Nikki Haley is in some hot water because she didn’t say that the cause of the Civil War (or the War of Northern Aggression, as it’s called in some parts of the country) was slavery. Looking to score some points, Joe Biden chimed in on social media, saying ‘It was about slavery.’
But if anyone knew what the Civil War was about, it was Abraham Lincoln, right? After all, it was his war.
In a letter to Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, here’s what Lincoln himself said (in 1862) that the war was about:
I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be “the Union as it was.” If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to 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 save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.
Lincoln is often held up as an example of clear communication, and I don’t think he has ever said anything more clearly than what he said here: The Civil War was not about slavery.
If people need to restrict themselves to one-word explanations, the proper one is this: It was about secession.
