[DiogenesLamp]

The civil War was not about slavery. The south seceded when it realized that it would a permanent political minority.

Lincoln switched from maintaining the union as a war goal to abolishing slavery because of the appalling casualties. He needed a moral reason to justify the massive amount of deaths.

Exactly correct. The South had been consistently out voted in every effort to stop the North from taxing them for the benefit of the North, and they realized they would never have enough states to outvote the North.

In the 1860s, the South was paying 73-85% of all the taxes, and *MOST* of their money earned from trading with Europe was ending up in the hands of people in New York and Washington DC. (Same bastards sucking the country dry today)

The South's story has been deliberately mistold to subsequent generations to cover up the money trails leading to New York and Washington DC which are the real causes of the war.

[DeplorablePaul]

I read a very interesting history of South Carolina before the civil war. The upper class feared two things: fires - Charleston burned to the ground twice- and slave revolts.

Controlling a large number of slaves was becoming untenable. Plantation owners were in the process of switching from slavery to a tenant farming model

While there were some cruel masters, the majority of the owners treated blacks decently and like members of the family.