War Between the States

I've read Charles Adams' book "When in the Course of Human Events: Arguing the Case for Southern Secession" and while it provides a lot of great info that other historians generally miss, I'm still not convinced that this was "solely a fiscal quarrel." The Northern invasion was certainly only for fiscal and imperial reasons, yet my study of the period seems to point to slavery as the cause of the deep South's secession. Adams claims that southern politicians were lying when they mentioned slavery as the cause... so my question is: why was this lie so necessary (if it really was a lie)? And what real evidence is there that this was a lie? Only the Georgia declaration of secession points to the tariff as a grievance and even there northern hostility to slavery is given as the chief grievance. Why did every other state issuing a declaration of secession completely omit any mention of the tariff and northern fiscal policy if that was the true grievance? It really would have been to their advantage to state the tariff as the number one cause as then Europe, particularly England would be more likely to support them. As far as I know, there is no record of anyone from the CSA claiming that this was a war solely over taxes. On the other hand, seceeding over slavery makes no sense in many ways. The fugitive slave law would have helped them more than a border with free states and there was no threat to outlaw slavery in states that already had it. Hummel's "Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men," claims that secession was a last ditch effort to save the dying institution, an effort that most certainly would have failed (thus the Northern invasion was without justification). I find his theory more convincing than Adams' but on the other hand I'm not so sure, mainly because secession seems to be a terrible method for preserving slavery. So lets discuss this a bit. I'd be grateful for any information to further support either theory.

I don't think it has to be either or. Throughout history, we find examples of events that people try to oversimplify, and this is another case. I think there were many reasons why the Civil War happened. Tariffs/taxes was only one. Slavery definitely played into it as well. But, IMO, more important than either was the age-old instinct, if you will, of the State to exert control. Lincoln's actions during the Civil War make Bush look like a wannabe, in terms of the sheer level of unConstitutionality (aka illegality). It was a Federal/executive power grab, pure and simple - a smack down of state sovereignty which was cloaked as the liberation of a people.

I do think it is typical for people to imagine that somehow, absent the Civil War, slavery would have persisted forever, which I think is ludicrous. Spilling that much American blood demands that people believe this, I suppose. But I think it likely that slavery would have been abolished by peaceful means within a couple of decades if Lincoln had not gone to war. Then again, I have not done a lot of due diligence on this aspect of it, so I could be off base in this assertion. Hopefully, some folks more knowledgable than I will chime in.

adams argues elsewhere that the slavery issue was sold to the elite to make them join in the cause. as you probably know, it was not uncommon for the slave holding northerner to be fighting a non slave holding southerner

Canada and other British colonies ended slavery without a civil war; given time America would likely have done likewise. From my perspective the US civil war was the result of a federal power grab.

 gab in Canada

 

At the time slavery was abolished in the British Empire the British Colonies in North America were mainly agrarian.  When you have one short growing season in a northern climate it was probably not economic to house and feed many slaves through the long non-productive seasons.  It seems that slavery was much more profitable in subtropical and tropical climates with longer or year round growing seasons.

Slavery and Taxes are only isolated issues of what the the south and washington were generally in disagreement over. What the "War of Northern Aggression" was really about, was POWER & CONTROL. It really is that simple. The slavery issue was simply one of those methods of control.
It was Washington (Federal Government) against the states and was a to decide who really had control over political affairs. To claim that over 600,000 men died to "Free the slaves" or "Defend Slavery" is erroneous, albeit some were perhaps enobled by such a cause but for the most part that was not their motive. Whilst at the same time, those who fought for the south, they for the large part did not own slaves. Slaves were a status symbol, one of wealth and power, something the average souther could simply not afford. For the south I think it makes sense to view it as another war of independence, southerners were fighting against northern aggression.
The winners of conflicts may rewrite history how they like, and slavery is a great politically correct excuse for a war that was to end a state's ability to secede.
Another great counter-point is to bring, why if the war was against slavery, did the emancipation proclamation not free any slaves in the border states (Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland, Delaware, and West Virginia), or any southern state already under Union control.

Slavery was already dying out, the only way it could (and was at the time) sustained was through state intervention. If at some point economic intervention was reduced, slave states would not have been able to economically compete, eroding the institution of slavery over time. It would have died out.