Why Study the War Between the States? The War Between the States was the pivotal point in American history. Not only were 600,000 American lives lost in those four years of bloody carnage, but the conflict completely altered the nature of the American constitutional system. According to historian James McPherson, "[After the war] the old decentralized federal republic became a new national polity that taxed the people directly, created an internal revenue bureau to collect these taxes, expanded the jurisdiction of federal courts, established a national currency and a national banking structure. The United States went to war in 1861 to preserve the Union; it emerged from war in 1865 having created a nation. Before 1861 the two words 'United States' were generally used as a plural noun: 'The United States are a republic.' After 1865 'the United States' became a singular noun. The loose union of states became a nation." Thus, no one may really understand current events in this country without studying the War Between the States.

What Were the Causes of the War Between the States? Most Americans have been taught that the War Between the States was fought over the issue of slavery. However, while slavery did in fact play an important role in the dispute between North and South, there were many other factors involved. As most wars have been throughout modern history, the War Between the States was at bottom a financial conflict. With the demise of the Whig Party and the split of the Northern and Southern branches of the Democratic Party, the opportunity afforded itself for the recently organized Republican Party to increase its political power in both chambers of Congress and to successfully elect Abraham Lincoln to the Presidency. Radical Abolitionist Wendell Phillips acknowledged that the Republican Party was "a sectional party, organized against the South." Several other leading Republicans even went so far as to advocate civil war in order to keep the Southern States in a condition of subordination to a Northern majority. Southern leaders, such as John Caldwell Calhoun, had warned that if the North ever gained control of the federal Government the rights of the Southern people would be lost. The Republican pledge to confine slavery within the existing States and to prevent its spread into the common Territories was perceived as an intent to destroy the rights of the Southern people wholesale. Many Republicans, such as Lincoln the former Whig and Henry Clay admirer, also openly advocated a high tariff and internal improvement system (which Clay had named, "The American System"). Historically, high tariffs benefited Northern industry and had adverse effects on the price of exported Southern cotton. Consequently, the War Between the States had much more to do with differing views on the relation of the States to the federal Government, the extent of State power, and economics rather than the issues of slavery or Negro civil rights. In fact, some of the Northern people deplored Abolitionism and were opposed to Negro equality. Even Lincoln openly declared himself in opposition to Negro citizenship. Most of the Northern States had various anti-Negro laws on the books and Lincoln's own State of Illinois altered its constitution in 1862 to prohibit the immigration of free Blacks entirely.

Did the South Start the War Between the States? The South is often charged with having started the War Between the States when Confederate forces in South Carolina fired on Fort Sumter. What is not generally known is that South Carolina had freely ceded property in Charleston Harbor to the federal Government in 1805, upon the express condition that "the United States... within three years... repair the fortifications now existing thereon or build such other forts or fortifications as may be deemed most expedient by the Executive of the United States on the same, and keep a garrison or garrisons therein." Failure to comply with this condition on the part of the Government would render "this grant or cession... void and of no effect." The State then appointed commissioners and paid for the land to be surveyed out of its own treasury. Work on Fort Sumter did not begin until 1829 and had still not been completed by 1860. Unfinished and unoccupied for over thirty years, the terms of the cession were clearly not fulfilled. Consequently, the fort was never the property of the United States Government, as Abraham Lincoln claimed in his First Inaugural Address, and, upon secession from the Union, the only duty which South Carolina owed, either legally or morally, to the other States was "adequate compensation... for the value of the works and for any other advantage obtained by the one party, or loss incurred by the other." Such being the case, the occupation of Fort Sumter by U.S. troops was technically an act of invasion and the Confederate forces in Charleston were wholly justified in firing upon them when it became evident that Lincoln intended to use military force against the State.

Was the War Between the States a Civil War? A civil war is defined as a conflict between two opposing factions within the same country, and thus the term reflects the position of Abraham Lincoln that the Southern States never lawfully seceded from the American Union. The truth of the matter is that secession was never viewed as unlawful or unconstitutional by the majority of Americans until after the war, and there is therefore no valid reason not to consider the Confederate States of America to have been an independent republic from 1861 to 1865. Thus, it is historically inaccurate to refer to the War Between the States as a civil war.