Can someone tell the "real causes" of the Civil War these Confederate apologists keep talking about?

[LostInAnomie]

Ever since McDonnell declared "Confederate History Month" I have heard a Confederate apologists crying that slavery wasn't the cause of the Civil War or even at the root of the causes. From my reading of history, slavery, if not being the only reason, was at least at the very heart of the reasons the South gave for starting the Civil War. How can this not just be accepted fact?

Edit: Earlier today, I watched Tamryn Hall interviewing a member of the Sons of the Confederacy, and she was actually afraid to call out his bullshit assertion that slavery played no role in the Civil War. It's a pretty sad day when a member of the media (a black woman at that) is so uninformed about history that they would let shit like that slide.

[HopeHoops]

1. You're talking about right wing morons. Why would "facts" enter into their rhetoric?

:shrug:

[H2O Man]

2. Barack Obama?

I think he caused the Civil War with his socialist stuff.

[Oregone]

3. Here is some reading on the matter:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1861/us-civil-war/index.htm

Perhaps it was due to Tyranny by the few over the many, aided by the structure of the Senate and territory rules

[subaltern]

64. thanks for posting that

Mainly because I have always found Marx impenetrable, that dense writing style from that period - Freud, Henry James, and others from various disciplines. I read some of this same journalism by Marx several years ago and really enjoyed it - but forgot all about it until you posted it. It is a very different style than his more famous tomes.

[FarCenter]

4. Start reading here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origins_of_the_American_Civil_War

[LostInAnomie]

6. Yes, I'm well aware...

... and any way you slice it, slavery (and the protection of it) is the root cause of the war.

[joeybee12]

7. I agree...there were many disputes and conflicts but it was slavery

that caused the South to secede...NO OTHER ISSUE would have done that...it was slavery over which senators came to blows on the steps on Congress.

[FarCenter]

13. But slavery was an economic as well as a racial institution -- which was more important?

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_A._Beard

Note that he is refered to as a "progressive historian", probably because he leaned towards economic factors as the determining causes of historical events.

[joeybee12]

15. Hmm..interesting tidbit about this guy in there...

"On the other hand, Beard's foreign policy views have become popular with supporters of paleoconservatism, such as Pat Buchanan."

[Oregone]

9. "slavery (and the protection of it) is the root cause of the war"

Not as far as I understand.

Now it was an integral part of the war and inseparable, but not a root cause.

[LostInAnomie]

10. What would it be then?

[Oregone]

14. I suggested a decent essay

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1861/10/25.htm

Its a very thoughtful look at the matter, and I guarantee you that youll learn a ton.

While the South was using the laws of slavery to create more slave states/territories (to secure control of the Senate), the "Ends" wasn't to preserve slavery on their part (though they would have). And this early Tyranny by the few was the root for much of the problems between the North and the South (though it was the South that started the conflict for autonomy, not the North to free the slaves). Thats a very important distinction.

If the was was ultimately about freeing the slaves (or even leveling the economic playing field), wouldn't the North have started the war? Wouldn't slavery had been illegal everywhere else except the South too?

[LostInAnomie]

18. Marx is fun to read, but he is not an authoratative source on the Civil War.

If anyone should have been able to see that the maintaining of a slave economy was the goal of the South, it should have been Marx. Especially, when such an institution is codified in the Confederate constitution.

[Oregone]

19. So what specific points do you disagree with?

Just the Commie Pinko that wrote it?

I assume you read the entire thing, right?

A very good point made by him was that Slavery was not necessary to fight over; the North rolled over time and again with laws that allowed its perpetual existence.

[LostInAnomie]

25. Ugh... that's cute.

As an owner of Most of Marx's published works, I am not disagreeing with his assessment because he was a "Commie Pinko".

Yes, I've read the entire thing numerous time before you even posted it.

The article you posted is where he is taking apart the arguments of the British press (that were very pro-confederacy). My disagreement with him is that he doesn't go far enough and just call it like it is "The South is fighting to preserve slavery". Of course, that wouldn't fit with Marx's very verbose style (Why use a sentence when 40 pages will do?). The closest he comes in this article is: "The whole movement was and is based, as one sees, on the slave question. Not in the sense of whether the slaves within the existing slave states should be emancipated outright or not, but whether the twenty million free men of the North should submit any longer to an oligarchy of three hundred thousand slaveholders; whether the vast Territories of the republic should be nurseries for free states or for slavery; finally, whether the national policy of the Union should take armed spreading of slavery in Mexico, Central and South America as its device."

[Oregone]

27. "he doesn't go far enough and just call it like it is"

You mean that he doesn't agree exactly with you?


Your quote of the essay just clarifies the disagreement here. It isn't the existence of slavery thats the problem (which was tolerated by the North), but the political ramifications of it (according to Marx).

[LostInAnomie]

30. And he was wrong.

Any way you slice it, slavery was the root cause to the conflict. Whether it be the political ramification of expansion of slave territories, the preservation of the Southern economy and Southern way of life, "States Rights", etc. They were all anchored in the institution and preservation of slavery.

[Oregone]

32. Well, its all a very complicated question, no matter how far you dig

"Any way you slice it, slavery was the root cause to the conflict"

If slavery never existed, would the Civil War have happened? (probably not).

But because of its existence, there were a plethora of tangential conflicts that arose politically and economically.

BUT, that doesn't mean the Civil War was about solving the question of slavery and if it should continue to exist. And thats probably why people have a hard time with this question, because its hard to determine what is being asked. Those tangential issues that slavery set the stage for shadowed it in the debate when the opening salvo was fired

Was the Civil War fought *over* slavery, to end slavery? I don't think you can answer that affirmatively. And sometimes that is what people are asking about the Civil War

[eShirl]

56. "If slavery never existed, would the Civil War have happened? (probably not)."

NUFF SAID

[Oregone]

60. Sure, if you live in a black and white world

[Posteritatis]

5. Fear of consequences, really

If slavery was a major reason for the war that means the Confederacy was doing something bad, and most of the apologists are big on whitewashing (..sorry) its history. Recognizing slavery as an issue puts a good chunk of the responsibility for the war on the Confederacy, and a lot of people prefer a worldview where they weren't responsible at all for the cause or conduct of the war.

The more pro-south and libertarian people I know have just turned it into some sort of thing where the federal government wanted to get their war on or somesuch; I've heard "War of Northern Aggression" used more and more lately, which at least gives me a reason to sink to the same level and toss around the term "Slaver's Revolt" more in exchange. ;)

[LostInAnomie]

8. I love when morons use "The War of Northern Aggression".

I guess they forgot who fired the first shots on Fort Sumter.

[LanternWaste]

11. All one needs to do is compare and contrast...

All one needs to do is compare and contrast each of the states Articles of Secession. When discussing the red-herring of states rights, each Article has one commonality... slavery.

Historian Drew Gilpin Faust observed that "leaders of the secession movement across the South cited slavery as the most compelling reason for southern independence." (Drew Gilpin: Ideology and Identity in the Civil War South)

[PVnRT]

12. There was always friction between the north and south for a variety of reasons

However, it is undeniable that slavery was the biggest issue involved, and the controversy over ridding it in the territories (and elsewhere) was what finally pushed the South to secede.

[FailureToCommunicate]

39. +1 The loss in the Supreme Court over Amistad, and loss of power in the

Congress, culminating in the election of Abraham Lincoln without a single electoral vote from the South, pushed them to secede and fire on Fort Sumter

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

16. There was no issue other than slavery that could not have been negotiated

Slavery was the sole point of friction between north and south but slavery was the sole cause of the war.

The north was willing to make very generous concessions on every other point. Numerous generous grand compromises were offered and rejected by the south over slavery and nothing but slavery.

People are taught that there were all sorts of complex causes but that is a revisionist lie that came into currency during the great confederate rehabilitation phase circa 1910-1940.

Again, a point of disagreement is not automatically a cause of war. Wars are caused by that which cannot be resolved short of war.

[Dappleganger]

42. The English did not have a Civil War over slavery.

Wonder how they managed that one?

[hedgehog]

17. Are you kidding!?! The War of Northern Agression had nothing

to do with slavery.

It was all about State's Rights!


Just like sending Constance McMillen to a fake prom had nothing to do with homophobia,

it was all about Straights' Rights!


:sarcasm:

[Tutonic]

20. Yes, but the issue of states rights was raised over the issue of

runaway slaves being made to return to a state that recognized slavery. The state's argued that it was their right to enforce slavery through state laws and to subject runaway slaves to those laws. The war was simply based on slavery. The issue of ecoomics and states rights--although related are overshadowed by the real ossue of slavery.

[Kalyke]

21. It's not accepted because it's not true.

It was over states rights - even if it really wasn't.

Let me explain:

Most of the men who fought in the Civil War were too poor to ever own a slave. Therefore, the powers that were - the people who could afford to own slaves had to come up with a "cause" that the average person could stand behind. That cause was states rights.

In the period between the American Revolution and the ratification of the Constitution, the states had united under a much weaker federal government - the Articles of Confederation. The Articles gave the central government very little, if any, authority to overrule individual state actions.

However, once the Constitution was ratified, it strengthened the federal government, authorizing it to use its powers to essentially hold the states together. In the event of any conflict between state and federal law, the Constitution resolved the conflict, for example. This was upheld in the case of McCulloch v. Maryland when the Supreme Court ruled that the laws adopted by the federal government too precedent of state law.

Then the Federalists passed the Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798. However, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison secretly wrote the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, which provide a classic statement in support of states' rights. According to this theory, the federal union is a voluntary association of states, and if the central government goes too far each state has the right to nullify that law.

Many people - not all Southerners - agreed with the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions. These people believed the state could better represent its citizens because the federal government was too remote.

So... that's what the powerful used to drum up support. It's a valid belief - even if you don't agree with it.


All that said: Doesn't this remind you of Bush and the Iraqi War? Take an event that many people believe should have never happened (9/11) and use the popularity of preventing another event from occurring to drum up support for a war that was not necessary. Plug in some holes by scaring people into believing the country we're going to war with has weapons of mass destruction and win the support of many in the nation because you've never revealed your true motive... which, in this case, was oil and pipelines.

[Tutonic]

26. It was the consitutional protection of slavery. Not states rights.

Article I, section 9, clause 4 of the Confederate Staets Constitution:

"No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed."

States Rights was rooted in the constitutional protection of slavery--the slave trade. This goes beyond the Dred Scottcase dealing with states rights. The south sought to uphold slavery as a right endowed upon all white men. The Confederacy held the belief that no state could bar people from transporting slaves across state lines. Slavery was seen to be that important. It also very specifically defined human beings as chattel--property. The issue of states rights would not exist without the need to uphold slavery.

[Kalyke]

47. That doesn't change the basis of my opinion.

That is: most of the men fighting in the Civil War for the South could not afford to own slaves and didn't think about it one way or the other. The wealthy and powerful drummed up a series of Constitutional debates to garner support for their war: states rights, the Articles of Confederation, Dred Scot.... etc.

Like Bush did before going into Iraq.

[Dr Morbius]

58. Dred Scott had huge political ramifications.

The Dred Scott decision allowed slave owners to take their slaves anywhere, even to states where slavery was illegal. In short, most people believed Dred Scott would allow slavery to spread all over the territories, and even extend into the north. Workers, ordinary folk like you and me (well, me anyway) worried that their jobs would be taken away and slaves used for their work.

Dred Scott made the civil war inevitable.

[unc70]

63. Dred Scott also sanctioned Northern states exclusions of Free Negros

The denial of citizenship to any freed African based on inherent inferiority was important to many non-slave states in ways that most narratives overlook. If Scott were deemed a US citizen with rights before the Federal courts, then it would flow that many laws North and South restricting rights and asserting non-citizenship based on ones race or prior status (e.g. immigration into a state, right to vote) could now be challenged in the Federal courts.

The entire justification in DS for denying US citizenship for anyone of African descent has horribly flawed and claimed as fact in support things which were obviously false. My immediate question when first studying this ruling was what about the status of Blacks who had never been slaves and had who full rights when the Constitution was ratified. NC, for example, initially made no legal distinction between free men based on race until 1830 when the qualification to vote was whites-only. Free blacks otherwise had the same rights as free whites in NC until 1860.

For many in the North, about the only think worse than the evil of slavery in the South was the prospect of their states being overwhelmed by large numbers of newly freed slaves with full rights as citizens.

[whistler162]

52. Well said... in addition it was also

Southern politicians losing their power in Washington with the greater population growths in the North and West.

[unc70]

62. Agree about the similarities with the reasons for invading Iraq, etc.

I have several posts in this thread and elsewhere (saved on my journal) about that very topic. The connections are even greater because they both involving many of the same, interrelated families and the Ivy educated (Harvard, Yale) elites who have dominated American business and politics since colonial times.

[LeftinOH]

22. The war was all about "States' Rights" (((to have a slave-based economy)))

[lumberjack_jeff]

23. Property.

The southern slaveowners were pissed because the north was taking (e.g. Hariett Tubman) their stuff.

Every postfacto rationalization sidesteps the main issue. State's rights my ass. No one's ever picked up a rifle for anything so abstract.

[lumberjack_jeff]

24. Not about slavery? Then explain Article IV of their constitution.

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_csa.asp

The confederation was the only modern society attempted which explicitly, legally embraced slavery and saw fit to enshrine it in their constitution.

Reading this thing makes me realize that we're still fighting that war.

We, the people of the Confederate States, each State acting in its sovereign and independent character, in order to form a permanent federal government, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God do ordain and establish this Constitution for the Confederate States of America.

No "general welfare"?

And I'm glad the favor and guidance of Almighty God was delivered.

[Oregone]

29. I thought the war was ONLY about Article II

Go figure. They sure loved their President guy

:rofl:

Of course they want to preserve slavery as an institution if they are going to make their own government. But, eh, they also laid out some other things too, you know. So, well, I mean, its expected they would preserve something important to them. Its just a stretch to say that is proof it was the root cause of the war. But whatever

[MellowDem]

28. Many will tell you it was mostly about "state's rights"...

or simply a continuation of the debate over the Federalist Papers. Essentially, the South was all about the original Articles of Confederation, which turned out to be a big failure for a number of reasons, but basically they wanted more decentralized power.

Also, the South was by far the wealthiest region of the nation and paid most of the federal taxes through tariff laws on such exports as cotton. Of course, part of their wealth came from the incredibly cheap slave labor they used, but they also had a near monopoly on a resource that was in high demand at the time in Europe. But this makes sense as to their want (at least among the aristocracy, who pretty much controlled Southern politics) to have a confederacy where their wealthy states could keep their wealth instead of giving it to the government.

Really, it was all about economics and wealth, which of course for the South made it all about slavery, since their whole economy was based on it. For a while, slavery was becoming unprofitibale, and its use as an ecnomic tool was backsliding and with it slavery was heading for its demise. Until the invention of the cotton gin. Then it kicked back up. Which just goes to show it was all about money.

Many present-day Confederate sympathizers had ancestors in the war, and most of them were not slave owners. To them, the Confedracy is a celebration of Southern culture and heritage. They view themselves as the underdog against the big bad federal government. They were the "rebels" after all. Just a continuation of the Revoloutionary War. And slavery doesn't even enter the equation for them. Many will tell you that they wish that the Confederacy had freed the slaves before the war, because that way they would have won and taken away any reason for the North to keep fighting. Of course, that would have never happened at the time, because the Southern aristorcracy wouldn't have had it.

They are correct in that the average Southern soldier did not fight to preserve slavery. It's a cruel joke that many Southerners look on these ancestors who were fighting for their homeland with pride, as they see it, but they were simply misled by rich Southerners into thinking that they were fighting for their "freedom", when nothing was farther from the truth. A lot of the reason white subsistenance farmers were so poor was because of the slave economy that the South was based on. They couldn't compete with big slave labor plantations and were not willing to work for slave wages. So many fought for blind nationalism or based on irrational fears of their freedom being taken way. And some were drafted later in the war and had no choice.

And that is where many of their ancestors find themselves today. Fighting for the rich against their own best interests because they have been mislead by ignorance and fear from the aristocracy, except now that aristocracy has Faux News, hate radio, and the Republican Party. It's a sad and cruel thing to see history repeat itself like so.

[Rex]

31. States rights. The south at first got to keep their slaves while the north

freed theirs down to the Mason-Dixon Line. But yeah, slaves were THE reason for the war. The North was following along with England (the Abolishment Movement) and the South got scared they would lose their free workers and might have to treat them like human beings (ie PAY them). So there would have been no Civil War, without slavery.

[Patriot 76]

33. I never understood poor Southerners fighting the rich Southerners War.

Unless they were convinced they could maybe one day have a slave of their own.

[Name removed]

35. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[lumberjack_jeff]

36. Then the world of today must be equally perplexing. n/t

[Hosnon]

40. Bingo. nt.

[rudy23]

45. Turn on FOX News, it's happening now

Except with Palin/Bachmann & crew, these days it's not just the Southern poor fighting the rich Southerners' battles.

[fascisthunter]

55. no shit, because in the end, that's what it was

[subaltern]

65. the poor always do the fighting.

The guys (grunts) who invaded Iraq weren't oil speculators either.

[NoGOPZone]

34. The states which issued Declaration of Causes upon seceding

were explicit in the declaration of slavery as a cause.

http://sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war/reasons.html

[unc70]

37. Slavery, exploitation by Northern banks, railroads, steel, textiles, shipping

There are a couple of recent posts on my journal that also have some of the other things going on. Thirty years earlier, it really was tariffs driving nullication because make cotton exports to expensive to compete there (UK), and leaving no alternative but to sell to the Northern textile mills at below world market prices.

Slavery issues had been used by all sides to appeal to their voters, but much like abortion in modern campaigns.

Look at the history of the DeWolf family for some interesting background.

You should also look at www.northernslavery.com. It seems reasonably correct, as far as I can tell, and includes sections on each state plus some overviews.

[unc70]

50. Here is the correct link concerning slavery in the North

http://www.slavenorth.com

[Syntheto]

38. If you mean 'slavery' in terms of...

...human, chattel bondage, the fact is that not all that many people really gave a shit one way or another, other than an in an abstract way. Sure, there were abolitionists in the North, but their views were certainly not mainstream. If anything, the Northern white population didn't want any blacks in their neck of the woods. More importantly, it really all came down to a clash between economic systems, Free Labor and Slave Labor. Jeffery Rogers Humel's book "Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men" is the best book I've read on the subject. Unfortunately, it wasn't so much righteous indignation over the plight of black slaves that triggered the war and eventually broke the actual chains of bondage, but rather the Northern capitalists of that time who couldn't compete with an economy based on slave labor. The Lincoln administration went to great pains to avoid antagonizing the so-called 'border states', including Kentucky and Maryland, both of which not only held slaves, but, as distasteful as it is to say it, conducted slave breeding operations, as well as sales and distribution.

So, yes, Slavery was the main cause of the Civil War, but not out of compassion. Don't ever get the idea that Union white soldiers tramped into Virginia to 'free the slaves'. Even when that did happen, as with General B. Butler, he used black labor to dig trenches and build fortifications, as well as employing them in a wide range of non-combat related work in order to free up the fighting units, just as the Confederates had done, 'confiscating' the rebel's 'property' as 'contraband'.

Did a war have to happen? Well, in my opinion, if the English textile manufacturers of that time had refused to traffic in slave-produced cotton, it might not have been necessary. In Humel's book, he mentions a fact that I had never read up until this time (at age 50!) that, up until about 1794, black-seeded so-called 'Sea Island' cotton, which only grew along the coastal areas, was the only strain that could be efficiently grown and processed by hand. Green-seeded cotton, which could be grown anywhere in the Southern regions, was much more labor-intensive to harvest, (being much more 'trashy' with stems and seeds) and the profit margin (the crux of the capitalist manifesto) could not justify the expense of an adult field hand at about $2,500 in 1847... (don't judge me, that's what the ledgers from that period reveal). Humel postulates in his book that slavery was really on it's way out at that point. Then Mr. Whitney developed his cotton gin, and Northern US and English textile concerns struck up an unholy alliance with the Southern planters.

That single invention did more to perpetuate the practice (fuck 'institution', y'all) of slavery than anything else. With Whitney's gin, green-seed cotton could now be processed with ease, and Southern capitalists of that time (many investors, not only actual farmers or planters) bought up bottom land in Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, as well as Louisiana and the other southern states (forgive me if I left yours out, Georgia, Florida, Arkansas, Tennessee, North and South Carolina and Virginia.) and proceeded to plant the soon to be King Cotton, and making huge fortunes in the process; the aforementioned Northern and English mill owners buying up all that could be produced, while perhaps holding their noses and turning their backs to the knowledge that, at the end of the day, their livelihoods depended, ultimately, on the lash, hunting dog and branding iron.

Of course, running a cotton gin only required a couple of hands. The actual picking of these enormous crops required a huge number of people out in the fields, and so the most shameful part of American history began. Without the African slave trade, the only way to acquire African slave labor was to institutionalize a cradle to grave state of subservience. Even worse, and the thing that I keep coming back to, time and time again, ever since my children were born, was the fact that a white overseer or planter, or one of his sons or nephews, (hell, and at least one President) could walk out on his veranda or ride out in the fields and see his own progeny, yet other than a pat on the head or other small tokens, never even acknowledge his own paternity. What sort of man could do that?

The war had been coming for a long time; maybe it couldn't have been avoided; the sense of identity probably was closer to the relationship between Canada and the U.S. has today; plus the concept of Southern aristocracy, brittle and easy to offend, as Preston Brooks proved in the Senate when he liberally applied his cane to the head and shoulders of Charles Sumner, underlay a hypersensitivity to perceived threats to the mythical 'Southern way of life'. But, again, if there were no buyers for Southern cotton, and it sat there, mouldering on the docks of Savannah or Charleston, slavery wouldn't have been a viable option. Maybe if someone went back in time and persuaded or killed Eli Whitney and destroyed his notes and prototypes, it might have stopped the eventual train wreck... Harry Turtledove, are you listening?

[FarCenter]

53. Slavery was not essential for cotton -- British plantations in India and Egypt did not use slaves

And in the US, sharecropping became the norm after the Civil War.

[Syntheto]

61. Yes, but...

... I would argue that the peasants out in the Egyptian cotton fields (All The Way To Memphis?), while not slaves, probably worked within a system of exploitation and brutality not far removed from slavery, much as the system of sharecropping that began after the War in this country. My point is that, if the British had stopped dealing with the Southern planters in the 1840's and 1850's, it might have made cotton plantations untenable in terms of profit. Bottom-line for me is that the British hemmed and hawed about concerning trading manufactured goods (including military equipment) for raw Southern cotton. It wasn't until Lincoln promulgated the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 that the war was put into a moral perspective. Then, overwhelming British public opinion forced the government to put the kibosh to that sort of trade relationship, and it, in fact, sealed the fate of the rebellion. Even more so, it forced the world to accept the fact that Washington was the final arbiter of American diplomacy, and not any other region, state or city. No free system of labor can compete with a system based on slave labor. Whatever other problems that slavery causes, in terms of societal woes and inequality are beside the point. It's all about, and always has been about, the bottom-line of the balance sheet.

Finally, there was a huge glut of raw cotton on British docks in 1863. When you add that to the political dynamite of the Emancipation Proclamation, the British mill owners and government officials would have seen that paying a few extra pounds a ton of cotton from Egypt was a small price to pay.

After Vicksburg and Gettysburg, everyone knew that it was all over, and the players in Britain decided to cut their losses, or at least forgo a portion of their profits.

[Hosnon]

41. It was the same then as it is today: money.

Southern elites stood to lose an immense amount of wealth upon the abolishment of slavery. And their Northern counterparts were probably sick of competing against companies with almost no overhead.

Result: war.

[jberryhill]

43. Lincoln's Analysis....

http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres32.html

One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it.

[Froward69]

44. Industrialization vs. Slavery

or two distinct methods/Basis of economy.

One moral the other immoral.

[Recursion]

46. There was a definite industrial/agrarian aspect to it

And while, yes, that was tied up in the question of slavery, the question of slavery was itself tied up in the question of capital.

[SoxFan]

48. Big fight over Clemson vs. Penn State in the 1861 BCS rankings

Things kind of got out of hand, I guess...

[gordianot]

49. Popular song of the time "Bonnie Blue Flag" listed reasons for formation of Confederacy.

Even at the time they used vague code words. Northern Treachery"=Missouri Compromise, Heritage to Save=Slavery as well as unique (Southern Rights). You would have to ressurect our Great Great Grand fathers but I am sure they could interpret the meaning of this song banned in the North punishable by fine or imprisonment. Given the time it was an effective tool to rally Southern Sympathizers.

See lyrics and judge for yourself: The lyrics sound very familiar to Tea Bagger rhetoric.

We are a band of brothers and native to the soil
Fighting for our Liberty, With treasure, blood and toil
And when our rights were threatened, the cry rose near and far
Hurrah for the Bonnie Blue Flag that bears a single star!

Chorus:
Hurrah! Hurrah!
For Southern rights, hurrah!
Hurrah for the Bonnie Blue Flag that bears a single star.

2. As long as the Union was faithful to her trust
Like friends and like brethren, kind were we, and just
But now, when Northern treachery attempts our rights to mar
We hoist on high the Bonnie Blue Flag that bears a single star.

Chorus

3. First gallant South Carolina nobly made the stand
Then came Alabama and took her by the hand
Next, quickly Mississippi, Georgia, and Florida
All raised on high the Bonnie Blue Flag that bears a single star.

Chorus

4. Ye men of valor gather round the banner of the right
Texas and fair Louisiana join us in the fight
Davis, our loved President, and Stephens statesmen rare
Now rally round the Bonnie Blue Flag that bears a single star.

Chorus

5. Now here's to brave Virginia, the old Dominion State,
With the young Confederacy at last has sealed her fate,
And spurred by her example, now other states prepare
To hoist high the bonnie blue flag that bears a single star.

Chorus<2>

6. Then cheer, boys, cheer, raise a joyous shout
For Arkansas and North Carolina now have both gone out,
And let another rousing cheer for Tennessee be given,
The single star of the Bonnie Blue Flag has grown to be eleven.

Chorus

7. Then here's to our Confederacy, strong we are and brave,
Like patriots of old we'll fight, our heritage to save;
And rather than submit to shame, to die we would prefer,
So cheer for the Bonnie Blue Flag that bears a single star.

[Bigmack]

51. All those defenses of the Rebel South are a lot funnier if you read them....

in your best Foghorn Leghorn voice.

"Ouah sacred Honah.... cohnpone... cohn whiskey... poontang... "

Try it... it's fun!

[DeltaLitProf]

54. The Vice President of the Confederacy Alexander Stephens

. . . made a speech called the Cornerstone speech. In it he said the cornerstone of the Confederacy was the belief that the white man is superior to the black man.

If the Vice President of the Confederacy promoted its reason for being that way, then I'm willing to believe him.

[unc70]

59. Nearly everyone in the North also believed that other races inferior to whites

The Puritan and related groups viewed themselves as being God's new chosen people, blessed with understanding the true meaning of the Bible, ...

[unc70]

57. Who profited most from slavery, and what they are doing now? Abolishinists?!

The profits from owning slaves and from slave labor were rarely as great as generally believed, while the risk of losses is much greater. How many years are needed to recoup what you had paid for the slave, How likely is it that the slave will suffer injury or die sooner than that? Or that the market value of the goods produced will collapse?

Remember property taxes. Remember your obligation to feed, clothe, and house elderly slaves until their death.

At various times and places, indentured servants was a better choice.

The influx of desparate immigrants, mostly from Ireland and Germany, provided really low cost labor without the need to risk capital and without future obligations. A capitalist's dream.

No, the big money went to the Boston, Newport, Bristol families that owned and operated all parts of the "triangular trade" that is usually taught without mentioning any names: slaves from Africa to the islands, sugar cane into molasses from there to New England where it is distilled into rum and shipped back to Africa for more slaves. These families became the wealthiest people in the country and the basis for much of the manufacturing, banking, and transportation in the country.

They then owned and controlled the textile mills in New England, and their banks financed much of the expansion westward of cotton production, mostly in very large, commercial (factory) plantations, owners often absent, some a syndicat of shareholders. Much like industries today, they drove down their costs for producing cotton, more efficiency and productivity -- in other words, brutally forcing their slaves to work faster and longer. But it would never be good enough, at least not in a few years.

While cotton was quite profitable at first, production increased rapidly, the War of 1812 disrupted demand, epidemics, damaging weather, insects and plant diseases, and market manipulations produced boom-bust cycles of opulence and ruin.

The slave traders never stopped, not for the twenty years it was legal, and not after that either, not stopping until the Civil War. With each younger, Harvard-Yale-Brown-educated generation taking over the business, their elders were respectable members of the Senate, decrying the evils of Southern slavery and using that to obscure legislation that favors their other commercial endeavors, things like canals, railroads, steel -- helped by Federal public works project.

By the late 1850's, globalization is kicking in. To stay competitive, the English mills were buying from emerging producers of cotton in Egypt and India. Cotton was no-longer King.

When war finally came, these New England-based commercial endeavors were well-positioned to switch over to supplying the US military.

[Odin2005]

66. The Southern Aristocracy felt itself under threat from Northern Industrialists and Abolitionists.

Northern victory in the Civil War was essentially the victory of Industrial Capitalism over Aristocracy and "caste" (slavery).

[demtenjeep]

67. it was slavery shrouded in a "states rights leave me alone" mentality

Lincoln just wanted to keep the Union intact

[Old Troop]

68. Slavery was the key reason for the Civil War

Many economic reasons played a part, but the single greatest reason for the splitting of the country was slavery. Read the declarations of the States that joined the Confederacy - they all mention slavery.