It’s annoying that the confederacy is viewed so closely to slavery that the only people that support them are people that want slaves (I mean there’s no other reason to support it now but it’s because of how they are viewed by dumb people)
The war wasn’t about slavery, the union had slave states but people without high school educations don’t know that
No one talks about Egypt taking over the cotton market or the parallels to today
The war wasn’t about slavery
The confederate states themselves said otherwise at the time.
The war wasn’t about slavery
This is both the most ignorant thing I've read today, and also ironic considering it's followed by complaining about ignorant people
Way to show your ignorance and inability to learn from history. It’s about voting power and the same thing is happening today
Let’s take a group of states and for this example we will call them “red states” now imagine their policies lack broad appeal but they keep winning. Hard to imagine right? Hopefully you can fathom it
Now let’s come to an obstacle where they think it can either destroy their ensure they always win. Let’s say that obstacle is voting maps. Technically if the voting maps are fair then they always lose so what should they do? Rig the maps of course
Now let’s pretend another part of the country is blue, they have popular opinions and stand to benefit from fair voting. Let’s pretend they pass a law requiring voting be fair, well what can the red states do at that point? They have to rebel, it’s the only way to stay in power. Maybe they will attempt to avoid certifying an election or maybe they will storm that capital. If all else fails then they might attempt to form their own union
Now that you’ve seen a hypothetical, imagine if instead of red states and blue states it was slave states and non-slaves states. Now imagine if the blue/non-slave states wanted to bring in a bunch more states but they could only be blue (non-slave). Well then you would never have a red government
And that is what happened, the slave states were worried that they wouldn’t be able to control the country so they rebelled
I hope this entry level civil war education showed you how saying it was about slavery is dangerous and it fails to teach people the lessons from it that we are currently going through again
It was about the southern states wanting to own slaves. They said so themselves in their secession letters.
The northern states, not being complete monsters or wanting to treat fellow human beings like property, refused to let anyone join their side who wanted slaves.
Yes, and laws had been passed in (nearly) all that either slavery was outlawed or no NEW slaves could be imported. Slavery was being gradually eliminated and that's what the rebel states were upset about. And the potential economic impact.
In March 1861, Alexander Stephens, vice president of the Confederate States of America, gave his view on the issue:
The new [Confederate] constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution — African slavery as it exists amongst us — the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution . . . The prevailing ideas entertained by . . . most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. . . Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of . . . the equality of races. This was an error . . .
Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner–stone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery — subordination to the superior race — is his natural and normal condition.
It's not accurate to say it was "only" about slavery, but it's the best one-point answer you could give, and the biggest issue.
The issue is that there has been a giant movement to minimize the "we really wanted slavery" part are reframe it was a "state's rights" thing which is highly inaccurate way to frame things and stupid.
Slavery was being gradually eliminated and that’s what the rebel states were upset about.
I talked about this in another comment
But thank you for having an actual comment
… You haven’t actually read any of those letters, have you.
The northern states, not being complete monsters or wanting to treat fellow human beings like property, refused to let anyone join their side who wanted slaves.
So obviously they are wrong because the Union already existed with the confederate states in it but let’s give this person the benefit of the doubt and say they meant after some of the slave states left (hard when they are dumb enough to think it was over slavery) as you can see from the image. You have grey states for Union states with slavery at the same time as the confederacy existed. Even if you want to ignore my explanation for why the Confederacy left the Union (not kicked out, not unable to join because the Union was moral) they are straight up lying by saying there wasn’t slavery in the Union
Again the only people that say it was about slavery are racists who want slavery to return . Everyone else is smarter than that
Should probably change your name to ILikeDownvotes
I think it's more like not explaining it in terms of the economic conditions for which slavery really provided the basis for. Like the northern merchant economy vs the south planter class. When anyone could essentially get free real estate, convincing people to work the land to generate profit required coercion. Indentured servants since colonization were used, "white" slaves even preferred, but the existing trade networks like the Dutch were really instrumental in providing the means to extract profit from the land. Racism and white supremacy didn't cause this, they developed out of this arrangement, the purpose of which was to produce cotton, corn, etc.
Slavery was crucial though because the public campaign against chattel slavery in the north was very real and a major contributor to the public acceptance and motivation for the war. The US as it exists today was essentially built between the Civil War and WW1, and reducing it to just slavery is really not explaining everything, but also it really was "about" slavery in many ways. So I just say yes it was about slavery, but also everything around slavery, and the things that made slavery "necessary" for that economic system to function.
So I just say yes it was about slavery
This leads to history repeating itself as people never learn past that
It’s annoying that the confederacy is viewed so closely to slavery that the only people that support them are people that want slaves (I mean there’s no other reason to support it now but it’s because of how they are viewed by dumb people)
The war wasn’t about slavery, the union had slave states but people without high school educations don’t know that
No one talks about Egypt taking over the cotton market or the parallels to today
The confederate states themselves said otherwise at the time.
This is both the most ignorant thing I've read today, and also ironic considering it's followed by complaining about ignorant people
Way to show your ignorance and inability to learn from history. It’s about voting power and the same thing is happening today
Let’s take a group of states and for this example we will call them “red states” now imagine their policies lack broad appeal but they keep winning. Hard to imagine right? Hopefully you can fathom it
Now let’s come to an obstacle where they think it can either destroy their ensure they always win. Let’s say that obstacle is voting maps. Technically if the voting maps are fair then they always lose so what should they do? Rig the maps of course
Now let’s pretend another part of the country is blue, they have popular opinions and stand to benefit from fair voting. Let’s pretend they pass a law requiring voting be fair, well what can the red states do at that point? They have to rebel, it’s the only way to stay in power. Maybe they will attempt to avoid certifying an election or maybe they will storm that capital. If all else fails then they might attempt to form their own union
Now that you’ve seen a hypothetical, imagine if instead of red states and blue states it was slave states and non-slaves states. Now imagine if the blue/non-slave states wanted to bring in a bunch more states but they could only be blue (non-slave). Well then you would never have a red government
And that is what happened, the slave states were worried that they wouldn’t be able to control the country so they rebelled
I hope this entry level civil war education showed you how saying it was about slavery is dangerous and it fails to teach people the lessons from it that we are currently going through again
It was about the southern states wanting to own slaves. They said so themselves in their secession letters.
The northern states, not being complete monsters or wanting to treat fellow human beings like property, refused to let anyone join their side who wanted slaves.
Like come on
https://kajabi-storefronts-production.kajabi-cdn.com/kajabi-storefronts-production/file-uploads/themes/2153266432/settings_images/f0f6348-d4b2-f2c3-1bca-feab7a3cbf4c_Wr91wtHoQSW84QHEZWnA_pasted_image_0_12.png
I know you’re wrong but you don’t have to lie
Yes, and laws had been passed in (nearly) all that either slavery was outlawed or no NEW slaves could be imported. Slavery was being gradually eliminated and that's what the rebel states were upset about. And the potential economic impact.
In March 1861, Alexander Stephens, vice president of the Confederate States of America, gave his view on the issue:
It's not accurate to say it was "only" about slavery, but it's the best one-point answer you could give, and the biggest issue.
The issue is that there has been a giant movement to minimize the "we really wanted slavery" part are reframe it was a "state's rights" thing which is highly inaccurate way to frame things and stupid.
I talked about this in another comment
But thank you for having an actual comment
… You haven’t actually read any of those letters, have you.
So obviously they are wrong because the Union already existed with the confederate states in it but let’s give this person the benefit of the doubt and say they meant after some of the slave states left (hard when they are dumb enough to think it was over slavery) as you can see from the image. You have grey states for Union states with slavery at the same time as the confederacy existed. Even if you want to ignore my explanation for why the Confederacy left the Union (not kicked out, not unable to join because the Union was moral) they are straight up lying by saying there wasn’t slavery in the Union
Again the only people that say it was about slavery are racists who want slavery to return . Everyone else is smarter than that
Should probably change your name to ILikeDownvotes
I think it's more like not explaining it in terms of the economic conditions for which slavery really provided the basis for. Like the northern merchant economy vs the south planter class. When anyone could essentially get free real estate, convincing people to work the land to generate profit required coercion. Indentured servants since colonization were used, "white" slaves even preferred, but the existing trade networks like the Dutch were really instrumental in providing the means to extract profit from the land. Racism and white supremacy didn't cause this, they developed out of this arrangement, the purpose of which was to produce cotton, corn, etc.
Slavery was crucial though because the public campaign against chattel slavery in the north was very real and a major contributor to the public acceptance and motivation for the war. The US as it exists today was essentially built between the Civil War and WW1, and reducing it to just slavery is really not explaining everything, but also it really was "about" slavery in many ways. So I just say yes it was about slavery, but also everything around slavery, and the things that made slavery "necessary" for that economic system to function.
This leads to history repeating itself as people never learn past that