Was the Civil War Inevitable? | C. Evan Stewart

Was the American Civil War inevitable—or did the United States have another path?

On this episode of The Joe Rooz Show, Joe sits down with author, attorney, historian, and professor C. Evan Stewart for a fascinating reexamination of the months between Abraham Lincoln's election and the outbreak of the Civil War.

Stewart's latest book, William Henry Seward's Quest to Save the Nation During the Secession Winter, challenges the familiar historical narrative surrounding the crisis of 1860–1861.

While President-elect Abraham Lincoln remained publicly silent in Springfield, Illinois, William Henry Seward—the former New York governor, U.S. senator, Republican Party leader, and Lincoln's future Secretary of State—went to Washington and began working to keep the Union together.

According to Stewart, those efforts weren't merely theoretical.

During the Secession Winter, key Upper South states including Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas initially resisted secession. Virginia itself voted approximately two-to-one against secession in February 1861.

So what changed?

Joe and C. Evan Stewart explore Seward's attempts to strengthen Southern Unionists, the political struggle surrounding Fort Sumter, Lincoln's decision to attempt to resupply the fort, the possibility of compromise, and Stewart's argument that the Civil War should not be viewed as historically inevitable.

The conversation also goes beyond Lincoln and Seward to examine how history itself gets written.

Why do we remember the winners while other consequential figures disappear? How much do political beliefs influence historians? Can we fairly judge decisions made in 1860 when we already know what happened in 1861? And what happens when history becomes a morality play rather than an examination of evidence?

Stewart also discusses slavery, emancipation, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, Woodrow Wilson, America's long struggle over civil rights, and why ending the Civil War did not immediately resolve the profound racial injustices that followed.

In this conversation: