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I apologize for originally giving this short shift
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Originally Posted by Ummagumma
1) What is so uniquely Marxist about this ? Wars, especially the modern period wars, are primarily driven by business and economic interests.
Karl Marx was the first to put forth the argument that the Civil War was a conflict between two competing ruling class factions. Marx wrote extensively about the economic aspects of the war and accurately portrayed it as a war between a feudal economic system on one hand and the rise of capitalism. In the sixties, historians influenced by Marx's writings and a growing tendency to knock off the altruism of the North in general and Lincoln in particular as the great emancipator instead cynically portrayed the war as being a war between two economic ruling classes. That is why I wrote what I wrote.
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2) My response was to the OP who said the war was about slavery. While slavery was an important part on the agenda of both sides, it was not the reason for war.
Slavery was the reason for the south but only became the rational for the United States later in the war mainly as a result of an abolitionist faction within the Republican party that held little sway on the subject at first only to gain greater influence as the war wore on.
Martin Luther King Jr had an interesting perspective on the aftermath of the war.
Racial segregation as a way of life did not come about as a natural result of hatred between the races immediately after the Civil War. There were no laws segregating the races then. And as the noted historian, C. Vann Woodward, in his book, The Strange Career of Jim Crow, clearly points out, the segregation of the races was really a political stratagem employed by the emerging Bourbon interests in the South to keep the southern masses divided and southern labor the cheapest in the land. You see, it was a simple thing to keep the poor white masses working for near-starvation wages in the years that followed the Civil War. Why, if the poor white plantation or mill worker became dissatisfied with his low wages, the plantation or mill owner would merely threaten to fire him and hire former Negro slaves and pay him even less. Thus, the southern wage level was kept almost unbearably low.
Toward the end of the Reconstruction era, something very significant happened. That is what was known as the Populist Movement. The leaders of this movement began awakening the poor white masses and the former Negro slaves to the fact that they were being fleeced by the emerging Bourbon interests. Not only that, but they began uniting the Negro and white masses into a voting bloc that threatened to drive the Bourbon interests from the command posts of political power in the South.
To meet this threat, the southern aristocracy began immediately to engineer this development of a segregated society. I want you to follow me through here because this is very important to see the roots of racism and the denial of the right to vote. Through their control of mass media, they revised the doctrine of white supremacy. They saturated the thinking of the poor white masses with it, thus clouding their minds to the real issue involved in the Populist Movement. They then directed the placement on the books of the South of laws that made it a crime for Negroes and whites to come together as equals at any level. And that did it. That crippled and eventually destroyed the Populist Movement of the nineteenth century.
If it may be said of the slavery era that the white man took the world and gave the Negro Jesus, then it may be said of the Reconstruction era that the southern aristocracy took the world and gave the poor white man Jim Crow. He gave him Jim Crow. And when his wrinkled stomach cried out for the food that his empty pockets could not provide, he ate Jim Crow, a psychological bird that told him that no matter how bad off he was, at least he was a white man, better than the black man. And he ate Jim Crow. And when his undernourished children cried out for the necessities that his low wages could not provide, he showed them the Jim Crow signs on the buses and in the stores, on the streets and in the public buildings. And his children, too, learned to feed upon Jim Crow, their last outpost of psychological oblivion.
Speech give by MLK at the conclusion of the Selma to Montgomery March, March 1965 (this is a portion of the actual speech not the one given in the movie Selma).
you`re not gunna get anyone in the south to admit the war was about slavery when 99.9 % of those who fought did not own slaves .. it was about states rights which still is in discussion today ,, no state joined the union without thinking it could leave ...
Every state in the Confederacy mentioned slavery in their secession documents, therefore, it is blatantly obvious that slavery was a major issue causing them to secede. It's almost like "states' rights" has become a euphemism for "slavery."
I apologize for originally giving this short shift
Karl Marx was the first to put forth the argument that the Civil War was a conflict between two competing ruling class factions. Marx wrote extensively about the economic aspects of the war and accurately portrayed it as a war between a feudal economic system on one hand and the rise of capitalism.
OK that makes sense.
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Originally Posted by TheWiseWino
In the sixties, historians influenced by Marx's writings and a growing tendency to knock off the altruism of the North in general and Lincoln in particular as the great emancipator instead cynically portrayed the war as being a war between two economic ruling classes. That is why I wrote what I wrote.
I don't see how it can't be both. The war was between two economic systems that could no longer coexist in one union, but the slavery was a moral reason for many individuals to participate.
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Originally Posted by TheWiseWino
Slavery was the reason for the south but only became the rational for the United States later in the war mainly as a result of an abolitionist faction within the Republican party that held little sway on the subject at first only to gain greater influence as the war wore on.
More likely, slavery was the propaganda point for both the South and the North, and the reason for many individuals to join up, but it wasn't the reason for the real forces behind the war. I.e. if there was no political and economic clash between Southern and Northern elites, the issue of slavery alone would not be enough to start a civil war.
ask 100 people you know if they would be willing to die for something they do not have a vested interest in and you `ll get 100 no`s.. ..ask 100 people you know if they would be willing to die for something a politician wants ..you `ll get 100 no`s .. ask someone if they would be willing to die to protect their way of life and what they own and you will get 100 yeses ..the civil war was nothing more than a war of northern aggression .
I don't see how it can't be both. The war was between two economic systems that could no longer coexist in one union,
Here's the problem with that argument, slavery was exceedingly important to the north. The financing for southern agriculture came from the north, the sale of south agricultural products were sold through northern mercantile exchanges, southern raw products were shipped to foreign markets on northern ships. Cotton alone represented nearly 60% of all U.S. exports in 1860.
The second problem is that if you have have a room full of 100 new recruits you will have 60 different reasons for having volunteered to fight in any give war.
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More likely, slavery was the propaganda point for both the South and the North,
Well it became a point of propaganda, at first, for the United States but it certainly not for the confederacy. If it were a mere point for the southern rebels, then thy would have as eagerly abandoned it as the Union accepted it. The very survival of the rebellion was dependent upon securing recognition from the European capitals who denied that recognition for one reason, slavery. But because slavery was the reason for the rebellion, the confederacy could not renounce the very issue upon which its survival depended.
The evidence of the role of slavery as the south's casus belli is so overwhelming that it is amazing that anyone other than a neo-confederate propagandist can deny it.
WW, hi.. I don't think the role of slavery is lost in interpreting the Confederate's cause. But I do think often it's context is.
Slavery was previously abolished at the state level in the individual Northern states. The Southern states believed they retained that right as well (to abolish slavery at the individual, sovereign state levels, when they saw fit). The control of slavery, ability to nullify, etc were all part of the South's philosophy on the supreme sovereign power of states.. So I don't believe that slavery should be diminished as a non-issue, but it should be contextualized in their broader State's Rights position. The two (slavery & states rights) are not mutually exclusive. It's dishonestly partisan (to me) when ppl try to say the War was solely about slavery, or conversely, solely about states rights. Just my take. peace.
The two (slavery & states rights) are not mutually exclusive. It's dishonestly partisan (to me) when ppl try to say the War was solely about slavery, or conversely, solely about states rights. Just my take. peace.
I think that you are essentially correct that the two are interwoven, the principle of states rights provided the philosophical justification for secession and slavery was the cause for putting that philosophy into practice.
It's only an issue among stodgy apologists who are still buttsore a century and a half after the south lost fighting for an unworthy cause.
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