"Everything You Know About the Civil War is Wrong"

[WillBrink]

Title of the article a tad over the top and click bait no doubt, but it's a very good article outlining the true motivations behind the civil war, with slavery perhaps the WMDs of its day. Some of this I was aware of, so it does not burst any bubble for me per se, but many additional details I picked up from this article. Not sure how say other Civil War historians and buffs of the era will interpret this one, but worth a read:

Everything You Know About the Civil War is Wrong

It’s too easy to assign blame for the Civil War on the South and slavery — and intellectually lazy.

Like many other conflicts, the Civil War was decades in the making and the culmination of unresolved issues between the Northern and Southern states. And it finally came to a head during the 1860 presidential campaign and election.

To fully understand the Civil War, it’s vital to recognize that we are dealing with two separate issues: The cause for secession and the cause of the war.

Let’s begin with secession.

In 1860, nearly all federal tax revenue was generated by tariffs — there were no personal or corporate income taxes. And the Southern states were paying the majority (approximately eighty percent) of the tariffs with an impending new tariff that would nearly triple the rate of taxation.

Adding insult to injury, much of the tax revenues collected from imports in the South went to Northern industrial interests and had been for decades. The 1860 Republican platform promised more of the same, which was further eroding the trust of Southerners.

Remember that slave labor practices of the South contrasted greatly with the industries of the North. Without slave labor, most Southern plantations wouldn’t have survived; there simply weren’t enough workers. Slavery was inextricably linked to the South.

While the issue of slavery was, in fact, a primary concern for the South, the secessionist movement began decades before the Civil War.

Cont:

https://medium.com/@jonathanusa/everything-you-know-about-the-civil-war-is-wrong-9e94f0118269?fbclid=IwAR3CMk3lPYk1HKbBbAv9mCxx_aCUwPJSEwFyXRwukAU1p62Ozpz7PmU032o

[CWM11B]

Yep. This used to be taught in real history classes long ago. Wars are generally over resources.

[Firefly]

“I no longer want to pay yo taxes”
—CSA

[mack7.62]

I don't think slavery was a primary cause of the War of Northern Aggression, it was a way to scapegoat the South. By the time of the war slavery was becoming economically nonviable, share cropping was more profitable.

[Gunfixr]

I knew some of that, but the rest was quite interesting.

[The_War_Wagon]

Everything You Know About the Civil War is Wrong


ONLY if you grew up a yankee. :p

In the rural South, in the '70's still, we learned all about the War of Northern Aggression from a PROPER perspective. :cool:

Having lived for a year in Gettysburg, I got bit by the re-enacting bug. It's cool to teach people the Confederate side of things, while living here in Yankeeland.

When locals say, "Oh yeah - I had relatives who fought in the Civil War," I always reply: "Did they fight for the GOOD guys? Or did they fight for the Union?" ;)

[Todd.K]

I don't think slavery was a primary cause of the War of Northern Aggression, it was a way to scapegoat the South.

Making slavery the main focus of the war from the Northern side is a modern thing. It was a factor at the time but not a main one. It was an issue that went back to the founding. There was a practice of adding States only two at a time with one slave and one not in order to keep the balance in the Senate. This says a lot more about how invested in keeping slavery the South really was, vs your "northern aggression" narrative that seeks to downplay slavery at all cost.

Keeping slavery meant more to the South than ending slavery meant to the North, at least to the ruling/powerful class of each.

[jsbhike]

A reenactor demonstrating Goretex bag pipes, of all things, put me on to 48'ers (Marxists who escaped Europe after their failed revolutions) in the Union Army and GOP.

https://attackthesystem.com/2012/05/15/red-republicans-and-lincolns-marxists-marxism-in-the-civil-war/

[WillBrink]

Making slavery the main focus of the war from the Northern side is a modern thing. It was a factor at the time but not a main one. It was an issue that went back to the founding. There was a practice of adding States only two at a time with one slave and one not in order to keep the balance in the Senate. This says a lot more about how invested in keeping slavery the South really was, vs your "northern aggression" narrative that seeks to downplay slavery at all cost.

Keeping slavery meant more to the South than ending slavery meant to the North, at least to the ruling/powerful class of each.

While the article very much downplayed slavery as the cause and focus, it did paint the north, Lincoln specifically it seemed, as the aggressor. What did you think of the authors take on that?

[The_War_Wagon]

While the article very much downplayed slavery as the cause and focus, it did paint the north, Lincoln specifically it seemed, as the aggressor. What did you think of the authors take on that?

One of the best takes on that (for those who like the 'condensed history' approach), was portrayed in the film "Gangs of New York." You REALLY get an interesting perspective, from the Draft Riots of 1863, of how despised Lincoln was, from the UNLIKELIEST of places - New York City!

While the "Union = GOOD guys / Confederacy = BAD guys" larger narrative continues to play out in places like, public schools & universities, there really has been a fascinating body of movies (for those who can't be troubled by reading Shelby Foote) produced in the last 40+ years, on often overlooked elements of the war. Some of the more notable being;

- The Outlaw Josey Wales (how the Missouri/Kansas border War, influenced THAT element of the Civil War - Gone to Texas is a good read, on which the movie is based)
- Cold Mountain (the book is MUCH better, but covers the retreat at the end of the War for Confederates, and what the war's effects were like in deep Appalachia)
- Hatfields & McCoy's miniseries, by Kevin Costner (great history of how the war divided old friends for DECADES afterward, again in Appalachia)
- The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly (like The Undefeated, a little older, but shows - even if fictionalized - the western front of the war, which is OFTEN overlooked/forgotten!)
- Glory (award winner, for recording the black soldier's experience in the Union - it would be fascinating, to do such a flick, on the black soldiers who fought [U]FOR the Confederacy)
- Lincoln (2012 award winner, certainly shows how Lincoln was reviled by MANY, in the north & the south! His was a thankless job, in a thankless time, but love him or hate him, he was probably the ONLY one who could have pulled it off as it eventually unfolded)

Don't even know if that answers your question satisfactorily, but Gangs of NY and Lincoln probably best display/explain the people who DID hate Lincoln, & their vitriol for him.

Unrelated to Lincoln, but LISTEN to this ol' boy, interviewed in 1947!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LL0jeC9K9qA

[HardToHandle]

Making slavery the main focus of the war from the Northern side is a modern thing. It was a factor at the time but not a main one. It was an issue that went back to the founding. There was a practice of adding States only two at a time with one slave and one not in order to keep the balance in the Senate. This says a lot more about how invested in keeping slavery the South really was, vs your "northern aggression" narrative that seeks to downplay slavery at all cost.

Keeping slavery meant more to the South than ending slavery meant to the North, at least to the ruling/powerful class of each.

150-odd years after the end of the war, the losing side is still distorting history and using the trope themes that Ilhan Omar is out spreading. The linked article cherrypicked quotes; remember that well-esteemed and Mississippian writer Shelby Foote acknowledged the North wanted to end slavery immediately while the Southern state rights cause saw a generational wind-down of slavery over 50-100 years.

Lincoln was a Republican candidate for President and there was not a question where the party stood in 1860, hence the causi belli for the Southern Aggression against the US government. Lincoln was a politician who said many things, not all of which were truthful.

To the article’s wear rehashing of old tales, Lincoln was also a tyrant during the war, except when he stood for election and generally maintained contextual civil liberties of the time. He suspended Habeas Corpus, generally under George Washington’s Insurrection Act, and the use was mostly restricted to areas of warfare.

My biggest refutation of the thrust of the revisionist article is it was a war of economic causes and slavery was inconsequential as a cause. There is no reasonable support to say the Midwest, who were anti-slavery and voted en masse for Lincoln, was not thoroughly intending to end slavery as an institution. In the aftermath of the genocidal Southern Aggression in Kansas absolutely turned much of the North and all of the Midwest firmly against slavery.

56335
https://www.270towin.com/1860_Election/
Compare to the 1856 election map - https://www.270towin.com/1856_Election/index.html

I write this a few dozens of miles from one of John Brown’s terrorist training camps, which openly trained white and black men for anti-slavery martyrdom in 1850’s Kansas and then in Virginia. The regiments from the non-border Northern states absolutely marched in 1861-62 against slavery before the Emancipation Proclamation was ever entertained publicly in Washington DC.

I certainly understand the desire to paint the defeat of the Southern Cause in morally more ambiguous territory. Much of the North fought against slavery - maybe the South fought for States’ Rights, but the cause of the war was slavery, both in economic and political attributes.

[Buncheong]

Excellent thread, Will - thanks for this ...

[MountainRaven]

I give this thread 12 hours from OP before it gets locked.


I don't think slavery was a primary cause of the War of Northern Aggression, it was a way to scapegoat the South. By the time of the war slavery was becoming economically nonviable, share cropping was more profitable.

Slavery wasn't why the North fought - the North fought to maintain the Union. Slavery was why the South fought. In the South's own words, no less.

Confederate States of America - Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union (http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_scarsec.asp).

[soulezoo]

There's a quote from Lincoln, and I am paraphrasing from memory, where he essentially said that if keeping the the states together meant keeping slavery, he'd do it. The thrust of Lincoln was keeping the union period.
As I understand it, the emancipation proclamation applied only to Confederate states at the time and not Union states. Think on that.

[sundance435]

The war was about slavery for the South - at least for the oligarchic plantation owners leading the charge out of the Union. The other crap is what they fed to the majority of their population who didn't own slaves to go out and fight for them. It was all about money for plantation-owning class, who, not coincidentally, were leaders of the CSA and state governments. States' rights? Sure, in regard to their "right" to own slaves.

For the North, I think the idea of the war as ending slavery evolved later in the conflict. It was initially about preserving the Union. There has been some research on the political attitudes of the Midwest prior to and at the outset of the war - many folks were anti-slavery only because they feared competition from "free" farm labor, not because of any real moral compunction. Plus, Lincoln was smart enough to realize that the war would've had far less support in the North at the outset if slavery was elevated to the same importance as preserving the Union (because, like in the Midwest, many weren't ardently anti-slavery), which is why he vacillated on when to issue the Emancipation Proclamation and whether to include Border states (he didn't). I don't think there's any doubt, though, that ending slavery became a main driver for the North towards the end of the war, say from Gettysburg on.

[jsbhike]

Looks to be an interesting read:

https://archive.org/details/freenegroownerso00wood/page/n13