And? The opinion of a private citizen, not policy of the federal government. People throw that speech out there like its some kind of smoking gun, when all it is is Stephens’ own opinion, given in Georgia, before the new union was even started.
To the OP: very complex answer. But actual hostilities would never have commenced if Lincoln hadnt issued the militia call up.
and I think that its clear, especially from reading the other secession declarations that Slavery was AN issue. It would be pretty crazy to think it wasn’t a factor at all. I think its important to note that the North was not full of abolitionists and that everyone fighting was there to free the slaves, but its also important to note that many of the big whigs in the South didn’t see anything wrong with owning other humans, and that is just not a defendable position, regardless of what kind of culture those people grew up in. Seems to me that both sides got a lot of things wrong.
Not denying that. In fact, I would be a fool to deny that. But that didnt cause the hostilities; the call up for troops was the de-facto war declaration (and it caused the CS congress to formally declare war in return) But most South opponents use that speech like it supposed to be ‘proof’ the CSA was supposed to be some kind of proto-Nazi white supremacist republic.
This thread reminds me that my public junior high American history teacher actually told us that the Civil War wasn’t mainly about slavery. However, I can’t remember what she said it was actually about. [*-)]
Wow were you raised in the South and go to private school. Lol good to see that some teachers do question the “official” truth.
I think an interesting thought experiment might be to try a guess at wether or not there still would have been war if you could account for the variables. Obviously, that is an impossible task, but I find it an interesting one nonetheless. If you assume that all the states were either all slave or all free, but then hold true all (or as much as you can) of the other factors, would it still come to war? would there still be secession? Then somehow imagine no tariffs or state’s rights issues, but you have slavery in the south and free states in the north. Would there have been secession? war? Like I said its impossible to tell, and its even harder because slavery was in the background behind other types of issues so you can’t really separate.
I always thought the USA invaded the CSA because the south had WMD’s…
It kind of was. A sort of war socialism.
Exactly. Historians then and now try to make the claim that it is one thing. Slavery. It is an impossible task to determine how much one factor or another was to blame. But what we do know is that much of the history that we know is politically motivated.
Not even close.
Like most conflicts, diversity in belief was the cause of the Civil War.
In my AP history class (11th grade) we went pretty in depth with the civil war, and debunked the myth that most people believe that it was soley on slavery, but my teacher didn’t go far enough and he talked about some Southern states teaching and beleiving in Northern aggression as if it’s some backwards way of thinking. (I was also pretty certain he was a liberal [:O])
Jeff Hummel called it that. Can you back up your statement?
Mind providing me with the source where he has linked the Nazis, socialism and the Confederacy.
Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men
Well Im afraid that the Civil War was not about either of these things. They were two of the results possible but definitely not the goal of either side.
I was curious as to who Jeff Hummel was and what he said. So could you link the source. You have asked me to back up my claim. I would ask you to do the same.
Why don’t you just read the book?
Try google books.
Ty, did not realize that your post was the name of a book.
Sorry then.