Why do people now insist the Civil War was fought for the slaves?

Question

The Civil War like most wars was fought over money and power. The South got sick of the North putting unjust tariffs (tax) on good and treating the south like a second class citizen. Sound familiar? Not trying to be offensive, but no war has been fought over human rights. All wars come down to one of two things MONEY and POWER. With Power comes MONEY. I'm just sick of hearing people spit out garbage like it's the truth. Do we spin the truth to put a pretty face on WAR or do we honestly now believe it to be the truth? When we forget the truth of history we condemn our future. Your thought’s please…

Answer 1

THANK YOU!!!!!!!
It's always great to hear somebody tell it like it is (or was). Do ppl honestly think that thousands of Northern men would leave their homes and families to risk their lives to free Southern slaves?? How many ppl would do that today? Maybe a hundred?
Oh, and here's a point to notice- GRANT OWNED SLAVES.
One more thing- Lincoln only freed the slaves in the South. The slaves in the North weren't free until AFTER the War.

Answer 2

I would not dispute the fact that all wars have some issue with money and power, but our civil war was a bit different.

No, the war was NOT started because of slavery, but to be a bit simplistic; the question of a state's rights in the United States. We have an unique form of democracy. The basic question was: Should a state that willingly voted itself into a new nation be allowed to "vote" itself out when it disagrees with the federal government. The president and Congress said no. To this day, we have a extremely strong central government that can have a say in what a state can do. But, I digress. To answer your question on whether or not we put a pretty face on war... of course. We are a society that lives by laws and morals. When these are "disturbed" we "fix" it. Since war is wrong, but a necessary evil to maintain the status quo, we must make it look like we are just in what we do to fix society.

Answer 3

I would say it is a partial truth. There was an extremely vocal and influential group in the North (the abolitionists) that really did feel very strongly that the slaves should be free. Abolition (or at least preventing the expansion of slavery) was the central platform of the Republican party. While there were other more abstract causes like states rights, and other specific causes like tairiffs, I would say that slavery was at the least one of the primary causes of the war. If there weren't the slavery issue, I don't think the war would have happened though there still would've been friction between the two sections of the country.

Although you are right that the other aspects of the war are downplayed for ideological reasons by the politically correct.

Answer 4

The issue of slavery is a easy handle to put on the war for school children. Did my 23&19 year old Great-Great Uncles just off the boat from Ireland fight for slaves when they couldn't get jobs? You can bet my 13 year old Great-Great Grandfather wasn't either. No, they all saw the fat enlistment bonus and a job. Well, they sure got one starting 8 weeks after they enlisted at Sharpsburg.

Yes, the war was enobled by emancipation of the slaves in the south. But even Jeff Davis thought of freeing the slaves too. It is the responsibility of those or us that inherit history to keep all ideas alive regarding our past, not just the PC ones.

Answer 5

People insist that the Civil War was fought for the slaves ecause they don't read history. They also don't know about the tax issues that were underway. Also, it's a simplified way of saying that only the northerners were the good guys... they forget how northerns also abused and murdered and lynched Blacks (like in NYC...). They also do not know that NOT ALL Southerners owned slaves. In fact, Native Americans owned slaves, too.

Answer 6

We just spin it around to make ourselves look better. It is the only war ever fought on our own soil. We try to make it look better is all.

Yeah, all wars fall into those two things, if not more. My World History teacher had this whole 5 things that make a country go to war. I don't remember them off hand but, two of them are Money and Power.

Answer 7

Yes, the Civil War was fought for money and power. The South was fighting to have the power to opress an entire section of its people in order to make more money. Was the Civil War fought solely for slavery? No, but don't think for a minute it was not one of the root causes of the war.

Answer 8

Because it WAS about slavery, at least indirectly. On the surface, it was about taxes, secession and states' rights, but why did they want to secede? Because the North kept pressuring them to abolish slavery (Missouri Compromise, Compromise of 1850, the North's reaction to Harper's Ferry, the Fugitive Slave Act, Wilmot Proviso). And what did the Southern planters want the right to do? To own slaves, mainly.

But I agree with you that wars are fought only for money and power. All the noble patriotic rhetoric is just to get regular folks to send their sons to war. I saw an interesting show on PBS (The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power -- link below) about how WWII was really a fight over access to oil. It was an eye-opening program for me.

But back to the point: the war was fought over money and power, yes. But the money was produced by slave labor and the power was used to support the profitable slave/plantation system and the privileged antebellum lifestyle it made possible.

Answer 9

Lincoln said he would accept peace whether or not the slaves were freed. The anti-slave movement in the North was so vocal, though, that he used it as a rallying point to get support for the war.

Answer 10

I thought it was over state's rights, who's changing the history now?