The Causes of the Civil War (review)

216CIVILWAB HISTORY Conversely, while the Federal team would be engaged in the timekilling pastime of exchanging views on what to do, Lee and Jackson and Stuartwouldbe making forwardpasses and endruns as Longstreet waited contentedly for the moment when he could carry the ball in one of his characteristic line plunges, to wrap up the ball game. If somebody doesn't Blow the Whistìe on him, Mr. Stackpole is likely to end up a couple of volumes from now declaring that Lee lost because he did nothave enough bench strength. WrLLiAM E. Porter State University of Iowa. The Causes of the Civil War. Edited by Kenneth M. Stampp. (Englewood , N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1959. Pp. vi, 181. $1.75.) rr has been asserted that each generation must re-write its history. This would certainly seem to be the case with reference to a determination of the causes of the Civil War. A century of historical writing has not yet brought definitive answers to the basic questions involved in assessing the responsibility for the tragic conflict of 1861-1865. The editor of this well-organized collection of documents—excerpts from speeches, editorials, books, and articles , etc.—has not sought to supply his own answers but rather to make available in an inexpensive "paperback" the varying points of view of some who lived in the midst of the sectional conflict and of others who have written aboutitfrom the vantage point of later times. The problem of selection must have been a formidable one, for the causes of the Civil War have been treated by innumerable writers—and the end is not yet. Nor was it an easy task to organize these disjointed excerpts. The material is grouped under seven headings: (1) "The 'Slave Power' and the 'Black Republicans.' " (2) "State Rights and Nationalism," (3) "Economic Sectionalism," (4) "Blundering Politicians and Irresponsible Agitators," (5) "The Right and Wrong of Slavery," (6) "Majority Rule and Minority Rights," and (7) "The Conflict of Cultures." The reader is left free to make his own evaluation of the divergent points of view expressed and to arrive at his own conclusions. After an introductory statement at the beginning of each chapter, there follows a somewhat random assortment of quotations—some a paragraph in length, others of several pages—taken from contemporary sources and from the writings of modern historians. The only coherence lies in the relationship of the idea or ideas expressed to the general theme of the chapter. The reading is necessarily disjointed, but the ready availability of so many representative points of view on the moot questions concerning the causes of the CivilWar is a source of real gratification. That Charles Sumner of Massachusetts and George Fitzhugh of Virginia should have been poles apart in their views as to the lightness or wrongness of Negro slavery is entirely understandable. But that modern historians are still in such sharp disagreement as to the role of slavery in the causation of the conflict is a bit surprising. As an example of the "revisionist" interpretation which Book Reviews217 rninimizes slavery as a cause of the Civil War, James G. Randall is quoted in part as follows: "If one word or phrase were selected to account for the war, that word would not be slavery, or economic grievance, or state rights, or diverse civilizations. It would have to be such a word as fanaticism (on both sides), misunderstanding, misrepresentation, or perhaps politics." In other words, thewar was the product of "a blundering generation." There is a strong inference that wiser and more restrained men might have avoided the conflict. Conversely, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., takes the position that, given the issues of that day (including slavery), violence was inevitable. "To reject the moral actuality of the Civil War is to foreclose the possibility of an adequate account of its causes. . . . Nothing exists in history to assure us that the great moral dilemmas can be resolved without pain." Mr. Stampp is to be commendedforhis skill as an editor. His choiceofselections reprinted in this source book is generally good. Some which might well have been included were omitted. One wonders why Thomas R. Dew and William Lloyd Garrison were not quoted...