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The American civil war wasn’t about slavery.
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this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2023
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Confidently Incorrect
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When people are way too smug about their wrong answer.
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I mean they're not entirely wrong, fighting slavery was a political tool not a moral imperative as it should have been and Lincoln didn't in fact want to unilaterally shut it down he wanted the nation to figure it out ideally without violence.
Ed: books people, I'm not interpreting anything Lincoln was extremely vocal about it. Listen to Lincoln, he knows Lincoln weirdly enough.
https://www.nps.gov/liho/learn/historyculture/slavery.htm
No, they are entirely wrong.
You are right that Lincoln didn't want a war and only went to war to preserve the union. The North had the votes to end slavery without war and that is how they wanted to end it.
Which is why the southern states seceded and started the war in order to preserve their right to own slaves.
This ain't difficult, people. Photocopies of the documents from that time are easily accessible and written in modern English.
You don't need to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs.
You're part of the problem when you give "but ackshually" cover to them to continue this nonsense
Yes yes, history is nuanced but your actually a Nazi if you recognize that fact....
You see the problem there boss?
It's only nuanced if you ignore all the primary evidence that it really was over the issue of slavery and almost entirely about preserving slavery.
Most of those "Well it was more nuanced because states rights and they got beneficial skills" reasons are made up by the United Daughters of the Confederacy.
That my friend is called nuance.
Please quote my statements amounting to such implied accusation.
Because not all nuance is created equal nor is it accurate. Much of the "nuance" of the civil war beyond southern cecession and the ensuing war was over the institution of slavery and its abolition are falsehoods spread by the United Daughters of the Confederacy.
We have plenty of primary evidence from the cornerstone speech, to the actual confederate constitution, to letters of secession to the journal entries of soldiers who fought. None of that supports the "Well it was states rights and the soldiers didn't know better and the south was just a peace loving society that didn't want to hurt anyone, and the north are the real aggressors (despite the confederates firing the first shots in the first battle on Northern territory)."
But hey keep falling propaganda by apologists for a dead slaver nation-state that Hitler wrote about his admiration of in mein kampf.
"Your actions are morally wrong."
"Well that's just name-calling."
Incorrect.
You'll find historians agreeing since Lincoln was pretty upfront about it.
The south said 'it's about slavery' as often and as clearly as possible.
People saying 'it wasn't about slavery' are entirely wrong. Regardless of what Lincoln said. Pounding the table about what Lincon said is a misleading horseshit argument regardless of whether its claims are factual. It's not fucking relevant. The issue is: the south started a war, and they started that war over slavery.
Yes slavery was certainly part of it and if you can point to where I said it's not about slavery I'd love to see it.
It seems to me you and a few others here have seen what you wanted in my comments rather than what was actually said.
Ok, point to where I said it was not about slavery I will wait sir.
That is the norths perspective as written by contemporaries like uhh Lincoln who I quoted. Cool, it doesn't make sense.
Idiot on Facebook: "The sun goes around the Earth!"
You: "Well he's not entirely wrong, because bodies orbit the centroid between blah blah blah--"
One hundred people of varying politeness: "That's not what he meant and you fucking know it."
You: "Well here's a really smart guy talking about centroids--"
Ten exasperated follow-ons: "That's not what he meant, and you fucking know it."
You: "Point to where I agreed with anything he said."
A few diehard troll-hunters: "Where you said 'he's not entirely wrong.'"
You: "... yeah but what do words really mean, anyway?"
Stop talking.
"Part?" No.
It's ABOUT slavery. Slavery was the entire root cause.
The south started a war.
The war was over slavery.
This submission is an idiot saying "the civil war wasn't about slavery," and you saying "they're not entirely wrong." They are, though. They really fucking are. If your denial of that fact is plainly not rooted in ignorance, what the fuck are you doing?
You need to develop a response to criticism besides doubling down and scrambling for some way to avoid saying "whoops."
Yes part.
It was about trade played out through slavery sure.
Correct.
Correct.
Incorrect, they aren't entirely wrong they're not entirely right either. Please quote any part you feel is a "denial of fact" my suspicion is like everyone else you've jumped on board without reading the whole thing.
I'm not wrong, you're simply confused. Historians time and time again, respected ones at that say the same thing I do and that's ignoring the fact I quoted Lincoln about Lincoln, not my contemporary about Lincoln. I'm pretty sure dude knew his own thoughts.
Lincoln doesn't matter - the South started the war, about slavery.
Nothing Lincoln did could possibly change that. No quote of his could be relevant. Saying so isn't a question of veracity. The man himself could be on-record insisting slavery had nothing to do with it, and he'd be just as wrong, because the South started the war, *about slavery.
You know this is correct. You say this is correct. But then you turn away and make excuses for someone saying the complete opposite of that objective fact.
When this bigot begins "The Civil War wasn't about slavery until the Union started losing," that's lost-cause bullshit, and your defense of it is inexcusable. This is bog-standard Leeaboo nonsense that you're running interference for. 'Surely people would have stopped Lincoln's unpopular war' might as well spell out "Northern Aggression" if you fold the page in half.
I'm sorry, hold on.
I almost missed that you slipped into outright Confederate propaganda.
"It was about trade played out through slavery?" Fuck right off with that, the war was about SLAVERY. In itself, for its own sake. Not because of bloodless lies like blaming "trade." The bigotry of white supremacy was foundational! These bastards did not just want convenient free labor - they were fundamentally opposed to black people being treated as human. Quite a fucking lot of them asserted that black people, born anywhere, could never be American citizens.
Your behavior in this thread is why demands for "civility" enable toxic abuse. You can keep saying dumb shit as eruditely as possible, and everyone else has to dance around beginning a detailed condemnation with the barest hint of personal directed frustration.
Get out.
Historians can be assholes too
Yes and so can chefs that doesn't mean what a chef makes isn't food.
And a chef can put a turd on a plate, but that doesn't make it food.
Never heard of 2nd harvest?
History is nuanced, yes. Lost Cause bullshit and slavery apologists can GTFO tho. They're not arguing in good faith so when you chime in to let everyone know how smart you are by supporting that nonsense, you know what it looks like, right?
Bro it's factually correct, you can read Lincoln's diary discussing it. The statement "the civil war was about slavery" isn't wrong it just lacking nuance in the same way the statement I added to was.
They believe that the institution of slavery is founded on both injustice and bad policy; but that the promulgation of abolition doctrines tends rather to increase than to abate its evils.
They believe that the Congress of the United States has no power, under the constitution, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the different States.
They believe that the Congress of the United States has the power, under the constitution, to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia; but that that power ought not to be exercised unless at the request of the people of said District.
The difference between these opinions and those contained in the said resolutions, is their reason for entering this protest."
Dan Stone, A. Lincoln, Representatives from the county of Sangamon
Okay let's try this another way .
You are 100% correct in your assertion that the civil war was a culmination of much more than just moral outrage over slavery, and it's a subject worth continued study.
However, there are people who are exploiting that nuance for despicable reasons. So when you comment trying to clarify what you see as a matter of historical record, some of us see it as unhelpful because it's continuing to provide conversational cover to those who want to use that historical record in bad faith.
It's true, some slaves learned trade skills, but would you come in talking that ish if the OP was about the benefits of being enslaved?
Sure.
Agreed.
Why do you believe I'm one of these exploitative people and you aren't.
I don't get involved in subjectives and things I'm not particularly experienced in so I wouldn't touch it.
That said, if you agree with me then what is the drama and downvote barrage about?
To be clear, I have not downvoted you at all.
Have a good day!
Neat, way to dodge the bit about creating drama.
It is a bit hard to distinguish between a bad faith arguing and someone who is being pedantic. Poe's Law may parallel this. Maybe that's what they thought?
I am being pedantic... It's quite literally in the first comment. Nuance does indeed tend to be pedantic or tedious.
You seemed done, and I told you i get where you're coming from, so I'm not sure what else we have to talk about.
I'm into tabletop games and medieval history if you want to talk about that?
Point to where I said it's wasn't. You'll be like the third person who can't find it because I didn't say it nor ever imply it.
Dude, you think if chattel slavery never existed in the South that there still would have been a civil war?
The civil war was 100% about slavery.
Please quote me on that one boss.
Please refer to where I said it wasn't.
It was a moral imperative for much of the North. Lincoln only barely scraped out the Republican nomination. His main opponent was William Seward who was a "radical" abolitionist. Had Seward won the nomination, there may have been some fracturing of the newly formed Republican party. So while there was indeed a portion of the population who felt the complete abolition of slavery was too far, a huge chunk agreed with Seward. In particular, his own wife, Francis Seward. She abhorred slavery and I urge everyone to read her writings upon the subject.
Not enough to change it by force federally, clearly. I'm well aware, that doesn't change the fact Seward did not win and Lincoln and his supporters didn't want radical emancipation they wanted to slow roll everything.
And to be clear the South viewed a loss of slaves to the North as a loss of property and thus trade to the North. It's dumb and tedious but very accurate to say it was a trade dispute, a horrific hard to visualize in full one but a trade dispute none the less.
It depends on the answer to this question:
Did the South start the Civil War by seceding, or did the North start the Civil War by not letting them?
If the South started it by seceding, it was absolutely, unquestionably over slavery. A simple look at the various articles of secession makes that abundantly clear.
If the North started it by not letting them secede, then the Civil War was about preserving the Union, which the South was trying to leave because of slavery. The North wasn't fighting to end slavery. The north in general may or may not have wanted that, but that wasn't why they went to war.
Sure.
The South literally declared war so that would be hard to argue plus the whole succession thing.
Correct.
Also correct, those that l two things aren't mutually exclusive nor are they in this case. I mean they don't particularly care about the union, they wanted to keep the territories and keep the trade. If all the people of the South wanted to leave with their slaves the North world have cheered it on and in fact did with a number of southerners who went to places like Brazil and Argentina before during and after the war. Weirdly enough much like Nazis.
I would say the constitution didn't let them secede.
It feels disingenuous to remove morality from the equation. Morality clearly played a role which is why thinkers like Frederick Douglass are still remembered to this day. Clearly there were other forces at play- political and economic which shaped how this played out, but morality was certainly involved.
Gonna get a little preachy here - skip this part if you don't wanna hear that.
All of American history from the Revolutionary war to today can be summed up with people trying to reconcile the conflict of individual freedom and equality. Those two cannot coexist, and a boundary must be placed on one in order to allow the other ideal to flourish.
The civil war is a great example, individual freedom allows one to own another person if that is their desire. Equality says that your individual freedom cannot impede another person's. This means slavery cannot exist in such a value system and equality was valued above individual freedom.
The current abortion debate has the same bedrock conflict. Does an individual's personal freedom allow them the right to stop being pregnant if they wish? Well equality says the unborn child should be considered, as the choice to terminate violates their individual freedom to exist.
Let me be clear - in this post I am not advocating for either side in the abortion debate. I am merely trying to show that most of American history has been defined by trying to draw the line between the two founding principles of the nation.
Resolutions upon the subject of domestic slavery having passed both branches of the General Assembly at its present session, the undersigned hereby protest against the passage of the same.
They believe that the institution of slavery is founded on both injustice and bad policy; but that the promulgation of abolition doctrines tends rather to increase than to abate its evils.
They believe that the Congress of the United States has no power, under the constitution, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the different States.
They believe that the Congress of the United States has the power, under the constitution, to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia; but that that power ought not to be exercised unless at the request of the people of said District.
The difference between these opinions and those contained in the said resolutions, is their reason for entering this protest."
Dan Stone, A. Lincoln, Representatives from the county of Sangamon
Listen to Lincoln about Lincoln boss.