US Civil War question.....

[matmar]

How did the landed, wealthy slave-owning class in the South get poor subsistence farmers and the working class to fight their war for slavery?

[cthulu2016]

1. The same way England, France and Germany got the working class to fight WWI

Regionalism. Nationalism.

It trumps class interest.

[MNBrewer]

2. Identity politics

and religion.

[Hestia]

3. To literally get out of fighting, they paid others to fight for them. Big stink about that in the

newspapers of the time. The rest is propaganda - keep big gov't from our doors.

[Ron Green]

4. Racism, too. It's still being used today.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

5. With the hope that they too could be land owning, slave owning douches someday.

[MadHound]

6. By lying about the actual reason for the Civil War,

Namely spreading the myth that the war was not about slavery, but rather about "states' rights", a lie that persists, and is sadly effective, to this day.

[unblock]

7. same way the upper-class has always gotten the poor to fight for them.

they spent enough of their money on p.r. and media control to convince the masses that they were the good guys, they were looking out for the interests of their fellow countrymen, they were providing the jobs and good and services and so on.

they also spent enough of their money on anti-northern p.r. to convince the masses that the northerners were out to abolish the southern "way of life", that northerners were out to conquer and control them, take their resources, tell them how to live, etc.

throw in the usual romance about fighting for honor and for their beloved state and you've got an army eager to die for you.

keep in mind also that most soldiers were very young and impressionable. i mean, we may think today's recruits are young if they enlist straight out of high school, but that's old man status by historical standards.

[Selatius]

8. They imposed a military draft of all able-bodied men to protect several hundred billion in assets.

They already controlled the legislative process. It was a simple matter to author, vote upon, and pass into law a bill mandating a military draft.

To encourage support, of course they are going to play up identity politics and divide the people by promoting regional nationalism over the interests of the entire federation, but this aspect was one that took years. It takes an extended period of time to condition a population to largely accept certain propaganda.

By adopting this two-pronged approach, they ensured that there would be a fair amount of support both for secession and for a draft whenever one was declared.

The assets these wealthy landowners were protecting were the slaves, probably worth several hundred billion in today's dollars. They did not like the idea of the federal government taking that kind of wealth away and freeing what they felt was valuable "property."

[brewens]

9. No matter how poor you were you were still better than a slave. Keeping

that class barrier was critical. Kind of like middle class and upper middle class people are kept in line now. Make them believe that helping poor people is at their expense. They don't realize the people at the top are screwing everyone.

[demosincebirth]

10. They were raised that "slavery was freedom."

an institution

[Bruce Wayne]

11. Stockholm Syndrome

They were all held hostage to the slave system--rich and poor. And so they loved it even more, despite the economic inefficiency of slave-labor was one of the main things keeping the south in debt to northern bankers.

Did you know cotton made up 80% of US exports in the 1850s? And yet the cotton growers were not reaping the rewards. For reasons of supply and demand, the few Yankee bankers and shippers who dealt with the cotton trade were able to suck up all the profits. That sort of issue wouldn't divide the large planters from the poor cotton farmers--it would give them common cause. When the shooting started against the north, they were all willing to jump aboard the Bitter Express.

[Major Nikon]

12. They told them that the Yankees were trying to change their way of life

It's basically the same spew the GOP uses on the ignorant rubes today. They convince them that being poor and ignorant are good things because change is bad, and that the rich people really are the only ones that have their best interests in mind.

[AnOhioan]

13. The same way the wealthy got the working class and the poor to fight the Revolution.....

and every war thereafter.

[Dan]

14. and peer pressure,

girls like a guy in uniform,
adventure,
fun,
....no body thinks that they are going to die...