General Kelly was right
A failure to compromise caused the civil war not slavery. The issue that needed resolution was the moral, economic, social, and political consequences of slavery. But slavery was not THE CAUSE.
People not institutions cause wars. People who want war more than other alternatives.
I will preempt the eveitable question “failure to compromise over what? Slavery!” Imagine someone who fails to study for an exam, who then cheats, and who is then expelled. What caused them to be expelled? A failure to study or cheating?
Some perspective
Other countries ended slavery with a civil war: Britain, and Brazil, and Russian ended serfdom without a civil war.
SlVery was dieing out until the invention of the cotton gin, but no one says the cotton gin caused slavery.
Economic conflict between agrarian south and industrializing north led to a zero-sum situation. This problem also exacerbated the situation in Hungary and contributed to was in the mid 19th c.
The rise of uncompromising abolitionist Protestantism split Protestants into northern and southern groups exacerbating political crisis.
The conquest of half of Mexico exacerbated North Soith division.
The growing power of the north made southererns pessimistic over their future in the union.
Generations failed to solve the question of slavery or find a modus vivendi leading to ever increasing mutually exclusive positions.
The election of Lincoln precipitated the constitutional crisis.
Lincoln could have let the southern states secede.
Lincoln was willing to continue slavery to preserve the union and only made the eradication of slavery the goal in the later years of the war.
The problem with “slavery caused the civil war” is it removes human agency and makes war inevitable. War is never inevitable unless the participants want war more than any other solution. It is a high school answer to a doctoral question.
For full credit on my college history exams you need to write something like: generations of Americans failed to solve the constitutional crisis provoked by slavery made increasingly profitable by the invention of the cotton gin and by the split amongst Protestants with the uncompromising abolitionists. Because of this failure southern states saw no future for themselves in the union after Lincoln’s election and chose to leave.
“Slavery caused the civil war” will get you a big fat 0.
