The Civil War was not about ending slavery?! Did you really just do that? Did you REALLY just do that? I have been watching this thread since day one just watching what people say but I can't let this slide.
Do not, under any circumstances, promote any kind of Lost Cause Mythology about the Civil War. Just don't do it. It is no different than Holocaust Denial, the denial of the Armenian Genocide in Turkey, or the denial of the Rape of Nanking in Japan. Don't pull any economic excuses out of the ass of some Southern apologist pseudohistorian.
The war started after Lincoln was elected and South Carolina seceded from the Union. Then, Fort Sumter was fired upon. South Carolina seceded because of slavery. Need proof? Just look up the myriad of never ending quotes from the Confederates themselves about why the war started.
| We ask you to join us, in forming a Confederacy of Slaveholding States. |
| —South Carolina Legislature, Address of South Carolina to Slaveholding States.[3 |
Georgia:
Mississippi:
South Carolina:
Texas:
CSA Constitution
Constituent assemblies in the other states of the Confederacy all underscored in their discussions the need to maintain a slave society and economy. Likewise, the right to hold slaves was specifically protected by the constitution of the Confederacy, denying its constituent states the
right to outlaw slavery within its territories.
[19]
Oh, and let's not forget about the white supremacy and racism parts of the secession too.
Here's Alexander Stephens, the first vice-president of the Confederacy, in reference to the Constitution, secession, and slavery.
Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. [Crowd applauded.] This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.
Slaves were even integral to the "common" man fighting for his home. In other words, not just a bunch of aristocrats.
According to the 1860 US census, among the states which attempted to secede, 30.8% of families owned slaves.
[20
According to the exhaustive study of the Army of Northern Virginia performed by historian Joseph Glatthaar, about 10% of the 1861 enlistees personally owned slaves (along with more than half of the officers), and very nearly half either owned slaves or lived in a slave-owning household.
[22
As someone with a degree in politics and history, the Lost Cause Myth is one of the things that makes my blood boil. I am doing graduate level work right now in history. My main professor is an expert on the Civil War. His specialty is the Black Regiments that fought and died for the North. He was actually a consultant, and was an extra in, the movie Glory. I have personally read and handled some original documents from that time period.
Any serious historian will tell you the Civil War was fought over slavery. There is no ambiguity. Do yourself a favor and actually read what the people who lived at the time wrote. You dishonor the suffering of African Americans as well as the Union soldiers who died by suggesting otherwise.
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