Creature From Jekyll Island by G. Edward

and it is entirely possible that the West would have been won even faster than it was.

It's too bad the theory has never been tried.

THE UNION IN JEOPARDY

As chronicled in a previous section, economic conflict has always played a major role in fomenting war. There is no time in American history in which there was more economic conflict between segments of the population than there was prior to the Civil War. It is not surprising, therefore, that this period led directly into the nation's bloodiest war, made all the more tragic because it pitted brother against brother.

1. Greider, p. 259.

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THE CREATURE FROM JEKYLL ISLAND

There are many popular myths about the cause of the War

Between the States. Just as the Bolshevik Revolution is commonly believed to have been a spontaneous mass uprising against a tyrannical aristocracy, so, too, it is generally accepted that the Civil War was fought over the issue of slavery. That, at best, is a half-truth. Slavery was an issue, but the primary force for war was a clash between the economic interests of the North and the South.

Even the issue of slavery itself was based on economics. It may have been a moral issue in the North where prosperity was derived from the machines of heavy industry, but in the agrarian South, where fields had to be tended by vast work forces of human labor, the issue was primarily a matter of economics.

The relative unimportance of slavery as a cause for war was made clear by Lincoln himself during his campaign for the Presidency in 1860, and he repeated that message in his first inaugural address:

Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States that by the accession of a Republican administration their property and their peace and personal security are to be

endangered.... I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it now exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.1

Even after the outbreak of war in 1861, Lincoln confirmed his previous stand. He declared:

My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and it is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could do it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that.2

It may come as a surprise to learn that, by strict definition, Abraham Lincoln was a white supremacist. In his fourth debate with Senator Stephen Douglas, he addressed the subject bluntly: I am not nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races—that I am 1. Don E. Fehrenbacher, ed., Abraham Lincoln: Speeches and Writings, 1859-1865

(New York: Library of America, 1989), p. 215.

2. Quoted by Robert L. Polley, ed., Lincoln: His Words and His World (Waukesha, Wisconsin: Country Beautiful Foundation, 1965), p. 54.

LOAVES AND FISHES AND CIVIL WAR

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not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.1

This is not to say that Lincoln was indifferent to the institution of slavery, for he felt strongly that it was a violation of personal and national morality, but he also knew that slavery was gradually being swept away all over the world—with the possible exception of Africa itself—and he believed that it would soon disappear in America simply by allowing the natural forces of enlightenment to work their way through the political system. He feared— and rightly so—that to demand immediate and total reform, not only would destroy the Union, it would lead to massive bloodshed and more human suffering than was endured even under slavery itself.

He said:

I have not allowed myself to forget that the abolition of the Slave trade by Great Britain was agitated a hundred years before it was a final success; that the measure had its open fire-eating opponents; its stealthy 'don't-care' opponents; its dollar-and-cent opponents; its inferior-race opponents; its Negro-equality opponents; and its religion and good-order opponents; that all these opponents got offices, and their adversaries got none. But I have also remembered that though they blazed like tallow-candles for a century, at last they flickered in the socket, died out, stank in the dark for a brief season, and were remembered no more, even by the smell. School boys know that Wilbeforce and Granville Sharpe helped that cause forward; but who can now name a single man who labored to retard it? Remembering these things I cannot but regard it as possible that the higher object of this contest may not be completely attained within the term of my natural life.

If Lincoln's primary goal in the War was not the abolition of slavery but simply to preserve the Union, the question arises: Why did the Union need preserving? Or, more pointedly, why did the Southern states want to secede?

1- Fehrenbacher, p. 636.

2- Ibid., p. 438.

372 THE CREATURE FROM JEKYLL ISLAND

LEGAL PLUNDER, NOT SLAVERY, THE CAUSE OF WAR

The South, being predominantly an agricultural region, had to import practically all of its manufactured goods from the Northern states or from Europe, both of which reciprocated by providing a market for the South's cotton. However, many of the textiles and manufactured items were considerably cheaper from Europe, even after the cost