous companies of black soldiers, much to the incense of Souther politicians (Davis issued an executive order to summarily execute David Hunter, one of the few openly abolitionist Union Generals, for having the temerity to try and enlist former slaves). Sorry Lost Cause supporters, wrong again. SiberioS (talk) 08:16, 8 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Are you serious? There are numerous reports of African American Confederate soldiers. Morte42 (talk) 10:16, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Where? Please cite me where in the Official Record of the War anything more than a handful of black slaves/freemen being involved in battles (never in an enlisted form) for the Confederacy. Outside of the "propaganda" unit of the Louisiana Native Guard (which, ironically, neither saw combat nor material support from the Confederacy, and was made up almost entirely of freedmen). On the other hand, the Union, fielded some 200K (around 209,145 according to the records of the African American Civil War Memorial), all of whom were listed and accounted for. There is no such documentary record for black "Confederate" soldiers because there weren't any. I point you to this blog post, by a civil war historian, that illustrates the thread bare conspiracy theory info that holds together the black confederate myth. 24.88.79.249 (talk) 06:18, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

The word "American" in the title is not distinguishing enough
This article should be retitled "U.S. Civil War", to prevent confusion with civil wars in Latin America.66.10.94.35 21:50, 16 October 2007 (UTC)


 * This has been discussed a number of times over the last few years and the consensus has always been that: (1) "American Civil War" is the most widely used name (in English) for the conflict; (2) the chance that a person searching for information about a civil war in some Latin American country would do so by searching for "American Civil War" is vanishingly small. Wikipedia attempts to name articles by the most logical and publicly accessible names, not necessarily the name that is most theoretically correct. As an aside, calling something the "U.S. Civil War" would probably bring objections from those who believe that the Southern states were no longer in the United States when the war began. Hal Jespersen 23:16, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

This article should not be retitled the 'US Civil War' as the south was no longer part of the United states, but I agree that the article should distinguish that is is not the latin american civil war. Xaedra (talk) 15:16, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks
Great article. Don't usually trust wiki for a lot of things, but this is pretty factual. Keep it up. Mark 07:57, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Fort Taylor
The Fort Zachary Taylor and also the Florida in the American Civil War article say Fort Taylor too remained in Union hands - that makes 4, not 3.--JimWae 07:16, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

There were 4 or 5 depending on your point view. two in the Florida keys (unnamed in my source- page 263 of James McPherson's "Battle Cry of Freedom"), Fort Pickens, and Fort Sumter (this omits Fort Moultrie, which Major Anderson had abandonedto take control of Sumter.)SJMNY 08:06, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Peer review script
The following suggestions were generated by a semi-automatic javascript program, and might not be applicable for the article in question. You may wish to browse through User:AndyZ/Suggestions for further ideas. Thanks, — Rlevse  •  Talk  • 01:27, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
 * The lead of this article may be too long, or may contain too many paragraphs. Please follow guidelines at WP:LEAD; be aware that the lead should adequately summarize the article.[?]
 * The lead is for summarizing the rest of the article, and should not introduce new topics not discussed in the rest of the article, as per WP:LEAD. Please ensure that the lead adequately summarizes the article.[?]
 * Per Wikipedia:Context and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates), months and days of the week generally should not be linked. Years, decades, and centuries can be linked if they provide context for the article.[?] Got them all.
 * Per What is a featured article?, Images should have concise captions.[?] Known problem with the script, caused by flags in the infobox.
 * Per Wikipedia:Context and Build the web, years with full dates should be linked; for example, link January 15, 2006.[?] Got the dates.
 * Per Manual of Style (headings), headings generally do not start with articles ('the', 'a(n)'). For example, if there was a section called  ==The Biography== , it should be changed to  ==Biography== .[?]
 * Per Manual of Style (headings), avoid using special characters (ex: &+{}[]) in headings. Caused by &amp;ndash; in date ranges, known problem with script.
 * Per WP:WIAFA, this article's table of contents (ToC) may be too long- consider shrinking it down by merging short sections or using a proper system of daughter pages as per Summary style.[?]
 * Watch for redundancies that make the article too wordy instead of being crisp and concise. (You may wish to try Tony1's redundancy exercises.)
 * Vague terms of size often are unnecessary and redundant - “some”, “a variety/number/majority of”, “several”, “a few”, “many”, “any”, and “all”. For example, “ All pigs are pink, so we thought of a number of ways to turn them green.”
 * Avoid misplaced formality: “in order to/for” (-> to/for), “thereupon”, “notwithstanding”, etc.
 * The script has spotted the following contractions: didn't, didn't, if these are outside of quotations, they should be expanded. Appears in a quote, shouldn't be changed.
 * Please ensure that the article has gone through a thorough copyediting so that it exemplifies some of Wikipedia's best work. See also User:Tony1/How to satisfy Criterion 1a.[?]
 * I've sorted what I could. This is a fine example of where the script can prove useful, but also where it makes mistakes. Carre 16:04, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

No more states rights
I'm curious as to why the section on states rights has been completely removed - is it really possible to have an article about the Civil War without at least mentioning the issue? Arthurrh 00:27, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

FA reviewers really want things concise, and specifically made that suggestion. States' rights is mentioned in the main Causes section.Jimmuldrow 01:47, 26 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Well without making my eyeballs go batty, I couldn't find it either in this article or in the origins article. I tried the search function in my browser and couldn't see the data, can you point me to it? Shouldn't there at least be a mention of it in the causes section, even if it points to another article? Accurate argument or not, it was certainly a perceived issue of the war. Arthurrh 01:50, 26 October 2007 (UTC)


 * It's mentioned in the fourth paragraph down under Causes. I pasted the larger, original version to the Origins article just now.Jimmuldrow 03:13, 26 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks. Arthurrh 16:42, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

This is getting a bit exciting
I'm seeing old and steady hands make small but significant improvements. It's clear we pretty much agree with what's here, because we're not fighting over it. It's so nice to see so many respected and long-time vandal-fighting, ACW-interested wikipedians collaborate under Jimmuldrow's example and leadership. The article has never looked so almost anorexic. And it's mostly pretty tight stuff. I'll be sweeping through with some mechanical fixes, and then a sweep of last minute copy-edits, but we have reason to be proud of where we are this morning. I think it needs better graphics, especially the lede graphic in the infobox. I'll fiddle today and maybe come up with some options. Good work, folks! BusterD 14:18, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks:)Jimmuldrow 23:27, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

name of states
what was the names of the states the join the civil war —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.109.174.22 (talk) 20:51, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

War Between the States
You know, it's really sad to see this page become more biased instead of less. At one point there was a line at the beginning of this article that said something along the lines of "This is the most common name for this war, but some disagree on the accuracy, blah blah (link to name page)". Why in the world was this removed? I agree with titling this page the "American Civil War" because that's what people know it as, but without something at the beginning clarifying the historical inaccuracy of this name (or at least the disagreement over this), it's just blatantly biased. The fact is that the only reasonable name for this war is The War Between the States. I agree with calling it Civil War because people expect that, but it's an absurdly biased pro-north name and this site is supposed to be NEUTRAL in theory. It's no different than calling it the War of Northern Aggression. There needs to be SOMETHING at the beginning of this article that links to the disagreement about naming page and whoever stops people from editing this stuff needs to not let it get deleted in the future. To be honest, if this site were really neutral, the name of the page would be The War Between the States (American Civil War), but at least keep the damned explanation link in, even if it's something tiny like (disagreements over name) with not further explanation, but it absolutely has to be right at the beginning. AlexMc (talk) 07:38, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Why is "Civil War" biased? Is this the "the South wanted to secede, not take over the whole country" argument? You might prefer "the War for Southern Independence," or something like that; and if the South had won, that would probably be the name. But the South lost. So the North picked the name. That's how history works. If Germany'd won WWII, do you think we'd have a "Holocaust" page? Since we're being picky, "War between the States" would only be appropriate if describing a war between (e.g.) Missouri and Kansas. "War between the North and South" would be grammatically accurate. Ifnkovhg 01:52, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

of course, then someone would come along and decry us for using "war between the states" because it didn't specify which states, etc, etc. "American Civil War" is the widely recognized name for the war and my head hurts reading all the discussions on it, isn't it time to drop it? SJMNY 22:58, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Just thoughts, but doesn't the name of the war depend on where you are. In the south it's called the 'War of Northern Aggression' which is true in the fact that the North invaded the South for no other reason but to bring it back to the country. In the north i've heard it called the 'War of Southern Secession' which is true in the fact that the south's secession was one of the major catalysts leading to war. The 'Civil War' is not a biased name, it is just a highly innacurate name. Civil war is defined as a war between kinsfolk of the same country. The south and north were no longer the same country but rather the United States and the Confederate States. They were two seperate country so it could not be deemed a civil war using the terminology as it should be. Xaedra (talk) 15:12, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Using your circular logic, no civil war is a civil war then. The moment a secessionist/autonomous/or nationalist group initiates hostilities thus creating a civil war, it is not a civil war because the country has been split (in a defacto sense) into two. The states, and indeed the Confederacy were defacte, dejure, and historically part of the United States up until hostilities (both politically and militarily) started. Your argument, of separate countries, would be better applied to the various Indian wars, where the United States claimed, but in fact had no defacto or historical precedence, to territories that were held by various Indian nations. SiberioS (talk) 02:41, 8 January 2008 (UTC)


 * X, regardless of what you've "heard it called" i think everyone can agree that right now in 2007 in te United States (whether in the North or South) "The Civil War" is the most common term. "The American Civil War" is likely more common outside the U.S., but in any case the title of an article should make it as easy as possible to find.  do you really think people type "war of northern aggression" into the search box?  secondly you state that "the south and north were no longer the same country...etc etc"  thats pro-cofederacy POV.  SJMNY (talk) 03:26, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Causes of Civil war in America
i deleted this section because you or some else added the same exact text above. SJMNY (talk) 20:02, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Relating to Huckleberry Finn
Im looking to relate the animosity between the North and the South, through the causes of the civil war, to the book, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Any ideas? And I'm counting this as a interview so please put the important citing information.

Xaedra (talk) 21:50, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Xaedra