Apropos the obvious decline of our nation and increasing polarization, the Civil War has been on a lot of people’s minds of late. But the current spasm of talk about it was generated by Nikki Haley giving an unacceptable answer about the cause of the Civil War. No matter what you might know, the “correct” answer is: slavery. Only slavery. Nothing but slavery. If you are a politician and you are asked what caused the Civil War, you are only permitted to answer, slavery.

Which is true as far as it goes. But it is more true to say that if there hadn’t been slavery, there would have been no Civil War. That is, if the slave system hadn’t produced a class of people running things there would not have been a class of people fearful of losing their position as slavery was shown to be grossly inefficient in addition to being morally wrong. What existed in America prior to, say, the 1840’s was a Ruling Class which was based in the South and had its wealth in land and slaves. Because they had the wealth, they had the power and though Northerners did get into office, the South dominated the Republic. Just take a look at the first 15 Presidents – all Southerners (with a fair number of slave owners) or Northerners dependent upon Southern influence. The reason Lincoln was such a watershed is because he came to power entirely without the South. While Lincoln got just under 40% of the total vote in 1860, his total in the North was a majority and in the upper North, a landslide win.

And therein lies the real reason for secession and Civil War. No matter how you sliced it, the American Republic was going to become ever more Northern in character as time went on. Mass immigration and natural increase was increasing Northern population at a phenomenal rate. But, more than that, the rise of an industrial North was leaving the South economically in the dust. The slave labor economy of the South simply could not compete with the North. There was no way for the Southern Ruling Class to remain in charge in the USA as a Southern Ruling Class. That class, or at least a substantial part of it, would have to make a deal with the rising North and become a subordinate part of a coalition which would ultimately be based on Northern money and political power (votes, eg). And any such deal with the North would mean an eventual extirpation of slavery. The Southern Ruling Class looked upon this and decided: we’re out.

Only in a Southern Confederacy could the Southern Ruling Class remain in charge. Only in such a Confederacy could a slave economy be maintained long term. Only in such a Confederacy could poor whites be kept out of power and wealth and thus dependent upon the Ruling Class. If you take a look at the early proponents of “State’s Rights” and secession what you won’t find is lots of poor, white farmers leading the way. It was an upper class thing marketed to the lower class – mostly by playing on racial fears. The Abolition Hordes were going to force your daughter to marry a black man! Even then, it didn’t really work too well with the poorest whites. Most Confederate soldiers were upper class, middle class or dependents of upper class people. There were large parts of the Confederacy where Confederate officials didn’t dare show their faces (mostly back country areas and especially from 1863 forward).

It is my view that all wars – every last one of them – is the result of someone wanting to steal something. You can look to economic factors, political factors, dynastic factors, etc, etc but what it really comes down to, when you really look at what started the fracas, it was always someone thinking they could steal on the cheap. A bit of fighting, get some loot, live in power and wealth. Nobody enters a conflict thinking its going to be a long, bloody slog with victory bought so dear as to be indistinguishable from defeat. They’re always certain it’ll be short and easy. And, sometimes, it is. Our war with Mexico did entail some hard fighting but in return for about 13,000 dead from all causes (and only about 2,500 battle deaths) the United States obtained 529,000 square miles of territory – and territory which has proven itself exceptionally valuable over time. You can look at this or that reason for the war but the bottom line is that we wanted Mexico’s land. We had our excuses for why it should come to us (most of the land we took only had a theoretical connection to Mexico based on previous Spanish colonial claims, themselves tenuous) but what we did not have was clear title to it. So, we just took it.

That is just how wars are. What the Confederate leaders wanted to do was steal power they couldn’t obtain by legal means – and, of course, to continue to steal the labor of black Americans. The only legal path to national power in the USA was via compromise with Northern interests increasingly hostile to slavery. But, if you could form a Confederacy – sort of steal half of America from itself – you could retain your dominance without any need for compromise. And that is what they did – the ground prepared by a decade of anti-Northern polemics and enacted so fast that Unionist sentiment had no real chance to coalesce in the South before the deed was done.

The crucial lesson here is to learn about people of power and position. Ruling Classes are always most keen about maintaining themselves. The British Ruling Class is probably the most successful – through all changes, it has kept itself in wealth and still exercises a great deal of power officially and unofficially. There will never be another hereditary Lord as Prime Minister (the last was Salisbury early in the 20th century), but they control large swaths of power. The Duke of Westminster is descended from a man who got himself knighted by James I in 1617…and he and his descendants just parlayed that into more and more until the current Duke is worth $9 billion. Think of all the changes over 400 years…and here’s this guy sitting pretty because an ancestor did a service for James Stuart. That’s a first rate self-perpetuating Ruling Class! Most Ruling Classes aren’t that clever. In fact, most of them are very stupid and pigheaded about things and end up destroyed.

This is important to realize because we also have a Ruling Class which cannot sustain itself legally in power any more than the Southern planters could in 1860. The only way out for the Ruling Class is to compromise with the rising power – in this case, the populist Right currently represented by Trump. And like that Southern Ruling class of 1860, the modern Ruling Class is more than willing to go outside the law if it means they remain in power and wealth. This makes for a very dangerous time for our Republic. But keep of good heart: Ruling Classes who don’t give way are always pushed away. Their time is up, and their days are numbered. The only question is how much destruction they’ll cause on their way down.