ETA: I guess I'll stick a  poll in this post.

In light of recent events, a friend asked me this question a couple of days ago.

Quote:So, how many people die before it’s considered a civil war?

It got me to thinking...

International wars - wars between nations - are usually fought over the control of land or resources. There will often be ideological underpinnings or perhaps veneers, but ultimately they are about controlling geographic territories or the resources that those territories hold.

On the other hand, civil wars are usually fought over ideologies, over which or what direction a given nation-state or geopolitical entity will take. To wit: If you ask any historian or do an internet search on the question, "When did the U.S. Civil War start?", you will generally get an answer something like this:

Quote:"The American Civil War began on April 12, 1861, when Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter in South Carolina. This attack marked the formal start of the conflict between the Union and the Confederacy.

Britannica.com, however, offers a bit of background:

Quote:Prelude to war
The secession of the Southern states (in chronological order, South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina) in 1860–61 and the ensuing outbreak of armed hostilities were the culmination of decades of growing sectional friction over slavery. Between 1815 and 1861 the economy of the Northern states was rapidly modernizing and diversifying. Although agriculture—mostly smaller farms that relied on free labour—remained the dominant sector in the North, industrialization had taken root there. Moreover, Northerners had invested heavily in an expansive and varied transportation system that included canals, roads, steamboats, and railroads; in financial industries such as banking and insurance; and in a large communications network that featured inexpensive, widely available newspapers, magazines, and books, along with the telegraph.

It goes on to push a narrative with which I disagree. I wholeheartedly reject the statement that "armed hostilities were the culmination of decades of growing sectional friction over slavery" and the thesis that the article develops after that statement. That is a whitewash (or perhaps a blackwash) of history. The issues were much more complex than that as it had to do more generally with states' rights and the encroachment of an ever more domineering federal apparatus backed by a more modernized and politically influential northern segment. There were ideological conflicts at war that had to do with liberty and the original intentions of the founders of the United States of America as regards to state sovereignty and limits on federal power.

So, the question that I would ask; Did the Civil War actually start with the first shot fired "on April 12, 1861, when Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter in South Carolina?" Or was the Civil War in reality brewing and being fought in the ideological realm long before that first fateful musket-ball was dispatched northward?

Does "Civil War" only happen when conflict goes "hot," or is a Civil War on ideological grounds still a Civil War even if no or few shots are being fired?

And where does the U.S. stand today?

I'm in Australia, so American history is not my forte. Nevertheless, after reading the OP, I wondered when a civil war ends. So I asked Yandex AI as a non-biased source. After all, Yandex is Russian oops, I mean that other country.

Here is what Yandex AI had to say:

Quote:The official end of the American Civil War was declared on August 20, 1866, when President Andrew Johnson announced that the "insurrection is at an end and that peace, order, tranquility, and civil authority now exist in and throughout the whole United States of America". 14
However, the war effectively ended on April 9, 1865, when Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia.

I guess the yanks are gonna have to start another one.

@AwakeNotWoke - There were abolitionists long before the Civil War. George Washington was against slavery, even though he was a slave owner himself. I think that slavery was a hot-button issue that was used to get people's emotions running high.

I tend to call the Civil War the "War of Northern Aggression," like many southerners do. The North was full of robber barons and their monopolies, who weren't stopping at lumber, mining, transportation, banking, or whatever they were exploiting in the North.

The South, on the other hand, was actually producing agricultural products more than taking advantage of all resources by a wealthy group of monopolies. The South earned its wealth on the backs of slave labor, but they were more honest about that than the wage slaves in the northern factories, where even little kids were working for the profit of the robber barons of the North.

The aristocrats of the South and their plantation economy were a culture that was dying off, like the feudal system in Europe was around that time. The feds and their corporate robber barons were the new way going into the 1900s, and the South was going to die out soon, regardless. Not that these things matter now, really, unless you're an ancestor of slaves asking for reparations because the blood and destruction of the Northern Aggressors who ended slavery wasn't enough payback.

(09-13-2025, 05:51 AM)NobodySpecial268 Wrote: I'm in Australia, so American history is not my forte. Nevertheless, after reading the OP, I wondered when a civil war ends. So I asked Yandex AI as a non-biased source. After all, Yandex is Russian oops, I mean that other country.

Here is what Yandex AI had to say:


I guess the yanks are gonna have to start another one.

Where I am from, we often refer to it as "The War of Northern Aggression." And I know people who still kind of feel like it is not over.

(09-13-2025, 07:50 AM)Michigan Swampbuck Wrote: @AwakeNotWoke - There were abolitionists long before the Civil War. George Washington was against slavery, even though he was a slave owner himself. I think that slavery was a hot-button issue that was used to get people's emotions running high.

I tend to call the Civil War the "War of Northern Aggression," like many southerners do. The North was full of robber barons and their monopolies, who weren't stopping at lumber, mining, transportation, banking, or whatever they were exploiting in the North.

The South, on the other hand, was actually producing agricultural products more than taking advantage of all resources by a wealthy group of monopolies. The South earned its wealth on the backs of slave labor, but they were more honest about that than the wage slaves in the northern factories, where even little kids were working for the profit of the robber barons of the North.

The aristocrats of the South and their plantation economy were a culture that was dying off, like the feudal system in Europe was around that time. The feds and their corporate robber barons were the new way going into the 1900s, and the South was going to die out soon, regardless. Not that these things matter now, really, unless you're an ancestor of slaves asking for reparations because the blood and destruction of the Northern Aggressors who ended slavery wasn't enough payback.

You kind of  point to what I am getting at.

The use of slave labor and that culture was going to die out before long. Mechanization and automation was going to do a lot better job than the slaves could do. Everybody knew it. This just reinforces my statement that the war was not fought over slavery, but over state's rights. The feds wanted more control and slavery was, as you said, the "hot button issue" that would get the masses riled up. If the north has honestly said "We want more control," it would have been a harder sell.

This brings us back to my thesis. It is ideology that fules civil wars, and I see that the US is at an ideological tipping point, has been for some time.