I acknowledged that in my essay.


I'm not here to "win", whatever that means. I'm just here to put my beliefs to the test. If they can stand up to scrutiny, then good. If they can't, the sooner I find out the better.

I think we can establish a certain likelihood or probability though. I can't prove that had the south been given modern weapons, tanks, machine guns, grenades, etc, they would have won the war but that seems rather probable.


Remember, my thesis is that the war wasn't fought for the abolition of slavery i.e. the north didn't invade the south because they wanted to free slaves. The fact that the south seceded in the first place because of perceived threats to the continuation and expansion of slavery doesn't take away from that fact. I think most people can't see beyond that though and tend to think that if they left the Union for a reason then they were forced back in for the opposite reason. That's common sense but also wrong.

It's spelled "secession", by the way.


Especially when the things that change weren't the main motivating factors.

I'm not denying that it was a motivating factor for some minority of people. When I say it wasn't a reason, I mean that had all other reasons been taken off the table, the war wouldn't have happened because of abolition.

In other words, if the south would have seceded and at the same time, freed all slaves, the war still would have happened because it wasn't about freeing slaves.

The problem is, values are subjective. I am the only judge of those things as far as how they apply to me. By taking money from me involuntarily and giving it to, say, a hospital, I'm worse off because I would have rather spent the money elsewhere. If I wanted to give money to a hospital, I would have done it.

So, the only way for me to agree with you would be to also stipulate that value is objective and then in those cases where I'm wrong about what I value, your correcting me would be a good thing. Since values are subjective, I have to disagree.

If you don't like my analogy then all you need to do is explain why. There's no need to make this personal or get nasty. I'm just trying to understand your point.

So, the Civil War is complicated, fine. That's not the end of the story, though. My point was that it's still possible to ascertain majority opinions through testimony and actions. Why should we ignore that?

I think it's fairly clear that the north didn't invade the south because they thought southerners were possessed by devils, because they wanted to eat them for food, and a myriad of other non-reasons. I'm asserting that another one of those non-reasons was to free black slaves.

Life is complicated. You can be confident in that. However, that doesn't mean we can't say anything at all about human motivations.

So it's impossible to know that most people walking in a grocery store are there for food rather than lawnmower engines?

Of course not. That would be absurd. However, before the war, it wasn't even on the table as to whether or not the current slave states would remain that way. You have to remember that the president doesn't have that kind of authority. It took a constitutional amendment to free the salves (the Emancipation Proclamation didn't free any slaves, even in the slave states that were occupied by federal troops) and before the war, there were an equal number of slave states and free states so something like that simply wouldn't happen.

It's odd that you went through all that work but could only be bothered to read the first sentence of my essay. Here's the second sentence:


Congratulations, you just proved that the south was fighting for what I said they were fighting for, the continuation of slavery and political independence. Now please provide similar quotes from the northern states that shows they entered into the war to abolish slavery. Otherwise, my point stands.


You're agreeing with me. It was the cause for the secession of the southern states. That's what I claimed. However, it was not the cause for the war. The war was completely unnecessary had the north let the south leave peacefully. Before the war, it was extremely unlikely that slavery would have been abolished in the south by force or by constitutional amendment. However, slavery wasn't being allowed to expand. As I've shown, the north didn't want to use violence to end slavery, they wanted to "preserve the Union". You should actually take time to read my essay.


If the southern states had abolished slavery while also seceding at the same time, there still would have been a war. Slavery was a political and military propaganda tool used by Lincoln to prevent foreign aide and to hopefully cause slave uprisings in the south. By making the war seemingly about slavery, it made European nations, which had already abolished slavery, unwilling to assist the south. You and many other people have also fallen for the same ploy.

Yes but you clearly haven't. If you take the title literally like you are doing, as if it is a question followed by an answer, then you must really think the war was over soldiers, slavery and the civil war. That doesn't make any sense. Try reading the entire book instead of reading the title and trying to base an argument on it. Don't judge a book by its cover, or in this case, its title. The south was fighting to preserve and expand slavery. They felt threatened by Lincoln's rhetoric but the north was fighting to keep the south in the Union, not to end slavery. That would have been done with a constitutional amendment, not by war. You really need to provide some kind of evidence and do some actual research if you want to make an argument.


What's your point? What do you think the additional text adds? All it does is strengthen my claim that Lincoln wanted to save the Union at all costs, whatever it meant, whether freeing some slaves, all slaves or none. You've just proven my point for me.

If you were right then Lincoln would have said that the slaves will be freed, Union be damned. That's the opposite of what he said though.

$149.99 x 10

You haven't done that though.

How does that prove that the north was fighting for abolitionism rather than preserving the Union?

The evidence available to me doesn't support your assertions.

After the Emancipation Proclamation there were race riots in New York City in protest. They randomly assaulted and killed any and all black people. Lincoln had to send five regiments of troops to put an end to the riots, done so by shooting somewhere around 500 to 1,000 citizens. The desertion rates skyrocketed, around 200,000 northern troops deserted, 100,000 evaded the draft and another 100,000 fled north to Canada.

Several northern officers wrote things like "if emancipation is to be the policy of this war I do not care how quickly the country goes to pot", "if anyone thinks that this army is fighting to free the Negro they are terribly mistaken" and "I don't want to fire another shot for the Negroes and I wish that all abolitionists were in hell".

These things taken together makes it fairly clear that the majority opinion was against fighting the war for the abolition of slavery.

The American Civil War was fought primarily for two reasons, neither of them being the abolishment of slavery. On the southern side, the war was fought for political independence in order to continue and expand slavery. On the northern side, the war was fought to preserve the union and its power, as well as to preserve the political career of Abraham Lincoln.

The expansion of slavery was greatly contested during the Antebellum Era. The issue was hoped to be settled with the Missouri Compromise in 1820, which allowed slavery from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean, south of the 36°30' parallel and in Missouri. However, the compromise ultimately failed in 1857 when the Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional. In the case of Dred Scott v. Sandford it was found that the federal government didn’t have the power to abolish slavery in the new territories (Manning, 2007).

Another major crisis occurred in 1832 due to South Carolina’s Ordinance of Nullification. Prior to that, Congress had passed a protectionist tariff in 1828 which aimed to help the industries in the north. However, the effects of the tariff harmed the southern states by forcing them to pay higher prices for imports to the region, as well reducing the amount of British imports. The reduction in British imports also reduced the amount of southern goods, mainly cotton, that were able to be purchased in return. This combination of higher costs and reduced income prompted South Carolina to declare that the laws were null and void within the state (Henretta & Brody, 2010). This crisis highlighted the antagonism between the sovereignty of the states and the authority of the federal government, as well as the feeling of sectionalism that was starting to grow among the southern states.

Eventually, sectional differences between the northern and southern states proved to be intractable. Each state’s motivation for secession was its own well-being. This well-being was, at the time, perceived to be inextricably tied to slavery. If slavery died, it was thought, so too would the economies of the southern states and, according to pamphlets published during 1860-1861, their very way of life. James De Bow wrote, “Without the institution of slavery, the great staple products of the South would cease to be grown, and the immense annual results, which are distributed among every class of the community, and which give life to every branch of industry, would cease.” (Wakelyn, 1996)

The introduction of new states into the Union further complicated the issue. Since many new states were going to be slavery-free states, the southern states felt their political power would be continuously diminished. The election of Abraham Lincoln as president of the United States of America was the turning point for many states. They believed that Lincoln would follow through with the platform on which he was elected, which among other things, was to prevent the expansion of slavery into any new states as well as support new protectionist tariffs.

However, even though slavery was a major issue, the American Civil War was not a war fought to abolish it. The Emancipation Proclamation did not take effect immediately since the president didn’t have any such authority, and it only applied to the southern states that were "in rebellion". Lincoln used the Emancipation Proclamation as a military strategy, not for humanitarian purposes. Lincoln was not interested in ending slavery in the southern states and admitted as much when he wrote in a public letter to the editor of the New York Tribune, “My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it…” (DiLorenzo, 2002)

Instead of the abolition of slavery, the American Civil War was a war for independence for the southern states due to feelings of sectionalism. The difference in political goals between the colonies and Great Britain was drawn as a direct parallel to the difference in political goals between the southern states and the rest of the country. Many southerners argued that just as independence was declared from Great Britain so too could and should independence be declared from the Union. The right of secession was argued to be a foundational right upon which the Union was originally built.

According to editorials written in northern papers there was agreement that violent coercion was not a legitimate way in which to respond to the southern states. The editor of the New York Tribune, Horace Greeley, wrote, "If it [the Declaration of Independence] justified the secession from the British Empire of three millions of Colonists in 1776, we do not see why it would not justify the secession of five millions of Southrons [sic] from the Federal Union in 1861." Greeley also wrote, "If the Cotton States can do better out of the Union than in it, we insist on letting them go in peace. The right to secede may be revolutionary, but it exists, nevertheless; and we do not see how one party can have the right to do what another party has a right to prevent... We hope never to live in a Republic where one section is pinned to the residue by bayonets." (Greeley, 1860)

Yet, rather than a peaceful secession, the Battle of Fort Sumter was used by Lincoln as an excuse to go to war. Knowing that James Buchanan had made an informal agreement with South Carolina under which Fort Sumter would not be attacked if no attempts were made to reinforce it or resupply it, Lincoln purposely violated that agreement in order to provoke an attack (McQueen, 1861). There could have been no reason for the federal government to maintain control of a fort used to collect taxes in an independent south other than provocation. After South Carolina fired upon the Star of the West for violating this agreement, the American Civil War had officially begun (Manning, 2007).

In summary, the American Civil War wasn’t fought over slavery. The southern states argued that they possessed the right of secession. The war itself could have been avoided had Lincoln not been determined to preserve the Union at all costs. Even considering the issue of slavery, the war was unnecessary since, in Europe, slavery had already been peacefully abolished. It’s likely that the same trend would have eventually followed in the southern states as, more and more, slavery came to be seen as immoral and advances in technology made slavery less economically important.
 
Bibliography
DiLorenzo, T. J. (2002). The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War. Roseville: Prima Publishing.
Greeley, H. (1860, 9 9). New York Tribune.
Henretta, J. A., & Brody, D. (2010). America: A Concise History, Volume 1: To 1877. Boston: Bedford / St. Martin's.
Manning, C. (2007). What This Cruel War Was Over: Soldiers, Slavery, and the Civil War. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
McQueen, J. (1861, 1 14). Richmond Daily Dispatch.
Wakelyn, J. L. (1996). Southern Pamphlets on Secession, November 1860-April 1861. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press.

You jelly?

That's edgy but I was against ideology before it was cool.

I haven't used that word in this thread.

It's not ironic. Bush isn't president anymore so he's no longer relevant. Would you like one with Hamilton on there too?

How is theft ever fair? How is theft ever necessary unless you're starving?