**”Slavery was pressed upon the southern colonies by the Crown many decades before the Union was formed.”**
The Brits made slavery lawful in every colony, but slavery prospered in each to the degree it made economic & social sense.
Some colonies used more slaves than others and were later more reluctant to abolish it.
**” While there were still advocates of slavery in the southern states at the time of the civil war, very few southerners even owned slaves, much less were willing to give their lives in defense of the institution. “**
Only true if you look only at individual slave-holders.
But if you ask how many family households owned slaves, then the answer is nearly 50% in Deep South states, declining to fewer that 5% in a Border State like Delaware.
**” The northern abolitionists were not all morally superior - for many it was an economic position rather than a moral one - slavery devalued their labor and they did not want it extended westward. “**
No, long before 1860 all Northerners opposed slavery in their own States, for both moral and economic reasons.
But slavery in the South was a precondition for Union so Northerners were willing to leave it be there.
**” There were other concerns that caused the southern states to resist abolition even though few owned slaves - “**
But even Border States like Delaware which had very few slaves and the numbers declining over time still refused to abolish slavery voluntarily in the 1860s.
So slavery was more than mere economics, it was also a state of mind and ideology impervious to mere cost/benefit analysis.
**”I agree with those who say the war was completely avoidable and a huge failure in leadership. Lincoln was not a tyrant but neither can he be considered a great president. “**
War was only avoidable through surrender and destruction of the United States to the CSA. In that event millions of white Unionist in Southern states would be sacrificed to the Slave Power.
**”For those who insist the South fought the Civil War to keep slavery, one question needs to be answered: During all but the last months of the Civil War, Lincoln had the following offer always on the table: withdraw articles of secession and you can keep slavery and end the war.
**”If the South were seceding and fighting to keep slavery, why would they not take that offer? Obviously, the decision to secede was due not to fear of losing slavery but rather due to the many abusive trade tariffs, price controls and other economic coercions perpetrated on them by the Northern States.”**
Good point, but Secessionists were totally clear in their original documents that protecting slavery was the reason.
It was also the reason they refused to offer slaves freedom in exchange for military service.
But Civil War, not slavery, was the reason Upper South states (i.e. Virginia) joined the Confederacy, and protecting slavery alone could not bring them back to Union.
“War was only avoidable through surrender and destruction of the United States to the CSA. In that event millions of white Unionist in Southern states would be sacrificed to the Slave Power”
The Confederacy was not the aggressor, but thank you for reminding me of another point I wanted to make:
History is written by the conqueror, and never was that more the case than with The War of Northern Aggression. For 150 years our children have been taught the North’s rationale for the War and what led up to it:
The corrupt and treacherous South wanted to protect the evils of slavery and expand it westward and split the union in two, while the morally superior North wanted to free the slaves and hold the union together.
If the South had won the war a completely different history would have been taught:
Secession was the South’s only remaining peaceful response to the economic tyranny the North imposed on the southern states at every turn. The South could purchase industrial equipment from Europe for less than what the Northern states wished to charge, and could get more for their agricultural and textile produce than what the North wished to pay. So the North used legislation to coerce the south through tariffs, price controls and other political mechanisms. The northern states schemed to finance a transcontinental railway with the proceeds from tariffs on Southern exports. One of the northern railroad lawyers got himself elected president by promising the powerful railroad lobby that he would advance that scheme once in office, namely, Abraham Lincoln, esq.
The North refused to accept the South’s secession and chose to wage war. 600k lives were lost, but the real casualty was the hard-fought independence from a tyrannical government which the states had won in the American Revolution less than 100 years previous. The War of Northern Agression proved once and for all that the States were not willing partners joined by mutual consent, but were subjects yet again.
We would be wise to doubt our understanding of the two sides of the story when only one side is taught.
Look, I’m not defending slavery; good riddance to it. I’m defending the South which has been demonized for 150 years while the North has sanctified itself for all posterity with a self-serving version of the truth.
Consider this: Slavery came to a quick end in Haiti while the slave population in the American southern colonies continued to grow. Was this because Haitian owners were more enlightened and morally superior? No, quite the contrary. In the American south the population increased because conditions were better. More slave families were kept intact, reproduced and flourished while in Haiti and elsewhere the slaves were all-male work camps unable to reproduce and either dwindled through attrition, desease or starvation, or ended even more abruptly through slave rebellion, NOT because the owners were more enlightened.
In the industrial northern colonies, slavery was unpopular NOT due to moral superiority, but because the non-slave population needed the work and understood that slavery devalued their labor.
When slavery was abolished in the northern colonies and states, and in Europe it was often phased out in a way that did not cause loss of wealth or hardship to slave owners - slave trade ended, but existing slaves would continue to be owned until their death or for 20 years whichever came first, and children born to slaves after a certain date would be free. Many southern slave owners advocated and would have gladly accepted such a phase out.
Another perspective: one of the grievances that led to the American Revolution was slave trade forced upon the colonies by the Crown. By 1776 slave trade was mostly outlawed but the slave population in the southern colonies was rising due to reproduction. Among the many justifications for why the American colonies should not be allowed their independence was the British accusation that American colonies depended on slavery, which was immoral. This was the height of hypocracy since the British had so recently abolished slavery and had along with the Dutch been the driving force behind the slave trade for nearly a century.
The point being that if we had lost the revolutionary war rather than won it, history would not depict the North on its high horse laying the blame on the south for slavery and the civil war. Ironically, history would depict England on its moral high horse laying the blame on the American colonies (both north and south) for both slavery and the war itself. And the war would certainly not be called the American Revolution, but rather the colonial rebellion - and the reason for the rebellion? We wanted to preserve slavery. Oh, the irony.
In war, to the victor goes the spoils, including the exclusive right to tell only their self serving version of the story.