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Slavery was an issue, but anybody who actually ever read anything about the history of the civil war would know that the main focus of the war was secession. Pathetic public schools might teach that it was all about slavery... but it's simply not true.
Well, try looking at the secession charters of states such as Mississippi, Georgia, Florida, et al. All of these explicitly name slavery as the issue that led to their breaks with the Union.
Well, try looking at the secession charters of states such as Mississippi, Georgia, Florida, et al. All of these explicitly name slavery as the issue that led to their breaks with the Union.
I'm not saying that slavery was not an issue... I am only saying that slavery is not the reason the war was fought. This oversimplified "reason the war was fought" has been taught in schools for decades, but it's not correct. It was a much deeper and more complicated affair.
Slavery was an issue, but anybody who actually ever read anything about the history of the civil war would know that the main focus of the war was secession. Public schools might teach that it was all about slavery... but it's simply not true. A large portion of the South did not even believe in slavery.
I have argued this before on here, not because I don't think slavery is a correct macro answer, but because I think it is too simplistic. IMO, to say that slavery was not the reason for the war is just as incorrect as saying the entire war was about slavery. In some ways this is also a matter of perspective and how each side viewed the issues, however, slavery and in particular its expansion into the territories was very much the underlying reason for the war.
To the South they felt that their political power was in jeopardy of being lost if new states being admitted to the Union were to be free and the expansion of slavery was checked. By losing the political power, the entire institution of slavery would be threatened as it was obvious that the North had taken the position that it was wrong. Things like the Fugitive Slave Laws were simply a manifestation of this fear. To the South the North was stealing their property. Issues like tarriffs that are often mentioned by those with southern sympathies was in all honesty a non-issue by the time the first secessions were declared. The entire reason for secession was the election of Lincoln and the threat that posed to the institution of slavery vis-a-vis the expansion of slavery into the territories and the balance of slave vs. free states.
To the North, slavery was never the reason they went to war. There was no grand crusade to free the slaves until years into the conflict. The Norths motivation was to simply preserve the Union.
So, while "slavery" is an elementary answer, it is not an incorrect answer and not entirely wrong when cited as the motivation for the Souths secession. So, secession caused the war, yes, but secession was caused by a perceived threat to Southern power through the institution of slavery.
I'm not saying that slavery was not an issue... I am only saying that slavery is not the reason the war was fought. This oversimplified "reason the war was fought" has been taught in schools for decades, but it's not correct. It was a much deeper and more complicated affair.
Yeah, but you didn't read my post. Slavery was explicitly named as the reason for their secession. I mean if Bill says, "I'm going to kill Joe for sleeping with my wife," and then kills him, do you say that Joe sleeping with Bill's wife was only one reason among many for being murdered?
As been explained many, many times there's a disconnect between the motives of those who fought for the rebellion and those who fought against it. That the rebels fought to protect slavery while the loyal Americans fought not to destroy slavery but to destroy rebellion seems too complicated for some to understand, simple as it is.
The Confederacy would probably have fragmented further. A nation founded on a doctrine of individual units being free to nullify Federal laws, or free to depart whenever they were upset with central policy, is not a nation designed to last very long.
I agree-the States Rights issue would have brought long time issues between states to a head. Even individual states would have broken up into city-states. I think eventually a strong dictatorship type of government would try to seize power or Britain would claim the CSA as it's colony (with the US blessing).
The internal feuding would prove to be more trouble than it's worth to outside investors, so the CSA would become some closed, isolated country like North Korea.
As everyone could have reasonably predicted, after a couple dozen post this became the same old argument all over again about whether slavery was the cause of the war.
Slavery was an issue, but anybody who actually ever read anything about the history of the civil war would know that the main focus of the war was secession. Public schools might teach that it was all about slavery... but it's simply not true. A large portion of the South did not even believe in slavery.
Funny you should say this. When Mississippi seceded, it declared the reason for doing so to be slavery today, slavery tomorrow, slavery forever! The South would be a backwater akin to a Latin American bananna Republic if it weren't for the North. Just admit this so we can move on with our lives.
I wonder if the remaining United States would have to help the Confederacy fight off; Spain, France , and Mexico for Florida, New Orleans, and Texas
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