Why are there so many stupid people who still believe the civil war was fought over slavery?

Question

Slavery was a big American issue at the time of the civil war. Even if you have little knowledge of American history the Emancipation Proclamation was not signed until a year and a half into the war. Stupid bigots amaze me.

My mom has a saying that its the winner of a war who gets to write the history books, which would hold true in this case. But the abundance of facts still available makes someone truely stupid for believing it.

Answer 1

“and they [Yankees] are marked ... with such a perversity of character, as to constitute, from that circumstance, the natural division of our parties” Thomas Jefferson

In the 1770s, the South had every reason to continue the relationship with England, one of its best customers. It was the manufacturing North that was getting the short end of that stick. Southerners joined the Revolutionary War out of patriotism, idealism, and enlightened political philosophy such as motivated Jefferson, not patriotism, philosophy, and economic betterment which inspired the North.
In 1860, the shoe was on the other foot. Southern agrarians were at heel to the nation's bankers and industrialists. That just got worse with the election of the Republican Lincoln, bringing back into power the party favoring the wealthy supply side, as it still does.
Then as now central to that, party's interest was keeping down the cost of manufacture. Today labor is the big cost, so today they move the plants offshore and leave US workers to their fate. Back before the US labor movement existed the big cost was raw materials, and the GOP was just as unprincipled toward its Southern suppliers as it is today toward labor.
Thanks to modern graveyard science and surviving records, researchers know that in 1760, 100 years before the War Between the States, Charleston, South Carolina, had the largest population of slaves and we say proudly the second largest slave population was in New York City.
One of the main quarrels was about taxes paid on goods brought into this country from foreign countries. This tax was called a tariff. Southerners felt these tariffs were unfair and aimed toward them because they imported a wider variety of goods than most Northern people. Taxes were also placed on many Southern goods that were shipped to foreign countries, an expense that was not always applied to Northern goods of equal value. An awkward economic structure allowed states and private transportation companies to do this, which also affected Southern banks that found themselves paying higher interest rates on loans made with banks in the North. As industry in the North expanded, it looked towards southern markets, rich with cash from the lucrative agricultural business, to buy the North's manufactured goods. The situation grew worse after several "panics", including one in 1857 that affected more Northern banks than Southern. Southern financiers found themselves burdened with high payments just to save Northern banks that had suffered financial losses through poor investment. However, it was often cheaper for the South to purchase the goods abroad. In order to "protect" the northern industries Jackson slapped a tariff on many of the imported goods that could be manufactured in the North. When South Carolina passed the Ordinance of Nullification in November 1832, refusing to collect the tariff and threatening to withdraw from the Union, Jackson ordered federal troops to Charleston. A secession crisis was averted when Congress revised the Tariff of Abominations in February 1833. The Panic of 1837 and the ensuing depression began to gnaw like a hungry animal on the flesh of the American system. The disparity between northern and southern economies was exacerbated. Before and after the depression the economy of the South prospered. Southern cotton sold abroad totaled 57% of all American exports before the war. The Panic of 1857 devastated the North and left the South virtually untouched. The clash of a wealthy, agricultural South and a poorer, industrial North was intensified by abolitionists who were not above using class struggle to further their cause.
In the years before the Civil War the political power in the Federal government, centered in Washington, D.C., was changing. Northern and mid-western states were becoming more and more powerful as the populations increased. Southern states lost political power because the population did not increase as rapidly. As one portion of the nation grew larger than another, people began to talk of the nation as sections. This was called sectionalism. Just as the original thirteen colonies fought for their independence almost 100 years earlier, the Southern states felt a growing need for freedom from the central Federal authority in Washington. Southerners believed that state laws carried more weight than Federal laws, and they should abide by the state regulations first. This issue was called State's Rights and became a very warm topic in congress.

These are facts not emotions or unsupported claims, now what was the War over?


God Bless You and The Southern People.

Answer 2

The reason for that is that the Civil War was fought over slavery. State rights, then and now, is simply another way of saying the right of states to enslave, discriminate, or maintain their racist attitude. Slavery wasn't an issue, it was the issue. If you read slave owners memoirs and journals, also first person accounts of slavery (WPA narratives online at the liberary of congress) it is obvious that at the time of the war those who fought and those who were enslaved believed that the war was over slavery. The reason so many runaway slaves joined the Union army prior to issuance of the emancipation proclamation was the slave's belief that the war concerned their emancipation. You can make every possible attempt to, after the fact, clean it up. There may have been many risidual affects to the civil war but the reason it was fought was, and is, the South's fear that they would lose the ability to own others. Because, the rest of the country felt slavery was an aristocratic institution which prevented free labor.

The signing date of the emancipation proclamation has asolutely nothing to do with the reason for going to war. Because, it was the confederacy that started the war not the Union. We don't know for certain what type of restrictions Lincoln would have placed on slavery. He has expressed a desire to see slaves returned to Africa. This does not, however, mean he would have out lawed the system entirely. However, the south feared that he would. They had clearly gaged that the mood of the country was turning against slavery. Northern workers felt slavery unfairly disadvantaged them. The country as a whole (excluding slave owners) believed it was at odds with the freemarket system. Slavery was therefore at odds with capitalism. Restrictions were continually being placed on the slave system and it was not being allowed in the Western states. Southerns realized they were a minority whose slave holding culture was growing more and more different from that of the rest of the country.

They wanted a seperate country because it was evident with the election of Lincoln, who the Southern states had vehamently opposed, that it was possible to win the presidency without carrying a single southern state. They saw this as the death nail for slavery and therefore revolted. Slavery was dying prior to the Civil War. The war was the souths last attempt to hold on to an out dated and racist institution.

There may have been other reasons for the Civil War. There is always more than one central reason for going to war. However, Slavery was the largest issue. Also, the most significant result of the Civil War was the emancipation of slaves.

Answer 3

Are you familiar with the word connotation? If not you can go to the site below to read up on the word. The connotation of the flag is very different than what it was used for. All flags have been used for identification. The connotation behind the flag is very different than what it was used for. The flag stands for something as a symbol. It is not the south or people in the north would not also use it, and if it were the south than more southerners would have kept it. But no instead it is a reminder of the separation (I am not talking race, I am talking separation only of north and south - the origin of the war). It reminds people that the south wanted to be separate, wanted to NOT be part of this country. I see no reason that they did not do that except for that fact that the north wanted that land. As for the people in that war, they did not know better they fought because that was their job, the people of today, do know better, you can not say you are patriotic and then run around with a confederate flag, it is a contradiction, so you may want to look at what you are trying to tell others about the flag first before posting, it is a symbol of separation and more so a symbol of NOT wanting to be a part of the United States of America!!!

Answer 4

Stupid bigots amaze me too, but I call them rednecks and racists too.
The state's rights issue was more than a smokescreen. It was a legitimate issue itself (and still is), but the passion fueling it was all the anger stirred up by slavery and the abolitionists who wanted to end it. That the US Constitution didn't ban slavery right from the beginning was a criminal act, as it flies right in the face of the Declaration of Independence. There were other issues dividing the North from the South. Many reform movements came out of the North, specifically from Massachusetts, such as ending debtor's prison, taking the chains off lunatics in lunatic asylums, feminism, and so on. The South felt under assualt by nosy pushy Yankees, which they were (they deserved to be).
Even if the North had let the South go (which I think they should have), war between the two over the West would have been inevitable.
It's true that Lincoln didn't sign the Emancipation Proclamation until Jan. of 1863. He was personally against slavery (although he favored segregation), but lacked the political backing of key sections until the Union could start producing victories.

Answer 5

I know. Its amazing how many people think that he main purpose of the American Civil War was issues of slavery. Slavery was a huge states' rights issue of the South. You would've thought that States' Rights would've been an issue nation wide. It makes sense, especially in that day and time, that a national law passed might work for one part of the country but not another. I'm not talking on the issue of slavery. I'm talking on any issue.

However, if you want to focus on slavery. It was a States' Rights issue that the North was trying to take away. The southern states' knew that it was in their own best interest interest economically to keep the institution of slavery going. That was their right as a state.

For those of you that believe everything a history book tells you, don't delude yourself. If you think all the North was anti-slavery, you're way wrong. You had northern businessmen fighting hard for the southern way of life before the war. Particularly northern textile manufacturers. They knew that their business was sunk if southern manual labor was brought to a screeching halt.

Unfortunately, history books are written on a huge bias. I guess its easier to sugar coat the unpleasent stuff. I'd much prefer our history be taught as much how it happened as possible.

Answer 6

True the Emancipation Proclamation was not signed until well into the war, but the speeches for seccession clearly show the South split because of slavery--not state rights generally. In fact before the Civil War, the most important expansions of the federal government's power came from protecting and expanding slavery.

Answer 7

The Civil War was, like so many wars, fought for very complex reasons. In truth, though, slavery was the central issue. The Civil War began as a result of the wave of Southern secessions following Lincoln's election. The Southern state seceded because they feared that Lincoln, as a Republican, would attempt to abolish slavery.

Of course, there were other issues at play such as state's rights, but the fundamental fact here is that the only state's rights at issue were slavery and secession (which only happened as a result of slavery-related concerns).

So, really, the Civil War was fought over slavery. It wasn't fought to abolish slavery, as perhaps you meant to say, but it was fought over slavery. Without slavery there would never have been a Civil War.

The Emancipation Proclamation was indeed not signed until well into the war because Lincoln fought the Civil War to win. Sometimes, in order to achieve your objectives you must disguise them, and Lincoln understood this.

Answer 8

Clearly you have not read a great deal of scholarly history have you. I am a history scholar and I have taught correctly for twenty five years that EVERY aspect of the Civil War centered on one aspect of slavery or another. You are wrong in your basic premise. Here is the evidence.

Here are the basic reasons over the fight of the Civil War:

1. The South wanted to protect their state sovereignty. Why? To insure that Congress did not outlaw SLAVERY.
2. The South did not want to see any more "John Browns" rise up to free their SLAVES.
3. Preston Brooks savagely beat Charles Sumner when Sumner called into question the practice of SLAVERY
4. The North was furious over Chief Justice Roger Taney's decision in Dred Scot v. Sanford that northern states or territories could not legally prohibit SLAVERY
5. When Abraham Lincoln was elected in November 1860 South Carolina immediately seceeded from the Union because they feared Lincoln would encourage legislation to bring an end to the expansion of SLAVERY

...tell me when you want me to stop...

6. The Compromise of 1850 contained a very unpopular tenet that provided for the return of SLAVES that ran away into the North. Northerners refused to follow the terms of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 after their displeasure with the decision concerning the expansion of SLAVERY in Dred Scotts' case.
7. Bleeding Kansas erupted in the summer of 1856 when Kansas got the chance to vote on whether it would be a free territory or a SLAVE territory.


I think history disagrees with you. Read more and you will change your erroneous view. I also noticed that you made your claim without a single scrap of historical evidence to support it. I on the other hand refuted your claim with only seven examples of historical fact.


It looks like the debate goes to Mr. Curious, doesn't it?

Sadly however my scholarly response will never win best answer since Southron_98 uses several different accounts he has created to vote for his own ridiculous and historically unsound answers to ALWAYS win best answer. If he didn't have eight or nine accounts set up to vote for his own answers he would rarely get a single answer selected as "Best Answer."

Answer 9

Because the PC police have the media hijacked. The civil war was fought over states rights and the federal goverments desire to maintain control over the whole union.

Answer 10

If knowing something different than 90% of a population was taught wrong in school, makes a person upset, who becomes the stupid one?

Answer 11

Now, now. Most people are mis informed on a lot of stuff.
Don't make a big deal about it, just smile to yourself and be happy you know the truth.