Posted on 08/11/2015 1:11:21 PM PDT by iowamark
What caused the Civil War? That seems like the sort of simple, straightforward question that any elementary school child should be able to answer. Yet many Americans—including, mostly, my fellow Southerners—claim that that the cause was economic or state’s rights or just about anything other than slavery.
But slavery was indisputably the primary cause, explains Colonel Ty Seidule, Professor of History at the United States Military Academy at West Point.
The abolition of slavery was the single greatest act of liberty-promotion in the history of America. Because of that fact, it’s natural for people who love freedom, love tradition, and love the South to want to believe that the continued enslavement of our neighbors could not have possibly been the motivation for succession. But we should love truth even more than liberty and heritage, which is why we should not only acknowledge the truth about the cause of the war but be thankful that the Confederacy lost and that freedom won.
(Excerpt) Read more at blog.acton.org ...
A lot of idiotic freepers don’t believe it was about slavery. You all know who you are.
It looks more like a "Cuban Missile Crisis" stand-off to me than a "Bay of Pigs Invasion" (let alone the Normandy Landings). There were limits to what a hastily assembled federal force could have done with the free White population of South Carolina in arms against them, so I'm thinking Lincoln was just trying to be prepared for different contingencies, rather than planning some kind of invasion.
My wife’s Alabama family valiantly defended their home against the northern invaders ...
You need to read the messages PeaRidge has posted regarding the outfitting of those ships, the manner in which they were outfitted, the manner in which the orders were given, and their behavior up to, during, and subsequent to Ft. Sumter.
It very much looks as if Lincoln very deliberately launched an invasion, and I expect he would have gotten away with it as well, so far as the Northeaster media would have reported it.
Just as then, same as now, the media were in the pockets of big government Liberals. Lincoln was a Liberal for his time period. The Social Justice Warriors of that time period were Northeaster Liberals (Harriet Beecher Stowe) from big cities like New York and Boston, and a divisive Lawyer from Illinois was running the country.
There are a lot of modern parallels with the past.
That leaves “moral outrage.”
Moral outrage makes even less sense. There was no move to abolish slavery until two years after the war had started. They would have had to be precognitive as well as being in the throes of a "moral outrage."
Since Abolishing slavery wasn't on the table in 1862, one can only conclude that they were simply being patriotic.
We just take Lincoln at his word. If he says it's not about slavery, then it pretty much wasn't about slavery.
Obviously, if there are two sides, there can be two motives. For Lincoln, it appears to have been about preserving the Union. For the secessionists, it appears to have been about preserving slavery.
ping
It wasn’t the poster who wrote that, it was the author.
Do you take Southern leaders at their word?
"African slavery is the cornerstone of the industrial, social, and political fabric of the South; and whatever wars against it, wars against her very existence. Strike down the institution of African slavery and you reduce the South to depoulation and barbarism." - South Carolina Congressman Lawrence Keitt, 1860
"Our people have come to this on the question of slavery. I am willing, in that address to rest it upon that question. I think it is the great central point from which we are now proceeding, and I am not willing to divert the public attention from it." - Lawrence Keitt
"What did we go to war for, if not to protect our [slave] property?" - CSA senator from Virgina, Robert Hunter, 1865
"The South had always been solid for slavery and when the quarrel about it resulted in a conflict of arms, those who had approved the policy of disunion took the pro-slavery side. It was perfectly logical to fight for slavery, if it was right to own slaves." - John S. Mosby [Mosby's Memoirs, p. 20]
In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.
Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery, the greatest material interest of the world. --Mississppi Declaration of the Causes of Secession
What was the reason that induced Georgia to take the step of secession? This reason may be summed up in one single proposition. It was a conviction, a deep conviction on the part of Georgia, that a separation from the North-was the only thing that could prevent the abolition of her slavery. -- Speech of Henry Benning to the Virginia Convention
The new 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. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split." He was right. - Alexander Stephens.
That is being prepared for different possibilities. If the resupply mission was repulsed or attack, you needed ships in the area while you figured out what to do next. You couldn't rightly have to send ships down from New York every time something happened.
It very much looks as if Lincoln very deliberately launched an invasion, and I expect he would have gotten away with it as well, so far as the Northeaster media would have reported it.
Just as then, same as now, the media were in the pockets of big government Liberals.
First of all, "liberals" and "big government" didn't necessarily mean the same thing then as they do now. Second, the most popular New York paper of the day, The New York Herald was Democrat and anti-Lincoln. Even the very liberal (I guess) Tribune editor Horace Greeley was writing that the country should simply let the South go. Before Sumter, that was a strong sentiment in the North, and if Lincoln had simply attacked or invaded South Carolina without sufficient provocation, the move would not have been popular or approved of by the newspapers and the public.
Lincoln was a Liberal for his time period. The Social Justice Warriors of that time period were Northeaster Liberals (Harriet Beecher Stowe) from big cities like New York and Boston, and a divisive Lawyer from Illinois was running the country.
There are a lot of modern parallels with the past.
In other words, when it suits your purpose you tell us how different the 19th century was from the 21st and when it suits your purpose they're very similar.
Fair enough.
Obviously not the brightest bulbs.
Don’t you people ever get tired of that hoary old line?
A thread on FR about what caused the Civil War?
What could go wrong?
No emoji for joo...
Only one side had control as to whether or not there was going to be a war, and whether or not that war would continue. Therefore, only those motives matter. The motives of the defenders are irrelevant. They have no control over whether they are going to get attacked or not.
Lincoln was the puppeteer. He called the shots.
They didn't have control of the conflict, nor do they have to justify their reasons for exercising a right given "by nature, and nature's God" to have independence from a government that no longer suited their interests.
The only person who's reasons matter was Abe Lincoln, and he specifically said he was going to continue slavery if the south would just stop trying to be independent of Washington D.C.
Obviously not the brightest bulbs.
Do not dismiss patriotism. I believe it to be the motivation of most of the Union army. Teddy Roosevelt and his rough riders were motivated by the exact same sentiment just a few decades later.
In those days, people were proud of their government, and actually had more reasons for being so.
Por favor. Who am I supposed to believe, you or Joan Crawford? ;-)
US GRANT had slaves until 1866.ROBERT E.LEE did not have slaves.We call it the war of northern aggression for a reason and did so until the revisionists got after it.
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