Post #95 – Why We’re Still Fighting the Civil War
You’re in an Advanced Placement U.S. History class that analyzes different approaches to history. As we have learned, history’s interpretation can change – use the formation of the Constitution’s interpretation as an example (Blog #93). History can also be used as a weapon to support or discredit opponents like the way Richard Nixon / Watergate, Frederick Douglass, and Japanese internment camps are being used to discredit President Trump. In the same way that history can be weaponized, the history of the Civil War has been discussed and fought over ever since General Lee surrendered to General Grant at Appomattox Court House in April 1865. Using the article, “The Way We Weren’t,” author David Von Drehle dissects the way Americans have viewed the bloodiest conflict in our history.
People in 2011 were polled in the 11 states of the Confederacy, and they answered that the primary cause of the Civil War was states rights, or in this case, the primacy of the states over the federal government, despite what the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause said. However, as we have seen with the recent history we’ve studied, states rights was not just a Southern thing. Northern states and cities resisted the new Fugitive Slave Law (and the federal government) and tried to foil sending slaves to their original owners. Eminent Civil War historians like James McPherson and David Blight state that almost everything in the events leading up to the Civil War dovetail w/ slavery.
Confederate soldiers and citizens, the losers in the conflict, had to mentally hold onto their “due pride” after fighting so hard, so they invented the states rights cause. Many historians, novelists, and filmmakers were willing to go along with this denial and write narratives that supported the states rights cause. Confederate generals wrote their memoirs in the post-war world which distanced their sacrifice from slavery and attached it firmly to something more noble (in their minds) like states rights. Insidious inside the states rights cause was the Lost Cause, the belief that slavery was a benign institution and that Black people had it better under slavery than freedom. Freedom, as defined by the profit-hungry, industrial North, included working for tiny wages and ruthless competition. In Jefferson Davis’s book about the war, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, he portrays the South as hopelessly outgunned and outmanned (which it was) and compares the North to the serpent infiltrating the Garden of Eden (the South) where slave owners lived with their slaves in paradise.
However, this is not to blame the Civil War on just the South. Yes, they were treasonous. Yes, they killed hundreds of thousands of Northern soldiers, but EVERYONE was complicit in slavery. As mentioned in the article, many Northern states, including Wall Street, benefitted dramatically from it. Check out the New York Historical Society’s online exhibit, Slavery in New York. There should be little doubt that the war was a long time coming, exacted a horrific toll on the nation, and still leaves us with a legacy that we are dealing with as a nation.
By User:Golbez – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link
Questions to answer:
- Why was the Lost Cause or denial of slavery as the central cause so attractive to Americans in the aftermath of the war (even up until the 20th Century Civil Rights Movement)?
- On page 40 (1) of the article, it mentions several different causes of the Civil War:
- Northern aggressors invading an independent Southern nation;
- High tariffs like the Tariff of Abominations;
- Blundering statesmen like Stephen Douglas, Roger Taney, Franklin Pierce, and James Buchanan;
- Clash of industrial vs. agrarian cultures;
- Caused by fanatics like John Brown and Southern “fire eaters”;
- Representive of a Marxist class struggle – Southern aristocracy vs. Northern factory workers.
Which of these is most persuasive as a cause and which is the least persuasive cause? Why?
3. The article focuses a lot on Bleeding Kansas as the pivotal point in which the Civil War seemed inevitable. Would you agree with this assertion? Why or why not?
4. What are some major arguments that poke holes in the Lost Cause? Think of movies like Birth of a Nation and Gone With the Wind and their portrayal of the South.
5. When and why did America finally start to break away from the Lost Cause mythology (a.k.a. The Dunning School of Post War America)?
1. The Lost Cause was attractive to Americans after the war ended because it diverted the attention. After slaver was abolished it would be a safe and logical prediction that in the future it would be regarded as an amazing thing, the abolition of slavery. Considering that a considerable amount of the country and government were in favor of the proclamation and the 13th amendment, southerners would be criticized and they would probably lose political power. Focusing on any reason excluding slavery as the main cause of the war would lessen the criticism and harm to the south and the individual because in the end, it was likely that they would be looked down upon by northerners because it was a common belief that slavery was immoral and a very bad practice that was bound to die out.
2. I think the least likely reason stated was that it was due to the tariff because it had happened 33 years before the war. There were many more bigger reasons for the war that happened a lot closer to the war and because it happened so long ago comparatively, it was a very small reason for succession, let alone a war. The most plausible reason was that it was due to southern fir-eaters. It makes sense that influential people talking about radical things would make people get on the bandwagon, which would later be regretted. Today we see many people hop on bandwagons, like social media trends, only to realize later how dumb it is.
3. I disagree that bleeding Kansas was the point in which the civil war was inevitable. It was a large-scale show of people who were willing to kill and do illegal thing for the abolition of slavery or the growth of slavery, but the war could’ve possibly been avoided if the Kansas-Nebraska act was repealed or revised. I think that the true point of no return was when South Carolina succeeded from the Union after the election of Lincoln. This is because this was when the Union was truly at stake and that was the original reason for the war on Lincoln’s part. Another reason why bleeding Kansas wasn’t the point of no return was because the cause of bleeding Kansas was for abolitionist/anti-slavery reasons, not for the unity of the U.S.
4. One major argument against the lost cause is that many of the alternative reasons they focus of lead back to slavery. Take the differences in agrarian versus industrial society; the south was a farming society because of the land but it was also why they relied on slaves for the labor. If they didn’t have slavery they wouldn’t profit as much as the north did from industry and therefore they wanted to hold onto their roots in slavery and farming.
1. The lost cause was attractive to Americans in the North and South for different reasons. In the North, most people, especially those who served, wanted to move on after the war, and realized that a smooth, peaceful reunion would mean not upsetting the former Confederate states with the issue of slavery and restarting another conflict. In the South, the former secessionists recognized the tenacity and courage the Confederacy fought with during the war and knew slavery might not be the best reason to give for having seceded and lost thousands of men who died in vain, so they came up with the idea that the seceding states were upset over the issue of states rights; with this, the North could also not be given credit for putting an end to an inhumane activity. To support this, Southerners found letters by former soldiers about their dedication to the “lost cause” and Southern filmmakers and writers replicated this in their work.
2. The most persuasive cause is blundering statesmen like Douglas and Taney because men like them brought slavery to the national stage and forced people to take a stance on slavery. These men made decisions that changed the argument towards slavery, with Douglas’ being the Kansas-Nebraska Act and Taney’s being the Dred Scott case where slavery could not be outlawed and the banning of the expansion of slavery was unconstitutional. The least persuasive argument is the Northern aggressors invaded an independent South. This is because the South technically fired the first shots of the war at Fort Sumter in 1861, and the way this is worded makes it seemed biased against the North because it shows the North as the region that initiated the war and the South was the victim and only defended itself.
3. I agree with the notion that Bleeding Kansas made the Civil War inevitable. In Kansas, armed factions of the abolitionist cause and proslavery elements fought to gain influence in that new territory, and this violence spread to the rest of the country and into the federal gov’t, most notably in the beating of MA Senator Charles Sumner by SC politician Preston Brooks. These acts of violence and brutality proved just how sectionalized the country had become and how serious and controversial the issue of slavery was. Along with other events, Bleeding Kansas also brought the question of slavery into the minds of every American and forced them to take sides on the issue; as they did, many in the North sided with the abolitionist or antislavery groups against the already-proslavery South. With the increasing violence and sectionalization of the country, America was on the road to civil war.
5. The Lost Cause school of thought started to fall out of favor in the US after WWII as the civil rights movement started gaining some steam. As African Americans started gaining ground towards equality with desegregation in the military, industry, schooling, and in professional sports, several authors and college professors released novels on black experiences of slavery in antebellum America and the buildup to the Civil War. As the centennial of the war neared, these books saw a spike in popularity as people rushed to learn about the deadliest war in USH. With this, most Americans came to accept the war was fought over the future of slavery, not states rights or some other BS, and the Dunning school of though lost credibility.
1. To me, the Lost Cause was created by the South as a reason for the loss of the war, an excuse really. They say that the main reason they were defeated was not because the North had a superior military or strategy, but because they simply had more people. If you’re asking me, it sounds like an excuse that a little kid would make, nothing more. The Lost Cause was so popular to Southerners, even into the 20th century, because it was something to blame the loss of the war on, other than themselves. Southerners couldn’t accept losing the war, so they needed to find something to take the brunt of the blow for them.
2. In the article, it mentions several different possibilities for the causes of the war, including northern aggressors invading an independent Southern nation, high tariffs, blundering statesmen, clash of industrial vs. agrarian cultures, fanatics like John Brown and Southern “fire eaters”, and a representative of a Marxist class struggle. I don’t see any of these as being the logical cause for the war. Personally, I agree with professor James McPherson of Princeton, who said, “Everything stemmed from the slavery issue.” When you think about it, all of the above topics are in some way related to slavery. Had slavery never existed in America, I am 99% sure the Civil War would have never occurred. As for the one I disagree with the most, it’s the blundering statesman. Politics are politics and you are always going to have statesmen who think their ideas are the best. It just so happened that the country is torn at this time and cannot withstand the statesmen’s beating of each other.
3. I think that Bleeding Kansas could be considered where the Civil War was inevitable, but there are definitely other things that happened that propelled towards it. However, if you look at the years 1854-1861, the years after Bleeding Kansas started all the way to the bombing of Fort Sumter, there is not much positive going on in the US. Charles Sumner is beaten, John Brown starts his rampage, Dred Scott is decided, and the Lincoln-Douglas debates, just to name a few. Since Bleeding Kansas, America was on a steady decline, racing towards a Civil War, and they could do nothing about it. That’s not to say that Bleeding Kansas started the war thought. Even when the Constitution was being written almost 100 years prior, James Madison realizes that it’s not a competition of big vs. little, it’s North vs. South. I guess they just hoped future leaders would sort that out. We all know what happens when they don’t.
4. The major flaw of the Lost Cause is that almost all of their reasons can be traced back to slavery. The Northern aggressors invaded the Southern states because they were against slavery and wanted to eradicate it. And the clash of industrialism vs. agrarians can easily be traced back to slavery as well. For both, you need to employ people, it’s just a matter of whether they’ll work for free and be abused or get payed and have rights. The South sides with the former and the North sides with the latter, causing what is pretty much the backbone of why the Civil War started.
1.The Lost Cause was attractive to Americans because it was an optimistic outlook after a significant defeat. From a material standpoint, the South had lost absolutely everything-its slaves were freed, the land confiscated and redistributed, the farms destroyed in the fighting, and the once prosperous cotton economy killed by years of naval blockades. The loss was not only economic, but also political. The Military Reconstruction Act forced the South into five districts ruled by the US Army, where the generals in charge of the states replaced representatives and senators. Socially, the South also had nothing to gain-their entire societal system and the image of the Southern gentleman dissipated.The only positive outlook on this from the perspective of a losing Southerner is “We tried.” It’s the same when you get a D on a test and your friends who get an A try to console you. The average Southern farmer doesn’t want to sit around all day and cry about a lost war that he had little to no influence over-it is much more appealing for him to praise what little progress the Confederacy made.
2. Foolish federal statesmen are likely to blame for the Civil War. While the fire-eaters may have wanted secession and Garrison’s court of radicals wanted complete abolition from the start, neither of these political movements could have gained any traction had the mistakes of Stephen Douglass (Kansas-Nebraska Act) or the Supreme Court (Dredd Scott vs. Sandford) never been made. The borders of the Confederacy and the Union follow the same lines as the votes for the Democratic and Republican parties, respectively. By taking this social and economic issue to the next level by introducing political measures and making decisions that provide a clear us vs. them rhetoric, politicians and judges gave radicals the justification needed to create a new political institution separate of the old one.
3.Bleeding Kansas is the point where the Civil War became unavoidable. Before this point, violence was cleverly prevented by the likes of Henry Clay, by using negotiation and compromise to reach a deal both sides could agree with. This is evident in the Missouri Compromise, the Constitutional Convention, etc. Bleeding Kansas showed the entire US that the people were beyond that point, and that Americans were willing to kill each other instead of negotiating. Once that point is reached, there is no other way to change the people’s mindset aside from letting so many people die that they beckon for a return to the old ways.
4.One of the holes in the Lost Cause is the deification of Confederate generals and politicians. Robert E. Lee, for example, lost the Battle of Gettysburg of his own accord, and even admitted that his tactical mistakes and blunders cost the Confederacy victory. Despite this, Southerners refused to accept Lee’s confession, opting to believe that Lee was doomed anyway since the North had more manpower and more weapons, but his resistance and the Union body count were testament to Southern grace. Second, Alexander Stevens, Vice President of the Confederacy himself, admitted upon taking office that the war was about slavery-he stated that blacks were naturally inferior and benefited in white servitude, and secession is unavoidable since the Union refuses to accept that. Third, many of the controversies leading up to the Civil War were about slavery. The Dredd Scott decision was about slavery, the Kansas-Nebraska Act was about slave states vs free states, the Missouri Compromise regulated future slave and free states… the list goes on.
1.) If this question is placed in the context of why the war started, then I think the “lost cause” was a popular main incite to the civil war, because it might depend on that the people with specific beliefs were not afraid to stand up to such an empty, and soulless action, the action of enslavement. Americans later, after the civil war, could easily see this as such a heroic stand-up, in that no matter who you are you could always stop something that you know is morally wrong. put this into the context of capitalism, and or a democracy (America) to see how it would work out. It’s like when you make an action to do something (stir up the thoughts of a democracy), and then one other joins in to see how it’s going, and helps you even if it is not on the front lines, and after other people see that brave someone who did something good (teach the unfree people of what life could be like as a free government of people, for the people), and people started to follow him for what he believes in, and so on. sooner or later it has spread into a wildfire that no one could stop (the position the pro-democracy anybody that were put into either run away from England’s evil rule over you, or stay, and have heavy taxes reduced rights and so on people start to emerge like George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson or even groups of people like the whole patriot thing that was going on at the time). Not even the most horrible of people (the loyalists, and King Georgie) could even stop them because now no one would even want to be in the same room with them (And after the war people looked up to how victorious they were in getting what they wanted a free government).
2.) The most persuasive cause for the civil war is the thoughts held by the south (because they started it), but it must be earlier on, something that was the first push of a snowball down a steep mountain like how most unreasonable wars start a child bickering or someone wanting something so bad that they steal it, or other stuff so blame the Politicians, and their whiney little servants that support them. (if you don’t get it by now I’m treating everything like it’s a little child no matter who, or what, and I am stuck picking one right now… so please) Why not?!?! It seems reasonable. There are two choices:
A.) Blundering statesmen like Stephen Douglas, Roger Taney, Franklin Pierce, and James Buchanan;
Or (expert copy, and past skills here folks).
B.) Caused by fanatics like John Brown and Southern “fire eaters”;
Both seem somewhat reasonable to me Blundering statesmen could have said something that would antagonize the other side, and the crazy fanatics could have acted upon this, and would have destroyed something (thoughts, hopes, dreams, and or some northern kid’s lollipop) or the action of fighting slavery (killing people to do so). It was crucial for an actual fight to break out for anyone to start to take notice of what’s going on around them and start cracking from their bliss shells. So, I have finally decided on option B or that it was Caused by fanatics like John Brown and Southern “fire eaters”; because they are the irrational people who like to take matters into their own hands, and go out with a bang! (literally).
Now time for the least reasonable cause for the civil war to start in which from the last section I could easily say that the least provocative the most disconnected from the war, the only obvious choice to me is:
-Clash of industrial vs. agrarian cultures;
This to me is the most logical reason because even though there was a slight difference in culture, and that the north was much more well dressed, and combed over, and the south was like an old man’s beard that was left to grow out. It was not their culture to have slaves it was the nation’s culture to own slaves. And even if it was the nation as a whole would be here to blame not just the south for slavery it would be every advocate for slavery, another thing that culture compared is that the south was filled with “gun happy, and reckless” people that only wanted best for the country, so they did anything in their power to keep it that way, but what about the “gun happy and reckless” immigrants (what everyone thought at the time), and they wanted a better life for themselves in which advanced America in any way. And the religion was not a key factor anyways because they all shared culture before, then got the extent of any religion the immigrants brought to the country was spread out equally. It was more about personal thoughts about the religion that affected viewpoints of other that later pushed for the civil war. anyways all of this is a nudge for that little snowball that rocked it lightly, and that snowball wouldn’t fall because overall all the force that was pushed into the snowball would eventually die out.
3.) Everything that bleeding Kansas included was very large but settled quite quickly compared to how far away the civil war was from then. And it seems like things that were brought up closer to the civil war’s start did more work to push it over the boiling point So I cannot agree. There are too many factors to include just to say that this was the series incident’s that just happened to freak out the nation so much that it went to drastic measures to start a war, most of these people were not known by many others so it wouldn’t have any political sway in that matter. The article focuses on this point in the topic most likely because it showed the start of any fighting with major deaths in it that was becoming closer towards the war.
4.) The perceptions that the south had to offer like the ones showed in gone with the wind where (correct me if I’m wrong I have only seen this movie once for middle school English and I personally wanted to forget the whole thing for it’s GREAT ACTORS). Slavery was an actual positive good, and every slave was treated well (or was that part the song of the south?? o well), and that when the civil war started it was all because of the north hating on what good slavery has brought. Movies like this showed the skewed viewpoints of the south. some of the things southerners might portray is that (and my favorite excuse) it’s a positive good, and others that might state slavery is the only reason America has actual money, and or that the slaves are treated well, and we teach them of these great religions (if your old school, but that one might have died out after a while). But any of these was just a way to get at least one more citizen to vote for anything good for slavery, like a poor piety crime like J-walking. (don’t ask why I have referenced J-walking, and piety crimes in one week)
1. The Lost Cause and denial of slavery were attractive to Americans after the Civil War because it focused people’s attention on the political aspects of the war. The Lost Cause was the belief that blacks were better off being enslaved than free. This idea would lead people to believe that slavery wasn’t as cruel as advertised, and use state’s rights as the main cause of the war. By using state’s rights as a main cause, southerners could blame the cause of the war on the north and themselves. The northern states wanted to nullify the Fugitive Slave Act, and the southern states wanted to keep slavery. People could argue that if the federal government allowed stronger state’s rights, than both sides would have gotten what they wanted. The south could also use the Lost Cause to improve other people’s view of them. It would increase their political power in the US because northerners wouldn’t criticize southerners as critically if slavery wasn’t viewed as horrible. Lastly, it would improve the view of foreign countries such as Britain of the US because slavery was portrayed as less cruel
2. The least persuasive cause of the Civil War is the clash between agrarian and Industrial societies, and the most persuasive cause is John Brown and the Fire-Eaters. The industries in the north didn’t really clash with the agriculture of the south. They actually worked together. The south mass produced cotton, and sent it to the north to be manufactured. The north then sold the goods to Britain, and this business was the most profitable in the US. Although the north didn’t want slavery, they couldn’t deny that it boosted the economy of the country. The most persuasive cause is John Brown and the Fire Eaters because they sparked the north and south to mobilize politically and militarily. John Brown’s murder of pro-slavery men labeled him the martyr of the abolition movement in the north. The raid at Harpers Ferry only increased the fight against slavery, and made John Brown a hero to northerners. Harpers Ferry also got the south to start training militias for future attacks. Lastly, the Fire Eaters sparked the secession of the southern states after Lincoln was elected.
3. I agree that Bleeding Kansas was the point where the Civil War was inevitable. The amount of anti-slavery and pro-slavery men that poured into Kansas after the Kansas-Nebraska act made conflict inescapable. It started with the pro-slavery raid in Lawrence, Kansas, and the beating of Charles Sumner by Preston Brooks. These 2 actions inspired John Brown to murder 5 pro-slavery men. The violent events that occurred in Kansas were the first conflicts over slavery, involving death. They also sparked the abolitionist movement in the north, and made the Civil War inevitable.
4. The Lost Cause explains that the outnumbered south heroically tried to defend slavery, but lost because the north had too many men. The major argument against this is the south would’ve never admitted their inferiority in population or weaponry to the north before the Civil War. The south also believed that Britain depended heavily on the South’s cotton industry, and that Britain would aid them in any conflict. Gone with the Wind and Birth of a Nation portray the Lost Cause by illustrating the south as peaceful and happy until the north started the war. The cruelty of slavery refutes both of the movies portrayal of the south.
1: The Lost Cause or denial of slavery as the central cause was so attractive to Americans in the aftermath of the war because Southerners wanted their cause to be thought of as noble. The Lost Cause helped these Southerners to cope with the social, political, and economic changes after the Civil War in the Reconstruction era. It also gave them an out from all of the criticism that could come in from people regarding slavery. Another reason that the Lost Cause was so attractive is that Secession was seen as a justifiable constitutional response to Northern aggressions towards state rights. This made it so that the Southern cause could be respected by people instead of berated.
2: The most persuasive argument as a cause of the Civil War is that it was caused by fanatics like John Brown and Southern fire eaters. John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry further separated an already divided country. Brown was tried for treason and became a martyr for the abolitionist cause after his execution. Southerners were on the other side of the spectrum as they were infuriated and they began to militarize in preparation for future raids. Southern fire eaters also were a big cause of the Civil War. Fire eaters were radicals who urged secessionism in the South. They were effective in doing this when they first targeted South Carolina, which passed an article of secession in December 1860. The least persuasive cause of the Civil War is that it was caused by a clash of industrial and agrarian cultures. Southerners thought that their economic system of plantation farming was great, which is shown with their belief that “Cotton is king.” The North had a different economic system that dealt a lot more with industry and business. These two cultures, industry and agrarian, worked well together for an ample amount of time before the Civil War even started. I think that there were many other greater issues that America faced in this time period. Issues such as slavery and radical people had a much larger affect on the country than the difference between industrial and agrarian cultures did.
3: I agree that Bleeding Kanas was the pivotal point in which the Civil War seemed inevitable. There was open violence going on in Kanas such as John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry and Preston Brooks attacking Charles Sumner in the senate. There was also a constitutional fight going on in Kansas regarding the writing of constitutions that would govern the state of Kansas. These arguments were based on whether Kansas should be a slave state. I think that the open violence and the fight over how Kansas would be governed were both good indicators that a Civil War would be coming for America.
5: After the Civil War, unlike in most wars, the losers did get to write the history of at least some of it. This wouldn’t stay the case though as America finally started to break away from the Lost Cause mythology when C. Vann Woodward of Johns Hopkins published The Strange Career of Jim Crow in 1955. The reason that the Dunning school of post war America lost its grip was because with the civil rights movement in full throttle, many felt the need to revisit this period in time. There was a flood of outstanding Civil War history books that were published, and the half-century since then has been rich in scholarship.
1. The denial of Lost Cause was attractive to the people because they wanted slavery to be “forgotten”. Every American knew that slavery was the cause of the war, but they tried to deny it, to make themselves “feel better” about themselves. Especially in the South, people tried to blame the war on other things, like State Rights, to get the attention off them and not get blamed for being the cause of the war. Slavery was a popular practice in the South, so the blame was obviously going to be put over it, which is probably the main reason for the denial of the Lost Cause. Slavery wasn’t a noble cause, for the people of confederacy, so they needed to find a way to look better and improve their honor by providing other reasons for the war. Historians went along with the new explanation of the war to hide their embarrass for so many deaths over a subject such as slavery. The denial of slavery was used to get the pressure of the war off the South’s shoulders, and try to find an argument to blame the North for the war.
2. There are many reasons for which the war happened, but I believe that it is least credible to blame the tariff of abominations for it. This tariff was provocative towards the South, no doubt about that, but it was passed in 1828, way before the war. This makes this cause less credible than the others, even if its tariff on the export of southern goods had probably something to do with the war. On the other hand, the most credible cause of the war is probably the North invading the South. The South could have stayed out of the Union and become its own country, and the North could have let it be. But the idea of a union was too important to the Union, so they invaded the Confederacy to get it back. Some bloodshed could have been avoided if everyone stayed in their place, without trying to put back a Union that clearly wasn’t meant to be together, everyone having different principles and practices.
3. Bleeding Kansas was surely a tragic clash between the pro-slavery and abolitionism, one of the reasons for the war, but it could have surely stayed in Kansas. The Kansas-Nebraska act started the whole problem, and led to the bloodshed, but this “mini-war” wasn’t directly the cause of the war. It surely addressed one of the causes of the war, but it didn’t focus on the real one, the fact of wanting to reunite the union. This was the primary reason for the war, so Bleeding Kansas wasn’t the stage where the war was inevitable. Since the event wasn’t on a too large scale, it was contained in Kansas, and laws could have been made to stop its affects. Instead nothing was changed, or nothing important like the Kansas-Nebraska act. Therefore the event itself wasn’t the point where the war was inevitable.
4. The denial of the Lost Cause has many weak points. Other causes claimed for the war, like social or economic problems try to separate themselves from slavery, but they can’t. Economics of the South was based on slavery, being the way they produced so much cotton and gained so much out of it. Slaves were the center of their farming lives and were therefore directly linked to the economical causes of the war. The “State Rights” excuse was also linked to slavery, since the Southern states felt oppressed by the Northern policies and trials to abolish slavery. Slavery was the cause of the war and any argument can be traced back to it.
1. No matter which side you supported, The Civil War was a very trying time for all Americans. Northerners and Southerners alike were profoundly impacted by the war and fought valiantly for their side. Once the war ended, the victors wanted to move on to bigger and better things, like rebuilding the nation. The losing side were understandably embarrassed after being defeated on their home soil. Confederates did not want to feel that their fight was in vain, yet at the same time they did not want to profess that they fought for the protection of the slave system, so they made it about something else. Denying that they went to war over slavery, Southerners (and many Northerners) said that the war was about states’ rights. As time passes, people still did not want to discuss what really brought on the war. It was a dark spot on American history and it became further and further behind us, people did not want to dig up the skeleton.
2. Aside from slavery, there are many events that people say led to the Civil War. Of these claims, the most plausible is that it was caused by fanatics like John Brown and Southern “fire eaters.” While people like these were certainly in the minority, their actions were so radical and loud that they were heard around the nation. Whatever John Brown did was sure to be printed in the news the next day. It wasn’t the individuals like John Brown and the “fire eaters” the helped cause the war, but the reactions that they brought out in people. Most people had strong opinions about these men and differences in opinion polarized the nation. It created a hostile environment and drove people apart, pushing us towards war. The least likely possible cause was a clash of industrial vs. agrarian systems. In fact, the different economic systems of the north and south dovetailed rather well and were efficient. The south produced the raw materials and the north made the final products. Both parties made money and worked together. In reality, I’d imagine that this would have helped keep the nation together as an interruption in this system would mean economic consequences for both.
3. It’s rather obvious that The Civil War really began long before the first shorts at Fort Sumter. We had long ago passes the “point of no return.” I do agree with the author that Bleeding Kansas was the pivotal point in which the Civil War seemed inevitable. When people rushed to move into the new territory, they didn’t move to make a better life for the family or for economic reasons, they moved to protect/attack the institution of slavery. Thousands of Americans were willing to uproot their lives and move hundreds of miles to take a stand in the great slavery debate. And as John Brown noticed, these people did not exist in Kansas as Democrats or Republicans, but solely as pro-slavery or free soilers. When people would go to such extremes when it came to slavery, when their position on the issue became part of their identity, the war became inevitable.
4. The Lost Cause school could not last because it was flawed from the start. The fact is that slavery truly was the cause of the civil war, so other theories can’t hold the test of time. All of the reasons provided by Lost Causers can ultimately be traced back to slavery. In pop culture, antebellum south was portrayed as some sort of utopia where slaves were all happy and there wasn’t an issue in sight. This simply is not true and people knew it. Their arguments were not viable.
“Why We’re Still Fighting the Civil War”
1) The Lost Cause was so popular after the Civil War because it gave the South and those
who supported slavery and opportunity to cope with the change. The Lost Cause was the theory that many southerners took ahold of that described the life of African Americans as better under slavery than in a free life. Leading up to the Civil War, during, and even after, the south continually critiqued the north for its poverty rates in industry. With this argument they were able to defend their case for the Lost Cause. Not only was the denial of slavery a coping method but it also allowed the former Confederate Generals, such as Lee and Davis, to try and keep their pride intact after a crushing loss. The Lost Cause is like someone losing a fistfight and then denying the fight ever happened and walking away. It was a way for the south to try and lick its wounds while sullenly trying to cope with defeat.
2) With the mention of several different causes of the Civil War, the most persuasive to me
was the clash between industrial and agrarian cultures. I feel that this is the most persuasive argument because it describes the base of the Civil War. The Civil War was caused by different beliefs that developed in certain regions of the country based on the culture. Although this does not mean that everyone in the north was an abolitionist and everyone in the south was pro-slavery, but it does highlight the influence of society and culture on human beliefs. The industrial culture focused more on individual work and mass production. But the agrarian culture focused more on the enslavement of others for labor and the production of agriculture and cotton among other things. The differences between these two cultures was the cause of the building tensions on the topic of slavery that, in turn, led to the Civil War. To me, the least persuasive argument made by this article was the Northern aggressors invading an independent Southern nation. This puts most of the blame on the north for causing the Civil War, whereas I feel that it was an equal aggression on each side. With the south seceding from the Union, it was no wonder that the north had to invade. But if the tables were turned the south would do the same, fight for what they believe in. No one can specifically blame either side, even if you disagree with their morals, because each side was fighting for what they believed was right.
3) I would say that Bleeding Kansas was the pivotal moment when the Civil War from that
point on became inevitable. I say this because I feel that Bleeding Kansas was the boiling point for the rising heat of tensions between the north and south. Before Kansas, there were aggressors on each side that carried on a mainly political and vocal battle on the issue of slavery. But Bleeding Kansas is the first major moment when abolitionists and pro-slavery people fought brutally against each other. Some may say that it was the first major bloodshed of the Civil War. Though it may have been bloodshed, it doesn’t necessarily declare Bleeding Kansas as the pivotal moment when the Civil War became inevitable. But the effects of Bleeding Kansas are what make it the pivotal moment for the Civil War. Soon after the Dred Scott decision quickly infuriated the northern abolitionists, increasing tensions, and the Harpers Ferry attack led by John Brown made southerners fear of rebellion, increasing tensions as well. It was Bleeding Kansas that created those events and was ultimately the point of no return for the Civil War.
4) There are many sensible arguments that are able to disregard the purpose of the Lost
Cause. The Lost Cause was based on the fact that a slave’s life was better than that of a free African American. This can immediately be reputed by the fact that slaves rebelled. With these out lashes slaves were trying to bring attention to the horrendous conditions that they had to face. To call backbreaking work in the burning sun, constant fear of punishment, and the dehumanization of oneself better than living life working hard at a job, but free nonetheless, is easily a lost cause in of itself. The Lost Cause also focuses on the Union only winning because of mass force and not superior military skill. But if you think about it, there are few wars that are heard about that are won by superior military skill. Yes, military skill can help to outsmart and enemy, but if you do not have the resources or people to fight than your chances of winning with just skill is extremely low. The north was well prepared, with an industrial society they were able to better supply their troops with food, clothing, and weapons. While the south was struggling to provide enough food to go around with their cotton centered agrarian society. In my mind, it was almost military skill in the north to have an industrial society that was ready for the demands of war. The Lost Cause was just a way for the south to cope with the embarrassment of losing to the north and it did not have any reasonable arguments made.
1. The denial of slavery was a popular idea in the idea of how slavery began because it allowed for the people to think about other things. The political battle with slavery was mainly why the civil war happened in the first place. Everyone had strong opinions but going into war over one main thing might have been something that could have been decided without the death of so many people. People might want to think about other things that could have started it. A lot of the country was for the the freeing of slaves and those who weren’t would have been punished for pushing so hard that it caused a war. So those people especially would have wanted to deny that slavery was the main starter of the Civil War.
2. The most pervasive cause could have been the fighting between people like John Brown and the southern “fire-eaters”. This is because with them fighting was already happening. People were already dying. The Kansas-Nebraska Act started a flame that was never going to die off quickly so it could be possible that those things started the Civil War. One of the lesser pervasive causes would be the blundering statesmen. Sure people making a stupid or careless mistakes could cause tension but most likely not something to cause a war over. If the people were so upset about something that one singular person did, than that person could have been taken care of without the death of thousands and thousands of americans.
3. Yes I would agree with this because it did cause lots and lots of tension between the north and the south. The Kansas-Nebraska Act sent people from both sides rushing to move into the area so they could sway the votes their way. Fighting broke out and in the case of the town of Lawrence, it was already getting violent. People from both sides were being murdered by the other side which put more tension into the air. People like John Brown were coming in as more backup and causing up riots and pushing people (the slaves) to rebel. This caused panic and even more tension from the south. This could cause them to lash out and bada bing bada boom you have a war in the making. This is why it was a pivotal point in the start of the war.
5. America started to break away from the Lost Cause mythology because America was becoming a whole nation once more with desegregation. Starting in around the 1940s people started to wonder why the war really happened. Books were released that talked about the slave system from the eyes of a slave for the first time. This probably shocked people into reality a little. They started talking about conspiracies that dealt with the pivotal point in the beginning of the war. All of this lead away from the denial of slavery as the beginning and started asking some questions to figure out what really started it all.
1.The denial of slavery was a something that many Americans did. It was attractive to them because they wanted to move, and forget about the past. After the civil war, it was established that slavery was morally wrong, and the South wanted get rid of this burden. The Southerners didn’t realize that the North was stronger than them. They thought that cotton would rise above all, and that Britain would come to their aid. They thought this because most of the cotton was exported to Britain. The South didn’t receive any aid. Despite having won the first battles, the North was able to win in the long run. The South was embarrassed by their loss, and wanted to deny their failure.
2. There were many causes of the civil war. The most persuasive cause was fanatics like John Brown and Southern “fire eaters”. John Brown aggravated the South. John Brown murdered many Southerners, and tried to start slave revolts with Harper’s ferry. John Brown angered the South. Souther militia started to train, and become more caution of their slaves. The South was ready to fight. Southern fire eaters wanted the South to become their own nation. They pushed for secession. This gave the South the idea of separation, and the idea that they can become their own nation. The least persuasive cause was the clash of industrial and agrarian cultures. These two cultures depended on each other. The South planted and made the cotton and other main exports. The North manufactures the cotton into more things that can be sold. The industrial North and the agrarian South worked together to make products.
3. I do agree that Bleeding Kansas was the pivotal point in which the Civil War was inevitable. It started the race to have slavery or not have slavery in the new territories. Bleeding Kansas started John Brown going on his revolts with killing Southerners, and Harper’s Ferry. It became a question whether you are pro-slavery or a free state man. Popular sovereignty made people fight for what they believed because they could do something about it. This was the first time people got to decide whether a state was free or not. After Bleeding Kansas, people wanted to fight more for their cause, anti-slavery or pro-slavery. Americans knew that people couldn’t go back to the way it was before. After Bleeding Kansas, Americans were determined to get their way.
4. The Birth of a Nation portrayed the Ku Klux Klan as helpful because they saved a white family from marauding blacks. This obviously portrayed the Klan wrongly. This was an example of the Lost Cause in movies. The KKK was not helpful, but a group of whites terrorizing people because of their race. The movie, Gone With the Wind, showed how the South transformed after the war. The movie was about the destruction of the pretty South. This movie showed the South as nice and pretty. The movies showed how the South went from a paradise to darkness. These movies showed the Lost Cause.
1. In the aftermath of the civil war, the Lost Cause was adopted by many Americans as the main reason of the civil war, not slavery. This thinking was adopted by Americans, primarily in the South because after fighting a long hard war, they had lost much of their pride. The Lost Cause was able to give them a moral victory and allow them to keep some of their pride. The Southerners also believed that the abolition of slavery would be a point of pride for years to come in the North. The Southerners didn’t want it to seem that they were on the side supporting what would eventually be an evil, but wanted it to be seen as standing up for state’s rights. The idea that slavery was not the primary cause was also adopted by those who didn’t live in the South too. Many Americans and historians also believed that slavery was on its way out, thus it couldn’t have been the main issue of the war. Other people around the country also didn’t believe that slavery had to be abolished and were neutral on the issue. These people were fighting the war for the Union of the country, not the slaves, thus, they wouldn’t think of slavery as the primary cause of the war.
2. The most persuasive cause listed for the start of the civil war is that it was caused by radicals like John Brown and Southern “fire eaters”. These radicals were inspired by slavery to commit their violence. Their fighting against each other for slavery or against would turn into the revolutionary war. If it wasn’t for them, Bleeding Kansas, the first major violence where slavery was the motivator, wouldn’t have happened and war may have been prevented. Most people didn’t care enough to fight about slavery, but these people caused the country to divide. The reason that is least persuasive on why the civil war started is that Northern aggressors invaded the independent South. First, wasn’t the first to attack, as the South made the first strike on Fort Sumter. Another reason is that the South was the one that broke away. Once that happened, the North was obviously going to try and regain control of the land and the South was going to fight for independence. Once the South seceded, a war was inevitable because almost all countries that gain independence get it through war. The North may have agitated the South before the seceded, but it didn’t do anything illegal to make the South have a legal reason for going against the government.
3. I would agree that Bleeding Kansas was the point in which war was inevitable. Bleeding Kansas was basically a civil war in Kansas. The only reason that this wasn’t a national civil war was because it was confined for the moment in Kansas and that there weren’t real soldiers fighting. Bleeding Kansas was the first major bloodshed between Northerners and Southerners. Once the blood had been spilled, there was no way that the divisions could be healed and it was only a matter of time for the South to secede, unless they had their way, which the North would never agree to. This was the point where neither side was willing to compromise and that the radical groups on each side would accept anything less than what they demanded since they had already been fighting for it.
5. America started to go away from the Lost Cause school of thought when the civil rights movement started to kick in after World War II. At this time, FDR called for equal treatment for workers in defense industries and in government, Harry Truman had desegregated the military and Eisenhower forcibly desegregated schools in Arkansas. The Lost Cause probably fell out of favor due to the civil rights movement. The Lost Cause was essentially a method to forget about the tragedy of slavery, the greatest civil rights disaster of all time. Now that people were starting to see blacks as equals, they began to realize how terrible slavery was to them. Now that they finally see this, they realize that slavery is an evil that some Northerners would pursue to extinguish. They also saw that with the emergence of rights for African Americans, and the Southern resistance to the civil rights movement, that it was much more than states rights and the Lost Cause that motivated the South to secede, it was the Southerners desire to stay on top of the social pyramid.
1) I think the main reason to why the Lost Cause was so popular in thinking about a central cause of the Civil War was because it was very accurate. I think that economics were the main cause to why the Civil War occurred and slavery was one of the subjects beneath the large pile of the beef between the North and the South. The Tariff of Abominations is a great example. The tariff was designed to protect the industries in the North. The Southerners didn’t like it because of its affects on the antebellum economy. The tariff set a 62% tax on 92% of all imported goods. The south was harmed by having to pay higher prices on goods not produced in the southern region. This lead to a lot of tension between the North and South. Slavery was technically an economic issue because it would drastically hurt the southern economy without slaves. The idea of the Lost Cause to the south was beneficial specifically to them because focusing on something else besides slavery would cause less criticism to them in the long run.
2) I think to the average person you are trying to persuade for the main cause of the Civil War, the fire-eaters of the south would be the easiest to persuade someone and the High tariff would be the hardest. The fire-eaters would be the easiest because they were a group of people who were trying to get people to support them in seceding the Union. Seceding the Union was the boldest statement by the south and seceding the Union is the most dangerous statement, which leads to war. Many people jumps onto this idea and more and more people joined the side of the fire-eaters, building a sort of rebellion to secede from the Union. The tariff would be very hard to argue for the main cause of the war just for the fact that the tariff was passed in 1828! This is over 30 years before the war even occurred and there were many things that happened after the tariff which lead to more of a debate.
3) I do not agree that Bleeding Kansas was the pivotal point in which the Civil War seemed inevitable. I think that the War could have been prevented if the Kansas-Nebraska Act was repealed. Bleeding Kansas was just some people that were doing bad things to try and get their way in making slavery or illegal in the state. Some other things that happened that made the Civil War inevitable were the tariff and South Carolina seceding from the Union. I already talked about the tariff in the first question, but South Carolina seceding from the Union was pivotal because it was the first time a state actually broke away from the Union. The people and states could fight and argue about topics, but when a state actually leaves the country, that is an extremely bold statement and most far-out response, so from there it would be hard to prevent the war.
4) Some of the major arguments that poke holes in the lost cause are the fact that most of the South’s statements lead back to slavery, and that slavery was a very popular way to blame the way. If you ask many people today about why the Civil War happened they would say it’s because of slavery, it is the most typical response. Many people like me before I read this article didn’t know about the Lost Cause because it isn’t very popular. This is one of the major downsides for trying to support this argument. Another argument is that many of the other blames for the Civil War generally lead back to slavery. For instance the economic issue between cotton, leads back to slaves because without slaves, cotton would be a slower moving production crop which means less money. They wouldn’t profit in farming as much as the North does industry.
1. I believe that Americans denied slavery being the main cause of the Civil War because we were to afraid to admit the bad side is us. People were too scared to admit to themselves and the nation that at one point in time, we fought a whole war just on the issue of slavery. Southerners were probably the ones who didn’t want to admit to the fact that slavery was the primary issue of the Civil War because the south believed and supported something that was so morally wrong that it would be easier to forget about it than to admit to the mistakes. Like the article says, not everyone was an abolitionist – even if they were fighting for the Union. Therefore since a lot of people didn’t care for the outcome of slavery, they may have rather not talk about it when discussing the war.
2. The least persuasive reason we fought the Civil War was “northern aggressors invading an independent Southern nation”. This statement is very untrue and honestly a little funny that people actually believed it. I say this because the south was the ones who started the civil war by bombing the Union’s Fort Sumter. Secondly, the south left the union illegally meaning that they weren’t defenseless and were asking for a war as soon as they attacked Fort Sumter. The most persuasive reason on the list is probably “Caused by fanatics like John Brown and Southern ‘fire eaters’”. I chose this one because it is in a way very true. John Brown and fire eaters were very radical people in their groups of believes. John Brown killed many people in Kansas and attempted to kill more in Harpers Ferry. In my opinion, he and people like him played a large role in starting the Civil War by escalating violence. Fire eaters were just like John Brown. They also escalated violence between the north and south much faster than it should have escalated and threatened to leave the union from the very beginning.
3. Bleeding Kansas was a series of events that did a lot of damage the Union and once they were done, it made the Civil War inevitable. Bleeding Kansas gave us a “sample” of what the Civil War would be like: murder, destruction, and violence. It showed the American people how much tension there is in just one state, meaning there is so much more tension within the entire Nation. It also showed people just how far people are willing to go to make ONE state a slave or a free state. Also in the Civil War a lot of homes and towns got destroyed, in Kansas, a few towns were destroyed, like Pottawatomie Creek. Once Bleeding Kansas has happened, America saw that this was the start of something much larger than Kansas, and it could not be undone.
4. The Lost Cause was basically a lie that Americans told themselves for many years so they could feel better about themselves. Like all lies, they could be revealed by pointing out a few facts. An example of this is Bleeding Kansas. People say Bleeding Kansas started the Civil War, however they miss out the fatc that they were fighting over slavery. Another example is how they say the south seceded because they wanted more State Rights. One can simply ask them people who claim the Civil War started based on State Rights what kind of rights were the states looking to have more of? The answer is they wanted to have more rights to make slavery legal in other states.
1. The denial of slavery or the Lost cause of the Civil War was extremely attractive to Americans in the aftermath of the war because it allowed whites to remain in the mindset, that even though the South had lost, and the North won in favor of abolishing slavery, whites were still superior. Some White America did not and still does not want to admit that slavery was the main cause of the war, because this country was based on the belief that every man was created equal and has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. If America were to publicly admit that, that initial statement was written only in favor of white men then this would prove to the world and itself that the experiment of America had failed in adopting a true country that lived, breathed, and preached for freedom for every person. White America also did not want to admit that now that slavery had been abolished and blacks were free, that society would have to officially abandon the bulging acceptance of white superiority in a country that had just fought and won a war started by the racial oppression of blacks. If America never had to acknowledge that those of varying colors were equal, in every respect as whites and that the Civil War was a war on the oppression of blacks by whites then, just as it has, would delightly ignore this truth. The true cause of this war has been buried under the jubilation of war “heroes” on both sides and how America brought itself back together after a tumultuous turn in history of states’ rights and most of white America welcomes this with open arms.
2.I believe that the most persuasive cause of the Civil War is the clash of the industrial culture of the North and the agrarian culture of the South because these differences are what made the two turn so harshly against each other. If the two regions had the same means of acquiring equity, then perhaps there wouldn’t haven’t been war because the entire nation would have supported each other. However, that was not the case while the North did make more money of the cotton that they had to process for the south and while not directly interacting with slavery, it made the North be able to act as if they were better than them because they were a step past slavery, by actually paying their workers. There were not a lot of blacks in the North, so it made it easy for the whites there to dislike slavery because they believed it was wrong, while remaining anti-black because they still did not have any means to mingle with them. The North’s outlook of the South is exactly why they resented the North and what eventually lead to the war. The resentment arose from the fact the North were also being hypocrites for demonizing the South for slavery while making more money off of their product (cotton) in the North. These issues all lead back the broad fact that North was able to capitalize more off of cotton because it had an industrial culture, while the South was not able to process their own product because their agrarian culture was solely built by having slaves farm large lands. Therefore, as tensions rose between the cultures the main cause of the war was slavery. The least persuasive cause of the war was Northern aggressors invading an independent South. This cause does not tell the full story of why the war started because it entirely implicates the North for the war while, painting the south as innocent. The South were too aggressors, they succeeded from a nation that tried to compromise with both opinions about what to do about slavery. The South was never meant to become independent because they were and are apart of the United States of America and every state should aim to bettering the entire nation, not just their own state. Both the North and South are to blame for the Civil War progressing as far as it did and just placing the blame on one side is not an accurate cause of the war.
3. I would agree with the assertion that Bleeding Kansas was a pivotal point in which the Civil War seemed inevitable because just as Governor Wilson Shannon stated in the article, the fighting that occurred in Kansas was in fact a civil war. War can only be permanently be solved by removing the cause and the cause of the Civil War was slavery. After the Kansas-Nebraska the new territories were able to choose whether they wanted to outlaw slavery or not and that is why many people flocked to Kansas. People went out of their way to travel to this territory in order to not only gain land, but to establish what their beliefs into a new area that would determine the future of slavery in America. Kansas set the motion for the what the actual Civil War had in store. Southerners wanted Kansas to become a pro slavery state even though there were only 2 slaves in the territory around that decision and many would never own one. However, the decision about the fate of slavery was a decision that held the fate of all pro slavery states, because if one territory could outlaw the practice that re enforced white superiority economically, and socially, then every state would in jeopardy of losing this demonizing system. Based on the belief in the Constitution that every man was created equally, America could not afford to contradictorily allow to slavery to further infect and bind itself to US history. When the proslavery constitution for Kansas was rejected by the government this further cemented in both the North and South’s mind that of the argument of slavery couldn’t be settled in one territory, then America as a whole would need to address it. And America did through the Civil War, that was sprung because of Bleeding Kansas and its significance to fully committing the country to debating about slavery and the rights of black people in America.
4. One of the major arguments that poke holes in the Lost Cause is the fact that it attempts to sell the public the lie that slaves were “happy servants” and that the word freedom was an evil idea that tainted the slaves. Blacks were not content with being enslaved by people who only looked down upon them because of the darker shade of their skin. Whites humiliated, demeaned, exploited, and murdered slaves’ entire sense of self. They raised blacks to internalized a sense of worthlessness, so the fact that the Lost Cause attempts to argue that blacks were “happy” and would have stayed happy if slavery continued is ridiculous. Slaves revolted all time, while not often in violent and public ways, but subtly to somehow retain some sense of retaliation against the people who brutally separated their families, and abused them. Another argument that pokes holes is that original idea of this Cause was to find a way for the South to not admit that they lost because the North was stronger than them. The North was an industrial society that was more than capable to feed and properly arm their soldiers, more than the South would be able to. The South had an agrarian culture that only succeeded economically because of the cotton harvested by slaves. Due to the lack of resources, other than clothes, the South did not have the ability to sustain their troops longer than the North. You can only win a war if you outpower your opponent through force, and resources. Without slaves the South would have been such an underwhelming force to fight against that the title of the Civil War would not even be appropriate.
1) The Lost Cause appealed to Americans after the Civil War because it excused them of any immoral sins. The Lost Cause includes that slavery benefited the slaves and that slaves were treat well and enjoyed slavery. Former slave owners or their descendants would be attracted to the Lost Cause because it justified slavery, denying it was immoral, and made them feel less guilty. The Lost Cause also makes them feel better about themselves because it says the North only won because they had more resources and soldiers. The Lost Cause defends the pride and the spirit of the South. It also defends the south because it says seceding was not immoral, it was the logical choice to make in a situation where the other half of your country is economically and socially different.
2) To me, the most persuasive reason was the clash of industrial vs. agrarian cultures. The North and South were very different economically and socially because of the industrial revolution in the south and the plantation life in the south, creating two different cultures, two different environments. They were almost like two different countries even before the South seceded. The least persuasive reason was the tariff because it was no longer as relevant. The other reasons were much more present during the time and more influential than something that happened in 1828 even though it may have raised tensions between the North and South when first released.
3) I agree that Bleeding Kansas was the pivotal point in which the Civil War seemed inevitable because it showed that two different groups of people could not both coincide in America happily unless the country changed dramatically. The South wanted more slavery, the North wanted to stop it and neither wanted Compromise. I think that after Bleeding Kansas another conflict between the North and South was inevitable; there was too much tension between the two. Both sides were very passionate about what they believed and could not be happy while the other was happy. The Nebraska-Kansas Act did not work and no other compromise would. There needed to be no slavery or all slavery.
5) America started to drift away from the Lost Cause ideology as time passed because more and more people were forgetting their connection to slavery. Americans needed time to adjust to reconstruction and that according to Republicans, slave-owners had committed great immoral sins. Only time would heal the wounds that the civil war left on Americans’ minds. This began to happen in the mid 1900s, although some still believe in the Lost Cause.
1. The Lost Cause argument would be more attractive to two different groups for different reasons. The first group are the Southern Confederate weirdos, and the second are the Northerners opposed to the Confederates. The Southerners would like this argument more because it glorified slavery and the “Southern way of life” before “those Yankees came in and ruined everything.” It also gave the Southerners a sense of pride and accomplishment for what they had failed to do during the war, and continued the Confederate nationalism, despite the fact the war had been over for a very long time. The Northerners would have liked this argument because it ignored most of the bad stuff that happened before the war, and allowed them a sense of deliberate ignorance toward what really happened, and so, as the saying goes, “ignorance is bliss.” This idea of the “Lost Cause” went away when America was over being its own victim and was ready to face its past, both the good and the ugly, and this happened during the second Civil Rights movement.
2. I think the most convincing argument of those listed is the blundering statesmen argument. People like Stephen Douglass were very influential during the antebellum time period, and as such, voiced opinions that only led to the division of the country. For example, Douglass, with his Kansas-Nebraska Act, showed his loyalty to the concept of states’ rights. But, with the very same act, he led to what may very well be the beginning of the Civil War with the conflict in Kansas. Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan only exacerbated the problems in the Nation either by being too divisive, or by not being able to hold any weight in the office they held, ultimately leading to the Civil War. I think the least convincing of the arguments given is the Marxist struggle argument. As the list says, there was a small struggle between the ideologies of the Northern “common-folk” and the Southern aristocracy, but there were also Southern “common-folk” and a Northern aristocracy. The Northerners almost always were against slavery, while Southerners were almost always for it. The idea that class struggles had anything to do with a war triggered by a philosophical struggle is absurd to me.
3. I agree that “Bleeding Kansas” was the point of no return for the Civil War. Because of the aforementioned Kansas-Nebraska Act, proslavery Southerners (mostly from Missouri) and free-soiler Northerners all crammed themselves into Kansas to try to come up with a government to see whether the territory would be slave or not. This cramming of the two hateful groups into such a small space over an issue which both parties saw as necessary to the continuation of the Union could only end in violence, which it did. The proslavery Missourians burned Lawrence, an anti-slavery city, to the ground, and John Brown responded by murdering five proslavery Southerners near him. By the time the United States reached violence as a means to decide its problems (and even if the problem was eventually solved peacefully), it had lost all morality to continue peacefully, making the war inevitable.
4. For starters, I’d like to point out that very few slaves thought that their imprisonment was hardly fair, and they thought that the free blacks, although discriminated against, had more opportunities than they did. Did people really think that slaves liked being slaves? It’s a barley logical fallacy. Also, the Lost Cause idea liked to take the attention away from slavery. But the cornerstone speech from Alexander Stephens says that slavery is the cause of the Civil War, and that the South was built of the principle of inequality, negating the idea that slavery didn’t have much to do with it.
1. The Lost Cause or denial of slavery as the central cause of the civil war was so attractive to Americans in the aftermath because Southerners wanted to hold on to their pride after their defeat. The Confederate army did fight long and hard and in order to have a heroic cause that was worthy of their heroics they changed the cause of the war from something as terrible as slavery to something more minor and simple like states’ rights. They also thought that the North would make them feel even worse about their loss through bragging which they didn’t deserve since the South had fought a good and courageous fight and the North also profited from slavery. The North also wanted to put the issue of slavery in the past since the North’s factories flooded with blacks and their descendants they too were happy to put the racial issues at rest.
2. The most persuasive as a cause of the civil war was the class struggle between Southern Aristocracy vs. Northern factory workers. The South depended on its free labor slave system for its predominant income and economy. The production of cotton through slave labor fueled the economy not just for the South but for the North as well, it funded its textile mills as well as enriched Wall Street banks. However, the line that separated the North’s industry and the South’s agriculture could only be temporary due to the new and taunting West. The Southern aristocrats wanted it in order to plant more and expand into fresher soil and the Northern factory workers wanted the land for more railroads for communication and space for more factories. The least persuasive as a cause of the civil war were the high tariffs. Although, like the Tariff of Abominations it did cause tension between the North and South due to their difference in industries and source of economy it didn’t create such a huge reaction as the civil war. It may have contributed to the creation of the confederacy and the war but it didn’t cause it because although the South was angry no one was quite that angry; they just decided to begin to nullify the laws that were “unacceptable” to them leading to the Nullification Crisis in 1832.
3. I would agree with the assertion that Bleeding Kansas was the pivotal point in which going to war was inevitable because the fight had already begun between the two regions of the country as well as the differing of opinions about slavery. The abolitionists from the North came to Kansas and alongside John Brown had attacks on pro-slavery men and their families. The Border Ruffians also came and attacked and fought with the abolitionists taking over the legislature and had a corrupt election creating a Constitution for the state that was corrupt and full of lies. As a result of the fact that the two sides of the issue of slavery and its territories were physically fighting and killing one another it seems to me that the war had already begun and it was just a matter of when the Southern states would secede and attack.
4. Some major arguments that poke holes in the Lost Cause are the brutality of slavery in Birth of a Nation and in real history. The slave owners were brutal and unforgiving and insensitive to what the slaves had to go through in Birth of a Nation and in real life. In Gone with the Wind they portrayed slavery as a positive good much like the southerners did leading up to slavery as a way to defend it. These two different ways of viewing southerners show that the cause wasn’t lost and that it’s clear to many that the civil war began over the issue of slavery.
Caitlyn M.
1) The Lost Cause or the denial of slavery as the central cause was so attractive to Americans in the aftermath of the war for several reason. Denial plays a part because Southerners were trying to figure out some way to to hang on to their pride after their defeat in the crucial war they just fought in. Also, in the South, people thought that the abolishing of slavery would give the North bragging rights which they didn’t think they deserved. So they made up a different excuse other than slavery for the start of the Civil War because it would look like the South was defeated for another cause. Additionally, several Southerners denied that slavery was the main cause of the Civil War because a significant amount of Southern soldiers were fighting and dying for slavery even known they had never owned a slave. This would show to the North that Southerners were fighting for something they never experienced. Also, another reason why the South denied that slavery was the central cause of the Civil War was because a lot of Americans were in favor of the Emancipation Proclamation and the reconstruction Amendments and it would give a bad reputation to the Southerners who fought for slavery which in result would give them less supporters for political positions. The denial of slavery as the main cause of the Civil War even lasted till the Civil Rights Movement because several whites didn’t want to admit that their ancestors fought for African Americans to be freed and treated fairly since they treated blacks with several racist actions and discriminatory laws.
2) On page 40 of the article, it states several causes of the Civil War. The one that I think is the most plausible is that the Civil War was caused by fanatics like John Brown and Southern “fire eaters”. I think this is the persuasive cause because there was actually killing involved. John Brown went on killing sprees with several other followers in order to make Kansas a free states and to keep Southern “fire eaters” and borderuffians out of Kansas. Also, the Southern “fire eaters” were only settling for slave states and succession from the Union. All of these incidents were in regards to slavery which we all know is the central cause for the Civil War. Additionally, in my eyes the John Brown attack can be seen as a very small Civil War battle which made the war inevitable because it showed how far people would go for their cause.
The most unpersuasive cause for the Civil War shown in the article was the clash between the industrial and agrarian cultures. This is the most unpersuasive because the industrial North was very dependent on the slaves in the South and vise versa. In the South, the slaves would farm and cultivate the cotton and it would shipped to the North where it would be put through a factory and made in textiles. This relationship was essential to both the North and the South’s economy and they couldn’t get angry at each other or businesses would fail.
3) I would agree with Bleeding Kansas a key moment that made the Civil War inevitable because it showed how far Americans were going to go to support their cause. Bleeding Kansas started with the looting and burning of the town of Lawrence by the pro-slavery forces. Then in response, John Brown and his followers killed five pro-slavery supporters in the Pottawatomie Massacre. These events showed that supporter were willing as to go so far as ravishing villages and even killing people. It also that the free state supporters and the pro-slavery supporters were totally on other sides of the spectrum from each other and were willing to risk their lives for their causes. This made the war inevitable because instead of the topic of slavery only being made in political discussions it was made through action and violence which sparked the aggression in both regions of the country.
5) The first time America started to break away from the Lost Cause mythology is when Confederate President Jefferson Davis wrote his book, “The Rise and Fall of The Confederate Government”. In the book he explains that he only went to war with the North because they were taking away his property (slaves). This explanation for the cause of the Civil War especially coming from a Southerner was a huge deal because it showed that the South was actually admitting their wrongs. However the most influential time when the Lost Cause mythology broke away from American culture was 2 years after President Wilson gave his speech in Gettysburg. At this time, D.W. Griffith was filming a movie based off Woodrow Wilson’s book of the causes of the Civil War. The movie had a huge budget but made a significant amount of money. The movie also reminded Americans of the cause of the Civil War which was slavery. Also other movies came out like “Gone With The Wind” which also touched on slavery.
1. The lost cause was very popular after the events of the civil war because it gave the southern population of America something to grasp to, with them just suffering a crushing north victory, they did not have much left. Denying slavery by the south helped them deal with the loss, acting like the events that caused the war that lost never happened and gave them a sense of relief and control. Without this, the south would have taken the loss a lot worse than they already had been and maybe could have started more arguments and violence if not for their popularity of the lost cause.
2. The most persuasive argument made would be the one saying that the civil war was caused by fanatics like John Brown and southern “fire eaters” because it was what caused many conflicts between the North and South the most. Never before had slavery been so divided upon in one nation, so obviously there were extremists on both sides. With both going in a step in the wrong direction of extreme violence due to such divide and controversy among the citizens of the United States. These extremist acts made by John Brown, being the most famous and notable but not the only one, made many southerners agitated and seek revenge and “get even” per say with the northerners. They kept responding to each other back and forth until most ended up involved in the conflict and creating substantial amounts of violence, leading to the war. Personally, I think slavery was the most direct cause of the civil war, but this was the next closest and most direct cause on the list
The least persuasive cause was the clash of industrial vs. agrarian. This is because these two industries and job fields, being very different in work forces and occupation, still relied on each other greatly to succeed in business in general. Without the industrial movements north, the south would just have fluffy cotton sitting around with no way to make use of it. With no agrarian advances as those of the south, the northern industries would have no product to shape or industrialize.
3. I would agree with the assertion that bleeding Kansas was a pivotal point in which the civil war seemed inevitable because it really highlighted what heat the south and north were in to. At this point, each region was flooding Kansas and with the mass of people with such different and divided opinion among each other, especially with the topic being slavery in the antebellum time, this sparked much violence. With the violence, there was also a mass destruction of property. This point may have been the most divided point in our nations history, due to so much violence and destruction over the subject, which made it a pivotal point and also made the war inevitable.
4. Some major arguments that poke holes at the lost cause are that the movies like “Birth of a Nation” and “Gone with the Wind” and many more movies depicting the antebellum slavery era, show that slavery was to good to be true. In these films and many more, slavery was shown as being non problematic, which it was not, and was one of the former most major causes of the bloodiest war in our nations history.
1.) The Lost Cause was very popular and attractive to many Americans after the war. One reason why is that the Lost Cause was an excuse to why the South had lost the war. They said that it was primarily because the Northern army had more manpower and resources than the North, and there was nothing they could do to win. Another reason why it was so popular was because it made the South almost look victimized by the North with the abolishment of slavery and “taking away of their states’ rights”. The southern states who had seceded tried to back that up by saying they did this because they did not get enough rights as states and not because the issue of slavery, southerners said it was a constitutional response to the Northern aggressions on Southern life. Finally, as a desperation move the Lost Cause tried to back up the morality of slavery. People said that the slaves were indeed treated well and looked up to and were loyal to their masters.
2.) In my opinion the most persuasive cause of the Civil War from the article was by fanatics, and mainly the fire-eaters. This group of people were the ones who urged for the separation of Southern states into the confederacy in the first place. The seceding states were one of the main reasons why the Civil War was started in the first place, so it would be obvious to say that the people who created this idea in turn were the reason the war started. The fire-eaters also wanted to reopen international slave trade that had been already be illegal. Slavery was another huge reason why the war was fought, and these fire-eaters pushed hard for it and even went further by trying to expand it with more slaves internationally. In my opinion the least persuasive cause of the Civil War is the one of agrarian vs. industrial cultures. This is because America had been running this way for many years before the Civil War and the Northern industries were dependent on the Southern farms and vice versa. These two different cultures which did differ in many ways, had relied on each other for years and I do not feel that this could change almost instantly causing a War.
3.) I do agree with the assertion that Bleeding Kansas was a pivotal point that made the Civil War inevitable. Bleeding Kansas which was a battle between pro and non slavery believers. As Border Ruffians came in and voted pro slavery while the North sent people in to vote against slavery the arguments sparked to a new light. After Bleeding Kansas, came many other disputes and fights between pro and non slavery believers including the Lincoln-Douglass debates and Charles Sumner being beaten. These disputes eventually led many Southern states to secede, later causing the Civil War to begin. People knew that something had to be done to resolve the issues going on in the North and South with slavery, but Bleeding Kansas was the point at which I believe people knew it was War that was the answer and it was inevitable The South nor North was willing to give up or compromise on their beliefs so War had to be coming.
4.) One major arguments that pokes holes in the Lost Cause is the fact that the Southern states indeed seceded because slavery was in jeopardy. For example the Kansas-Nebraska Act was all about a dispute of a state being free or slave. Border Ruffians even came into Kansas just to vote pro-slavery. Obviously this conflict was between people pro slavery and anti slavery, and later the secession of the Southern states had to do with the conflict over slavery. Another hole that can be poked at the Lost Cause is that slavery was a fair institution and slaves were treated well and looked up to their masters with loyalty. In Gone with the Wind slavery is very falsely represented and it makes the south look like a great place. The movie portrays slaves as being loyal to their masters and enjoying their lives as slaves. This is very false as when the word of Emancipation Proclamation came out many slaves ran away from their masters or stopped working as hard. Slaves also spoke of how horrid slavery was and how badly they were treated, like Frederick Douglass.
1. I think that the Americans denied the fact that slavery was the cause of the Civil War because they didn’t want everyone to see this side of America. We wanted everyone to see America as the best place to live and everything is going alright. Also, if we deny that this war was about slavery, the south wouldn’t look so bad. That is why I think the South was probably were everyone denied that it was about slavery. If everyone knew that it the war was because of slavery, the South would just look really bad and they did not want that. People also denied it because they didn’t want to admit that a long time ago we had a whole war on the issue of slavery. The article also says that not everyone was an abolitionist. So these people that aren’t completely against slavery didn’t really care about the outcome of the war. So, if they don’t care then they wouldn’t talk about it during or after the war happened. These main reasons are why I think people denied the fact that slavery was the main cause of the war.
2. I think that the least persuasive cause of the war is “Northern aggressors invading an independent Southern nation.” This statement to me is not true for many reasons. The Cicil War was started when Fort Sumter was bombed. The Confederates were the ones that bombed the Unions fort. So, if the Confederates were the ones that bombed the Union and started the war, how can you believe that the North started the war. Also, the South had just left the Union so that means it can be attacked and they were kind of asking for a war because they left. I think that the most persuasive cause is “Caused by fanatics like John Brown and Southern fire-eaters.” I think that this one makes the most sense because John Brown and the fire eaters were radical and it would make sense. He killed a lot of people to end slavery and I think that this plays a big role in starting the Civil War. Things just kept getting more violent and eventually the North and South decided to fight about it.
3. I think that Bleeding Kansas was the pivotal point in which the Civil War seemed inevitable. I think that because it was a huge issue that dealt with slavery. It involved killing people to try and end slavery. I feel that because of this event, the country finally realized that they need to fix this issue and they needed to do it then. If that event never happened I feel that Lincoln would have just kept pushing off the war and we could possibly still have slavery today. Bleeding Kansas showed the American people that there is tension about slavery. It shows how far people were willing to go to end slavery or keep slavery.
4. One major argument against the Lost Cause could be when the South seceded because they wanted more state rights. People argue that the cause of the war was for state rights but the South wanted state rights to make slavery legal so that is why its not a valid argument. Another major argument against the Lost Cause would be Bleeding Kansas. People usually say this was the start of the war but they always forget that in Bleeding Kansas they were fighting about slavery. People always say different reasons but usually all of the reasons they say all link back to slavery starting the war.
1.Deny the Lost Cause was attractive to the American people because they wanted slavery to be forgotten about. Every American knew at heart that slavery was the main cause of the war, but they tried to deny it, to make themselves feel better about themselves. In the South, people tried to blame the war on other things, like State Rights, to get the attention off slavery and not get burden of starting the war placed on them. Slavery was a popular practice in the South, so the blame was obviously going to be put on the South. That is why I see this as the main reason for the denial of the Lost Cause. Slavery wasn’t a noble cause for the people of Confederacy, so they needed to find a way to look better and improve their honor by providing other reasons for the war. Historians went along with the new explanation of the war to hide their embarrassment for so many deaths over a morally wrong subject such as slavery. The denial of the Lost Cause for Southerners, after losing much pride in the war, allowed them to keep some morality and dignity.
2.The most persuasive cause presented here is statesmen like Douglas and Taney. This is because men such as them brought slavery to the national stage and forced people to take a hard stance on slavery one way or another. These men made decisions that changed the argument towards slavery, with Douglas’ being the Kansas-Nebraska Act and Taney’s being the Dred Scott case where slavery could not be outlawed and the banning of the expansion of slavery was unconstitutional. The least persuasive argument presented is the Northern aggressors invaded an independent South. This is because the South technically fired the first shots of the war at Fort Sumter in 1861, and the way this is worded makes it seemed biased against the North because it shows the North as the region that initiated the war and the South was the victim and only defended itself.
3.Personally, I agree that Bleeding Kansas was the point at which the Civil War became inevitable. The amount of anti-slavery and pro-slavery men that poured into Kansas after the Kansas-Nebraska act made conflict unavoidable. It started with the pro-slavery raid in Lawrence, Kansas, and the beating of Charles Sumner by Preston Brooks. These two actions led John Brown to murder five pro-slavery men. The violent events that occurred in Kansas were the first conflicts over slavery, involving killing. They also sparked a huge abolitionist movement in the north, and made war the only option.
5.America started to go away from the Lost Cause school of thought when the Civil Rights Movement started up at the end of World War II. This happened because Roosevelt called for equal treatment for workers in defense industries and in government, Truman had desegregated the military and Eisenhower forcibly desegregated schools in Arkansas. The Lost Cause most likely was forgotten about due to the Civil Rights Movement. The Lost Cause was essentially a method to cover up the horrifying truth of slavery, the greatest civil rights disaster of all time. Now that people were starting to see blacks as equals, they started to realize how atrocious slavery actually was. Now that Americans finally see this, they began to realize that slavery is an evil that some Northerners would pursue to extinguish. They also saw that with the emergence of rights for African Americans, and the Southern resistance to the civil rights movement, that it was much more than states rights and the Lost Cause that motivated the South to secede, it was the Southerners desire to stay on top of the social pyramid.
1.
I think the Lost Cause or the denial of slavery as the central cause of the Civil War because people were avoiding criticism. Since the government and president (Abraham Lincoln) both were against slavery and created things like the Emancipation Proclamation and Amendments 13-15, Southerners knew that other people around the country would also be in favor of these acts of equality, so they avoided the subject of slavery altogether. They simply made it a less important topic than it actually was to avoid harm to pro-slavery people and it was likely that southerners would be looked down upon and seen as the antagonists in the war if slavery was seen as the reason the war started.
2.
I think the most probable cause for the war was people like John Brown and the Fire-eaters. These abolitionist radicals really brought out the subject of slavery and I believe the main cause for the civil war was slavery. These abolitionists or anti-slavery people basically ‘stirred the pot’ and got people thinking about slavery and the moral aspects of it. These people and their actions split the country in half and put the sides against each other. The least probable cause for the war was high tariffs such as the Tariff of Abominations, which was in 1828. I think this tariff was too far in advance, almost thirty years in advance. This would have caused more tension immediately after it was put into action, which did not happen.
3.
I believe Bleeding Kansas was a pivotal point that made the Civil War inevitable because it decided whether or not slavery should be continued into the territories. Before this string of event happened people and politicians only voiced their opinions, but this was the major moment when people started to fight about what they believed in. The effects of Bleeding Kansas were what created the stepping-stones to the Civil War. Soon after, the Dred-Scott decision happened, John Brown and his violence, and then Fort Sumter soon after.
5.
America started to veer away from the Lost Cause school of thought because the same issue was coming back into play: that every man was created equal. During the time after WW2, the Civil Rights Movement was starting and people finally started to see how bad slavery was and how bad they were treating African Americans and other colored people. This made people start talking about slavery and how immoral it was.
1. When the war ended, the Lost Cause was put into place. This was the punishment the south deserved after the war, and were forced to join back into the Union. But they had many restrictions that people denied for a very long time. There have been times in the wars that America was in where we one, and put restrictions on the country or side that lost. Think of Germany after World War I. This also happened after the Civil War to the Confederacy. People liked to deny the fact that this happened after the war because we were forced to be a country together, and we treated half of it differently. They also did this to slavery because slavery. People hated the fact that we used this, and we ashamed.
2. The article talking about the way that the Civil War has continued throughout history provided good evidence and APUSH facts. Some of these include examples of the reasons people thought the Civil War was even started, such as the fighting between agriculture and industrial economics, high tariffs, and even the movements of fanatics such as John Brown. But if I were to pick the strongest argument that could be used out of any of these example, it would be the fighting between the economics of the agriculture and the industrial businesses. The real reason that the Civil War started in the first place was because of slavery. Slavery was linked to everything that was a problem at the time. States rights, the economy, and many other things. But the economy was based off of the agriculture in the south. The south used slaves as their labor force, but meanwhile the north was using paying workers as their labor force, another reason that the two were fighting.
3. As a big part of the fight against slavery in America, Bleeding Kansas was major point in the fight. The article often refers to this point of fighting. They claimed that it was actually inevitable, and was a pivotal point. I would not say that this event was inevitable. Though tension was rising, and it only involved the extreme fighters instead of soldiers, Bleeding Kansas was not definitely going to happen under the terms that they were under. Since the whole reason this period of fighting happened was because of the Kansas-Nebraska act, the anti-slavery fighters could have done something else to push back with John Brown at the helm. Although John Brown was known for his violent past events he caused, he could have hit with his forces in different places versus how they entered.
4. For some reason, people like to see both sides of the Civil War. Usually film and entertainment focus on the side of the Union. But there are some cases where we actually get to see the side of the Confederacy. All the south was racist and fought for what they believed in, but what they believed in was not a good cause. The entertainment that shows the other side always likes to poke fun at the lost cause. You see this especially in Gone With the Wind, where they come back after the war and see all the destruction that happened to the south. The big plantations that made money off slave labor now were dried up and gloomy, and could not make any more money.
The Lost Cause was attractive to Americans after the defeat of Confederacy as it promoted their actions as something done for the sake of democracy; they presented their ideology as something patriotic and connected with the founding American principles. Former Confederates were sorely aware of their loss and longed for a more optimistic way to view the situation they’d been “forced” into with their entire lifestyle taken away. Southerners couldn’t admit the war was over slavery because they would have to accept the loss of slavery and the step that was being taken away from white supremacy in the country. They also couldn’t ignore the fact that (given the North had won the war and the general feeling in the North promoted free labor and antislavery) resistance wouldn’t be taken without retaliation. Confederates wouldn’t openly support slavery to avoid social ridicule, something that was reflected through the forming of the KKK and the steps taken by that organization to secretly (cowardly) target individuals without exposure.
The Marxist Class (North vs. South) demonstrated tensions that had existed for years and could be argued as a persuasive cause of the Civil War. From the founding of the country onward, tensions grew between the North and South over Northern wealth and Southern economic struggle (as demonstrated by the Federalists vs. Democratic Republicans, etc.). The North’s extortion of the South had been fought over for years and is too significant not be considered a primary factor. Blundering statesmen like Stephen Douglas are the least to blame considering that southerners rallied behind Douglas as he drafted the Kansas-Nebraska Act. The Kansas-Nebraska Act did have a significant effect on society; however, a statesman can’t be solely blamed for his actions, considering his primary job is to represent the will of the people, which Douglas did. Douglas had people backing him for the atrocious act he passed (which arguably led to the Civil War with the formation of the Republican Party and repression of democracy) who wanted the expansion of slavery to continue, regardless of the consequences. Only Douglas and others can’t be blamed for actions that were passed because of their supporters.
I agree that the time period surrounding Bleeding Kansas was the turning point of the war, however I disagree that Bleeding Kansas itself was the cause; the Kansas-Nebraska Act could be considered the point of an inevitable war. Bleeding Kansas, however, was a mini Civil War that was diluted by rumors. However, the Kansas-Nebraska Act was made very clear to the public and because of its painful clarity (many could even see the subtext of the document), the Republican Party was founding, distinction in the country was solidified, and the war was set.
The Lost Cause argument cannot be taken seriously when one takes into consideration things like the Ku Klux Klan. Despite southerners debating that the argument was over states rights, an organization primarily for white supremacy that wasn’t condemned and was wildly popular was founded. Another argument against the Lost Cause is the literally spoken words of the vice president of the Confederacy who stated in his cornerstone speech that the founding of the Confederacy was on the basis of slavery. In the Confederate declaration, the evidence lies. Diluting the exact words of one of the chosen leaders of the “nation” takes away all of the argument’s credibility.
1. The Lost Cause was so attractive to Americans in the aftermath of the war. It made the South seem less bad, It shifted attention away from slavery, and talked more about states’ rights. States rights was another problem going on in not just the South but also the North. It was also partially an excuse from the South as they were bitter from losing that. The Civil War had caused things like the proclamation and the 13th amendment being made which had abolished slavery (which was also favored by many). This showed that slavery was over and that it would be best just to get over it. It proved that slavery was morally wrong, and something that shouldn’t have happened. If the South had admitted to that being the main reason and for them to still be bitter, it would make them look bad. If states rights was the focus, it would make them seem less bad as lots could even see the struggles of that.
2. I would say that the most persuasive cause of the Civil War is by fanatics like John Brown and Southern “fire eaters”. I would say this because these people and their opinions brought more action and attention onto this scene/problem of slavery. John Brown got attention from the majority of the country when killing many. He did it for what he believed in, even though his ways were more violent, his view of slavery as a wrong got a lot of attention and helped anti-slavery people with their arguments. He did create more conflict between pro- and anti-slavery which was a main reason the war started. Along with him, extremist pro-slavery politicians like the Southern “fire eaters” caused a lot of attention, but they helped the pro-slavery side of things. They even helped urged the idea of secession of the southern states which was something that also helped the war start. The least persuasive cause would be the clash of industrial vs. agrarian cultures. I would say this because first the culture between the North and South were only a little bit different, and it worked well. The South had focused more on agriculture like producing cotton, while the North stuck to its manufacturing (even of that cotton) and businesses. This system had worked well for a pretty decent time before the war even happened.
3. I do think that Bleeding Kansas made the Civil War inevitable. I think that before bleeding Kansas, the country was steadily leading to the civil war but it still could’ve been avoided with getting rid of the Kansas-Nebraska Act and letting the Missouri Compromise stay intact. However, those things didn’t happened and let bleeding Kansas happen instead. Bleeding Kansas had attracted many conflicts between anti- and pro-slavery people. It showed how violent people (like John Brown) were willing to get for these things. It also showed that the country was starting to split the country even more.
5. America had started to move away from the Lost Cause mythology because everyone’s focus was going elsewhere and away from those things that were now seen as morally wrong by the majority. Like when the civil rights movements had occurred, discrimination was lessening. When people weren’t desegregated anymore people really started to wonder why it even happened in the first place. Like today we even get surprised since we are all surrounded with many diverse people. I don’t think a certain time is when America started to move away from it, I think it was overall just a gradual thing that changed as more things involving the topic of civil rights occurred.
1.) I believe that the reason that the “Lost Cause” or denial of slavery as the central cause to Americans in the aftermath of the war is as a result of pride of southerners. Everybody likes a winner, and after losing the Civil War, the South lost the real thing they were fighting for in the 13th,14th, and 15th amendments. But, were there any new amendments to say that states’ rights were gone? Sure the Supremacy clause was there, but it always had been, plus the 10th amendment didn’t go anywhere. Although it may seem crazy, is it possible that the southerners turned to states’ rights as their calling card because the north didn’t contest it after the war? In my book, it’s not a crazier idea than slavery in the first place. Southerners flocked to this idea to protect their pride and say that they were never wring in the first place.
2.) Of the reasons listed in the article, I believe that the most persuasive cause is that the war was caused by John Brown and southern “fire-eaters”. I think that this is the most persuasive cause because after the hanging of John Brown, southern fire-eaters began to associate abolition with the sentiments of the Republican party. As a result of this, the election of Lincoln enraged the southern states to the point of secession, which would not have occurred if not for John Brown and the fire-eaters. On the contrary, I believe that the least persuasive cause of the war is that which says the war was caused by the clash of industrial vs. agrarian cultures. Although this cultures may differ, the two working together makes for a harmonious economy. We can look to before the civil war where the northern factories were booming thanks to southern cotton being sent to mills. For that reason, I think the clash of cultures is a work argument.
3.) I would be entitled to agree with the statement that Bleeding Kansas was the point in which the Civil War became an inevitable conflict. The internal conflict in Kansas is nothing less than a mini-civil war in itself, as it was described by the Kansas territory governor. In addition, James Buchanan’s actions in trying to push forward the fraudulent constitution without popular sovereignty forced Stephan Douglas’ hand, which divided the Democratic party to the point in which it couldn’t win the election of 1860 by any means. In conclusion, Bleeding Kansas directly correlates to the splintering of the democratic party which led to Lincoln’s election, so Bleeding-Kansas is the culprit behind the Civil War.
4.) As we read in class, the Cornerstone speech by the CSA’s first and only vice president, Alexander Stephens, explicitly states that the cause of the secessions that led to the Civil War were directly caused by the slavery issue. We can also look at the secession documents of states like South Carolina that also list slavery as an issue. Finally, a major argument is that the reason that the southern states seceded in the first place was because Lincoln was elected, and the south thought that he would outlaw slavery because of the association between the abolitionist movement and the Republican party.
1. The Lost Cause or denial of slavery as the central cause was so attractive to Americans in the aftermath of the war because instead of portraying the Confederacy’s loss/defeat in a negative light, it portrays it as a moral victory. Slaves were considered to be “happy servants” and it made the slave-owners and their slaves appear as though they are on good terms, although everyone, including them, knew they were most definitely not. Instead of the Southerners denying the fact that slavery was indeed the root cause of the Civil War, they went along with it, and the North and the South published stories about happy times within slavery. Everyone in America, following the war, wanted to forget all that happened with slavery before. Thus, the Southerners and the Northerners, still trying to uphold their white supremacy, did not want to have to deal with aiding the freed slaves, and stories such as the one’s written by Harris allowed them to feel as though they did not have to.
2. I believe that the most persuasive cause is the fanatics such as John Brown or southern “fire-eaters”. I believe this because such radical people with such radical ideas cause an uprising and light a fire within people, causing them to react in ways that may seem a little extreme. The least persuasive cause, in my opinion, is the high tariffs. Although the Tariff of Abominations for example was designed to protect northern industry, and angered some southerners, it was not the biggest cause for the rise of tensions between the north and the south in my opinion.
3. I believe that Bleeding Kansas was the pivotal moment where the Civil War occurring seemed inevitable. The build-up of tensions between pro-slavery and anti-slavery forces. As a result of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Bleeding Kansas occurred, and the idea of popular sovereignty gave the people the initiative to get what they want, Kansas as either a slave state or a free state. As a result of the build-up of tensions, lots of people were killed. This bloodshed went to show that clearly the pro-slavery and anti-slavery forces were willing to fight for what they believed in now with force, and therefore a war was soon-to-be inevitable.
4. A major argument that can poke holes in the “Lost Cause” is the idea that slaves were happy. In Gone With the Wind, the South and slavery is portrayed from an obviously conservative point of view, where slavery is just what it is. Slaves were not happy to be slaves, and that is clearly shown through proof within slave revolts, interviews about slaves and their lives and their conditions. Although the Lost Cause wants to portray slavery as something good rather than evil, it is most definitely clear that slaves were NOT happy, and did not want to be enslaved.
. The Lost Cause school of thought started to fall out of favor in the US after WWII as the civil rights movement started gaining some steam. As African Americans started gaining ground towards equality with desegregation in the military, industry, schooling, and in professional sports, several authors and college professors released novels on black experiences of slavery in antebellum America and the buildup to the Civil War. As the centennial of the war neared, these books saw a spike in popularity as people rushed to learn about the deadliest war in USH. With this, most Americans came to accept the war was fought over the future of slavery, not states rights or some other BS, and the Dunning school of though lost credibility.
1. The Lost Cause or denial of slavery as the central cause of the civil war was so attractive to Americans in the aftermath of the war because white Southerners wanted to hold onto their pride after a devastating defeat. The Lost Cause is a method of denial in order to help preserve the legacies of their ancestors who fought so long and hard. Even to this day, many adults in former Confederate states claim that the Civil war was motivated by states’ rights, rather than the future of slavery. They also thought that the North would make them feel even worse about their loss through bragging, which just shows how embarrassed the South was about this loss. It is very obvious that slavery was the cause of the Civil War, but people just want to forget about the origins of the war and the war itself and the Lost Cause or denial of slavery is just a way for people to achieve this.
2. The most persuasive cause of the Civil War is that it was caused by fanatics like John Brown and Southern “fire eaters.” John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry and killing of five pro slavery men made him viewed as a hero in the North, and inspired many abolitionists to become more active in the fight against slavery. In the South, Brown was viewed as a lunatic, and he caused so much fear that the South began training their militiamen in order to prepare for future attacks. Southern fire eaters also were a big cause of the Civil War, as they pushed for secession and war throughout the South. The least persuasive cause of the Civil War is that it was caused by a clash of industrial and agrarian cultures. Northerners manufactured goods in factories, while Southerners used slavery to mass produce cotton and other agricultural goods. Both cultures were effective in making money, and the two regions even worked together to trade with other countries.
3. I agree that Bleeding Kansas was the pivotal point in which the Civil War seemed inevitable. Bleeding Kansas was the first time violence erupted regarding the issue of slavery. Actions such as John Brown’s raid and murders sparked a fury in Southerners that could not be forgiven. It forced people to decide on whether they were for or against slavery. Popular sovereignty baited people into voting and fighting, as this was the first time that the people themselves got to decided whether a state became a free-state or a slave-state. After Bleeding Kansas, people all over the country were inspired to fight for their beliefs, and the south even began military training in preparation of what was to come. The violence that occurred during Bleeding Kansas showed that the nation could not exist split on the issue of slavery, proving that the Civil War was inevitable, as the country needed to be in complete unison.
4. The major flaw of the Lost Cause is that slavery truly was the reason the Civil War broke out. States’ rights did not anger people to the point of violence, while abolitionists like John Brown were willing to die to fight the wrongdoings of slavery, and Southern plantation owners were unwilling to give up their economic system. Birth of a Nation and Gone with the Wind portray the Lost Cause by showing the South as a place where everyone was happy until the North invaded them. This is obviously not true as slavery was horrible and causes many slaves to try and run away or fight for their freedom.
1. The lost cause was an excuse created by the south to explain why the lost the war, instead of admitting that they were the worse army they would say that they were outnumbered and just didn’t have enough men to win the war. It was something that they could say to themselves to make themselves feel better about losing the war when really it is a bad excuse because they flat out lost.
2. The most persuasive cause is blundering statesmen like Stephen Douglas, Roger Taney, Franklin Pierce, and James Buchanan because these statesmen brought attention to the issue of slavery and riled up others to stand up against slavery. These men brought new ideas when it came to dealing with if a state becomes a slave state, does congress choose? Or do the people in the state decide, like when Stephen Douglas with Kansas Nebraska act were he fought for popular sovereignty, and Roger Taney’s role in the dread Scott act were slavery wasn’t allowed to be outlawed and banning the expansion of slavery was unconstitutional. The least persuasive argument is the Northern aggressors invaded an independent south. This doesn’t make sense because the war started when the confederate army attacked Fort Sumter in what was the battle of Fort Sumter in 1861. This argument is saying that a strong North just came and invaded a weaker and independent south, and all they did was defend themselves. This argument is saying that south was the victim when really they were the initiators of the war.
3. Yes I do agree that Bleeding Kansas is a point where you can say that the civil war was inevitable, but there are other important things that led up to that. From Bleeding Kansas to the battle of Fort Sumter was a series of bad events in the U.S, like Charles Sumner being beat by can in a court, John Brown, all the commotion that he causes, the Dred Scott case, and the Lincoln and Stephen Douglas debates. All these bad events happened in such a short amount of time and all of these are reasons for the saying the civil war was inevitable. I would say that bleeding Kansas was the first domino that fell in what would lead to the civil war.
4. The lost cause started to die after world war two right as the civil rights movement was beginning to start. African Americans were gaining equality with all the desegregation happening in schools and public places, and equal opportunities to participate in the military, and getting jobs and because of this educated people like professors and authors began to spread knowledge about the civil war through books and novels and as these books became more popular people began to realize that the civil war was really about slavery and this realization is what destroyed the dunning school of thought.
1.The Lost Cause was highly attractive to Americans in the aftermath of the war. Because the practice of slavery was now beginning to be seen as immoral, the Lost Cause gave many people (mostly Southerners) the opportunity to use anything other than slavery as being the primary cause of the war. Because they wanted to avoid the fact that slavery is what caused the war in the first place, they decided to stick with states’ rights as an alternative. The Lost Cause ultimately allowed the South, who lost the war on their own soil, to avoid coming to terms with their failure.
2.Throughout the six causes of the war listed in the article, I believe that the clash between industrial and agrarian cultures is the most persuasive. I believe that this argument persuades the most out of all six because the whole cause of the civil war was based off opposing views/beliefs on different topics. Different regions and cultures consisted of people who had completely different views as people in other regions. For example, the Northern region is mostly known for having abolitionists opposed to the Southern region which is commonly known for slavery. Because these two regions viewed the topic of slavery in different ways, the outcome resulted in the Civil War. Out of the six causes listed in the article, I believe the least persuasive argument was “northern aggressors invading an independent Southern nation”. I disagree with this statement because it makes it sound like the north should be taking all the blame for starting the war while the South had no involvement, when actually they really did. Also, it was not intended for the South to succeed from the union and because they did it came off slightly selfish because they didn’t have the nations interest at heart, only their own. I don’t think it is accurate to have either the north or the south take responsibility for the war because in reality, they both participated and allowed to war to get as bad as it did.
3.The article focuses deeply on Bleeding Kansas as the pivotal point in which the Civil War seemed inevitable. However, I don’t exactly agree with this assertion. I don’t agree because I don’t believe that there was one exact situation that caused the war to be inevitable. I believe that a series of situations/events caused the war to be inevitable, not just one in particular. Events that occurred before the war such as the Missouri Compromise, Nat Tuners Rebellion, The Compromise of 1850, Bleeding Kansas, Dred Scott v Sanford, and many more are all pivotal points that led to the war being inevitable
4.The Lost Cause was the belief that blacks had it better under slavery than in freedom. However, this just isn’t that case. This belief was the South’s way of defending slavery and portraying it as something to be seen as a positive thing, rather than immoral and completely wrong. Both “Gone with the Wind” and “Birth of a Nation” portray the South as happy until the war began. However, the movies reflection of the “happy south” isn’t a realistic image of how the south actually was.
1. The Lost Cause was very attractive to Americans after the Civil War because it was a good distraction the American people. Slavery was abolished because of the 13th amendment. This was an outstanding event to transpire out of a brutal war and slave system. Most people in the government and also the union were in favor of this amendment. Southerners would lose their power and were fearful of that. In order to divert attention, they focused on using another reason, such as states rights, to blame for the Civil War. They believed it would lessen critiques on their livelihood and lifestyle of having slaves to focus on a different cause. They did not want to be seen as below northerners for their slave system on plantations after it died out. Southerners wanted to keep their power and sense of being strong and in charge. They did not want to lose that so they drew attention to a different issue to cause the Civil War, the Lost Cause.
2. I believe that the least likely of those reasons to have started the Civil War was high taxes and the “Tariff of Abominations”. The “Tariff of Abominations” was a protective tariff passed to protect the industry of the north in 1828. I believe that this tariff was less relevant to beginning a huge war because it happened 30+ years before the war even began. There were more impactful issues than tariffs that led to the war like the extremists like fire eaters and John Brown who inspired their respectful sides and the clashes between the industrial north and agrarian south. I think that the clashes between fire-eaters and extreme abolitionists were one of the biggest reasons leading to the Civil War. They brought up radical ideals that hurt the other side and make tension rise. People were inspired by these extremists and joined sides. Today, this happens with politics, sports teams, social trends, and etc. Most realize following the trend is not the best idea and regret it.
3. I believe that Bleeding Kansas was the point where the Civil War became inevitable. Bleeding Kansas was a result of tension mounting in Kansas from the Kansas-Nebraska act. The Kansas-Nebraska act was a document that allowed popular sovereignty into the territories to decide if slavery would come in or not. It made the tension rise to a boiling point that it tipped the U.S. into inevitable war. True another possible tipping point could be when Lincoln was elected and SC succeeded from the union. I believe this is when war was about to start but the real point that pushed the country into war was the Bleeding Kansas violence and tension where the U.S. was not unified anymore, but split over social tension between the north and south.
5. The Lost Cause started to end in the US after WW2 when the Civil Rights Movement began to take shape. African Americans were fighting for rights and demanded to be equal to whites in society and end the segregation between them. African Americans started to gain more power in during the CRM and began to gain more rights. FDR called for equal treatment in the defense industry and government and Truman desegregated the military. The presidents contributed to helping the blacks gain more power and rights. The Lost Cause was the south trying to draw attention away from and try to make people forget about the tragedy of slavery. Now, people were starting to look into black’s history and see that slavery was horrible to the black population. As they go back in history it is revealed that states rights/ the lost cause was not the true reason why the war was started, but it was conflicts over the immoral institution of slavery. Southerners at this time couldn’t deal with their reputations being altered because they wanted to stay in power so they created the Lost Cause.
1.) For years after the Civil War, many Americans went into a state of denial that slavery was the primary cause of the conflict. This state of denial became known as “The Lost Cause”. I think that this idea was attractive to Americans because they did not want to believe the damage that a principle that they could have once supported affected the nation to an extent. The Confederacy was probably embarrassed that they had fought for so long and so hard, only to lose the war. People simply pretended that nothing big happened and focused on rebuilding the country as a whole. Southerners did not want to admit that they fought to protect the institution of slavery. Likewise, Northerners did not want to admit that they fought for the abolition of slavery. They said that they fought for the Union and job openings. Both sides shifted their attitudes to believe that the war was fought over a matter of states rights. As time went on, people still would not talk about the war. Americans did not want to go back in time and talk about the dark past.
2.) While a number of events lead up to the breakout of the Civil War, I think that the biggest trigger of the Civil War came from fanatics like John Brown and the Southern “fire-eaters”. The Southern “fire-eaters” burnt down Lawrence, Kansas. John Brown, angered, gathered a crew and called them “The Northern Army” and killed five innocent pro-slavery civilians in Kansas. This, to me, is the biggest lead-up to the war because it is where actual, physical violence took place. Brown coined his side as an ARMY. With two sides fighting, people were aware that Civil War had finally broken out. I think that the least persuasive cause of the war was that there was a clash of industrial vs agrarian systems. In reality, the two depended on each other to get along. The Northern factories needed to buy resources from the South to move along the process of manufacturing. People all around, especially Southerners, would buy the items that the North produced.
3.) I agree with the article that Bleeding Kansas was the pivotal in which the Civil War seemed inevitable. The Kansas-Nebraska Act sent Americans into a storm of arguments. People were upset that the balance between slave and free states would become messed up, especially if all new Western territories were going to have to decide on slavery by popular sovereignty. Some were mad that it disrupted the Missouri Compromise and created a new tension. When Kansas and Nebraska were up for statehood, things went wild. Americans moved across the country, not to claim new land, but to display their views on whether or not the states should be for or against the slave system. When Kansas became a slave state, two different Constitutions were brought up. The state was extremely divided. The events of the Kansas-Nebraska Act led to people displaying their opinions in violence. Some of these people include John Brown and the Southern “fire-eaters”. The war became inevitable as violence erupted due to the issue of slavery.
4.) The “Lost Cause” is flawed because almost every reason that people can come up with for the start of the Civil War can somehow be linked to slavery. You simply cannot leave out the matter of slavery as being an aspect of the Civil War. In certain productions and pieces of pop-culture, slavery is not shown to its full extent. Slaves are treated good in many films. As time goes on, however, the truths of slavery come out and now, more people understand that the war was fought over the issue of the slave system.
1. The lost cause was simply an excuse for the south losing the war to the Union. It essentially said that if the confederates had more people that they would have won. The claim sounds like more of an excuse than a legitimate statement. Although the Union had more soldiers than the Confederacy, you can still defeat a massive army with only a few men if properly trained and good strategy. Southerners were not mentally strong enough to handle the fact that they could have won the war if they were better prepared, so they used this excuse as a way of making it someone/something else’s fault. Overall this excuse was kind of childish and ignorant.
2. I believe that the most persuasive causation for the war was blundering statesmen like Buchanan, Douglas, or Taney. These men made arguing over the issue a national debate. The brought the debate into a spotlight and forced people to take a stand on the subject and judge their morals. The men made independent choices which sparked fires in abolitionist’s hearts to ban the practice or slavery. Douglas made the Kansas Nebraska Act and Taney decided the Dred Scott case. This aggravated the northerners causing breakout of war. I believe that the least persuasive causation for the war was the North invading an independent south. Although Northerners were angry and wanted the south to pay, the southerners ended up shooting first at Fort Sumter. The argument sounds angled toward the south like the North was huge bad guys and the South were small defenseless people without any chance of survival.
3. I agree that bleeding Kansas was the pivotal point in which the Civil War became inevitable. Border jumpers hopped borders to make votes weighted and this angered a lot of anti-slavery supporters. All the people fighting also were like first shots of the war. I believe that the big events in bleeding Kansas (Lawrence and Pottawatomie creek) were the big deciders. Between Confederates burning hotels and John Brown savagely raiding a village and tearing people limb from limb in front of their families, there was no way to stop the war from there on.
5. The Lost Cause School of Thought began to die out during the time period after World War II. African Americans were gaining civil and social rights. Neighborhoods, armies, schools, workplaces, and the public were becoming less segregated. Overall the government was passing laws to counter almost all of the thoughts of the organization. After these laws were passed people realized the real causation for the war(slavery) and that it wasn’t states’ rights which ruled out many thoughts of the Dunning school of thought.
1. The Lost Cause and denial of slavery as the cause of the Civil War was so favorable because white people think that it is a more noble way to put things. The white people of the South did not want to look like they lost everything because they believed that they were still superior to the blacks. The southerners do not want to say that slavery was the main cause of the war because they do not think that slavery was a problem. They thought that it was their “state right” to own slaves. They viewed slaves as their property which was basically said in the ruling of the Dred Scott case. So slavery was their “right”. The white southerners also did not want to look like fools. They wanted to say that the Civil War started over “states rights” because the rest of the world would not look at them so harshly. But in reality when people learn that they thought slavery was their “right” it still makes them look like fools. It was a way to make the south look noble and not look like total losers.
2. I believe the most persuasive cause of the Civil War was the fact that the North had more power because they were industrial based and the South not as powerful because they were agriculture based. I feel like the Civil War might have not happened at all if the entire country helped each other out. There would be no war because everyone if on the same page. But the North had more power over the South because they could make/produce more. The South mainly grew cotton which then they would sell to the North or overseas. Then that cotton they sold would be made into clothes or other items and they sold again. But the North would make more money because the items they made with the cotton would be sold everywhere and at a higher price. Thus the North would get more money. The North was free so the Northerners were anti-slavery. But because many of the people living into North where white so they would get a job anyway over the blacks. They thought that no person should be enslaved but, the Northerners were still anti-black. The whites did not consider them their equal. By the North being free and all of the people that work get paid that gave the white Northerners a big head. They thought they were better humans because every worker was paid and not enslaved and they worked in factories and not farms. This created lots of tension and with the help of abolitionist feeding the fire of that slavery is wrong this would of course lead to war. The least persuasive was that the Union (Northern aggressors) invaded the Confederacy (independant South). The North did invade the South but, the South were also aggressors. They left the nation because they wanted slavery and was mad that Lincoln was president. But technically they were still apart of the United States. The Confederacy never fully became an independent nation so the North was not invading another country technically. All in all both the north and the south played equal parts in why the Civil War happened.
3. The article focuses a lot on Bleeding Kansas as the pivotal point in which the Civil War seemed inevitable. Would you agree with this assertion? Why or why not?
3. I would say that after Bleeding Kansas the Civil War was going to happen. The territories Kansas and Nebraska were open to popular sovereignty for of the territories would be free or slave. The north would send people to move there and vote for the territory becoming free. But, that south had the same idea. Many people from Missouri would come over and squat on land. So technically they lived there and they could vote on laws. Kansas and Nebraska both adopted pro-slavery constitution. Even though there were like no slaves in either territory. People started to fight. Like John Brown or those Missourians that raided a anti-slavery town and burned it. It was an act of Civil War. The southerners were worried that if a territory could out vote slavery then states could too so, that made them fight more. Northerners were so horrified about what a slave goes through and were being influenced by abolitionist so, they were not going to stop fighting either.There was no way around the war at this point.
4. Major arguments that poke holes in the Lost Cause is that Southerners would say that slaves liked being slaves. That slaves were treated better than black workers in the north and that the slaves were protected because they were thought to be dumb. This was not the case at all. Slaves were murdered, beaten, over worked, raped, and treated like they were inhuman because of the fact that white saw themselves as greater. These murders would go unnoticed. Just like Frederick Douglass said in his autobiography he saw a slave murdered for no reason and nothing happened to that white person. They were far from happy. Some slaves would slow down their work or break things as a sort of revolt. There would also be actually revoltes like Nat Turners (but they never succeed). Also slaves would flat out just run away by using the Underground Railroad or by actually running on foot. I know that Gone With The Wind makes the slaves look happy and the Confederacy look like a good thing. In the soldiers looked noble and everyone loved them. The characters would talk about how bad the Yankees which makes the watcher not like them by default because they are in antagonist. After the war you see plantations destroyed and the watcher feels bad because that was the character’s home. You get a false sense of sadness for the south when the south was not a good place and kind of deserved this because of what they did to African Americans.
1. After experiencing defeat, people in the South could not accept the fact that they had lost the war over slavery. In fact, they were in such denial that the war started and ended because of slavery. The South was built up on slavery, and their economy was based on the crops that slaves produced. The South was nothing now with out slavery. So as a result of the denial, they confided in the Lost Cause and denied that slavery was the central reason of the war. The point of the Lost Cause was to shift the focus on slavery to state’s rights. The Southerners wanted to make slavery seem like black people were better off and deserved being en-slaved. The South wanted to look like good people and fighting for slavery did not help them with that.
2. In my opinion, I think that “Blundering states men” had the most effect of the cause of the civil war. For example, Stephen Douglass with his Kansas-Nebraska act and popular sovereignty, or Roger Taney’s Dred Scott decision. The decisions that these men made were very controversial in both the north and the south. People in the South disliked Stephen Douglass’s Kansas-Nebraska act because they didn’t want the future of a state to be based on popular sovereignty, but preferred the state be given to them. They feared that a non slave state would be able to take it. And for Roger Taney, his court decision really freaked out many abolitionist and anti-slavery Northerners. Roger Taney ruled that slaves are not citizen have no right to sue. People like this got both sides, north and south boiled up and ready to fight for what they believed in. I think the least cause is the clash of industrial and agrarian cultures. Because just like today, people in the city make their money and they don’t care about how people in the countryside makes their money. And I think that if we want a working civilization, we need bot an agrarian and industrial society. We need people to farm food for us to eat, and we need people to manufacture goods.
3. I do agree with the assertion that Bleeding Kansas was a no turning back point. Before, if there were any disagreement, compromises would be made. These compromises were peaceful and always ended with both sides some what fulfilled. When people flooded into Kansas, there were both pro-slavery, and anti-slavery men and women. There was a lot of conflict that did not get solved with a compromise, but rather violence. In my opinion, Bleeding Kansas was like a mini civil war. The reason for the fighting and violence was slavery, just like the civil war.
5. The Lost Cause mythology lasted for a while after the Civil War. But in the mid 1900s America was starting to become whole again, and people were wondering about the actual cause of the civil war. Since African-Americans were fighting for their rights in the mid 1900s, there were books like ‘Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era’ that were published (not saying this book was published to fight for the rights of blacks). But that book allowed for people to know the truth of the war and the reason for it, which was obviously the freedom and abolishment of slavery.
1. I believe that many Americans use the lost cause and the denial of slavery to preserve pride. In the south losing the war they were afraid that they would be criticized or seen as weak. Through the lost cause they can claim that it was not their fault that they lost the civil war as the never stood a chance. The north had more and better resources as well as many more people and as a result a larger army. By saying they never stood chance southerners figures they could get out of the embarrassment of defeat. People also deny that slavery was the cause of the civil war for fear of criticism. They realized that following abolition history would not look back on slavery kindly. Being the losing side it would be seen as the “bad guys” that were defeated by the heroes to stop the crime of slavery.
2. Of these possible causes of the civil war I believe that the most persuasive is that the war was started because of high tariffs like the tariff of abomination. This is believable because this is how many wars, including the revolutionary war, started. High taxation can often upset the people of a country especially if they feel that the tax is unfair. As it is true that this upset the southerners I find this reason to be believable. I do not believe that the war was caused by agrarian versus industrial cultures. This is because they were kind of reliant on each other. Without the agriculture the many factories would not have had the materials they needed and without the factories farmers may have nobody to sell materials to.
3. The article focuses on Bleeding Kansas as the kick start of the civil war however I agree more with the article “The Way We Aren’t”. The article states that the founding fathers saw regional issues coming and that the dispute between the North and South was somewhat inevitable. Ass the questions of the Missouri Compromise and Kansas-Nebraska act revealed issues in the expansion of slavery the war became more predictable. I believe that while it is not necessarily common to have a civil war whenever you have two groups of people with completely different cultures trying to share all the same values conflict is going to happen.
5. The lost cause was discarded by historians in the back half of the 1900s. Although there are still of course people who believe it, as an actually theory it has been moved aside and replaced. The new southern defensive position is that the north is an authoritarian force that was trying to push their ways on the southerners. In this version instead of making the southerners seem to weak it makes the northerners seem like the villains.
1. The Lost Cause way of thinking was convenient for southern whites to feel better about losing the war. The defeat endured by the south went beyond the loss of the war, as the Confederate army lost hundreds of thousands of men on their own soil. Their false tale is that slaves were well treated by benevolent masters in a flawless system and the southern fight as one of an underdog. This totally inaccurate “interpretation” was even portrayed in works by top historians and movies, in the many years following the Civil War. Slavery was an ugly blemish in our nations history Americans are not proud of and that will never be forgotten, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t try.
2. The option of these that is most persuasive as a cause is the blundering statesmen. Douglas, Pierce, Buchanan and Taney all fought hard for the right to own slaves. Not only did they approve acts and bills that furthered the terrible deed but they encouraged it, through words of white supremacy and property rights. They were also hard to compromise with and caused a further divide between Democrats and Republicans over the issue of slavery. The least likely of these cause is Northern aggressors invading an independent Southern nation. This is inaccurate historically because as we know Southern states voluntarily succeeded from the Union within the week of Lincoln’s inaugural address.
3. I agree with assertion that Bleeding Kansas was the turning point that made the Civil War inevitable. If slavery was able to freely spread to the west, it would become an American institution that was basically set in stone. These new western states were being voted on for whether or not they would be a slave state and people poured in to try to swing the vote. Conflict arose here, like John Browns raid Harpers Ferry between Abolitionists and Pro-Slavery advocates. It even got violent on the political stage, when Preston Brooks beat Charles Sumner with a cane over the issue. The high stakes in which this situation meant to the future of the nation and the violence that had broken out pointed towards war.
5. The lost cause mythology lasted for over 80 years before it was justly disproved. After World War 2, we see it slowly getting broken down until it finally collapses in 1955. Little steps were taken, including desegregation in the armed forces, schools and baseball. The final break away from the thinking was a piece called The Strange Career of Jim Crow by C. Vann Woodward. His 1955 book told the real story; the one of that from the slaves eyes. The coverup of the bitter mistreatment to the human race was fully exposed and the chain of defiance had broken.
1. I think that the Lost Cause was so attractive to Southerners and the people who were a part of the Confederacy because it allowed the Southern to keep their dignity and pride. The Civil War showed how split the country was over one single problem, slavery. It was humiliating to watch states secede from a union and then lose to the Union. It was more appealing to say that they were fighting for states right over the federal government instead of saying that they believed in slavery and what it stood for. When the Civil War first started they were fighting to keep the union, but as time progressed and the outcome of the 1864 election show cased, the soldiers were no longer fighting for the union, they were fighting for the moral stance on slavery. So having the North win the war and basically say that slavery is wrong, is embarrassing. So instead of realizing that they were wrong and the North was right, they decided that the Lost Cause was the answer to hiding their embarrassment and humiliation, and how morally wrong they were.
2. The most persuasive cause is the argument that the Civil War was caused by fanatics like John Brown and Southern “fire eaters”. The reason being that these men went to great lengths to prove their point. John Brown went to great lengths, and even attacked and killed pro-slavery people in Kansas. He also gathered up men to attack and gain weapons but failed miserably. This definitely caused a stir in the Southern states. People’s opinions on slavery were no longer debates and civil, people like John Brown resorted to violence to get their point across. This caused tensions in the South, and this led to the Southern “fire eaters”. These men were pro-slavery white southern men, and most were politicians. They threatened to secede and urged other Southern states to secede. This led to them actually seceding and became the reason why Lincoln started the Civil War, to keep the union. The least persuasive cause for the Civil War would have to be the clash between industrial v agrarian culture. I think this cause also ties into the high tariffs like the Tariff of abomination. The tension between the industrial North and the agrarian South was that the South made /benefitted less between their ties with the North. The high tariffs allowed the north and the industries up there to gain more money than the actual producers of the raw material. That also ties in with the clash between the industries and agricultural culture. The industries in the North were making more money that the farmers, but they both needed slaves to continue to prosper. Industries and agriculture needed slavery to continue to increase their profits. The agriculture community used slaves as a backbone to produce and harvest their crops. They relied on slavery so much, and the Industries indirectly needed the slaves to get their raw materials. So both of these cultures needed slavery, so why would they risk a Civil War when these two cultures have a system already based off of slavery? It doesn’t make sense.
3. I would agree on the statement that Bleeding Kansas was the pivotal moment that made the Civil war inevitable. A lot of things in history repeat itself, and I think if you look at past experiences where tensions build up and it only took one person to make a giant rebellion or statement to tip the balance. If you use the Boston Tea Party as an example, it was the pivotal point for the start of the Revolution. And like the Boston Tea Party it all started with one man. Bleeding Kansas was the pivotal point leading up to the Civil War because you can’t come back from killing people and it created more tension between the abolitionist, anti-slavery, and pro-slavery community. They were no longer civilly disputing and debating over the topic of slavery, they were ready to fight and stain their hands with blood to help free the African Americans. This was the start of violence and would only end with war. People could no longer hold in their thoughts and that’s when states started to secede and Abraham was elected. Things only got worse from Bleeding Kansas and it inevitably would end in the Civil War.
5. America start to break away from the Lost Cause belief was when African Americans started gaining and people started respecting their civil rights and liberties. I’m not talking about the 13th, 14th, or 15th amendment, because people would still have to listen to them but they didn’t respect black people. I’m talking about African Americans gaining their respect in society and no bias against them. People in our society still have racists thoughts about African Americans, but because our society is changing they are not allowed to say it allowed or else they would receive a ton of hate. I think that when people start to respect the individual rights of African Americans and that they are the same as we are, that’s when the Lost cause mythology really breaks away. The Lost Cause breaks away because you know that they fought for their rights. They weren’t given it and that what the Lost Cause is kinda saying. The African American community were just kind of given their rights, because the Lost Cause doesn’t explain how they got their rights. The Civil War is what they fought to get their fights. And that’s when people break away from the Lost Cause. I don’t think that you can definitely say an exact “when”, because to me it all depends on the person. But as a nation I would say that people could no longer use it as an actual belief was when the Jim Crow Laws were abolished. Because the Jim Crow Laws degraded the Black community for the longest time even after the Civil War, so when they were abolished it showed that out nation has accepted the fact that the Civil War was about slavery and that we are moving forward.
1. The denial of slavery as the central cause for the Civil War was so attractive to many Americans up until the 20th century Civil Rights Movement. This is because by denying this as the central cause, post traumatic memories seen in soldiers and their descendants can start to fade away. By forgetting about the slavery side of the Civil War, there is less to cause post-traumatic stress. However, people in the Confederate states also wanted to deny that slavery was the central cause of the Civil War. They didn’t want to look bad after such a hard long battle. Also, many veterans of both the Union and the Confederacy just wanted to move on and forget about the war altogether.
2. Out of the several different causes for the Civil War, I think the most persuasive is that of fanatics like John Brown and the Southern “fire-eaters”. Both of these groups have very extreme views. They want the most extreme version of their party’s views and are very disagreeable. John Brown, being a complete abolitionist, is easy to disagree with. Antislavery fighters would disagree with his views and so would pro-slavery Southern democrats. His raid on Harpers’ Ferry could push a lot of people over the edge, acting as the last straw. It is hard to agree with such an extremist. The same exact thing is true with the Southern fire eaters. They are radically pro-slavery and anybody with any hint of antislavery in them won’t agree with the fire-eaters. They very easily spark controversy as well. Both of these types of extremists are in my opinion the most persuasive of these causes for the Civil War. The least persuasive is the high tariffs like the Tariff of Abominations. Although some of these tariffs were seen as bad for the North or South, I don’t think there was enough anger behind them to spark any kind of physical battle. In order for a war to happen, something very extreme has to cause it, and I don’t see these tariffs as extreme enough to start a huge bloody war.
3. I would agree with the article that Bleeding Kansas was in which the Civil War seemed inevitable. It was the first time the uneasy compromise (the Missouri Compromise) had been broken. For the first time, the issue of slavery was being left to the people, and the nation started to see how passionate people were about slavery. It started a “war” in Kansas and this was just a sign of a bigger war that would eventually happen through the whole country. Bleeding Kansas was the last straw for many people, both pro- and anti-slavery. This can easily be seen as the tipping point from when the country was just sitting on an uneasy compromise to when people started to fight to expand or eliminate slavery in America.
5. After World War 2, when the Civil Rights Movement was revamped, Americans began to break away from the Lost Cause mythology. President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared that there will be equal treatment in defense industries and government. Just a few years later, President Harry Truman made a law that desegregated the military. Just after that, President Dwight Eisenhower declared that there can’t be discrimination in public schools. Jackie Robinson became the first African-American professional baseball player. Piece by piece the Lost Cause mythology was falling apart. The Dunning School of Post-War America fell apart in 1955 after the publication of The Strange Career of Jim Crow, and when the truth of the Civil War became more and more popular, the Lost Cause mythology fell apart completely.
1. The Lost Cause or denial of slavery as a central cause was so attractive to Americans in the post-war America because it was easier to forget what events occurred and see the war as something more glorious than it actually was. As the Article said, “Forgetting was the price of reconciliation, and Americans…were happy to pay it”. In the Aftermath of the war, the survivors of the war (Confederacy side) remembered they fought courageously and held on to that pride, for they only had fought for a lost cause. So southerners confided in writing novels and memoirs of their war accomplishments and used that as a device to move on, but in the process made themselves (the Confederacy) seem noble in their efforts. They tried to show themselves as having had better military strategy, and that the Union had only had more force, and backed the idea that the Confederacy showed chivalry and the fact that they tried their best against the powerful Union. Over and over again those Southern Confederate generals made their case, which in the process changed how history was perceived.
3. I have to disagree with the assertion that Bleeding Kansas was the pivotal point in which the civil war seemed inevitable. The Kansas-Nebraska Act seemed to really show the War’s inevitability more, because states out west could decide for themselves the issue of slavery. But this opened the flood gates from the north and the south, from each angle they poured into Kansas, which was, as the article puts it, “where the racers clashed”. There, the efforts from both sides to lean the state toward either slavery or free were powerful and forceful, and other politics didn’t matter as much, it was either pro-slavery or free soilers rushing in. Bleeding Kansas opened up opportunity for states to fight over slavery, so it was just a matter of time before the fight spread, but the Act was the reason why Bleeding Kansas even happened. It only makes sense, once the government gave those states such a substantial power, the state fought within themselves over the issue of slavery. Though it was a beginning (mini civil war) to what would happen later (Civil War), the Act was responsible for allowing states to fight over what to do. That in itself is an inevitable act, how the government could have thought states could sort out what states had slavery and what states were free.
4. One major argument that pokes a hole in the Lost Cause is the treatment of slaves. The logic that slaves “instincts” were to provide labor for their oppressor was ridiculously obscured. The fact that the southerners said that slaves had better lives were better being slaves rather than be free, which was blatantly proven wrong by all of the rebellions and efforts by the slaves to escape. The south was run by King Cotton, and without slaves, the South’s economy would completely alter, guiding southerners ignore that and focus on how great and heroic they were. In the movie “Gone With the Wind” Slavery feeds off of a Lost Cause point of view, while in reality slaves were not content with their situation and did not feel that they were below or had to serve the ‘superior race’ (white people).
5. America started to break away from the Lost Cause mythology or The Dunning School of thought after World War 2, when African Americans were getting more equal rights in industries and government. When civil rights and new presidents were forwarding America’s thinking and moving toward equality. But in the year 1955 when the book The Strange Career of Jim Crow was released, that was when the Lost Cause mythology truly died. That was where Woodward (the author) explained that segregation was not inevitable and that Jim Crow laws were not an immediate aftermath of Reconstruction, which was what the Dunning school believed. The Dunning School didn’t believe that blacks were able to be equal to whites and that Reconstruction was not good (with providing blacks with rights). With the Civil rights movement in motion, and the centennial of the Civil War coming up, different views of the past came out, pushing out the Lost Cause. People stopped feeling bad for the southern trickery of what they said happened.
The Lost cause or the denial of slavery as the central cause to the Civil War because people in the South we in denial. They didn’t want to accept the fact that they had done bad things to innocent people. They had already lost the war and cowardly come back to America but they had to hold on to whatever pride they had left. These Southern Generals who had fought so well and till the very end couldn’t live with the fact that the North now had bragging rights. So they switched it so the information was in their favor and benefitted them.
In my opinion the Civil war could have easily been caused by fanatics like John Brown and Southern “fire eaters”. Radicals like John Brown did everything they could to cause a scene, his work at Harpers Ferry is an example of that. He died a martyr instead of running away because he wanted to make a point to everyone pro/anti slavery that he and many others wont go down without a fight. He did this to rial people up and try and recruit them for the cause. Fire-eaters like Robert Barnwell worked to get a republican president in 1860 so they could secede. They wanted to leave and they should have known that secession would have caused war. These radical pro slavery advocates would use violence and harsh words to anger people and to get people to fight. Also in my opinion I don’t believe that Northern aggressors invading an independent Southern nation would have been a cause for the Civil War. Yes, there were some radical abolitionists like John Brown who did make a statement, and while he could have worked to start this war, he was mostly seen as crazy. Most of the North didn’t want war and like Lincoln wanted to do everything they could to prevent it. Plus, the Civil war wasn’t even started by the North it was started by the South with the Battle of Fort Sumter.
I think to some degree i would agree, while the Battle of Fort Sumter was the official start to the war, I think you could say that Bleeding Kansas – though somewhat violent – would be the symbolic start to the war. I think its safe to say that the war was inevitable either way, whether it started 5 years earlier or later, it was going to happen. The question is why did it start when it did and I think you could say Bleeding Kansas is the answer. The Kansas-Nebraska act angered so many abolitionists/anti slavery, like Abraham Lincoln. This wasn’t just another act, this act was similar to the Stamp Act in the repercussions of it. People became violent; people like John Brown who found any reason to go and make himself hear, and this was hacking 5 people to death. This was just such a controversial topic and the North was worried that the South was going to have total control and that Slavery would just continue expanding. This was a big issue in Congress as we learned with the Conspiracies of how the South was going to work to make America a complete Slave run country. So This Act brought so many people with all different views together and they all felt that their opinion was the right one. So of course this would end with war.
5. America finally started to break away from The Dunning School after World War II when C. Vann Woodward published The Strange Career of Jim Crow 1955. Then after that a few more books were published that were written about the same thing. Since the centennial was approaching there had been hundreds of books published and on the shelves that were about the Slave system and it shocked many people. The reason America broke away was because by then the Civil Rights Movement had gained a footing and people were finally being educated about the topic. People started discussing important topics and you couldn’t deny facts and evidence.
The Lost Cause or also known as the denial of slavery was kind of like an addiction to the white Americans, the Lost Cause enables them to keep same outlook on life and society, as they did before and during the war. It didn’t matter that the south lost, because one thing would remain white supremacy. A portion of Southerners refused to come to the conclusion that the prime cause of the Civil War was slavery, even to this day many deny that and say the war was fought over states rights. One of this country’s predominant beliefs is that every wo(man) is created equal, and if the United State were to come out and publicly say the Civil War was caused by slavery, then it would become evident that the American experiment was too good to be true, and the American dream was just that, a dream. Southern America reminds me of a child in this time period with child logic to go along with it. Let’s say a kid wants to go to his friends house , but his mom said no, the kid pretends his mom said yes and goes to his friends house anyways. So mom (the federal government) said no , but the child (the south) pretends she said yes (the south ignoring the fact that slavery was abolished and the slaves are free) just because the child can’t breath without seeing his friend (white supremacy).
What makes the most sense to me in terms of what cause the Civil War, would be have to be the fanatics like John Brown. John Brown was a man who simply killed men because they were pro slavery, there is no better way to create a stronger divide then to kill those who do not support your cause. After the John Brown incident the south only got stronger and worked together more than they already were. I think this was the point in history when the north and south truly became enemies. The clash of the industrial and agrarian cultures doesn’t even register as a cause of the Civil War for me, the two cultures might have had a few grudges against each other but truly the issues between the two cultures was that the farmers believed the slaves were better off imprisoned because they were “taken care of”, and if you went up into the industrial culture in the north you would see homeless people left in right. And the northerns thought that the slaves were being mistreated , which most of them were. It almost seems somewhat petty , and middle school to me definitely not the main cause of the Civil War.
I completely agree that after Bleeding Kansas war was inevitable, and it was also a pivotal point in the Civil War. Technically the fighting in Kansas was its own Civil War, it was American fight against American, all of the violence seemed to come back to whether someone was pro slavery or anti slavery. Bleeding Kansas really started when the Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed which allowed those who lived in those territories chose if they wanted to be a free or slave state. People travelled to Kansas to vote so one side could earn another seat in the senate, becoming more powerful than the other side. But as more people fled to Kansas the more tension started to grow, which eventually lead to violence, honestly you could think of Bleeding Kansas as the first battle in the Civil War.
The slaves were portrayed as “happy servants” and the idea of freedom infected the slaves judgement in the Lost Cause, but truthfully the majority were treated horribly and separated from their families, this is the least of the offenses the slave owners committed towards slaves ,so this is an huge argument that could easily poke holes in the Lost Cause. Hypothetically speaking if slaves were happy, then why did they try to run away to the north, this had been happening way before the Civil War began, so how does the Lost Cause explain that?
1. The denial of slavery starting the Civil War is popular after the war, it is popular after the war for multiple reasons, the first reason is because filmmakers and historians the century after the Civil War didn’t want to shake up the thoughts of the people who survived traumatic experiences during the Civil War. Another reason that the denial of slavery starting the civil war was popular was because they wanted people who fought for the confederates to hold on to their pride because they fought hard, and they didn’t want them to look back at the war thinking that they fought so hard to keep people enslaved, because after the Civil War it might upset them to look back and remember how hard they fought for people to be enslaved. These are some reasons why the denial of slavery was popular after the Civil War.
2. The most persuasive case is probably Northern aggressors invading an independent Southern Nation. This topic is very persuasive to start a war because The northerners invaded an independent Southern Nation, this would start a war because first off war hasn’t even been declared yet, the Northerners just violently invaded with out even letting the South know. I would probably say this case is most likely to start a war because of the violence. This is why I feel aggressive Northerners invading an Independent Southern Nation is most likely to start a war. The topic that is probably least likely to start a war is the Marxist class struggle, This probably won’t start a war because the North and the South aren’t in conflict in this situation, its just both Marxist classes from the North and South are on the decrease, it says nothing about being aggressive towards one another, and that’s why I feel that the Marxist class struggle is probably least likely to start a war.
3. Yes, I could agree with the assertion that Bloody Kansas started the Civil War, I could agree with that statement because that’s when things started to get violent between the pro-slavery people and the abolitionists, for example John Brown and other abolitionists killed pro slavery people in Lawrence, Kansas. I can see this as the start of the Civil War because this is when the main violence starts to happen between the abolitionists and pro slavery people. This is why I could see Bloody Kansas as the start of the Civil War.
4. Some major arguments that poke holes in the Lost Cause are that it made southerners think they got a moral victory out of the lost cause. They think this because in the lost cause and in other movies it made it seem like Southern Slave Owners had happy servants instead of slaves. Another argument that seemed to poke a hole in the lost cause was Amnesia, Amnesia gave the South confidence about the war, and giving the South confidence about the war could possibly end in them attacking the Northern states before the North attacks the South. These are some arguments that have a possibility of poking holes in the Lost Cause.
1. The lost cause is so attractive to the south because they wanted a noble cause as to why they were fighting. The lost cause implied that succession was a justifiable response for the states in the south. The lost cause helped the people of the south deal with the social, political, and economic effects of the reconstruction period. The lost cause also sounds like an excuse as to why the south had lost. Some of the main points say that the south lost because they inferior firearms and manpower. The lost cause also puts blame upon specific people. The south used the lost cause to give them excuses to help them cope with the aftermath of the Civil War.
2. I think that the most persuasive cause is blundering statesmen like Stephen Douglas, Roger Taney, Franklin Pierce, and James Buchanan caused the war. These men made all of the people in the United States take a side on slavery. Each if these people made certain decision revolving slavery that did a very poor job of finding a compromise. I think that the least persuasive cause is high tariffs like the Tariff of Abominations. To me tariffs seem like an unreasonable argument as to why the south succeeded from the Union. Also, the tariff occurred a while before the Civil War, so I do not thank the south cared too much about them at that point. Compared to all of the other reasons this one is the worst explanation for why the south may have started the war.
3. I agree with the assertion that at the point of Bleeding Kansas that the Civil War was inevitable. When the physical conflicts started I feel that there was no turning back. From the point that the Bleeding Kansas incident occurred, everything started to escalate. There started to become more violent incidents which eventually led to the Civil War. I think that Bleeding Kansas proved that the people of the United States did not want compromise.
4. A major flaw of the lost cause is that the whole thing can be traced back to slavery. The cultural differences of the north and the south proves the lost cause wrong. The cultural proves that the south relied on slavery to make money. The movies like Gone with the Wind also portray the south as a quiet and peaceful place where slaves were treated well until the war started. The cruelty of slavery proves the portrayals of these movies to be wrong.
1. The denial of slavery as the central cause of the war was an attractive proposition because there was healing that needed to be done. The South had lost and must abandon its former institution. In order to move on, the South can’t still be focusing on their grievances. Calling it a lost cause makes it sound like an inevitability that slavery will end. This thought process allowed the South to feel better about its own adequacy. The Union needed to make the South feel like it belonged. Rubbing salt in the wounds of a defeated people will not incur these feelings.
2. I would say that blundering statesmen, such as Stephan Douglas brought about slavery as a key issue in the states. Now everyone had to pick a stance on slavery, or something may go wrong for their way of life in the next election. He also brought about the Kansas-Nebraska act, which was a disaster. The new state became a warzone, because people were willing to make it that way. James Buchanan’s lack of ability to deter violence and secession also did, the succeeding president now had to deal with half of the country seceding. I would say the least likely cause would be the North invading an independent Southern Nation. It’s a ridiculous proposition that half of the nation seceding from the Union, followed by an act of war (the bombing of Fort Sumter) should be considered an aggression on the Northern part.
3. Bleeding Kansas shows us that there would inevitably be war. It shows us how far people were willing to go to either prevent or continue slavery. It happened to be the case that people were willing to kill for their cause. I think Bleeding Kansas is the best indicator that there would be a war, and perhaps it was the final nail in the coffin that sent the nation to dispute.
5. I would say that by the time of the civil rights acts of the 1960s were coming about, the nation was forced to realize, if they haven’t already, that the cause of the civil war was slavery. It was the Southern White complex of always needing to feel racially superior. We saw this after slavery due to not thorough enough document writing and as blind eye turned by the judicial system of the country. Jim Crow laws kept the freedmen not free in the South. Being sent to prison would result in slavery-like positions for the prisoner (if they were black). The civil rights acts forced the south to abandon these laws, and the nation could then reflect and see the true cause of the war.
1)Many Americans, especially Southerners, were attracted to the idea of The Lost Cause, because it helped ease the pain of defeat. The Lost Cause offered the belief that the Confederates were fighting for what the believed in, against great odds, in a truly heroic act. It helped create ease of mind that they were not acting treasonous, but they were standing up for what they believed in. The Lost Cause also supported the idea that Slavery was not the primary cause of the Civil War, but that it was “State’s Rights” and “Southern Pride”. Americans, still mainly Southerners, also were attracted to this idea because it made it seem like they were fighting for something that was near and dear to them. For years, even all the way up until the Civil Rights Movement, people liked this idea because it made the Confederacy/South appear to be less racist and appear more as a martyr for State’s Rights.
2)The article listed many possibilities as causes of the Civil War, although I believe that the main Cause listed was Blundering statesmen like Stephen Douglas, Roger Taney, Franklin Pierce, and James Buchanan. These men were politically famous nationwide and often preached their views on slavery. This made the American people feel that they needed to have a stance on slavery and choose a side, either pro-slavery or anti-slavery/ abolitionist. Now that the country was divided like this, many major disagreements were now put in the open, which would create conflict. Slavery was the main cause of the Civil War, but Blundering statesmen like Stephen Douglas, Roger Taney, Franklin Pierce, and James Buchanan, helped push this issue. The least persuasive cause that the article offered, was Clash of industrial vs. agrarian cultures. I don’t really believe this was the cause, because it shouldn’t have sparked any conflict. The North’s main economic source was industry and the South’s was agriculture, and neither region could function properly without the other. The North needed the Southern cotton to run their textile mills and the South needed the Northern industrial products.
3)I believe that Bleeding Kansas was a pivotal point in what the Civil War was inevitable, because it showed how different the Northern and Southern mindsets were. Bleeding Kansas consisted of violent exchanges between proslavery and antislavery/abolitionists, due to the vote occurring to make the newly acquired Western States slave or free states. These confrontations contained violence and ruthless passion, that proved that these two regions were very separate. It seemed that there was no going back from Bleeding Kansas and war was inevitable.
5) I believe that America started to drift away from the Lost Cause theory, around the time of the Civil Rights Movement. This movement helped highlight how mistreated blacks were\are at that time, and helped signify the unjustifiable acts slavery. The movement also helped people understand that the Confederacy really was about fighting for slavery and not heroically fighting for their rights. This time helped people understand that the South lost a war in which they were fighting for an inhuman, unjustifiable atrocity in American History. Although many Americans dropped the idea of the Lost Cause, I believe many held on and are still grasping to it today. Throughout the country, I believe there are still many people who stay strong to the belief of “Southern Pride” and “States Rights”, and honor the confederacy for their heroism.
(The first one I posted didn’t copy correctly from the word doc I typed it in.)