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One of the more unexpected aspects of this year’s presidential race, for me at least, has been the spectacle of Republican presidential candidates getting tongue-tied over the Civil War. First, there was Ron DeSantis suggesting that slavery actually benefited some Blacks. Then, Nikki Haley last month was unable to even utter the word slavery while discussing the causes of the Civil War. And most recently, we had Donald Trump lamenting that the Civil War could have been avoided if only, say, Abraham Lincoln had been a better negotiator.
“So many mistakes were made,” said Trump. “See, there was something I think could have been negotiated, to be honest with you.”
What’s going on? It’s a bit mind-boggling that we’re even having these discussions today, more than 160 years after the Civil War began and at a time when even an average middle school student would find these statements baffling.
DeSantis was appropriately roasted for his remarks about the benefits of slavery. Among those calling him out were several Black Republicans, including Sen. Tim Scott and Rep. Byron Donalds. Haley was also criticized for her comment about how the Civil War was primarily about “how government was going to run" and her initial unwillingness to consider slavery as a precipitating factor in the conflict. While she eventually walked back her comments, her apparent allergy to the word “slavery” was perplexing.
Haley, after all, is not only the former governor of South Carolina but is also the governor who removed the Confederate flag from the state Capitol. Surely, she knows a thing or two about the history of the Civil War, which began in South Carolina.
It also seems that a southern governor versed in the Civil War might also know something about Alexander Stephens, the Confederate vice president, who declared in his famous Cornerstone Speech that the very foundation of the Confederacy was based on “the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery -- subordination to the superior race -- is his natural and normal condition.”
Assuming Haley knows more about the Civil War than she let on, what was the point of her answer? Chris Christie was perhaps closest to the truth when he declared that, while she is not a racist, her comments were tied to the fact that “she’s unwilling to offend anyone by telling the truth.”
Of course, if she’s afraid of offending GOP primary voters by telling the truth about the Civil War, well, that in itself says something concerning about the state of American politics, doesn’t it?
Trump seemingly got the least blowback for his comments. It’s not that he walked away unscathed, as there were responses such as this one from Liz Cheney, who asked: “Which part of the Civil War ‘could have been negotiated’? The slavery part? The secession part? Whether Lincoln should have preserved the Union?”
Still, the public is accustomed to all sorts of unusual statements tumbling out of Trump’s mouth. Or people may have assumed he was alluding to his own alleged negotiating superpowers when he hinted that Lincoln wasn’t up to the task of finding a deal to avert the Civil War.
But if that’s the case, it also signals a pretty fair lack of knowledge about the negotiations that did go on – for decades! – before the states went to war against each other.
The Missouri Compromise
Even if you don’t count the disputes over slavery that took place as far back as the 1787 Constitutional Convention (i.e., the infamous three-fifths compromise), you can date negotiations over slavery, at minimum, to 1820 and the Missouri Compromise.
When Missouri was about to become the first state carved out of the Louisiana Purchase territory, the debate over slavery flared. Slavery was legal in Missouri, but most northerners wanted to limit slavery to states where it already existed, while southerners said Congress had no authority to prevent slavery’s expansion. There was also angst over upsetting the balance in the Senate between free states and slave states.
As a compromise, Maine was separated from Massachusetts and admitted as a free state, with Missouri coming in as a slave state. The 36°30′parallel was also set as a border that prohibited future slavery north of that line.
The Compromise of 1850
The dispute blazed again in the 1840s after the U.S. gained more Western lands from the Mexican War and southern slaveholders insisted on a constitutional right to take their slaves to any new territory.
Thus, in 1850, another compromise was drawn up. California was admitted as a free state, New Mexico and Utah were created as territories (neither slave nor free initially), the slave trade in Washington, D.C. was abolished, and a new Fugitive Slave Law required all citizens to help with the return of escaped slaves (a provision that enraged antislavery northerners).
The Kansas-Nebraska Act
Four years later, as part of negotiations over a transcontinental railroad, the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act created two new territories where settlers could decide about slavery for themselves. But since Kansas and Nebraska were above the 36°30′ parallel, the legislation repealed the Missouri Compromise that had barred slavery in the north.
As a result, some northern Whigs who were incensed about Kansas-Nebraska and the Fugitive Slave Law soon formed a new political faction that became the Republican Party.
The 1860 Presidential Election
This turmoil finally led to the divisive 1860 presidential election. When Abraham Lincoln won on the strength of support in the North, southern states seceded and formed the Confederate States of America prior to Lincoln’s inauguration. Even after this, Lincoln threw an olive branch to the South, declaring in his inaugural address that he didn’t have the constitutional power to interfere with slavery where it already existed.
“In your hands,” Lincoln said, “is the momentous issue of civil war … You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors.”
One month later, on April 12, Confederate troops fired the first shots of the Civil War at Fort Sumter in South Carolina.
So yes, slavery was indisputably a significant cause of the Civil War. Yes, numerous negotiations and compromises took place for decades. And no, Lincoln wasn’t in position to negotiate another deal over slavery, unless you assume he would have agreed even before his inauguration to go back on the platform that had just won him the presidency.
So why is any of this controversial now, in the 21st century? You’ve got me. But for a party that still calls itself the Party of Lincoln, I have to say that Abraham Lincoln was never this tongue-tied over the Civil War.