Chapter in Perspective

The Civil War grew out of major differences dividing the North and the South. Slavery was at the heart of these differences, yet the North went to war claiming that its sole purpose was to preserve the Union and the Confederacy insisted it was fighting for independence, not slavery. The ideals and arguments of both sides drew upon the American past. Supporters of the Union denied, as Jackson had denied in his proclamation on nullification, that there was any right of secession. Supporters of the Union upheld the idea of America's mission going back to the Revolution. Confederates argued, as had Calhoun in the nullification crisis, that a state had the right to secede under the Constitution. In establishing the Confederacy, Southerners declared that they acted on the principle of self-government, as proclaimed by the Revolution's leaders in resisting tyranny in 1776. Yet ironically, it was a future in the making, not a mythical past reclaimed, that was at stake. The war would unleash forces that impelled both sides to adopt new ideas and principles; in the process, the meaning of the Civil War and the character of American society were to be fundamentally transformed.