IMHO it's best to put away absolutes when determining who was right and who was wrong in the south or in the north, or which policies had real effects, etc.
Yes, most people in the south didn't own slaves. The highest percentage of a family owning a slave (thus counting everybody in the family as a slave owner even if technically only the father owned a slave) even in Alabama is 35% to 40% -- ever (say if a family tried it for a generation, didn't like it, and gave it up by the next generation or two, that 35% to 40% stat still counts the family as having owned slaves even if it was for a small portion of that family's history). I've read it's more like 5% of white families in the entire nation. So I agree with the sentiment of not blaming the entire white race for slavery, even white southerners. But, and this is important, the percentage of slave owning is higher if we're talking about the political and business leaders of the CSA, particularly at the time of the secession, and particularly the ones to push for secession. So I don't judge my fellow white Alabamians for slavery (including the ones who lived here back then), but I do judge the Dim leaders in Alabama and other CSA states back then for pushing for slavery even to the point of secession. If you read the Dim party platform in 1860, constitution of the CSA, and the "cornerstone" speeches of the Dim CSA president and Dim CSA VP defining what the new CSA government was about, it's very clear that preserving slavery was one of the main reasons for the CSA's existence. The Dim leaders of the CSA deserve the judgment they're getting today .... even if the majority of southern citizens hated slavery (some because of Christianity and some because cheap slave labor suppressed wages and farmer profit of non-slave owning small farms), and even if today's educational establishment want you to forget that the CSA leaders were Dims. It'd be analogous to if someone a few centuries from now judged our country today: the Dim leaders today deserve blame for the abortion and pedo they're pushing and legalizing, but don't judge most Americans today over it because we hate it and try to stop it.
As far as the average southern Joe fighting for the CSA, that's a mixed bag. Yes, the average Joe knew at the time that the CSA was in large part about preserving slavery -- the CSA leaders made it clear. But I'll cut the average CSA soldier slack for often not having a choice but fight. Some were drafted, some had their families threatened, and some fought for the CSA to protect their homes and home states from the total war the Union generals promised.
About the Emancipation Proclamation. I'm in 100% agreement that it should not be confused with the 13th Amendment, it didn't free every slave, it didn't apply to Union states (or originally neutral states like Kentucky that couldn't help but pick pick the Union side after the CSA attacked Kentucky). But don't talk like the EP had zero effect either. (Again, the logic of absolutes is faulty logic.) The EP did quell outside help for the CSA (i.e. England slacked off on helping the CSA because by then England was proudly abolitionist). Don't underestimate that one aspect of the EP -- trade with England was still a big deal in the 1860's. And there were places in the south where slaves were freed after American forces won in that area, particularly if the town was almost completely deserted by local leaders. (In the minds of some Union generals the EP cleared up what martial law should do regarding slaves -- free them). Just because some Union generals didn't do that with martial law (particularly in cases where some local leaders stayed and agreed to help Union forces run the town smoothly) doesn't mean the EP didn't have an abolition effect in many areas. Think of the EP as moving the abolition needle enough to have real effects in freeing many slaves even if abolition wasn't honored everywhere as the absolute law of the land until the 13th Amendment.
How the American Civil War Built Egypt’s Vaunted Cotton Industry and Changed the Country Forever
But for a number of fledgling countries and colonies across the world, America’s loss was their great gain. As northern warships blockaded southern ports, closing them off to commercial shipping, the cotton plantations of the Confederacy struggled to export their ‘white gold.’ With the great textile mills of England now deprived of the lifeblood of their industry, 80 percent of which had previously come from the U.S, the price of cotton very soon went through the roof. Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, birthed in Britain, the United States and its former antagonist and overlord had symbiotically thrived on the massive revenues from the cotton trade, a titan of commerce reliant on the lives of the American South’s enslaved population. Now, the Civil War imperilled everything for the moneymakers on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.
But for a number of fledgling countries and colonies across the world, America’s loss was their great gain. As northern warships blockaded southern ports, closing them off to commercial shipping, the cotton plantations of the Confederacy struggled to export their ‘white gold.’ With the great textile mills of England now deprived of the lifeblood of their industry, 80 percent of which had previously come from the U.S, the price of cotton very soon went through the roof. Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, birthed in Britain, the United States and its former antagonist and overlord had symbiotically thrived on the massive revenues from the cotton trade, a titan of commerce reliant on the lives of the American South’s enslaved population. Now, the Civil War imperilled everything for the moneymakers on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.
It took just a couple of weeks after the outbreak of hostilities in South Carolina for farmers the world over to realize the scope of the bounty that had landed in their lap. Agricultural laborers from Australia and India to the West Indies ditched wheat and other food staples and hastily planted up their fields with cotton. Prices had risen by up to 150 percent. As soon as it became clear that England wouldn’t enter the war as allies of the Confederacy, many farmers doubled down and gave over every scrap of their acreage to this enriching crop.
No one, however, seized on the opportunity quite like the Egyptians, who had just a few decades beforehand freed themselves from almost 300 years of direct Ottoman rule. Under the ambitious leadership of Muhammed Ali, an Albanian soldier who had seized power in 1805 and is widely considered the founder of modern Egypt, the country had already embraced cotton as a valuable cash crop. The discovery 40 years beforehand of a fine long-staple variety by a visiting French engineer – a Monsieur Jumel – meant that Egypt was also well on its way to building a reputation for high-quality cotton, which linen-makers rave about to this day.
But now, with prices continuing to soar and desperation high in northern England as the mills of Manchester exhausted the excess supply left over from a bumper American harvest of 1860, authorities in Cairo moved with extraordinary speed to ramp up additional production.
...
But their arrival also coincided – and indirectly contributed – to a rash of poor decision-making among Egypt’s ruling classes that was to eventually lead to the arrival of the British military on a long-term basis in 1882. Ismail was so intent on building up cotton infrastructure and transforming Cairo into a ‘Paris on the Nile’ that he encouraged the “establishment of banks like the Anglo-Egyptian from which he might borrow heavily in return for certain favors,” writes Owen. Very soon he’d built up such big debts to mostly British and French creditors that he couldn’t hope to ever pay them back. Additionally, the end of the American Civil War in 1865 led to a steep fall in global cotton prices as the U.S. crop came back on the market and proved particularly damaging for Egypt. It created a sharp budget deficit and ultimately a declaration of national bankruptcy a decade later
“I think you can say that the American Civil War – and the effects on cotton – made the British change their policy towards Egypt,” says Mohamed Awad, director of the Alexandria & Mediterranean Research Center at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina. “Indirectly it was one of the main reasons for the occupation of Egypt.”
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-american-civil-war-built-egypts-vaunted-cotton-industry-and-changed-country-forever-180959967/
So the Civil War led to Egypt becoming a colony of the British Empire.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. You bring up some interesting points, one being the effect the EP had on England. William Wilberforce and his tireless work really made it a sticky subject for English society, supporting the south. And I have read, that if not for a speech by John C Calhoun giving a sympathetic rationale for slavery in the 1830’s, we might very will have freed the slaves here before the war.
Fascinating to study this period of history.