Irrepressibility Of The Civil War

William H. Seward presented a speech to the public at Rochester, New York in 1858 labeling the current conflict of the time. Charles and Mary Beard, Allan Nevins, and Eric Foner support Seward’s views on the idea the American Civil War was an irrepressible conflict. Following Seward’s speech in 1858, dominate discussion points from 1861 to 1920 and so on include the discussion of impacting economic differences, whether the nation would be dominated by a system of free labor or slave labor. Furthermore, the fact that the war was inevitable due to the lack of willingness from the North and the South to create a compromise on the issue of slavery plays a lasting role. William Seward's firmly believed in the idea the American Civil War was irrepressible because “United States must and will, sooner or later, become either entirely a slaveholding
nation, or entirely a free-labor nation” (Seward). This point could be connected back to the failed Missouri Compromise as well as many other movements and reforms against slavery. The collection of compromises failed in a sense they were short terms fixes to long term problems. Seward addresses this roadblock in moving forward by stating “It is the failure to apprehend this great truth that induces so many unsuccessful attempts at final compromises between the slave and free States” (Seward). Historians such as Charles and Mary Beard, Allan Nevins, and Eric Foner discuss their similar points of view following Seward’s speech publication. Charles and Mary Beard express their opinion that the American Civil War was irrepressible in the 1927 book, The Rise of American Civilization.
The Beards’s approach towards the origins of the Civil War falls within the irrepressibility of the conflict, with their major arguments supporting the idea of an inevitable conflict that was caused by differing economic systems at the climatic time. They explain in the chapter of the book there is a clear inherent antagonism between the interests of planters and the interests of industrialists. Both sides wanted to have control of the federal government. Many small farmers with a few slaves and yeomen were linked to elite planters through the market economy which in root was their main source of income whereas industrialists sought to expand innovatively and produce in those means. Following the Beards’s, in 1970 Eric Foner made several claims supporting the American Civil War was an irrepressible conflict. Foner expressed moral concerns of abolitionists and economic concerns of industrialists were less important in explaining hostility between the sides than the free-labor
ideology.