Ayer's What Caused The Civil War

The majority of people that grew up in the United States remember being taught about the Civil War in elementary school, and received the abridged version of history from the Civil War period. Many teachers simply state that the Civil War had one cause: slavery, or if the ones being taught live in the south: state’s rights. However, despite what many believe, the Civil War that took place from 1861 to 1865, truly happened in a time span of many more years, and had a multitude of causes.
While most ideas happen incessantly, only a certain few influence people to instigate a war so cataclysmic as the Civil War. Some ideas that might have affected the beginning of the Civil War are stated in Ayer’s What Caused the Civil War?, “The ‘North’ and
the ‘South’ took shape in words before they were unified by armies and shared sacrifice,” (pg. 16), in which those fundamental ideas of separation, or two different ways of living was established well before the Civil War.
There were multiple individuals and groups that had a major role before and during the Civil War. Some such individuals that influenced the beginning of the war are: Abraham Lincoln, Stephen A. Douglas, John C. Breckinridge, and John Bell. Lincoln, Douglas, Breckinridge, and Bell participated as candidates in the 1860 election. A caption states, “Three of that contest’s (the presidential election) candidates-...Lincoln, Douglas, and Breckinridge- tear at the western and southern sections of a map of the United States, while another candidate, John Bell…, attempts to mend the northeastern section with glue,” (pg. 14). The groups that influenced major events are the main political groups of the 1860s: the Democrats, and the Republicans which the reins over the way of life. Ayer states, “American voters...felt driven to dichotomous choices of Republican or Democrat, Union or Confederacy,” (pg. 15). Some boundaries between the different classes and types of people that might have affected the beginning of the Civil War, Ayer states, “Democrats appealed to Catholics and to men who wanted the government to tax them as little and to do as little as possible,” (pg. 17) while the, “Republicans appealed to Protestants and to men who wanted the government to accelerate economic growth and expansion,” (pg. 17). With the two main political groups already against each other, and the hopes of the vastly different kinds of citizens next-door neighbors, is one of many factors that affected the Civil War.
While there are many geographical factors that affected the Civil War, the one that most know of is the Mason-Dixon Line, “Economy, politics, religion, gender relations, literacy, demography-everything aligns along the opposing axes of modernity on either side of the Mason-Dixon Line,” (pg.
15), and, “Slavery’s power stretched all the way to the Mason-Dixon Line, into every facet of life,” (pg. 14).
Ayer’s argument about the causes of the Civil War, would fit in the realm of historical consciousness under the category of history as complexity. Although Ayer does not name this individual, he states, “a cultural historian has recently reminded us, causality has come to be understood in terms of ‘increasing specificity, multiplicity, complexity, probability, and uncertainty.’...We should simply refuse to settle for simple explanations for complex problems,” (pg. 17).
Like many who wish to show most sides of a story, Ayer does include a portion of his writing to state what other individuals have said that argues his point. Ayer believes that the Civil War had many causes, but other deem the Civil War’s cause with only a word or a sentence, “Some Americans of course have...short explanations for the Civil War,” and that, “People deliver these explanations with an air of savvy common sense,” (pg.
12). Contrary to popular opinion, reason after reason all indicate one thing: the Civil War was caused by not one, not two, but innumerable reasons.