I examined the Houston Tri-Weekly Telegraph from September 12th, 1863, and found an article entitled “Glorious Affair at Sabine Pass,” which appears to be the initial account in the Telegraph of the battle and its outcome. It is a relatively brief chronological account of the battle, consisting of one paragraph, and written largely objectively, although at the end it expresses a strain of pride:

“The Davis Guards, under the command of Lt. Dowling and Lt. Smith, of the Engineer corps, who [commenced] to assist, have won lasting honors for themselves and their country. Not a man hurt or a gun [dismantled] – all ready for another fight. The prisoners say there is ten thousand (10,000) [men] on board their vessels, and [will] come again, but we are now better prepared and await their pleasure.”

This account was submitted by someone calling themselves “Uncle Ben” and dated the 8th of September, 1863. An addendum dated the next day reports that prisoners from the battle have arrived in Beaumont. It is interesting to note that the article mentions nowhere the Irish background of Dowling and the Davis Guards, an aspect of the heroes that would be played up in later years, as illustrated beautifully by the other articles I analyzed.

Jumping ahead over 40 years, I also examined the Houston Chronicle from March 17, 1905, the day the Dick Dowling monument was unveiled where it originally stood, in Market Square at the corner of Travis Street and Preston Avenue. As this was St. Patrick’s Day, the paper was full of reports on Irish festivities around Houston, and as Dowling and the Davis Guards are local Irish heroes, remembrance of their achievements was woven into many of the celebrations of the day. Interestingly, the paper seems very praiseworthy of the Irish, dedicating much space to report on their festivities.

Within the paper, I found two articles explicitly honoring Dowling and his fellow Davis Guards. On the front page of the paper is an article entitled “Three Out of Forty-Seven: Trio of Sabine Pass Heroes Received With Cheers.” The article chronicles how three of the four members of the Davis Guards still alive at this time came to Houston for the unveiling of the Dowling monument. Although many Confederate veterans were in town for the day, the Davis Guards received special attention, being transported in carriages as part of a parade; according to the article, as they passed along the parade route, “they were applauded again and again and the cheers brought to them smiles of satisfaction and pleasure. ” Indeed, the article paints a picture of a joyous and momentous celebration. The unveiling ceremonies were honored by the presence of not only Mayor A. L. Jackson of Houston, but Governor S. W. T. Lanham, who both gave speeches. The author is particularly praiseworthy of Lanham’s oration. The article makes brief mention of how, amidst the joy, time was taken to remember and honor the “late lamented” John A. Reagan, whose relevance to Dowling, Houston, or the Irish was probably obvious to contemporary readers but is no longer clear from this article, and ends with a brief portrait of the hardships faced by Dowling in his early life, which we know little about.

The second noteworthy article, entitled “Monument is Now Unveiled: Houston Pays Tribute to Memory of a Hero,” begins on page 9 and continues on page 11. This article starts out with sentimental praise for Irish Confederates and Confederates in general, lamenting the march of time which was then thinning out the survivors of the Civil War. Although “Three Out of Forty-Seven” displayed some pride and praise, this article is definitely much more emotional, and portrays the unveiling ceremony as an even more exciting and crowded affair than the former article had conveyed, poetically describing the scene and noting that “a jam of humanity” swarmed around the statue for the celebration. The article describes the monument in detail, even down to the complete inscription, including the full roster of the Davis Guards. A poem, written by Wharton resident Mrs. Ellen R. Croom, has been included, which praises the heroes of Sabine Pass and calls the survivors back to Houston to honor Dick Dowling, a request that all but one of them had indeed fulfilled. Interestingly, the introductory notes to the poem repeatedly report that Dowling fought alongside forty-one men, while elsewhere in the article the number is given as forty-seven, as well as in the very title of the previously discussed article. I theorize this is because Mrs. Croom’s poem, which mentions forty-one men, is at odds with the newspaper’s information that there were forty-seven, but rather than mentioning the discrepancy they just allowed it to exist, counting on the readers not to notice or care. Finally, a historical account of the Battle of Sabine Pass is given. This account, by the recently deceased Dudley D. Bryan, was not written fresh for this issue of the paper, but was taken from a souvenir pamphlet which had been composed for the St. Patrick’s Day four years prior and used to help raise money for the monument fund.

I did find that the primary, contemporary account of the battle, published merely days after the events, did not glorify the victory as much as I may have thought. Certainly it expresses pride in the accomplishments of the Davis Guards, but for an event that Jefferson Davis and others would so laud as being another Thermopylae, the initial report is quite restrained, and occupies a relatively small chunk of the rightmost side of the page, with little fanfare. This may be journalistic professionalism to maintain a somewhat objective viewpoint, or a hesitation to get too excited, as the prisoners had threatened that ten thousand men remained aboard the escaped vessels and would make another attempt to breach the pass. It seems that as time passed and word spread, people became more impressed with the feat of the Davis Guards and sought to honor them.

Evidence of how praise of their achievements has inflated over time can be found in Bryan’s account of the battle, as found in “Monument is Now Unveiled.” Written almost 40 years later, it is more detailed, with many of the details serving to add to the overall effect of impressing the reader with the immense odds the Davis Guards were able to conquer. For instance, while “Glorious Affair at Sabine Pass” references only a “fort,” Bryan’s account is sure to point out that said fort “consisted of a simple earthwork, barely large enough to mount six guns.” “It was hard to convince the prisoners that the entire number of their captors was less than fifty,” Bryan claims. In addition, he provides following anecdote, in which the Davis Guards cry out as one articulate voice:

“General Magruder sent orders to spike the guns, blow up the fort and retreat to Taylor’s bayou, and there attempt to hold the enemy in check. When these orders were conveyed to Lieutenant Dowling he addressed his men, asking if they wanted to spike the guns and retreat.

With a loud cry of indignation they said: ‘No! We prefer to fight while there is a detachment to man the guns.'”

While ostensibly objective, Bryan’s account contains some material that seems a bit anecdotal, and the details given are calculated to provide an effect of the bravery of the Davis Guards and the impressiveness of their victory, which Bryan calls “one of the most remarkable achievements of the civil war.”

When we wrote our original observations and questions about the Dick Dowling monument, I considered the discrimination with which Irishmen were viewed in the Civil War era and asked,

“Just as people find it fascinating to imagine why blacks might want to fight for the Confederacy, as we have just discussed, it is also interesting to debate why ethnic minorities, especially recent immigrants, would want to fight for a country that their family had not long inhabited and which did not always treat them with respect. Why would Irishmen fight under a climate that often did not recognize them as ideal Americans?”

Browsing through the Houston Public Library’s archives have given me some food for thought on an answer to this question, for the Irish at least.

During his adult life, Dowling was a citizen so popular that the Houston Daily Telegraph reported on his sickness and recovery and cautioned, “Houston cannot afford to lose such men as you” (Muir 207). Yet over time his memory has faded to such an extent that people have to be constantly informed and reminded of his identity and history, as many documents in the archive attest. His great-great-grandniece, Ann Caraway Ivins, found that even at a Houston middle school named in his honor, only one faculty member knew anything about him (SC1268-f1-19).

The people who have kept Dowling’s memory alive over the years seem to be Confederate and other historical societies and Irish heritage societies. However, the former have fallen significantly from public repute after the Civil Rights movement. Yet in today’s United States culture of political correctness and multicultural celebration, it makes sense that cultural societies have thrived, and their influence over memory of Dowling as an influential Irish Houstonian rather than just a Civil War hero has been allowed to prevail.

Thus we see two different sides of the Dowling memory which, if not exactly competing with each other, have allowed people to focus on what they find most admirable about the hero as well as what is most socially acceptable to the general public at the time. But the fact that Dowling was Irish is not just incidental to his involvement in the Civil War. He signed up with a group made up heavily of his fellow Irish and led by an Irishman, his uncle-in-law (Muir 181). Ivins believes that “it wasn’t ideology that decided which side they [the Irish] fought for. It was where they lived” (SC1268-f1-19). Nevertheless, ideology cannot be ignored, as these men were alive and full of thoughts and opinions, and doubtless would not have fought with their much-lauded bravery if not for what they deemed a good cause. Here I am reminded of Manning’s plea that we no longer can view soldiers as hapless victims of politics and circumstance, but movers and shakers of history in themselves.

I find clues as to why an Irishman would want to fight for the Confederacy, at least, in the history of what was going on in Ireland at the time. Dr. John Anthony Claffey, in his speech at the monument’s rededication ceremony in 1997, paints a picture of the political climate of the Emerald Isle at the time Dowling emigrated. He notes that Ireland was being subjugated by England in various ways, including taxation to support a church they had no loyalties to, unjust control by absentee landlords, and removal of the Irish parliament (SC1268-f1-22). An Irishman who had immigrated to the South would certainly understand the sectional conflict and sympathize with secessionists, having just come from a climate where their home country was being externally controlled and sought to break away.

But I still have less clear ideas on why an Irishman might want to fight for the Union, as heavy immigration patterns in the North led to heavy discrimination there. Remember the strength of the nativist Know-Nothing party in the North, as mentioned in the Kornblith article:

“‘By 1855,’ Holt observed, ‘[Know Nothings] controlled all the New England states except Vermont and Maine, and … were the major anti-Democratic party in the Middle Atlantic states and California.'”

Could it be, as Ivins suggests, that Irish would sympathize with the “underdogs in the world,” that is, the slaves (SC1268-f1-19)? Is there a counterpart Irish Union hero who could provide a starting point for looking into these questions?

Looking through the Houston Public Library Digital Archives, it becomes apparent that the historical figure of Dick Dowling has meant different things to different people at different periods of time.  Dick Dowling was a Confederate soldier, an Irishman, and a Civic Leader in Houston.  However, which aspects of his life and memory are emphasized depends on who is doing the memorializing and what the purpose of the memorializing is.  I focused on the recent portrayal of Dowling in the media because, although he is still clearly regarded as a Houston “hero”, very few people still consider the Southern rebellion to have been heroic.  In order to maintain Dowling’s hero status in Houston, it seems that his identity as an Irishman and civic leader has become the emphasis when memorializing him.  Attention that is given to his military service in the past few decades seems to have a more neutral tone rather than being a celebration of his service or military heroics because that is no longer socially acceptable.

This can be seen in a 1989 Houston Chronicle article about Dowling’s mark on the city that focuses primarily on Dowling’s military service (RGA33-b2f27-35).  The article is about Dowling’s prominance, but the article is not inherently positive.  It is simply a reflection about Dowling’s influence in Houston.  It makes no claim that Dowling was fighting for any sort of great cause and it does not explicitly proclaim him as a hero.  Rather, the article’s reason for memorializing Dowling seems to be to inform the public about who he was and why he influenced Houston.  There is no attempt by the article to celebrate Dowling’s actions at Sabine Pass.  It is simply pointed out that they were quite notable at the time and influenced Houston.

During the rededication of the Dowling statue in 1997, the focus was on Dowling’s Irish history and civic contributions to Houston.  His heroics at the Battle of Sabine Pass are mentioned in a press release about the rededication, but the ceremony is described as a “celebration of Irish heritage” and occurred on St. Patrick’s Day.  It was also hosted by the Dick Dowling Irish Heritage Society and the keynote speaker was a historian from Tuam County, Ireland (RGA33-b2f27-21).  The lack of emphasis given to Dowling’s Confederate ties is probably because the event was clearly meant to celebrate Dowling’s life.  By 1997, any celebration of the Confederate cause would have been controversial.  This is evidenced by an article from a few months later, when an African-American historian protested the streets named after Dowling because he fought for the Confederacy (RGA33-b2f27-44).  This article focuses on Dowling’s military service and it certainly does not portray Dowling as heroic.  The only appropriate way to celebrate Dowling and his influence on Houston was to focus on the non-controversial aspects of his life.  If his Confederate service has been a major focus, the rededication event could not have been completely celebratory and positive.

Dick Dowling has been considered a Houstonian hero for generations.  However, as time has passed, public opinion about what is heroic and what isn’t has shifted.  Rather than revoking Dowling’s hero status as fervor for the Confederate cause has faded, the Digital Archives show that different aspects of Dowling’s life have been emphasized instead.  His military service in recent years has been presented neutrally while his status as a prominent Irishman and civic leader in Houston has been brought to the forefront.  This allows people to continue celebrating Dowling as a hero without having to also celebrate the Confederate cause.

The two most frequently asked questions of Blog Post 2 were: “I would like to know more about the groups who sponsored the statue,” and “Why is the statue in its current unsuitable location.” I believe that both of these questions are answered by the documents in the Houston Library Dick Dowling Archive. The archive contains many documents related to the Statue of Dick Dowling including meeting minutes, invitations to events, event programs and a scrapbook of the statues life. Through studding these documents we can find very clear answers to the questions we previously posed about the statue of Dick Dowling. I will address the answers found to the two questions mentioned above in two ways- the meaning in the past and the meaning now.

The first question posed was “Who put up this statue?” Through examination of the documents we find that they groups who erected the statue in 1905 were very diverse. There were Catholic organizations, Irish heritage organizations and Civil War Veteran organizations. We can see from the meeting minutes posted exactly who put money in to the statue and what groups played rolls in shaping the appearance of the statue. From the research we find that the people who erected the statue of Dowling were just Houstonians of every type. Now we must look at why the statue was refurbished and rededicated in 1997. To best understand this we must first look at who pushed and supported the refurbishment of the statue. As we can see from the statue’s rededication program. (SC1268-01-03/06) Many different groups played a roll in the Statue’s re-birth. Once again Irish societies contributes, confederate Veteran’s societies contributed, catholic societies contributed, and Houstonians contributed. The only new group to honor the statue was the Irish town of Tuam, Dowling’s birthplace. We can see Tuam’s support in the letter from the Tuam Commissioner. (SC1268-f1-17)
The second question posed was “Why such a bad Location?” I personally never believed that the location of the Dowling statue was “bad.” The statue has been in a place of importance since its original dedication. The statue rested in front of both city halls as described in the archive. (SC1268-01-03) Also we must look at why the statue was moved. As JCD2 pointed out the statue’s location in Herman Park is not “some obscure corner,” but one of the major entrances to the park. Though this entrance is not the “best” location in the park, I am sure that if we were to look at the number of people passing the statue every day we would find that the placement of the statue is comparable to its former location in front of city hall.

Lastly I would like to raise some of the questions that I had while looking through the archive. The first being why do people appreciate the statue today? Is it for their Irish heritage? For their pride in a hero? Or is it for the local connection of Dowling to Houston. Another question I had was: “What is the sentiment about Confederate heritage today.” I noticed that in many of the articles about the statue, including articles in the Catholic Harold (SC1268-f1-15) and the Houston Chronicle (SC1268-f1-13), the term “The War Against States” was used instead of Civil War. This makes me wonder about what the Civil War, or the War Between the States, means to Houstonians today.

Gary Kornblith’s article examines what might have occurred if the Mexican-American War had not taken place because Henry Clay defeated James K. Polk in the 1844 Presidential Election.  In doing this, he tries to find causation for the Civil War and determine whether it was inevitable because of ingrained cultural and political differences between the North and South (the fundamentalist view) or due to poor political decisions and actions by leaders and politicians (the neo-revisionist view).

First, Kornblith justifies his hypothetical Clay victory by explaining the factors involved in the Election of 1844.  He contends that Clay’s loss did not have to do with his reluctance to annex Texas or go to war with Mexico.  Rather, Clay lost because of an extremely close vote in New York where Polk and the Democratic Party had strong immigrant support.  The result was so close that Kornblith argues it only went to Polk because of chance and could easily have gone the other way.

Next, Kornblith outlines how a Clay Presidency likely would’ve gone using evidence of Clay’s policy views as support.  He posits that Texas annexation would not have occurred under Clay and that the Republic of Texas would’ve existed harmoniously, but separately from the United States.  He also believes that Mexico would’ve eventually recognized the Republic of Texas.  The future of California under the hypothetical Clay Presidency is not as certain, but Kornblith believes that an independent California might have occurred.  Kornblith’s main conclusion, however, is that America’s westward expansion would’ve been halted under Clay.  Instead, Kornblith argues that economic issues like a National Bank would have dominated Clay’s presidency and that those debates would have sparked partisan conflict rather than sectional conflict.  Also, the absence of westward expansion would mean no Wilmot Proviso to bring the slavery issue up again for debate.  Kornblith concludes that Clay would’ve attempted to keep slavery out of national politics and that he would not have supported emancipation or expansion of slavery.

Following a hypothetical Clay Presidency, Kornblith discusses the possible course the country would’ve taken.  He addresses whether or not the Whig Party would’ve collapsed without the issue of slavery driving the development of the Republican Party.  Without the lands gained from the Mexican-American War, there would’ve been no contentious Kansas-Nebraska Act and Kornblith concludes that the Whigs probably would’ve survived until 1857 when the economic crisis would’ve reignited partisan conflict and strengthened them even more.  Under this scenario, slavery would continue to exist in the South and no Civil War would’ve broken out.  Kornblith also believes that abolition of slavery was not inevitable and that without the war, it might have persisted into the 20^th Century.

Kornblith’s ultimate conclusions are that the Mexican-American War was necessary for the Civil War to occur and that the Civil War was necessary for the abolition of slavery.  Southerners forced the issue of slavery by objecting to the Wilmot Proviso out of principle when they might have just let it go since slavery in the existing Southern states wasn’t being challenged.  The decision to force the issue, a political miscalculation, caused the Civil War in Kornblith’s opinion.  This conclusion is more in line with neo-revisionist view that the Civil War was not inevitable, but the result of decisions by politicians.  However, unlike some neo-revisionists who think abolition would’ve occurred peaceably without the Civil War, Kornblith does not view the emancipation of slaves as inevitable.

I find Kornblith’s arguments to be quite persuasive.  His counter-factual scenario seems logical even though no one can say with any certainty how events would’ve happened if Clay had been elected.  Mainly though, I find his arguments persuasive because of what I’ve learned about the rise and fall of American political parties in several of my political science classes.  We discussed the theory and history of party realignments in the United States.  Party realignments (like the rise of the Republican Party) occur when mass numbers of people change their voting habits because of a particular crisis.  Kornblith’s argument that slavery might never have become a full-blown crisis if not for the Mexican-American War is compelling and without that crisis, the realignment towards the Republican Party would’ve been unlikely to occur.

Fundamentalists argue that the differences between the North and South were so ingrained that slavery could not be reconciled without war and I can buy that.  However, I don’t buy that reconciliation of these differences was inevitable.  Without a crisis, support for the Republican Party might never have crystallized and the fundamental differences between the North and South might’ve continued to exist for generations longer.  However, even without the issue of slavery in new federal territories, it’s possible that some other crisis related to slavery might have eventually occurred.  Fundamentalists would probably argue that some sort of slavery-related crisis was inevitable.  I’m unconvinced that either the fundamentalists or the neo-revisionists provide a completely adequate argument.  Kornblith’s article is very convincing, however, that events easily could’ve occurred differently than they did and that the Civil War might have been delayed for a generation or two, at the very least.

What if the Mexican-American war, would the American Civil War have occurred? This is the question posed by Kornblith in his essay “Rethinking the Coming of the Civil War.” Kornblith relies on then confactual reasoning method to determine the outcome of American History if Henry Clay had won New York in the election of 1844.
Kornblith asserts, “Had Clay won the “Manifest Destiny” of the United States would not have included Texas or the other lands seeded to the US as a result of the Mexican-American War.” (80) Kornblith later points out that with Polk’s nomination and election a very strong pro-annexation camp grew within the Democratic Party. Kornblith uses a letter written by Clay to support his argument that had Clay come to office no annexation would have occurred. Clay wrote in this letter “[That the annexation of Texas or war with Mexico] would menace the existence [of the US], if it did not certainly sow the seeds of a dissolution of the Union.” Kornblith writes off the results of the 1844 election as “arbitrary” citing the immigrant-vote turn out in New York as the deciding factor in the entire election.
The second argument Kornblith makes is that Clay’s election would have led to a renewal of the two-party system. (89) Because the issue of annexation should be off the table, Kornblith suggests that political discussions of Clay’s presidency should revolve around tariffs, the establishment of a national bank, and other social issues of the day. Kornblith writes “the conflict over economic issues would have strengthened the second party system and pushed the slavery question into the background of national politics. (90)
Kornblith notes the untenability of the institution of southern slavery, giving Gavin Wright’s work as an example of this. Wright writes, “Political friction between the slave owners and the free white workers…would not have gone uncontested.” (91) Wright follows this up by purposing that “a variant of the South African compromise should have developed” in the American South. (91) Kornblith states on page 92 that “slavery would have persisted… past 1865.” Because “Clay supported the gradual abolition of slavery, [had Clay been elected] he would have neither supported immediate abolition nor would he have acted to further slavery.”(94) Kornblith asserts “Clay’s administration… would have successfully contained sectional differences over justice for fugitive slaves.”(96) Kornblith notes that the sustainability of the second party system was an unsure thing, but that the second party system would have once again been revived in the later half of the 1850s. (100)
I tend to agree with Kornblith’s argument that if Henry Clay had been elected president in the 1844 election the Civil War probably would not have occurred. After reading Kornblith’s argument I believe that the driving force behind the Civil War and the secession of the Southern States was the annexation of Texas and the belief in of Manifest Destiny. I believe that the Issue of slavery was merely the “straw that broke the camel’s back.” While it is not reasonable to believe that all of the events would have conspired just as Kornblith suggested they would, I believe that this model accurately allows us to identify the underlying causes of the Civil War. The theories of the fundamentalists are too simple, the often leave out the most important political and social factors that drove this country to war. Kornblith’s essay accurately takes all factors in to account, and provides the most complete explanation for the question “what caused the Civil War?”

Gary Kornblith’s Rethinking the Coming of the Civil War is an exercise in the counterfactual method; that is, a very refined version of a “what if?” scenario. Kornblith draws on his close knowledge of the period, as well as contemporary writings, to project what would have happened if Henry Clay had won the election of 1844 rather than James K. Polk.

Kornblith’s conclusions are extensive, but the main thrust of his argument is that had Clay been elected, Texas would not have been annexed, thus the Mexican-American War would not have occurred. Without the great expansion of U.S. territory, conflicts between slaveholding and non-slaveholding interests, and thus the South and the North, would have had no impetus to explode into secession and war.

First, to give legitimacy to his argument, Kornblith explains how close the race between Clay and Polk actually was, and that with just a slight difference in the voting of New York, Clay could have become president. He argues Polk did not ride into office on a wave of “war hawk” sentiment sweeping the nation; but rather, a variety of factors, such as patterns of immigrant voting, enabled him to edge into a victory that “seems more arbitrary than inevitable.”

Kornblith then describes his vision of quite a different America under Clay, “one that might have ended in a permanently smaller United States and no civil war—at least no civil war in the early 1860s.” Using Clay’s personal writings to judge his opinions, Kornblith concludes that Clay valued harmony, both between the sections and with foreign powers, over the expansion of American territory. Thus, to avoid conflict with Mexico, he would not have annexed Texas, preferring instead to keep it as a friendly neighbor. Following this train of events, Kornblith hypothesizes that the second party system, rather than falling apart at constitutional arguments incited by the expansion of slavery into vast new territories, would have remained strong under Clay’s presidency and beyond. The future of slavery, and of the antislavery movement, Kornblith is less sure of. He does admit, quoting Gavin Wright, that “the notion that slavery would have faded away peacefully in the late nineteenth century has always been a wishful chapter in historical fiction, not part of a plausible counterfactual history.”

I believe Kornblith’s article is more useful in revealing the follies of historical determinism than in providing a strong argument of its own. While counterfactual reasoning is very interesting, and while his projections of likely events are doubtless well-considered, I have a hard time getting myself to consider the argument seriously. A quick search through the article reveals how many times he uses such words as “probably” and “most likely.” Of course, these are necessary for the type of thought experiment he is performing; however, the fact that he bases his entire argument on something that seems like it should have happened, yet didn’t, undoes the rest of the threads he weaves. For every probable outcome he posits, it is entirely possible that due to some chance, quite another outcome might have occurred. And if one such “probably” is undone, his argument is in danger of being affected by a domino effect.

I certainly found the article an interesting read, and it did get me to consider more critically the idea that a civil war was inevitable. Kornblith imagines a perfectly believable world where large-scale violence did not occur, at least not until much later than actually happened. I entirely believe that such a world could have come into being. Although troubling questions remain, such as how long it would have taken for America to abolish slavery altogether, we cannot project wishful thinking onto the past and assume that a great cataclysm was destined to happen soon, even without the Mexican-American war. However, it is Kornblith’s specific arguments that I call into question. It is hard to believe that Kornblith could figure out Clay’s policies, let alone predict how larger legislative bodies and American society would react. Surely such an office as the presidency must affect anyone elected, and there is no guarantee that under the immense pressure, Clay would have kept to ideals he had professed up until that point. Surely not even Clay himself could have predicted the policies he would have actually enacted had he won the presidency, let alone Kornblith looking on a century and a half later.

In class, we’ve brought up the questions of why non-slaveholders in the South would fight for slavery and why Northern soldiers would fight for emancipation even if they had no particular desire for abolition or racial equality.  Chandra Manning’s book What This Cruel War Was Over provides ample evidence and arguments about these exact questions.

Manning argues that Southerners fought to defend slavery, even if they did not own slaves, because the institution was so deeply ingrained in Southern society that any threat to it was seen as an attack on everything Southerners valued and held dear like family and social order.  According to Manning, the Southern understanding of liberty was the ability to pursue material prosperity and provide for their families (p. 29).  Unlike the North, Southerners were focused on liberty as it applied to their individual families.  With slavery, all Southern whites had the chance to own slaves.  Even though in practice, it was difficult for poor whites to reach the point where they could buy slaves, the possibility reinforced the idea of white equality and liberty in the South (pg. 33).  A threat to slavery was seen as a threat to the ability of Southern whites to achieve economic prosperity for their families.  In addition to the economic repercussions that Southerners feared abolition would cause, they feared the effect it would have on the family unit.  According the Manning, Southern men had a strict view of familial roles.  With slavery, white man had the right and duty to command their household, which included women, children and blacks.  Even if they didn’t actually own slaves, white Southern men had the right to “rule” blacks because they were viewed as inferior to any white man of any economic standing (p. 36).  Stripping white men of the ability to exercise their authority over blacks was seen as a threat to their manhood and their position as head of a family (p. 37).  Basically, Southerners, even if they didn’t own slaves, saw slavery as essential to their way of life, their liberty, and their ability to head a family, so they were willing to fight for it.

Unlike Southerners, Manning argues that Northerners viewed liberty as a more universal ideal that applied to everyone rather than just their individual families (p.40).  The Southern rebellion was viewed as a threat to these ideals because Northerners considered the Union to represent those ideals.  This view, according to Manning, stemmed from the Second Great Awakening and the idea that the United States had a “special mandate to bring about God’s kingdom on earth (p.41).”  Even if Northerners didn’t support emancipation, many were offended by the idea that that the South would turn against the Union and the ideals of self-government and liberty that it represented for the single issue of slavery.  Northerners did not view the issue of slavery as paramount to liberty and way of life as Southerners did.  They viewed the continued existence of a single, united Union as the most important issue at stake.  Therefore, even though Northerners’ views on slavery varied widely, they were willing to fight for the preservation of the country.  Also, as the war continued, many union soldiers came to the conclusion that eliminating slavery was the only way to end the war, no matter what their personal views on slavery had been (p. 49).