--- description: In an interview, President Trump asked why the Civil War happened. His predecessor, Abraham Lincoln, explained it more than 150 years ago. title: Abraham Lincoln Answered President Trump's Question About the Civil War in 1865 image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc04e17b856676f00/6988cb5f0a4a223f9f9cdf7a/donald-trump-abe-lincoln2.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [History](/section/history/) ## History Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [politics](/tag/politics/) ## politics Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # President Trump's Question About the Civil War Was Answered by Abraham Lincoln in 1865  by [Lily Rothman](/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Rothman is managing editor at TIME. May 1, 2017 4:25 PM CUT  President Trump (left) and President Lincoln (right) President Trump (left) and President Lincoln (right)Getty Images  by [Lily Rothman](/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Rothman is managing editor at TIME. May 1, 2017 4:25 PM CUT In an [interview](https://politicalwire.com/2017/05/01/exchange-of-the-day-48/ "undefined") with Salena Zito for the [Washington _Examiner_](http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/trump-you-make-a-mistake-here-there-is-nothing-to-work-out/article/2621572 "undefined") that [aired](https://twitter.com/SXMPolitics/status/858999704167751680 "undefined") on Sirius XM on Monday afternoon, President Trump expressed his[ continued admiration](http://time.com/4591408/time-poy-donald-trump-andrew-jackson-jon-meacham/ "undefined") for President Andrew Jackson with a remark that struck many as [surprising](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/05/01/trumps-totally-bizarre-claim-about-avoiding-the-civil-war/?tid=sm%5Ftw&utm%5Fterm=.523ba973d770 "undefined"), to say the least. “I mean, had Andrew Jackson been a little later you wouldn’t have had the Civil War. He was a very tough person, but he had a big heart. He was really angry that he saw what was happening with regard to the Civil War, he said, ‘There’s no reason for this,'” Trump said. “People don’t realize, you know, the Civil War, if you think about it, why? People don’t ask that question, but why was there the Civil War? Why could that one not have been worked out?” On the one hand, though Andrew Jackson died in 1845 — nearly two decades before the Civil War [began](http://time.com/4281331/fort-sumter-photos/ "undefined") — Trump’s belief that Jackson would have prevented the war from happening, while impossible to prove, does have some connection to the real events that happened during Jackson’s presidency. Specifically, Jackson was President during the [nullification crisis](https://www.britannica.com/topic/nullification-crisis "undefined") between South Carolina and the federal government over the question of tariffs. During that episode, South Carolina asserted the state’s right to void federal law, a preview of the Confederate view that those states could withdraw from the Union. Jackson responded in 1832 with a [proclamation](https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=011/llsl011.db&recNum=816 "undefined") that explained his view that for South Carolina to take up arms to back up that position would be treasonous, and Congress [authorized](https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=004/llsl004.db&recNum=679 "undefined") him to use the military to enforce the tariff in question. As Jackson [put it,](https://books.google.com/books?id=unCsDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA40&dq=%E2%80%9COur+Federal+Union%E2%80%94It+must+be+preserved.%E2%80%9D+andrew+jackson&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi8r6XogM%5FTAhVG4iYKHb7FBqUQ6AEILjAC#v=onepage&q=%E2%80%9COur%20Federal%20Union%E2%80%94It%20must%20be%20preserved.%E2%80%9D%20andrew%20jackson&f=false "undefined") “Our Federal Union—it must be preserved.” The federal government also, however, compromised on the tax to which South Carolina had objected. South Carolina backed off and no use of force proved necessary. Jackson, then, did express his anger over this particular matter that would come to a head in the Civil War, as Trump put it, and his [complicated legacy](http://time.com/4649081/andrew-jackson-donald-trump-portrait/ "undefined") does include getting credit for heading off an earlier armed conflict. But the question of “why was there the Civil War” is one that people have in fact been thinking about for more than 150 years. While a nullification dispute over taxes could be solved without war by the president and Congress, the dispute over slavery could not. And yes, even Andrew Jackson, in the 1830s, [could see that coming.](http://www.civilwarcauses.org/jackson.htm "undefined") It wasn’t “worked out,” as Trump put it, because the South was too invested in the continued existence of slavery to let it be. The difference between those two situations was explained by none other than Abraham Lincoln himself, in 1865, when he delivered his [second inaugural ](http://time.com/4628822/every-inauguration-ever/ "undefined")address as the war continued to rage. He dedicated his extremely brief address to exactly that question. Here’s the portion of [that speech](http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th%5Fcentury/lincoln2.asp "undefined") that contains his answer, with emphasis added: --- > “” --- Though Lincoln had a personal stake in this analysis and many people have disagreed about it over the years, historians today generally agree that he was right from the beginning:[ the short answer](http://time.com/vault/issue/2011-04-18/spread/44/ "undefined") is that slavery (of which Jackson was a [defender](http://time.com/money/4303239/harriet-tubman-andrew-jackson-weird-that-they-are-together/ "undefined")) was why there was the Civil War. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4761335/trump-jackson-lincoln-civil-war/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4761335/trump-jackson-lincoln-civil-war/"},"headline":"President Trump's Question About the Civil War Was Answered by Abraham Lincoln in 1865","datePublished":"2017-05-01T16:25:23.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T04:40:45.662Z","description":"The President asked why the Civil War happened. His predecessor explained it more than 150 years ago","url":"https://time.com/4761335/trump-jackson-lincoln-civil-war/","keywords":["politics","White House","Civil War","Donald Trump"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc04e17b856676f00/6988cb5f0a4a223f9f9cdf7a/donald-trump-abe-lincoln2.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Lily Rothman","jobTitle":"Rothman is managing editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc04e17b856676f00/6988cb5f0a4a223f9f9cdf7a/donald-trump-abe-lincoln2.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"donald-trump-abe-lincoln2","caption":"President Trump (left) and President Lincoln (right)","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/politics/","name":"politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4761335/trump-jackson-lincoln-civil-war/","name":"President Trump's Question About the Civil War Was Answered by Abraham Lincoln in 1865"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"President Trump Praised Both Andrew Jackson and Henry Clay. They Hated Each Other","description":"At a rally in Louisville on Monday, President Donald Trump sang the praises of \"the great 19th century statesman\" Henry Clay, the former Speaker of the House, U.S. Senator and Whig Party co-founder.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/fRFqJO3l/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2017-03-21T16:23:32.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/fRFqJO3l.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/4761335/trump-jackson-lincoln-civil-war/","duration":"PT2M43S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/4761335/trump-jackson-lincoln-civil-war/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```