Can the legacy of the Confederacy ever really be detached from horrors of slavery and its consequences?

Question

Some will try to argue that the "glorious struggle" of the Civil War was fought NOT for slavery, but for states' rights. However, the specific right that the Southern states were fighting for was, in fact, the right to own slaves. The South only seceded when confronted with the pro-abolitionist President Lincoln. The wealthy aristocracy that made up the bulk of the Confederate government and of the officers in the Confederate army had a vested interested in maintaining slavery as it was slave labor that had made them wealthy in the first place. While it is true that the vast majority of the enlisted men in the Confederate Army didn't own slaves, and even true that most white Southerners were too poor to own slaves, this cannot mitigate the profit motive of those in command. Even if it is true that most white Southerners enlisted out of a desire to protect their families, property, and communities from Northern invaders, how can anyone reasonably ignore the CSA's legacy of slavery?

Answer 1

The Civil War was about slavery. Period. People argue that it was about states' rights, but what right were people fighting to protect? Slavery. Southern states seceded because Lincoln and the Republican Party were hostile to slavery.

Most Northern states had outlawed slavery years before the Civil War; however, some Union states did still allow slavery, and those states were not affected by the Emancipation Proclamation - which was, incidentally, issued during the war, taking effect in 1863 when the Union was not doing so well militarily. The Emancipation Proclamation was more a political rallying tool than an actual attempt at general abolition.

Lincoln was at best a mild abolitionist. He had worked prior to the Civil War to prevent slavery from spreading to the new western territories such as Kansas and Nebraska. The spread of slavery was much more of a hot button issue in the years leading up to the Civil War than was the abolition of existing slavery, which was generally not considered feasible by politicians. Abolitionist publications had been around for decades by the 1860s, but the southern economy was too entrenched in slavery to just give it up.

The Union was primarily fighting to preserve the complete nation. Not until the Emancipation Proclamation was the war made to be all about slavery, but slavery was clearly the cause of the conflict. After the war, Reconstruction-era (and later) Southerners developed the myth of the Lost Cause, the glorious and noble fight by the South to maintain states' rights and further individual independence from the federal government. Several books have been written on the Lost Cause and may be worth checking out.

Answer 2

The simple answer is that Slavery was not the driving force behind the seccesion and never was.

Yes, it was a part of it, but only a small part.

It WAS about state rights, but the real problem was not the states right to have slavery, but the states rights to protect thier economy.

The Major cause of the civil war was economics. The north was placing excessive tarrifs on British woodwork. This was an attemt to protect the New England furniture and ship building industries. In retaliating, the british places high tarrifs on the only good major trade good exported from the americas - Cotton.

This had devistating affects on the southern economy.

Having more states, and a higher population, the north had control over the congress and therefore over trade policies and tended to stick it to the southern states.

Slavery only bacame an issue after the war began. It was used as a rallying cry in the north. It was how the army recruited men to fight.

That is why Lincoln waited 3 years to emancipate the slaves. When he entered office, he had no intentions of ending slavary. He emancipated them to increase popular support for the war and to enable the enlisting of black soldiers in the U.S. Army. It is these soldiers that are credited with turning the tide of the war.

The Civil War was not fought over Slavery, it was fought over economics. The issues befgan 30 years before the actual war started.

While ending slavery was a just cause, it was no more than a rallying point for the north.

To view the confederacy as nothing but a legacy of slavery is the same as viewing the north as nothing but immigrant hating, sweatshop operating, child labor using states.

Both are narrow minded ignorant (as in uneducated) views that ignore the first half of this countries history.

Oh, the biggest misconception of all? The Stars and Bars.

It is A Battle Flag, not the flag of the confederacy.

Answer 3

Take a look at the ORIGINAL 13th Amendment as proposed by Lincoln. It would have made slavery legal and the amendment would have been unamendable (meaning it could not been repeal like prohibition). Also, the first slaves in this country were white, not black. No slaves were ever transported on Confederate ships or ships owned by Southerners. Slavery lasted longer under the American government than it did under the Confederacy. The USA's legacy of slavery is longer than the CSA's. Northerners owned slaves (like Grant & Sherman). America's history is not always grand and glorious, and even Grant said had the war been fought over slavery he would not have fought.

Answer 4

I don't think that Confederate States of America will ever be detached from slavery. Although President Abraham Lincoln declared war on the seceding southern states to preserve the Union, many thnk he really did because of his pro-abolitionist beliefs. I think it could go either way (if Lincoln was an abolitionist or not) because although he said slavery was a moral wrong, he said he would fight to preserve the Union, whether that led to the freeing of the slaves or not.
The South seceded for many reasons, most of them based on the fact that the southern farmers were being challenged in their "rights" to hold slaves. Problems came when the precepts stated in the Missouri Compromise (which had outlawed slavery above the 36'30 latitude line in the Louisiana Territories) were repealed by the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. This led to a huge controversy over using the method of popular sovereignty to decide whether a state would be settled as slave-holding or free.
In conclusion, I think the Confederate States of America will always be regarded as pro-slavery and will never be detached from it.

Answer 5

Well you pretty much answered your own question here. What did you need help with?

As person who has always lived in the North the Confederacy means slavery. The two concepts are so attached I don't know how to see it in another way. Even your own answer couldn't separate them.

One thing I'll point out is when there is great gains to be had by becoming wealthy and by living in the USA having the potential to become wealthy, I think people who fought for the Confederate army were fighting to protect their interest in owning slaves in the future.

Heck, look at the antebellum mansions of the south, who in the world could afford to have such work done without slaves? It's horrible when you think of the beautiful homes built with whips, starvation, and hatred.

Why would you want the Confederacy to be detached from the horrors of slavery? They weren't nice at all.

Answer 6

There was not all that much profit in Slaves- they had to eat, wear cloths, live in a shelter, - poor people of all races lived not much better, fact some lived worst and starved. A slave was valued property a poor white man was nothing to anyone. Yes I know slaves were sold and were taken away to live elsewher without the family, but White people had to leave families and search for a lifelyhood often leaving behind families, poor kids were taken away and handed over to Rich Farmers and they became slaves in every way .

Its not like everyone thinks- most people who fought for the Confederates did so because the Norther Army was invading their home state.

Republicans are Re-inventing the Confederacy.

Answer 7

I'll start with a quote from the 'great' Abraham Lincoln, on the occasion of his fourth debate with Stephen Douglas:

"I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races -- that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race."


That about says it all, doesn't it?

I'm a Southerner and a Historian. While what a lot of what you say is true and that the outcome of the Civil War was certainly about ending slavery, it was more about social order and industrial/urban versus agrarian society.

Slavery was an issue that was worldwide and the morals of the nineteenth century regarding human bondage caused conflict all over the globe.

However, no where else did a bloody and horrible war happen over it, though, and that is the sole legacy of the madman called Lincoln and his supporters.

Most Union soldiers were not in the war to free blacks. They could not care less and certainly are not the heroes and liberators that the Yankee-written history makes them out to be.

As victors and as liberators, the "Union" that cost a million American causalities turned into a plundering band of pirates that kept their victims, including Southern Blacks, in poverty and ignorance for nearly a century.

For more on the real legacy of Abraham Lincoln, the manic, deluded and merciless leader of this Union, I beg you to read Mark Alexander's excellent essay on the topic:

http://patriotpost.us/alexander/edition.asp?id=465

Answer 8

President Lincoln fought to keep the union together, not to abolosih slavery. The emanciaption Proclamation came after the war. The President could have issued it earlier. The norths winning the war allowed for an easy way to aboloish slavery for the infrastructure of slavery was ruined.
The stars and bars will forever be associated with slavery. Only southerners will view the the stars and bars as pride not prejudice, but after the war the star and bar states did things to impede human rights and freedoms.

Answer 9

Why are you still stirring the pot? It is what it is. There were notherners that owned slaves too. There were black land owners that owned slaves as well- Very few and far bewtween but they were there.
SLAVERY WAS WRONG And it aws not just a southern thing. Yes we should remember history so it is not repeated but at some point in time we need to FORGIVE history and learn to get along so we are not stomping on anyone of any race.
We can get along if we all make the effort and history will not repeat itself when we do.

Answer 10

It is over,

people in the South are still fighting it.

It was over states rights. And slavery is still in existence today in fact white slavery. But that is not a hot button issue. It is funny there are white slaves right now and you are talking about people freed what 200 years ago.

Also the Spanish bought these people from Africans who would have been killed for liquor and the they were sold aboard. Slavery was never an exclusive American issue.