Morons who believe the civil war wasn't about slavery

[creekster]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

Economic issue to the North?

I think the North wanted to abolish slavery because largely the North was moral and righteous, and the South wanted to preserve slavery because its leaders were immoral or amoral and for financial reasons. The pressure brought to bear on the South by the North caused the South to plot secession, and Lincoln's election was the straw that broke the camels back.

I think it was mainly an economic issue with the Southern gentry. Probably the North could not have won the war had the South scorched the earth like the Russians fought Napoleon and the Bolsheviks fought Hitler. I don't think the Southern cause was supported at that kind of grass roots level, which is why the South failed and the North accomplished something quite extraordinary, i.e., permanently subjugate such a huge land mass and millions of people. Consider also that for much of the war Lincoln's political mandate for the war was not strong which is why he nearly lost the second term election to McClellon.

I asked the question because I think your assertions may be somewhat obfuscating. We always think of slavery in terms of civil rights. Then, I think it was more about political power and economics. The civil rights component was secondary or even tertiary until nearer the end of the war. Slavery was the issue the set up the battle.

The north was against it, mostly on moral grounds, but was not very interested in dying for it. The South saw they would likely lose their economic viability without slavery and that slavery was going to be lost if they stayed with the North, so they started the war. They couldn't very well say they were fighting to enslave people, so they couched it as states rights, but really those are the rights they had in mind. The North/Lincoln couldn't successfully maintain support for the war (until later, when he played the Emancipation card as a way to muster support relative to his reelection; in fact, the reason he didn't issue the Emancipation proclamation before then was primarily for political reasons, even though he seemed to think all along that the war was about slavery) by saying we are fighting to free slaves, so he couched it as a war on secession.

These characterizations were credited with both causing the war and sustaining it, but most people paying attention knew that, at root, it was all about slavery, as an economic issue for the South but maybe not as just a moral issue for the north, but as perhaps an issue of power.

Either way, who is it that you think disagrees with your basic premise here?

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by creekster

I asked the question because I think your assertions may be somewhat obfuscating. We always think of slavery in terms of civil rights. Then, I think it was more about political power and economics. The civil rights component was secondary or even tertiary until nearer the end of the war. Slavery was the issue the set up the battle.

The north was against it, mostly on moral grounds, but was not very interested in dying for it. The South saw they would likely lose their economic viability without slavery and that slavery was going to be lost if they stayed with the North, so they started the war. They couldn't very well say they were fighting to enslave people, so they couched it as states rights, but really those are the rights they had in mind. The North/Lincoln couldn't successfully maintain support for the war (until later, when he played the Emancipation card as a way to muster support relative to his reelection; in fact, the reason he didn't issue the Emancipation proclamation before then was primarily for political reasons, even though he seemed to think all along that the war was about slavery) by saying we are fighting to free slaves, so he couched it as a war on secession.

These characterizations were credited with both causing the war and sustaining it, but most people paying attention knew that, at root, it was all about slavery, as an economic issue for the South but maybe not as just a moral issue for the north, but as perhaps an issue of power.

Either way, who is it that you think disagrees with your basic premise here?

Not you. I agree with everything you say. However, as some have noted here, they were taught in school pre-college that slavery was just one issue and not neccesarily the overarching issue. I have a friend who's from Mississippi who strongly believes the same thing. This is of course the kind of revisionist nonsense often seen in children's history books, trying to make evildoers appear less malevolent for political reasons. For example, what Japanese children have been taught about the causes of WWII.

As for your point about morality vs. economics, it strikes me that this is roughly analogous to the present abortion debate. I've often thought that it's easier for a male to be righteous about abortion since he doesn't have to carry the child inside him, risk life and limb to bear it, necessarily rear it (easier to just pay support than raise a child for sure, etc.). So your point is that the southern gentry faced economic ruin and thus it was harder for them to choose the right. I suppose you may be right about that but they still were bad people. This doesn't strike me as a very resonant point. The British had already abolished slavery on moral grounds, and I think even the Brazilians had by then.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by creekster

I asked the question because I think your assertions may be somewhat obfuscating. We always think of slavery in terms of civil rights. Then, I think it was more about political power and economics. The civil rights component was secondary or even tertiary until nearer the end of the war. Slavery was the issue the set up the battle.

The north was against it, mostly on moral grounds, but was not very interested in dying for it. The South saw they would likely lose their economic viability without slavery and that slavery was going to be lost if they stayed with the North, so they started the war. They couldn't very well say they were fighting to enslave people, so they couched it as states rights, but really those are the rights they had in mind. The North/Lincoln couldn't successfully maintain support for the war (until later, when he played the Emancipation card as a way to muster support relative to his reelection; in fact, the reason he didn't issue the Emancipation proclamation before then was primarily for political reasons, even though he seemed to think all along that the war was about slavery) by saying we are fighting to free slaves, so he couched it as a war on secession.

These characterizations were credited with both causing the war and sustaining it, but most people paying attention knew that, at root, it was all about slavery, as an economic issue for the South but maybe not as just a moral issue for the north, but as perhaps an issue of power.

Either way, who is it that you think disagrees with your basic premise here?

This is a good summary similar to the summary I received as a sophomore in high school. If my high school history professor told it to me, it must be true.

I'm not certain how empirical Seattle's "well they were just evil men, because I Britain and I think Brazil had eliminated it" is proof positive that the gentry involved were inherently evil. Do not infer I mean slavery was ever good, but I'm not wiling to condemn an entire class of people even if they are doing something unhealthy or now considered wrong. Do you consider a prostitute inherently evil even though most here and elsewhere would admit that what they do is unhealthy and dangerous to all involved? I don't.

[creekster]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

Not you. I agree with everything you say. However, as some have noted here, they were taught in school pre-college that slavery was just one issue and not neccesarily the overarching issue. I have a friend who's from Mississippi who strongly believes the same thing. This is of course the kind of revisionist nonsense often seen in children's history books, trying to make evildoers appear less malevolent for political reasons. For example, what Japanese children have been taught about the causes of WWII.

As for your point about morality vs. economics, it strikes me that this is roughly analogous to the present abortion debate. I've often thought that it's easier for a male to be righteous about abortion since he doesn't have to carry the child inside him, risk life and limb to bear it, necessarily rear it (easier to just pay support than raise a child for sure, etc.). So your point is that the southern gentry faced economic ruin and thus it was harder for them to choose the right. I suppose you may be right about that but they still were bad people. This doesn't strike me as a very resonant point. The British had already abolished slavery on moral grounds, and I think even the Brazilians had by then.

One of the things I really enjoyed about Shelby Foote's trilogy on the Civil War, which I recently read, was how clear it became to the rank and file during the war what the war was about and what the consequences of a Northern loss would be. THrough the use of quotations from journals and letters he makes this point very well.

I guess my point on the economic vs morality issue is not quite so bold as to say the Sotuh was evil, although I certainyl don't think they were necessarily evil just as I will concede that some of them certainly were evil. Instead, I think it is important to try to view them as they were, instead of as we are. We study history to avoid repeating it, as they say, and I think it is a mistake to look at their struggle and assume that we have learned the lesson taught becasue we have recognized and granted civil rights to all. By doing so, we lose other key and maybe even more important lessons, such as making sure that we are not blinded by economic expediecny to our own abuses of privilege and power. I think these lessons are more easily and readily applied from the civil war to our own lives if we try to see the patricipants as they were, and as they may have seen themselves.

Not a big point really, but I think it is a valid one.

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by creekster

One of the things I really enjoyed about Shelby Foote's trilogy on the Civil War, which I recently read, was how clear it became to the rank and file during the war what the war was about and what the consequences of a Northern loss would be. THrough the use of quotations from journals and letters he makes this point very well.

I guess my point on the economic vs morality issue is not quite so bold as to say the Sotuh was evil, although I certainyl don't think they were necessarily evil just as I will concede that some of them certainly were evil. Instead, I think it is important to try to view them as they were, instead of as we are. We study history to avoid repeating it, as they say, and I think it is a mistake to look at their struggle and assume that we have learned the lesson taught becasue we have recognized and granted civil rights to all. By doing so, we lose other key and maybe even more important lessons, such as making sure that we are not blinded by economic expediecny to our own abuses of privilege and power. I think these lessons are more easily and readily applied from the civil war to our own lives if we try to see the patricipants as they were, and as they may have seen themselves.

Not a big point really, but I think it is a valid one.

Well put.

[myboynoah]

Originally Posted by creekster

The North/Lincoln couldn't successfully maintain support for the war (until later, when he played the Emancipation card as a way to muster support relative to his reelection; in fact, the reason he didn't issue the Emancipation proclamation before then was primarily for political reasons, even though he seemed to think all along that the war was about slavery) by saying we are fighting to free slaves, so he couched it as a war on secession.

Help me understand. When the North went to war, was it to free the slaves or to prevent the South from splitting off? Was Lincoln primarily motivated by slavery or by keeping the country together? I have to believe it was the latter, not the former. That's how nations react when some parts want to leave.

Sure slavery was the subtext, and AA's correct, but wasn't the North's initial and overiding motivation to keep the Union a union?

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by myboynoah

Help me understand. When the North went to war, was it to free the slaves or to prevent the South from splitting off? Was Lincoln primarily motivated by slavery or by keeping the country together? I have to believe it was the latter, not the former. That's how nations react when some parts want to leave.

Sure slavery was the subtext, and AA's correct, but wasn't the North's initial and overiding motivation to keep the Union a union?

The South split off because they saw the North was finally bent on ending slavery. Lincoln wasn't exactly an anti-slavery hawk, but he was intolerable to the South becuase they knew he planned to end it one way or another. He preferred to end it other than by war, but he would end it by war if it came to that, as events would show. The South saw that and split off. There would not have been any secession but for the disagrement over slavery.

This wasn't that long ago. A majority of Americans were a lot more enlightened then than we give them credit for being. All of our great thinkers, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Emerson, Melville, the James brothers, any viable political candidate in the North, virtually all Northern clergy (except Brigham Young?), condemned slavery. Europeans had seen the light. The dawn of the industrial revolution was at hand. Slavery was a primitive, atavistic, barbaric institution, and the North wasn't going to tolerate it going on in America much longer. That is why even when a moderate opponent of slavery was elected, secession still ensued shortly thereafter, becuase Lincoln was from Illinois. The war was about slavery pure and simple.

Archea, my saying southern slave owners who financed and foughtin the war were evil is not an empirical matter. It's a value judgment. What more evidence do you need than they owned slaves and were willing to kill to continue doing so. Slaves escaped and they hunted them down and caught them like animals. I choose to call that kind of conduct evil, and I submit I'm on firm footing doing so. I think every form of racism is evil.

Creekster says that those type of judgments aren't that helpful when analyzing history, and I understand and respect what he's saying. But I think it may add clarity to make them every now and then. We don't shrink from calling Hitler and Stalin evil. What went on in the South was evil to a lesser degree of amplitude. It's not a common thing to call the Confederates evil because they became our countrymen after the war, but maybe the moral clarity of calling what they did evil would have prevented Jim Crow and a lot of other permutations of racism that continued long after slavery.

[creekster]

Asking why the North went to war may be a little like today asking why we are in Iraq. SOme would say we are there to prevent terrorism; some would say to steal oil. SOme would say to kill terrorists in their land; still others would say to attack Al Qaeda and those responsible for 9/11, and even a few would say to assert American influence in the region as a pawn of the Jewish overlords. SO which is the true reason? The popular voice is varied now, just as it was then. Many individual soldiers from the North had no or little interest in liberating slaves, just as many guardsmen probably weren't too keen on civil rights in Arkansas. (To be fair and clear, however, many soldiers were motivated to join and fight precisely because of their interest in liberating slaves.) AMong the decision makers, however, those persons who sign the orders that result in putting boot on turnpike, slavery was the issue that fomented the dispute. The North was seeking to maintain the union, but recall, as woot pointed out, the idea of the nation being the UNited States had not yet settled into most minds at the time. Lincoln had a vision of the country as we know the country now, but his vision included a continent free of enslaved humans.

Here is another way to look at it: The south seceded because of slavery, on this I think we can all agree. The North forced their hand by refusing to compromise on slavery and by leaving the South with no alternative but to choose between staying in the union without slaves or trying to leave the union to keep slaves. THe North could have said "keep your slaves, as union is most important to us" but they didn't. THye refused to make that compromise. SO the south secedes and the North fights to force them back. Is it simply a matter of the union or is it slavery? It is impossible to look at the issue and take slavery out of the equation. Absent slavery, there is no war.

[Indy Coug]

Originally Posted by creekster

Asking why the North went to war may be a little like today asking why we are in Iraq. SOme would say we are there to prevent terrorism; some would say to steal oil. SOme would say to kill terrorists in their land; still others would say to attack Al Qaeda and those responsible for 9/11, and even a few would say to assert American influence in the region as a pawn of the Jewish overlords. SO which is the true reason? The popular voice is varied now, just as it was then. Many individual soldiers from the North had no or little interest in liberating slaves, just as many guardsmen probably weren't too keen on civil rights in Arkansas. (To be fair and clear, however, many soldiers were motivated to join and fight precisely because of their interest in liberating slaves.) AMong the decision makers, however, those persons who sign the orders that result in putting boot on turnpike, slavery was the issue that fomented the dispute. The North was seeking to maintain the union, but recall, as woot pointed out, the idea of the nation being the UNited States had not yet settled into most minds at the time. Lincoln had a vision of the country as we know the country now, but his vision included a continent free of enslaved humans.

Here is another way to look at it: The south seceded because of slavery, on this I think we can all agree. The North forced their hand by refusing to compromise on slavery and by leaving the South with no alternative but to choose between staying in the union without slaves or trying to leave the union to keep slaves. THe North could have said "keep your slaves, as union is most important to us" but they didn't. THye refused to make that compromise. SO the south secedes and the North fights to force them back. Is it simply a matter of the union or is it slavery? It is impossible to look at the issue and take slavery out of the equation. Absent slavery, there is no war.

One of the best posts I've read on CG in quite some time.

[myboynoah]

Originally Posted by creekster

Asking why the North went to war may be a little like today asking why we are in Iraq. SOme would say we are there to prevent terrorism; some would say to steal oil. SOme would say to kill terrorists in their land; still others would say to attack Al Qaeda and those responsible for 9/11, and even a few would say to assert American influence in the region as a pawn of the Jewish overlords. SO which is the true reason? The popular voice is varied now, just as it was then. Many individual soldiers from the North had no or little interest in liberating slaves, just as many guardsmen probably weren't too keen on civil rights in Arkansas. (To be fair and clear, however, many soldiers were motivated to join and fight precisely because of their interest in liberating slaves.) AMong the decision makers, however, those persons who sign the orders that result in putting boot on turnpike, slavery was the issue that fomented the dispute. The North was seeking to maintain the union, but recall, as woot pointed out, the idea of the nation being the UNited States had not yet settled into most minds at the time. Lincoln had a vision of the country as we know the country now, but his vision included a continent free of enslaved humans.

Here is another way to look at it: The south seceded because of slavery, on this I think we can all agree. The North forced their hand by refusing to compromise on slavery and by leaving the South with no alternative but to choose between staying in the union without slaves or trying to leave the union to keep slaves. THe North could have said "keep your slaves, as union is most important to us" but they didn't. THye refused to make that compromise. SO the south secedes and the North fights to force them back. Is it simply a matter of the union or is it slavery? It is impossible to look at the issue and take slavery out of the equation. Absent slavery, there is no war.

Originally Posted by Indy Coug

One of the best posts I've read on CG in quite some time.

Yes, but given enough time, a monkey typing at random would, as part of its output, almost surely produce one of Shakespeare's plays (or any other text).

All this discussion is mute. The real reason for the Civil War was because it was prophesied by Joseph Smith.