Kornblith, by using a “counterfactual” thought experiment argues that the inescapable road to war caused by fundamental differences between the North and the South could have been avoided. In its place, he believes that it was merely the votes of 5,000 New Yorkers that could have avoided the war. Putting himself squarely within the neo-revisionist camp, he believes that if Henry Clay had won the 1844 elections, his avoidance of the Mexican-American war could have possibly prevented secession by retaining the Whig-Democrat political system and keeping slavery out of politics.
Clay’s hypothetical refusal to annex Texas (and later California) would have avoided the political dilemma of how to extend slavery or abolition to the newly acquired territories. The political tumult that resulted from the annexations of Mexican territory is the neo-revisionist’s indictment of politicians as the provocateurs of civil war. Kornblith writes:
“Without the Mexican-American War, there would have been no Wilmot Proviso. Without the Wilmot Proviso, there would have been no debate in the late 1840s over the status of slavery in federal territories.”
The failure of the Wilmot Proviso is identified as the genesis of the notion of a “slave power conspiracy” that galvanized the Republican Party in the 1850s. Furthermore, the Kansas-Nebraska Act (which also came out of the proviso’s failure and its replacement: “popular sovereignty”) is also cited as a reason for Lincoln’s switch to the fledgling Republicans. Thus, without the Mexican-American War, the Republican Party was unlikely to have elected Lincoln in the 1860 election, which was the proximal cause of the Civil War.
In addition, avoidance of the Mexican-American war would have pushed the principle of slavery “under the rug” and preventing it from becoming a national issue. Kornblith writes: “By avoiding war with Mexico, Henry Clay would have freed himself to focus on the economic policies dearest to his vision of an American system: maintaining a protective tariff, promoting internal improvements, and reestablishing a national bank.” Kornblith assumes that, much like today, it is the economy not high-morals that motivate the average politician. Without slavery to divide politics North-to-South, Kornblith argues that established partisan politics based on economic issues would have prevailed and would have prevented the sectionalism that we saw in Lincoln’s victory in the election of 1860. Partisan politics, which split the population along class-lines instead of by region, would have continued the series of compromises {horse-trading} that had kept the Union together since the Revolution.
With regards to the ultimate cause of the Civil War, slavery, Kornblith is less persuasive. He shows extensive research when debating solid future of slave economy in the South. In particular he cites Eugene Genovese and John Ashworth to support the conclusion that slavery was at a dead-end, and he cites Robert Fogel to support the conclusion that the Southern slave-economy was still viable. His views on weakening support for abolition coincide perfectly with our in-class discussion concerning violence towards abolitionists. Thus he concludes that slavery could have existed at least until 1900 under a Clay timeline. However, for much of the article in particular the ramifications of the Mexican-American War on the future of the political atmosphere, Kornblith does rely on the “what ifs” and postulations of the thought experiment. While he supports his answers to the “what ifs” with other historians’ opinions, one could easily select quotations to argue the counter-point.
Kornblith’s argument is a bold thrust against the fundamentalist view that secession was irrepressible, but it lacks the substantiation that would make it ironclad. Among many weak assumptions, the argument that the absence of a Mexican-American War would have preserved the two-party system is troublesome. Lincoln’s decision to forgo the Whigs could not have been as simple as a disagreement about the Kansas-Nebraska Act that resulted from war. His attitudes behind the quote: “A house divided against itself cannot stand” cannot be so easily dismissed. Even without the political fiasco in the West, the fundamental demographic difference still existed. Despite its soft spots, the article makes a compelling argument to take the Fundamentalist viewpoint on the causes of the Civil War “with a grain of salt”. Kornblith does a good job of convincing the reader that the political climate in 1860 could have been radically different – and more stable – were it not for 5,000 votes in New York 16 years earlier.
Tags: Kornblith, neo-revisionism