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Makes me wonder why the South needed all those Jim Crow and Grandfather Clauses....

Here is a good question... If the Southern States had simply stated, "Slavery is abolished!" and accepted the tenets of what later became the 13th and 14th Amendments, would the Civil War have still occurred..

This is all very interesting and goodness knows that the North and South committed war crimes but I am curious as to why it took so much for Southerners to recognize that slavery was wrong...

It is honorable that those who served be honored but I hope that based on their loyalty to their family and loved ones, one does not interpret that the cause of the South was a just one.... I would be the first to concede that more schools should be named in honor of Robert E. Lee as opposed to George McClellan, but I would never interpret the honorable actions of the soldiers on the battlefield to indicate that the politicians and institutions they were defending are equally honorable...

We have to be honest and see that in the North and the South, the blacks were used out of necessity and not out of any moral epiphany... Wars are about winning and both sides did what was necessary to win...

The Civil War was supposed to last six months... Emancipation Proclamation did not come about until 1863. Hmmmmmhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!

The war would have still been fought over economic reasons which was the major cause for the war in the first place. We had already had one civil war in this country which was the Whiskey Rebellon fought for economic reasons. Our War for Independence was also fought for economic reasons.

As far a the South freeing the slaves over night, it just couldn't happen. The reason for this was the major land owners who controlled the economy of the South with cotton had the vast majority of their capital tied up in the ownership of slaves. I have some old records from my family dating back to pre-civil war where a slave in 1850 dollars was worth well over $200.00. Figure that in todays dollars. Also these people were cared for all of their lives and given the best medical care. I don't want to sound calous when I say this, but they were considered like your best race horse or like an expensive piece of property. They also received excellent medical care you don't let an investment like that just die off. The South also had a code of honor that prevented people from dumping the "to old to work" slaves off to fend for themselves. This was not true with factory workers in the North or in the tribes of our noble Native Americans who left their old to fend for themselves after they were considered no longer useful to the tribe.

However, farming was changing due to mechanization, and slavery was quickly being out moded and becoming to expensive due to the cradle to the grave requirement of owning and caring for slaves. It was becoming better for share cropping or hired hands since you didn't have to be responsible for them all of their lives.

In the North, the states that abolished slavery normally phased it out over a generation or two based on the idea that someone born after a certain date would be born free. Right or wrong at the time this was basically a fact or a way of life. On a whole, blacks who were successful in the South, basically felt the same way and saw no problem with the system. Although these people did not intermarry with whites, they still were prominet members of the community and treated as such. This included memberships in churchs and social organizations.

The major problem that faced the South was cotton. Cotton was not so important as much for the manufacture of clothes as it was for the manufacture of sails for ships which drove the worlds commerce. Cotton was just as important as oil or coal is today. Steam was taking over the powering of everything but at that time to make steam, most people used wood. As the use of steam came more refined so did the extraction of coal and finally oil to make steam and power. Cotton was on its way out and the South's economy was doomed anyway as a result of this. Prior to the US Civil War, the three strongest economies in the world were the Northern US, the Southern US and Austraia.

The South needed to change and the North was not going to let it as far as setting up an industrial base in the South or selling agricultural products to who it wanted to. This was the cause for the war.

Slavery would have died a natural death because it is too expensive in an industrialized economy. The evolution of the abolishment of slavery on its own was pre-empted by the civil war.

The animosity, the hatred, and the Jim Crow laws were mainly the results of the reconstruction of the South after the Civil War. Military districts as a result of reconstruction existed in name as late as 1958 in the South. My father was in one in Raleigh, NC.

Here is a good question... If the Southern States had simply stated, "Slavery is abolished!" and accepted the tenets of what later became the 13th and 14th Amendments, would the Civil War have still occurred..

Well I have two questions back in response to your question.

1) The original 13th Amendment slated for ratification and ratified by Illinois (seems there was a certain man that came from that state that had just been elected President too) in 1861 stated

ARTICLE THIRTEEN, No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State

If this Amendment would have finished passage would it have staved off war?

2) Would the northern states have rescinded their existing Black Codes that, again, existed before the War? Illinois was known to have one of the most stringent and Oregon even banned the settlement by blacks in their 1859 Constitution?

Considering the northern states didn't even accept the precepts of the latter day 13th and 14th Amendments before the War, why should you expect the Southern states to do so?