So the Confederate states lied in their very own legislation declaring secession to throw us off where they said it was indeed about slavery / white supremacy? Their opposition to States rights by demanding federal invention to stop Northern states from not sending back slaves escaped into their territory? They were lying about all of that in their own official legislation, speeches, etc. to throw us off in the future to think this was about slavery?
It's time to get real. It was about slavery. Just a few minutes of basic research confirms this. The Confederate state legislatures said so. Their own leaders at the time said so in their speeches. I believe them - why don't you?
Nope. Not going to entertain that dodge for even a second.
The NORTHERN CONGRESS voted to keep slavery. These are the states that provided the armies for the war. They didn't send those armies to stop slavery, they sent those armies to stop INDEPENDENCE.
What the southern states said or didn't say has nothing to do with it. The NORTH did not fight over slavery. They fought to keep *CONTROL* of the money producing southern states.
It's time to get real. It was about slavery. Just a few minutes of basic research confirms this.
Stop. A century of propaganda has done it's work, and now it is universally believed. You will find this message spread every where you look.
The actions of the Northern congress and the economic numbers tell the real truth. The south was paying 72% of all the taxes in the Nation and the robber baron class in New York and their corrupt adjuncts in Washington DC were getting rich off of slavery in the south.
They invaded the South to keep that money coming in.
True that
"Our new government['s] . . . foundations are laid, its cornerstone 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. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth."
This odious reasoning eventually led to the ideology of the Klan and post-war segregation, with enduring harm to America and the South.
The north didnt go to war to end slavery..
Abe Lincoln was a white supremacist. He did not start the war to stop white supremacy.
Its not that they were lying. Its that them citing the Northern states' refusal to enforce the Fugitive Slave Clause of the US Constitution as proof that it was the Northern states which violated the compact between the states - and that they were therefore fully justified in leaving, was a PRETEXT. It was a (correct) legalistic argument. It was not the REASON why they left. We know this because the North offered strengthened fugitive slave laws and offered a constitutional amendment to expressly protect slavery which would be irrevocable - and even the original 7 seceding states turned that offer down.
Notice what was not offered. What was not offered was a promise not to raise tariff rates again or to stop lavishing the bulk of federal money raised by those tariffs on corporate subsidies and infrastructure projects overwhelmingly in the North.
It's time to get real. It was about slavery.
Its time to get real. It wasn't.
Just a few minutes of basic research confirms this.
Digging a little deeper confirms that it wasn't.
The Confederate state legislatures said so. Their own leaders at the time said so in their speeches. I believe them - why don't you?,/p>
Because I've already told you why - it was a pretext. Also, only 4 of the original 7 seceding states listed causes for secession and of these 4, only one listed just slavery. 3 of the 4 listed other causes (mostly economic) even though these grievances were not unconstitutional and even though refusal to enforce the fugitive slave clause of the US Constitution was unconstitutional.
Also, the 5 states of the Upper South which seceded did not do so until being ordered by Lincoln to provide troops to attack other states. They obviously seceded over the constitutional issue that the Union was voluntary and that states had the sovereign right to "resume the powers of government" which the Founding Fathers said at the time that the original 13 states ratified the US Constitution, and not over the issue of slavery.
President Abraham Lincoln referenced this amendment himself in his Inaugural Address of March 4, 1861, and further pronounced “I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.”
Lincoln’s sole justification to prosecute a needless war was his uncompromising view that the Union must be preserved at all cost. He confirmed this understanding stating “My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union and is not either to save or to destroy slavery.”
Pretty much all wars are economic. By the time of the civil war, slavery was being gradually made uneconomical due to advances in technology. The cotton gin was pretty much going to destroy the economics of it even further. Slavery was a factor, but northern business interests were also a factor. If you think so much blood and treasure was expended merely to free blacks from a condition that had existed for as long as civilization, you’re delusional. History is always more complex than a bumper sticker slogan.
A careful consideration of what you theorize, it seems that the South and the North were for slavery. By definition, that means there was a different reason for the War.
You are both partially right. The war was about slavery in large part; but it was not solely about slavery; it was also largely about economics and politics. It’s fair to say that the war was about both the ethics and the practicality of slavery, and whether it would sustain or undermine our Constitutional republic. Less than a century after our unprecedented Revolution, the developing American experiment was fragile.
There are parallels to today’s exploitation of illegal immigration and foreign proxy wars enabled by the corrupted government and the taxes extracted from all of us. Whether individual citizens agree with these conditions or not, we are coerced to support them economically. Our consciences are insultated because for the time being, our nation is wealthier, so that we don’t regard our double standards quite as guiltfully as we regard 19th century American chattel slavery—but future generations may not agree.
However, as regards the CW—no one reason, but rather a complex stew of human impulses from best to worst drove both the North and the South into war.
Once it broke out, decent people in both regions were forced to take sides with the “least worse” side, according to their situation (like our presidential elections today). The poor, as always, have the narrowest range of choices. Many ended up cannon fodder, or widows and orphans.
Bellicose opponents always try to paint the other side with the worst accusations, but the side that “won” the war gets to write the history books, and have their narratives regarded as more true. Eventually, cooler heads evaluate a wider range of factors.
But not always.