The head of the history dept at West Point destroys the notion that the Civil War....
- Thread starter RichardPeterJohnson
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I lived in the South for 18 years and they still say 'state's rights'. I gave up discussing this topic with my southern friends soon after I moved there.
I regret that control over most everything moved to DC because of the war. That is not the reason for the war, however.
Do you not read or watch the news?
"And a majority of tea party supporters do not think slavery was the main reason for the Civil War. Of those who said they support the tea party movement, 52 percent said slavery was not the main reason for the Civil War and 43 percent said it was."
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/article30101748.html
I'm not so sure he's putting words in other people's mouths.
Of course that General would say the Civl War was about slavery, after all, he's part of Obama's army.
Is that the same McClatchy that WVPATX is quoting in another thread about the Hillary emails? [roll]When will you ever learn?
I guess you didn't watch the video: The leaders of the secession movement and the Confederate government said themselves that the war was being fought to preserve slavery. The Confederate constitution specifically protects it:
No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed.
The Confederate States may acquire new territory; ... In all such territory the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected be Congress and by the Territorial government …
As for the statement questioning why non slaveowners (like my own great-great grandfather who died in a Federal prison camp) would fight for slavery? Simple: as long as there were slaves, they weren't on the lowest rung of the social ladder.
Texas, they are changing their history books to remove all references to the cause of the war being about slavery and put more emphasis on state's rights. Duh!
Yes, I was just bending over backwards to come up with some excuse to conclude that the Civil War wasn't about slavery since that is what some people seem to do. Poking fun via sarcasm.
So, you are stating that they had a fear that they would be on the same, or lower, SOCIAL LADDER was the reason they risked it all - life, crop, home and family? That is a pathetic thing to say since most of the "poor white trash" was on the same rung. From birth to death, they were pulling the same wagon to survive. They couldn't change colors, you still have blacks and whites. There was simply not the hate that you people would suggest as being universal. I think the most important thing now, as then, is preservation of life. I sure do hope you are wrong.
Poor whites had it as bad as blacks? Why didn't they volunteer to become slaves then? Because not being a slave was better.
Without popular support from those that didn't own slaves the South couldn't even have fought the war. Although there must have been individual exceptions, on the whole the people of the South obviously approved of slavery.
I shudder to think what would have happened had the South won permanent independence. Try to imagine what the 150 years since then would have been like. What a mess!
Illegal (and legal to some degree) immigrant farm labor is today's version of slavery in the old south. Illegal immigrants aren't slaves of course but many southern and western agricultural areas could hardly function (or make a profit) without cheap immigrant labor.
Bingo. Defenders of slavery love to say that slaves had it better than factory workers in the North because their kindly owners provided them food, shelter and clothing … to which I always point out that the major difference was that the factory worker could always leave one factory for another or even strike out for the new states without the fear that the factory owner could legally hunt him down and either return him to his old job or just kill him. The factory owner couldn't sell the worker's wife & kids to another factory owner or ship them out of state. The factory owner couldn't hire the worker out to another factory owner and pocket his wages from that job.
I thinkyou are putting words into my mouth. No where in hell did I give you reason to suggest any whites should trade with slaves. That is bull **** attempt to transfer. Poor whites did some share cropping to survive. They were free, but captivated to what they had to do to survive. I don't think they put a lot of bravo into slave or non-slave. They could give a ****. It just didn't affect them- or their "social status". And it was suggested that "social status" was the reason to die for in a Civil War? There was something else that drove that desire, IMO. I have got to have a better reason that they would die to protect slavery.
I was under the impression that not all slave owners wanted to continue as such because they could get work done cheaper using share cropping. Personally, I really don't know nor give a **** exactly what caused the Civil War and all the absolute claims that it was slavery is something I cannot buy. I would think there really more than one issue involved to get the participation that they got from both sides.
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You are not suggesting that those factory workers had it so great that they readily picked up arms to free the slaves a thousand miles. A little background in labor economics would suggest to me that they had their hands full with the factory owners.