When the first shot was fired at Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, it triggered the Civil war. That war, which ended in May 1865, preserved the nation created in 1776. Since then no other disaffected region or state has seriously sought to secede. Yet, as a result of that war, the country has abandoned Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence – “all men are created equal” – and its accompanying vision of full freedom, citizenship, and male suffrage for African Americans.
A great deal has been written about the causes of civil war – and there are many different theories. Some scholars, such as the economist Paul Collier and his coauthor Anke Hoeffler, have argued that economic factors are crucial: that is, low overall income makes it easier to mobilize rebellious populations.
Other researchers have emphasized the importance of grievances – or, as UCLA political scientist Dora Costa puts it, “people’s perception of injustice or loss.” And still others, like the American historian James Fearon and his coauthor John Latham, have found that people with fewer opportunities for employment are more likely to join an insurgency.
The defenders of the South’s slavery-based economy, society, and culture were convinced that their cause was just. They embraced a narrative that made secession and war seem necessary to protect their rights, their honor, their property, and their civilization from what they saw as the unwelcome intrusion of the North. That myth shaped the American memory of the war and continues to shape the national identity that shapes the way we remember the 4 million former slaves who with their descendants were relegated to segregation for a century.