DiogenesLamp: "The "song" does that?
How does a song prove something? "
When you pro-Confederates pretend the Civil War "was not about slavery", by that you mean neither side fought to defend or defeat slavery, right?
This song puts the lie to your claims.
DiogenesLamp: " 'Maryland, my Maryland' says that Lincoln was a tyrant.
Does that song prove he was a tyrant?"
No, but it certainly does prove there were plenty of pro-Confederates in Maryland.
DiogenesLamp: "The Civil War was indirectly about slavery."
I've never seen a pro-Confederate acknowledge that before, but knowing DiogenesLamp it's only so you can add support to your own ludicrous historical theories, right?
DiogenesLamp: "Slaves produced the money that powered 3/4ths of the US Government at the time, including their subsidies paid to Northern 'crony capitalist' businessmen who were getting government contracts to build stuff up there."
And there it is: DiogenesLamp will quickly confess that slavery had "something" to do with Civil War, but only so he can linger the longer on his favorite misrepresentation of history: "Northeastern power brokers" (aka: "Northern 'crony capitalist' businessmen," aka: "New York/Washington cartel ") are to blame for every-every-every-thing, right?
Ignoring the fact that these globalist businesses were Democrats before 1861 and Democrats after 1865, DL wishes to claim such evil-doers were somehow the masters of Republicans like Abraham Lincoln.
DiogenesLamp: "The one thing the were not going to allow is for the South to trade directly with Europe, become more capitalized, and compete with their industries, as well as compete with them for the economies and political alliance of the western states.
Money and Power.
It's always about money and power."
Except that most Republicans in 1861 cared nothing about your Democrat "Northeastern bower brokers" and their erstwhile Southern Democrat Slave-Power allies.
What Republicans of the time did care about was the United States and slavery, as Howe's song amply demonstrates.
I’ve seen these Civil War threads for the 16 years I’ve been on FR, and stayed mostly off them due to the rancor they inspire (now the reason I mostly stay off the Religion threads too but still fail on occasion there). I thought I’d add a comment though because something has struck me this morning in this conversation about the economics of it all. I really do think it all comes down to money.
First, I don’t think it can be questioned that the war initially started because of slavery. I say this because the South was (and I guess even today arguably is) the main source of wealth creation in the country. So why would the North dare to start a war with the South over any issue, if it wasn’t for a very good reason. Slavery must have been the main reason it was started because economically speaking it wasn’t a good move at all for the North to go to war with the South.
With that said, before all Dixie-lovers get in a tizzy, let me also say that slavery may have been the reason it started, but the reason it continued and how it ended had little to do with slavery, for the same reason (economics). When the war ended, and the North had won, if the North really was all about the Constitution and respected it, as part of the terms the North would have said, “You can remain a Confederate, you just can’t have slavery anymore”. That is, if the North really was only interested in the slavery issue. But clearly it wasn’t.
It was then (and obviously even now) more interested in keeping the States united under control of a Federal Government, and so trampled over the rights of the States to decide their own independent fate. It was so motivated then (and again arguably now) because of again money. It needed the economic engine of the South to survive, so forced the South back into the United States of America, thus ruining the original intent of Federalism, which was to only have a limited Federal Government whose only job was to provide for a common defense. Not to collect taxes and manage the affairs of the States with those taxes.
So for these reasons, it seems all regularly involved in these Civil War threads are both right (or both wrong depending how one looks at it I guess). The War started because of slavery but ended with a desire to increase Federal power.
IMO of course.
I write all of this as a 100% “Yankee”. I’ve never spent more than a couple weeks down in the South on vacations (but love the food and the people there).
Well the attacking side certainly didn't attack because they wanted to defeat slavery. I think the defenders were defending mostly because they were being attacked.
So why was the attacking side attacking? They were attempting to maintain control of that money flow the South Produced.