Letter to the editor: Lincoln has final word on cause of Civil War

Let’s finally kill that myth that several letter-writers are attempting to perpetuate regarding the cause of the Civil War. And we can let Abraham Lincoln settle it with his own words from his Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865 (emphasis mine):

”One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union, even by war; while the Government claimed no right to do more than restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration for which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph … .”

Jack Sillaman

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