Posted on 05/01/2017 3:39:29 PM PDT by Timpanagos1
US President Donald Trump has stirred debate by asking why the American Civil War happened, and pondering whether it could have been "worked out".
In a radio interview, he suggested the conflict might have been avoided if President Andrew Jackson had still been in office.
The 1861-65 Civil War between the northern and southern states was principally caused by slavery.
(Excerpt) Read more at google.com ...
The civil war was fought between the Union states (Northern states) of the United States and the states of the Confederacy (Southern States). There were many causes of the civil war, including differences between northern and southern states on the idea of slavery, as well as trade, tariffs, and states rights.
I believe the plan was was that the Mississippi-Ohio-Missouri River basin states would join the Confederacy because of trading ag products downriver.
Knights of the Golden Circle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knights_of_the_Golden_Circle
Interestingly, this model probably would have been much closer to what the Founders of the U.S. envisioned that the monstrosity we have now.
Interesting that you said that.
My view is that the two nations would have eventually reunited for common interests sometime in the 1890s, once farm mechanization came to the South, and slavery would not have been economically viable.
The South would have had the problem of how to assimilate the 4 million blacks into their society, with some moving into the nation of Northern States.
We can only speculate from our vantage point of 2017.
Too many good men died, like the Europeans experienced in the 20th century in two world wars.
Oh now that’s funny. Maybe we should sentence ex-cons to agriculture work.
Kinda like diet slavery or how about slavery lite.
and created a nations of tax serfs ruled by DC.
no it didn’t; the 3% tax imposed on incomes over 800 per annum was repealed in 1871...the 16th Amendment, passed in 1909, and ratified in 1913, did create a nation of tax serfs...
Correct. Lincoln wanted to keep the Union together, no matter what it took. If they'd told Union enlistees that they were fighting against slavery, they never would have signed up. They didn't give a crap about slavery when the war first started. It wasn't until Lincoln ran for re-election that slavery became a big issue. He needed the support of the abolitionists in the north for reelection. Many abolitionists in this country wanted slavery abolished, but they didn't believe blacks should have equal rights.
I have to laugh at some of these British papers. Britain had no problem helping the south since they needed the cotton for their mills. Confederate ships were built in the UK...ie., CSS Alabama, but you never hear about that from the press.
I love British history, but Britain is always ready to throw up, the fact that they abolished slavery earlier than the U.S. However, they fail to mention their colonization of countries, and how badly the people of those countries were treated, or how their civil rights were ignored. England has never had a Prime Minister of color in all these years, and that's saying a lot about a nation that likes to brag about their eliminating slavery ahead of everyone else.
Slavery was already dying and on its way out.
Long-range thinkers could no doubt see the end of slavery in the future for the simple reason that cotton destroyed the soil (no rotation crop could come close to matching cotton’s return) and Texas was as far west as cotton was likely to be grown.
It wasn’t until Lincoln ran for re-election that slavery became a big issue.
yes, including those various Southern states that specifically cited it as the principal cause of their secession decrees...
All war is fought over wealth. Period.
You’re spewing revisionist history. The secessionist politicians made it quite clear it was all about slavery when they voted to secede. Just read their speeches. It had been tearing the nation apart for decades before the war. When Lincoln was elected the slave owning Democrat elites who ran the south had a hysterical overreaction much like today’s Democrats had when Trump was elected. They succeeded before he was even sworn in.
Those states rights loving southern states went begging on their hands and knees to the Buchanan administration to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act in the Northern states at the point of Army bayonets if necessary. The states rights issue is pure bunk. The only State Right the South was interested in was the right to own slaves and take them where ever they wanted to even into those new territories that did not legally recognize slavery.
I agree. Slavery was used in New York to help get people to fight. The war - as always - was about money. The North (US) could not continue without the funds raised by the South through tariffs. It really was that simple.
You can debate the particulars, but in summation war was declared because groups of rich men were fighting with each other about possessions (money, wealth, etc).
“principally caused by slavery.”
OMG. Typical demagoguery.
And don’t the Brits love to push it.
I don’t want to argue, and my guess was that slavery was mentioned a lot but I wasn’t sure.
Thanks for clearing that up.
War was NOT fought to principally free the slaves. It may have been fought to preserve slavery as a means of wealth. The cause was the god of mammon
If the conflict was over slavery, why didn’t Congress and Lincoln pass a law making it illegal?
Because it wasn’t over slavery and the north, including DC, had many slaves. The war of Northern Agression was fought because the Confederate States wanted out of the United States.
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