Would the Civil War still happened if slavery wasn't an issue?

What if, for some reason, the South was ok with no slavery. Would the Civil War still have happened for some other reason (like if states rights was a bigger issue in the south or something), or wouldn't it have happened?

It depends on the butterflies.

If you're trying to keep butterflies to a minimum, so that this non-slavery US is basically "OTL as far as possible, just without slavery", then no, as there weren't any other comparably divisive issues.

However, with a POD in the late 18th/very early 19th century (which is the latest date you can get the South to be OK with no slavery), it's perfectly possible that US politics will develop so that some other issue becomes salient. After all, plenty of countries have seen violent conflict over centralisation vs. decentralisation, or over executive vs. legislative power, and there's no inherent reason why this couldn't happen to the US.
 

Vuu

Banned

Nah, not really

Simply, for whatever reason, massive agriculture is not practiced much, and traditional forms are practiced. The need for mass slavery is eliminated, but that south would be far different
 
Something would have to happen in the late 18th and early 19th centuries to essentially kill cotton as a major part of the Southern economy. Without it there really isn't an economic incentive to own slaves.
 
If you want a non-slavery related CW, flip it and go with the secession of New England and, with a butterfly here and there, an angry and politically powerful South turning the tables and marching North. Doubtful and verging on ASB, I'm sure, but it would take place around 1812.
 
The most obvious problem with attributing North-South hostility to some issue other than slavery (e.g., capitalism vs. agrarianism or tariffs vs. free trade) is that it doesn't explain why the West didn't secede...
 
The most obvious problem with attributing North-South hostility to some issue other than slavery (e.g., capitalism vs. agrarianism or tariffs vs. free trade) is that it doesn't explain why the West didn't secede...
lack of people until mid 20 century?
 
I actually think the likelihood of a civil war would have been relatively likely with or without slavery. Although slavery was without a doubt the primary instigator in OTL's civil war, there a plenty of issues that could have conglomerated into a large enough issue to fight an alternate war over.

If for instance, slavery was fazed out as part of the constitution with a timetable calling for the ending of it in the 1830's-1840's... next to impossible but not impossible, a civil war could have been sparked over issues actually stemming from the economy and states rights. I doubt that it would have peaked at the same time, but it could have peaked earlier or later given the butterflies such a change would make.

An economic crisis brought upon the boll-weevil in the south could have sparked massive protests from the vastly under-paid (as even if slavery is illegal, the elite of the South are going to do the next worst thing they can get away with) workers. An alternate Civil War could likely even be sparked by differing ideologies. Maybe an earlier different form of communism takes hold and there is a revolt, etc.
 
But why wouldn't (say) Iowa and Minnesota ("western" states at the time) join the South in seceding?
Because they where, for all the purposes of this questions, northern States thoroughly incorporated to the Northern states economic life, theyr where farmers, foodstuff producing farmers, yeomen farmers, with little, if any, use for slaves, and most of their produces was sold to the historically anti-slave states, is obvious they will not rebel against the people that help to maintain their way of live.
 
Because they where, for all the purposes of this questions, northern States thoroughly incorporated to the Northern states economic life, theyr where farmers, foodstuff producing farmers, yeomen farmers, with little, if any, use for slaves, and most of their produces was sold to the historically anti-slave states, is obvious they will not rebel against the people that help to maintain their way of live.

That the farmers in the Northwest had "little, if any, use for slaves" was my whole point...
 
As everyone else has said, THE Civil War would not happen without slavery.
However, I think there might be a slim - really, really slim - chance of A civil war. The most likely scenario might be the far Western states and territories, lead by California, becoming dissatisfied and frustrated with the control of Washington and the dominance of the Eastern states. I doubt if things could ever come to the point of succession, but it might have been a possibility.

Now that I think about, it still is.

Yeah, in a timeline where there was no clear defeat of a big secessionist movement, maybe the states west of and including the Rockies could secede in the 1890s over free silver, monopoly power, etc... and hope the Federals wouldn't find it worthwhile to march over the Rockies to get them back.

I doubt it but with a PoD where the US abolishes slavery shortly after the Revolution, a lot of things would be very different.
 
In a word no.

The war was to end the use of slaves in the south and by removing that you have more or less removed the civil war from our history books. I don't see anything else of the time that would force them to go to war. I could see maybe a few small fights over something else but never all out war. But to be fair I know next to nothing of the 1800's besides the wild west, alot of wars with native Americans, the phone, car, the civil war and lastly the intercontinental railroad.

You know the big things in US history. Outside of the US don't ask me I have no idea.
 

Isaac Beach

Banned
I’m Australian so don’t jump down my throat if I don’t understand American history very well, but I seem to recall a -now defunct- timeline by the Tai-Pan which involved the South seceding in the 1830s over a nullification crisis and I think it was unrelated to slavery. Here it is.
 
I’m Australian so don’t jump down my throat if I don’t understand American history very well, but I seem to recall a -now defunct- timeline by the Tai-Pan which involved the South seceding in the 1830s over a nullification crisis and I think it was unrelated to slavery. Here it is.

That was related to an OTL incident where South Carolina decided a tariff passed by Congress was unconstitutional and refused to abide by it. President Andrew Jackson threatened to march an army down there and hang the state legislature but cooler heads prevailed in Congress and a compromise tariff was passed.

If it had escalated further no other state would have backed South Carolina and I doubt South Carolina itself would have offered much resistance so it would likely be remembered as more of a revolt or minor insurrection like the Whiskey Rebellion was than an actual civil war.
 
No need to do that. It’s a valid question.

To expand upon my very short answer let’s look at the other so called “reasons for secession” and see why they are all red herrings used almost exclusively by Confederate apologists and Neo-Confederates.

States Rights - this is especially is ludicrous as the Federal government was on the side of the slave holders for the entire early history of the country. It enforced the Fugitive Slave Act and by way of the Supreme Court allowed for the expansion of slavery in the territories. By and large it was the Northern States that clamored for States Rights.

Actually, slaveholders were (and felt they had to be) fanatics about "states' rights" and "state sovereignty" long before the War. It started in South Carolina, after the Denmark Vesey affair of 1822. Vesey, a freedman, allegedly recruited numerous slaves in the Charleston area into a conspiracy to rise up and kill all the whites. In the wake of this, slaveholder paranoia exploded. South Carolina had a significant free colored community, some of whom were even wealthy; they were all run out of the state. South Carolina also enacted additional security laws, including a "Negro Seamen Act" which required free black crewmen of visiting ships to be held in jail till their ships left. When applied to British ships, this violated a treaty which guaranteed reciprocal treatment for British and American seamen. A Federal judge declared the Act void, but South Carolina basically ignored him.

It was at this time that Southerners took to fetishizing "States Rights"; and the Nullification doctrine arose. Basically, Southerners began to see that the Federal government might not always be 100% supportive of slavery. And they believed that if government authority was not an absolute solid front in support of slavery, that would encourage slave rebellion. Therefore, state authority (which they controlled) had to be supreme.

Calhoun wrote at the time of the Nullification Crisis that the tariff issue was a mere skirmish on the outworks; the actual citadel being slavery.

I would also note the 1831 birth and christening of future Confederate general States Rights Gist. (His actual name.)

Tariffs - while true that low tariffs benefited the South and high tariffs helped Northern states who wished to build native industry, there was never a time (barring South Carolina’s hissy fit) that the two regions couldn’t reach a compromise.

There were plenty of pro-tariff men in the South; Henry Clay was a Southerner. In 1844, running on a high-tariff platform, Clay carried five slave states, and averaged 45% in the other seven that had popular votes.

By 1860 the only issues that caused regional tension to any real degree were those associated with slavery.

Other issues caused tension, but only slavery was viewed by a significant geographical section as a life-or-death issue. Nothing less would have provoked secession.

So, NO. Without slavery there would have been NO CIVIL WAR.

Benjamin

Unless some other issue arose that a large number of Americans considered so important that they would rebel against the government to get their way on it. And I can't think what that could have been.
 
If it had escalated further no other state would have backed South Carolina and I doubt South Carolina itself would have offered much resistance so it would likely be remembered as more of a revolt or minor insurrection like the Whiskey Rebellion was than an actual civil war.

I dunno -- if SC just refuses to enforce the tariffs and Jackson sends down troops to force them, public opinion might well see him as acting tyrannically and other states might come over to SC's side. (Sort of like how IOTL lots of on-the-fence people switched to supporting the Union after Fort Sumter, and lots more switched to supporting the Confederacy after Lincoln's call for volunteers.)
 
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