Position:Home>History> There are historians who argue that disagreements over slavery were not the prim

You have to understand the role slavery played and how it tied into everything!. The revisionist history is that the North was fighting a moral crusade against slavery and that the South was somehow this reactionary, fascist regime wanting to preserve slavery based solely on a racist society!. Both notions are far from the truth!. Many who argue that the South succeeded solely on the basis of slavery will cite Alexander Stephen's famous cornerstone speech as “proof” by referencing the portions that deal with slavery but ignoring the rest of the speech!. I suggest you read the whole of it as well as commentaries that are available!.

What caused the civil war is a very complex study!. From the very beginnings upwards to the war, the Union was an uneasy Union made of compromises!. The two sections of the country were divided in political thought; economics; and on social norms including religion!. Taxation, representation in Congress, trade tariffs, use of Federal money, use of Federal land, and the admission of new states all contributed as a cause of the war!. The expansion of slavery, if a new state would be admitted as a “Free” state or “Slave” state, typically meant how the people of that state would stand on the other issues as well, and how that state would vote in Congress!.

The Southern states did feel as they carried a disproportionate load of the tax burden at the time!. Something like 75% of the Federal taxes (trade tariffs) were collected from Southern ports!. As such, very little was returned to the South!. The South argued against the use of Federal money on infrastructure improvements, most of which were in the North!. I recommend studying the South Carolina nullification crisis and the “Tariff of Abominations” for perspective on the subject!. I would also recommend studying the Panic of 1857 (the name for the economic depression the country was in) for perspective and how it lead to the formation of the Republican party’s position on the Homestead act and the Southern argument against it!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

---

---

While the Declaration Of Causes for the secession sites, specifically, the slavery issue, it does quite clearly make an issue of the fact that the Federal government, along with the northern states (it specifically mentions Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan and Iowa) violated the articles of the Constitution, in their dealings with all slave states!.

That was the root cause for the secession and the war!.!.!.!.Federal vs State rights, and representation within the Federal government of the interests of the slave holding states!. Slavery was the rallying cry, so to speak!.
These two paragraphs represent the entire document in a very concise manner, and the whole issue of rights!.!.!.
"For years past this abolition organization has been actively sowing the seeds of discord through the Union, and has rendered the federal congress the arena for spreading firebrands and hatred between the slave-holding and non-slave-holding States!.

By consolidating their strength, they have placed the slave-holding States in a hopeless minority in the federal congress, and rendered representation of no avail in protecting Southern rights against their exactions and encroachments!."Www@QuestionHome@Com

---

---

This is an unresolvable debate!. Those that are 'proud' of their Southern Heritage will defend the Confederacy despite evidence to the contrary and always, always, always they will trot out that sad argument that it was an issue of state's rights versus the mean old Federal Goverment as if the rights of people to live free and not live as slaves matters not!. And they will trott out endless arguments about the mean industrial North trodding on the rights of the 'agricultural/rural' South!.
The bottom line!. SLAVERY was the root of all evil!. It was a poision choking the life of the US of A throughout the early 1800s / 19th Century!. It generated hatred and division between the States led to brutal fighting in the territory of Kansas and laid the basis for racism existing to this century!.
SLAVERY was a NATIONAL Issue!. States rights!? What rights did a man have when a SOUTHERNER could kidnap a N^gro on the streets of BOSTON, beat him publicly, carry him off in chains to the SOUTH on the grounds that the man, age 27, had fled with his parents when a child of age 5 from a South Carolina Plantation and was thus a runaway slave!.

What was a N^gro as defined by Thomas Jefferson and sanctified by the Supreme Court, and reflected by those arguing that Slavery had nothing to do with the Civil War - - - property!. Not a person but a piece of property comparable to a pig or a cow!. Property!. When a STATE argues that it has a right to enslave PEOPLE then one has to vomit at the words - - - STATES RIGHTS!.

Peace/////////////////////////////////!.!.!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

---

---

Texas was jumping on the bandwagon, as was every southern state besides Sc!. Faced with issues(Mexico) that other southern states didn't have,it was not much of choice!. Can you imagine Texas supporting the union!?These folks are still independent, and still mad that Alaska a bigger state!The only surprise is that they didnt start thier own country!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

---

---

TO bearstir: of course slavery was a national issue!. but "states rights" doesn't mean "the states have the right to beat a man publicly!."
abortion is national issue in that it is a topic of national interest!. however, it is up to the individual states to determine their laws regarding this!. so, the states have the right to make their own laws accordingly!.
legal driving age: again, driving is a national issue!.!.!.but the states decide at what age a person can obtain their license!.

like many have said before: with the election of lincoln, those proud southern states felt that their autonomy was being threatened by the "mean old federal government" as you say!. lincoln wasn't against slavery!.!.!.he did not, however, want it to spread to the new territories!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

---

---

Common thought is it was a slavery issue only!. It was fought over much more than that!. States rights over Federal domination is probably the root answer!. Slaves were owned by both the northern and southern states!. So it seems like it had to be more than just that one issue!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

---

---

It was not a slavery issue!. Never was!. It was a states vs federal rights issue!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

---

---

It wasnt it was a states rights issues, vs Federal controlWww@QuestionHome@Com

---

---

!.!.!.!.!.!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

---

---

The Texas declaration of secession!?

I thought the root cause of the civil war was the industrialized north ruthlessly exploiting the rural south economically!. This is part of the controversy; the north, like Britain, had joined the industrial revolution, and it was in the north, were the corporation was born, in the 1840's to be exact!. In the same way corporations now look for cheap labor, corporations then, did the same thing!.

Because they figured southern land owners did not have to REALLY pay their labor force, for any services of their industries, they charged ridiculous amounts of money, which led to southern land owners to, ironically enough, have to purchase more slaves!. The north, the industrialization of the north and the ruthless price hikes they set on everything, ironically enough led to the acquisition of yet, more slaves!. The south wished to secede from the United States, because they felt they were being economically exploited, worse yet, poor whites, lived homeless, and some in near starvation conditions because, better to have a n***** slave work your plantation, than a white scalawag on your payroll!.

It is true though; the north has been portrayed as "the hero" for way too long!. Regarding Lincoln; the real reason, he is easily this country's greatest president is not the fact that he freed the slaves, although that also makes him great, but the fact that Lincoln achieved three things;

1) He kept the country together, when it was divided over money!. Try to keep a married couple together divided over money, or a family for that matter, see how you do!. You'll have a new respect for Lincoln, for keeping together an entire country!.

2) Lincoln's economic reforms, curtailed, and helped to control, many corporate abuses in fact, the only reason the United States was able to rebuild in the first place, and the real reason corporations kept from going out of control, were the important laws Lincoln instituted to prevent corporate abuses!. To put this into perspective; if Lincoln had not used his powerful pressence to armtwist and intimidate the early corporations into behaving ethically, a modern corporate executive could shoot you like a dog, in broad daylight, just because he felt like it!. That is how far things would have gotten, had Lincoln not curtailed their power, and how they abused that power!. He had to curtail it, reason was, he was fighting a war, and if he let corporations, not the central government call the shots, the Union, because of the brilliant tactics of General Lee (the historical general, not Bo and Luke's car), would have lost the war!.

The reason Lincoln was shot in fact, is because he was directly blamed for all the carpet bagging going on in the south!. Even though in fact, he was just getting started on policies that would curtail the practice!. Indeed, regarding Lincoln's assasination, it goes much deeper than John Wilkes booth; Lincoln made a lot of enemies in Washington, who had ties to corporations and economic interests!. The man who kept the United States from falling apart, was shot, in part involvement, by corporate cronie in congress over $$$$$$$$$$$$!.

I suppose this is America though, so even with a great man like Lincoln you'd figure as much!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

---

---

Divine Providence is what President Lincoln presented as the utimate cause of the War: the necessity to redeem the sins common to all Americans, and thereby create a more perfect Union!.:

One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it!. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest!. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war!. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it!. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained!. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease!. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding!. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other!. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged!. The prayers of both could not be answered!. That of neither has been answered fully!. The Almighty has His own purposes!. "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh!." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him!? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away!. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether!." 3
With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations!.

Abraham Lincoln
Second Inaugural Address
Saturday, March 4, 1865Www@QuestionHome@Com

---

---