'One side fought for...'

Amen!

[deleted]

"Economic reasons" which were an extension of what?

"We're bowling for sinners today!"

Oh please. Typical neo-confederate response.

When people say it was about slavery, they don't mean the North fought to free the slaves; they mean slavery was the cause thanks to the firebrands who convinced the South that that "black" Republican Abe Lincoln was going to take their slaves and sully their honor and women and blow up China with his mind and they had better rebel before he did.

There is a man...he travels fast...he has purpose...he brings violence and destruction.

Movieman, are you aware that four of the seceding states sent proclamations to congress explaining why they were seceding and all of them clearly stated that the main reason was because they feared the government (the incoming Lincoln administration) would abolish slavery in their states? That's fact.

Now, I will agree that the North probably didn't fight mainly to free slaves, But, for the South, that and pride were nearly the ONLY reasons.

Most of this Southern pride, heritage not hate thing arouse with the Lost Cause of the Confederacy movement in the late 1800s. Look it up.

Evidently you haven't read the whole Bible. That the Bible condones slavery is a misguided concept.

While it is true that the Bible does not come right out and condemn slavery, What people fail to understand is that slavery in Biblical times was somehwhat different than the idea we have of slavery in the 1800's. It had more to do with social status than it had to do with race. The role that slaves played in biblical times was more akin to the role that a butler and a maid would have played in Victorian England. the Bible does in fact make outlines of how slaves should be treated. It was really not that much different than working for room and board. And what was considered a slave in Biblical times, often they were payed and simply were a lower social class with lower paying jobs.

However, a fact largely ignored by Anti-Christians is that slavery based on race IS in fact condemned in the Bible. Read Exodus a little closer if you don't believe me. God unleashes plagues on Egypt for having Hebrews as slaves just for being Hebrew.

Southerners spoke contemptuously of Black Republicans; seceded their states because they thought Lincoln wanted "Negro Equality;" and referred to the Emancipation Proclamation a document from the pit of Hell.

By 1860, slavery had a greater net worth than all the capital invested in railroads, banks and factories combined. So while the North went to war in 1861 to preserve the Union and to answer the rebellion of the Southern states, the central issue of Black slavery was the reason the South went to war.

Please read the well-researched Battle Cry of Freedom by James M. McPherson, a man who has researched the Civil War and its issues for 50 years, probably longer than you've been alive. His award-winning book might not give you the answers you want, but it has the truth.

<<<Think about it: As prevalent as racism is in the USA today, do you *really* think that 150 years ago over 2 million men went to war -- willing to die -- for the sake of freeing blacks? or that the million or so Confederates *all* went to war so that their rich neighbors could keep their slaves?

History is written by the winners of wars, and the reason the Confederates fought has been buried very deeply.>>>


What individual soldiers fight for is why the war lasts as long as it does and why its as bloody as it was. Its not why it started. The motivations for those who called for secession conventions, those who were delegates to it, and those who drafted and ratified the Secession Ordinances is who you have to look at to lay blame for the war. A cause that they themselves stated was the protection of slavery. The soldiers didn't have to fight for slavery they were doing the bidding of people who were. The Lost Cause came to be precisely because the South wrote the initial history of the war, literally. The first scholarship of the war was almost primarily Southern, the North so anxious for reconciliation did not refute what was said. The South had their say for almost 70 years after the war. Sometimes the losers write the history too.

"First of all, slavery in the United States died during the Civil War, but it was *not* the *cause* of the Civil War."

It really was, and I'll keep this short for clarity's sake. Prior to the war the South wasn't so concerned with States' Rights. Only when it suited them. For instance, the Fugitive Slave Act was something they supported despite it violating the States' Rights of Northern states. Economic policy was another one, too.

Also, the letters of the time all refer to slavery. If the participants said it was about slavery, then it was about slavery. They controlled every branch of government for decades up until the last few years of the 1850s. Suddenly they could not wield more electoral power than they actually deserved (thanks to the 3/5ths clause in the Constitution) and they literally just threw a fit. They knew that in order to keep slavery they had to maintain a tight grip on all facets of government. Once their grip slipped, they could not guarantee they could keep slaves ignorant, keep Northern papers out of the South, or enforce the Fugitive Slave Act.

Sure, lots of Southerners did fight for home and country, and propaganda during and after the war tried to frame the conflict in other terms to make reconciliation easier. The two sides could not reunite so long as race was considered a factor, because the South wouldn't stand for black equality. The North grew tired of fighting for black rights by the mid-1870s and a culture of the "noble soldier's sacrifice" took hold. It was easier to forget about the slave cause and focus on the actual experience of war. Soldiers united over their shared sacrifices during fighting. And afterwards they were honored with memorials. Black rights was simply too divisive.

And over one hundred years later, many people still buy the post-war propaganda that it wasn't about slavery.

He attacked them because they exercised their constitutional right to secede from the U.S

Lincoln believed that, had the CSA been allowed to be succesful, it would have doomed the United States Republic.

In point of fact, slavery was, most likely, on its way out, as it was.