Any way I look at it, I just believe it was a dark period in our country's history. Perhaps I do not understand the finer points. That really could be
You are precisely correct in your conclusions and concern. Both are true feelings that should come forth in viewing the uncivil struggle of a just war in the view of at least half of our nation at the time.
Whether, your sympathies lay with the Rebels (the Southern cause), in that "We have fought a war for independence from a tyrannical central form of governance, then why should we again trade 1 tyrant a thousand miles away, for a hundred tyrants 10 miles away" Each of the Southern States had within it's state Constitution, an escape clause.. A secession clause, in the event that state felt that they could no longer agree with federal authority.. The U S Constitution ratified those states knowing those clauses were a part and parcel. So, when each state found that the northern states were imposing their will on the authority of the southern states with singular stinging tariffs and levees directed at just the commerce of the south.. they bolted from the Union, with a legal vote of their people. Slave trade was a particular unsavory aspect of primarily the Southern states it did exist widely in the north as well.. but it was not the primary, or secondary cause of the split.
The Federalists (Northern States), with an advantage of population, and therefore the legal voting power in the federal legislature (congress), believed in the strength of numbers, and the entire Union was integrated as one unit. This meaning the laws, military defense, common heritage, and commerce where tied into each and every part as it was intended. When the Southern state became obstinate, and rebelled.. the power of the United States Government as it was, moved forcibly to hold it together.
The cause was inexorably, in the EYE OF THE BEHOLDER!
Carlo, you have this exactly right. No CSA flag ever flew atop a slave ship. The issue was correctly states rights and freedom from oppressive taxation. Plus a real fear by Southern states that their agrarian and religious freedom was in jeopary.
Anyone unfamiliar with the issues might read The South was Right by Donnie and James Kennedy. Or Southern by the Grace of God by Grissom. And there are many, many others. The Tragic Era is another comprehensive book written not so many years after The War for Southern Independence.