# Neo Confederates and Revisionist Civil War History **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 12, 2010, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neo-confederates-and-revisionist-civil-war-history/535821 "2010-04-12T11:32:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![jrodefeld](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/59ef9b/32.png) [@jrodefeld](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jrodefeld)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2010, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neo-confederates-and-revisionist-civil-war-history/535821/201 "2010-04-16T21:23:27Z")
> [@Oldeb](#): > > It doesn’t matter if they would have accepted a buy out or not. **The amount of money required makes the entire thing pointless.** > > There were an estimated 4,000,000 slaves in the US in 1860. > ([Slavery - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery#Slavery_in_the_United_States)) > > The average price for a slave in 1860 was $1,800. > ([http://www.civilwarhome.com/slavery.htm](http://www.civilwarhome.com/slavery.htm)) > > The amount that would have to be spent to buy all these slave then was $7,200,000,000. > > For comparison’s sake, that amount in 2005 USD is $155,973,600,000. > ([http://mykindred.com/cloud/TX/Documents/dollar/](http://mykindred.com/cloud/TX/Documents/dollar/)) > > And that’s just the buyout. There is no way to avoid the cost of Reconstruction which is _still_ going to be required in order to bring the South into the 19th century. So even _if_ the South was willing to accept over that much money to see it’s entire economy and way of life destroyed it really doesn’t matter. There was no way to raise that much money or distribute it. > > Who the heck even pays for it? The non-slave holding states? Yeah, they’re going to be thrilled. If you think the South was pissy because of some tariffs the North is really not going to be happy if they’re expected to raise that much. Completely false. The amount of money it would take to buy the slaves and release them would have been less than the cost of the civil war. Check out this link: > **[What If the Union Had Bought Out the Confederacy Instead of Fighting? |...](http://www.gongol.com/research/economics/slavebuyout/)** > > How a slave buyout would have saved money and pain over the choice to engage in the Civil War It was completely feasible. As far as your point about who pays for it, the federal government would. Of course it would have to be taxed, but all Americans were partly responsible for the institution of slavery, directly or indirectly, and you can be sure this course of action would be much more favorable to any citizen than Civil War, which would kill over 600,000 men and tear the country apart. Think about it. ---
**Author:** ![jrodefeld](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/59ef9b/32.png) [@jrodefeld](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jrodefeld)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2010, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neo-confederates-and-revisionist-civil-war-history/535821/202 "2010-04-16T21:45:08Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > And here I thought racism and slavery led to fear and hatred between the races. Turns out it was the Noth putting an end to slavery that did it. I had no idea. I’d never realized that Southern whites would have treated blacks as something like equals if only they’d been paid in return for freeing them from slavery. I’m sure Southerners would have been happy to give blacks a fair shake at working and voting if a slave buyout could have been worked out. Racism has always existed in human history. But certain governmental policies can exacerbate it. For example, we should be a color blind society that doesn’t even think about race in judging another person’s character or actions. But by keeping race at the forefront of discussions and national group think that continuously plays one group of Americans against another, it inflames racial tensions. When any group feels that another is getting special benefits, it breeds resentment. As far as the Civil War is concerned, if you lived in the South (whether you owned slaves or not) and the Northern Army massacred and maimed your entire family, destroyed your property and afterwards, blamed you (and the entire region of the South) for all the ills of slavery (when the North was very much culpable as well), it would naturally breed hatred and resentment. This in part pushed groups of southerners to commit heinous acts of violence against blacks that continued for decades and led to a long lasting, even irreconcilable division among people in this country. There is no excuse for any acts of violence perpetrated against anyone. But we shouldn’t be blind to the way in which actions have consequences. The way slavery should have been ended is this way: **Admit a united culpability for the institution of slavery and establish a peaceful and orderly phasing out of slavery by purchasing the slaves and releasing them.** Any true historian would admit there were plans to this effect back then, but Lincoln ignored them. He was more interested in waging a war against the American people than getting rid of slavery. Don’t forget many many innocent people were killed in the South AND the North because of Lincoln’s refusal to consider alternatives. If we had followed my suggestion, we would not have had the lingering racism and bigotry (at least not to the degree), and black people would have been truly free much sooner (civil rights and so forth). Remember, more can be accomplished in peace than in war. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2010, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neo-confederates-and-revisionist-civil-war-history/535821/203 "2010-04-16T21:59:26Z")
> [@jrodefeld](#): > > Any true historian would admit there were plans to this effect back then, but Lincoln ignored them. He was more interested in waging a war against the American people than getting rid of slavery. Given your track record of dubious assertions in this thread, I’m not buying this one either. > [@](#): > > If we had followed my suggestion, we would not have had the lingering racism and bigotry (at least not to the degree), and black people would have been truly free much sooner (civil rights and so forth). And I’m saying I don’t believe this. I know the war bred resentment. Did it cause additional bigotry against black people? I don’t think so. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2010, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neo-confederates-and-revisionist-civil-war-history/535821/204 "2010-04-16T22:05:26Z")
> [@jrodefeld](#): > > Completely false. The amount of money it would take to buy the slaves and release them would have been less than the cost of the civil war. Check out this link: > > [What If the Union Had Bought Out the Confederacy Instead of Fighting? | Gongol.com](http://www.gongol.com/research/economics/slavebuyout/) > > It was completely feasible. As far as your point about who pays for it, the federal government would. Of course it would have to be taxed, but all Americans were partly responsible for the institution of slavery, directly or indirectly, and you can be sure this course of action would be much more favorable to any citizen than Civil War, which would kill over 600,000 men and tear the country apart. > > Think about it. Doesn’t this rely on hindsight, though? Today, we may go back through the records and see how much the Civil War cost in terms of money, men, and material. But at the time, no-one really knew how much it would cost either side in those terms. You can have a guess, going in, at roughly how much you think you may lose, and whether it’ll end up pretty pyhrric or wildly successful. But it’s not as though Lincoln had those figures you post to compare against - he did not know, in advance, how much the war would cost. It’s unrealistic to claim that historical figures should have acted in accordance with our fullest understanding, today, of those events leading up to and those after an event. ---
**Author:** ![jrodefeld](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/59ef9b/32.png) [@jrodefeld](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jrodefeld)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2010, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neo-confederates-and-revisionist-civil-war-history/535821/205 "2010-04-16T22:09:56Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > The South didn’t give Lincoln any chance of offering a compensation plan anyway. They instigated the war before Lincoln even had a chance to think about abolishing slavery. > > I seriously believe if Lincoln had gone to them with a plan of buying out their slaves for $100 apiece, the war would have started the same day he made that offer. > > Imagine if Obama told the NRA tomorrow that he was planning on banning guns next year, but out of fairness, he had a plan in place to compensate every owner. Obama would be lucky if he came out that room alive. This is ridiculous. Go back and reread the links I provided in the first page. There were plenty of chances to broker a deal with the South and to offer alternatives to war. War was not inevitable. Whether you choose to deny reality or not, the shots fired at Fort Sumter were like the Gulf of Tonkin incident that justified Vietnam. They were a desired provoked response that Lincoln could use to justify a war he wanted to engage in. These are the facts. Your ludicrous comparison between slavery and gun rights insults our intelligence. The second amendment is explicit in the fact that people have the right to own a gun. Slavery was an admitted evil by an increasing majority of the Country at the time. Its time was running out anyone. The sticking point was that the Souths economy was highly dependent upon slave labor. There was actually willingness by many Southern states to negotiate with Lincoln among their many grievances (economics and tax policy being significant in addition to slavery). Lincoln was the one who refused to negotiate or work out a peaceful arrangement. Considering Lincoln himself was a racist, it is absurd to believe that his motivation was pure and noble while the South was just a bunch of backwards white supremacists (there were plenty of them but many more moderate citizens with different grievances and even many abolitionists among them). Seriously, all I ask is that you guys think about the complexities of this very important period of our history. Don’t just parrot the simplified, dumbed down history our public schools teach Elementary School students. There is always an agenda behind the way history is presented and there is constant revisionism going on. As I said earlier Civil War history is presented the way it is to discourage anyone from thinking about the wisdom of pursuing a Republican form of government as envisioned by our founders (nearly all abolitionists, by the way). Every great president we are taught to admire has been either a war president or someone who massively expanded federal government power. Lincoln, FDR, Woodrow Wilson and others we are told are the greatest presidents. Why not the presidents who pursued peace? Why not pick the presidents who defended civil liberties and fought for balanced budgets and fiscal sanity? Why can’t they be considered the greatest presidents? ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2010, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neo-confederates-and-revisionist-civil-war-history/535821/206 "2010-04-16T22:10:31Z")
> [@jrodefeld](#): > > Completely false. The amount of money it would take to buy the slaves and release them would have been less than the cost of the civil war. That’s completely irrelevant to the point that’s been made: the government could not have afforded, financially or economically, to buy out the slaves. That’s without even accounting for the cost of reconstruction. The cost of buying out the slaves would have been **more than the entire GDP of the United States,** which prior to the Civil War was about four to five billion dollars. The entire federal budget was less than a hundred million dollars a year. A slave buyout was not an option. It was completely impossible. That the war ended up costing more (and that’s debateable) is interesting, and irrelevant. Had Lincoln suggested to Congress tha the U.S. free the slaves by spending more money than existed in the entire country, in fact more money than had ever spent on everything the U.S. government had ever bought in its entire history up to that point, he would rightly have been laughed off. ---
**Author:** ![jrodefeld](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/59ef9b/32.png) [@jrodefeld](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jrodefeld)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2010, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neo-confederates-and-revisionist-civil-war-history/535821/207 "2010-04-16T22:12:33Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#): > > The [total federal budget in 1860](http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/year1860_0.html#usgs302) was $78 million dollars. Even using the lowball $100-a-head price, that comes to over five times the entire annual budget of the government of the United States. (The state of Mississippi referred to the worth of slaves as being [$4 _billion_](http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_missec.asp), or $1,000 a head, which would be the entire budget of the government of the United States for over _fifty_ years.) Any sort of buyout offer simply wasn’t remotely feasible in monetary terms, even _if_ the slave owners could have been persuaded to go along with it. Completely false. I already posted this link, but here it is for your benefit: > **[What If the Union Had Bought Out the Confederacy Instead of Fighting? |...](http://www.gongol.com/research/economics/slavebuyout/)** > > How a slave buyout would have saved money and pain over the choice to engage in the Civil War The cost of buying the slaves was roughly identical to the cost of the war and when you factor in the cost in human life, the property destroyed, etc, a buyout would have been cheaper. ---
**Author:** ![jrodefeld](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/59ef9b/32.png) [@jrodefeld](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jrodefeld)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2010, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neo-confederates-and-revisionist-civil-war-history/535821/208 "2010-04-16T22:15:12Z")
> [@LonesomePolecat](#): > > Careful with that straw man, it might be a fire hazard. There’s nothing in that post which could reasonably be interpreted to mean that the war and its aftermath was the sole cause of Jim Crow. The bitterness and anger after the war complicated race relations horribly, and pretty much any peaceful end to slavery would have left far fewer problems in its wake than the war did. No doubt the ex-slaves would still have been treated as inferiors and undesireables for quite some time (I’d guess at least a couple of generations), but it would still not have been as bad as what actually did transpire. **Exactly.** You made the point I have been making. ---
**Author:** ![jrodefeld](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/59ef9b/32.png) [@jrodefeld](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jrodefeld)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2010, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neo-confederates-and-revisionist-civil-war-history/535821/209 "2010-04-16T22:23:56Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > You’ll have to pardon my sarcasm. Did the war complicate things? I guess so, since some people still harbor resentment over it 150 years later. But I don’t believe things would have been much different. And several people have already pointed out that a slave bailout would not have been possible anyway. And I suggest you read up a bit more about the economic feasibility of a slave buyout (not bailout). Several people have pointed out that a buyout would not have been possible, and I have proved them wrong. It was certainly possible. We cannot know how it would have turned out in the end had Lincoln pursued other means than war, but we do know that every other industrialized nation got rid of slavery without a civil war. Do you at least agree that, if at all possible, abolishing slavery peacefully would have been a superior outcome than what did happen? ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2010, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neo-confederates-and-revisionist-civil-war-history/535821/210 "2010-04-16T22:26:24Z")
> [@jrodefeld](#): > > And I suggest you read up a bit more about the economic feasibility of a slave buyout (not bailout). Several people have pointed out that a buyout would not have been possible, and I have proved them wrong. I don’t think we’re ever going to agree on this. Particularly if you don’t think it’s a problem that the cost of a buyout would have been larger than the national GDP. > [@](#): > > Do you at least agree that, if at all possible, abolishing slavery peacefully would have been a superior outcome than what did happen? I don’t see how a peaceful abolition was possible. ---
**Author:** ![jrodefeld](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/59ef9b/32.png) [@jrodefeld](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jrodefeld)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2010, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neo-confederates-and-revisionist-civil-war-history/535821/211 "2010-04-16T22:43:12Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > I’m merely suggetsing, as I did earlier, that our opinions on secession and on “states’ rights” in general usually aren’t etched in stone. That people who insist South Carolina had no right to secede would actually be sympathetic to the idea of secession under different circumstances. And that people who normally assume that “states’ rights” is nothing more than a racist code term would gladly invoke the concept themselves, over different issues. You are exactly right. This is what I have been saying all along. We can all agree that slavery is immoral and can never be okay under any circumstances. But the concepts of states rights and secession are not immoral. The _reasons_ why they may been invoked could be immoral. So, especially today, people are inferring that any use of nullification or states rights are inherently pushed by racists and backwards hicks is ridiculous. You are right to point out the states nullifying the Alien and Sedition Act was a noble and just use of States Rights. Many abolitionists used states rights to further their goals of equality and justice. So, as far as the Civil War is concerned, It was the proper and just thing for Americans to fight against slavery (not necessarily in open war, but philosophically). It was not proper to support ulterior motives, as Lincoln did, to abolish the notion of secession and states rights. As I’ve said before, Lincoln did not care about ended slavery when the Civil War started. So, I can envision a time not to far from now, when Americans will need the use of States Rights to establish independence from an overreaching and abusive Federal Government and to nullify unconstitutional federal laws. And I certainly don’t want to hear this bullshit about how those of us who would support such measures are racists and bigots. That is why there has never been a more important time to understand the Civil War and its implications. To just claim it was only about slavery stops anyone from actually digging deeper in the history. ---
**Author:** ![jrodefeld](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/59ef9b/32.png) [@jrodefeld](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jrodefeld)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2010, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neo-confederates-and-revisionist-civil-war-history/535821/212 "2010-04-16T23:03:54Z")
> [@SecretaryofEvil](#): > > It’s easy to sympathize with the South. They fought very determinedly against much greater forces to prevent what they believed would be the imposition of a values system different from their own upon them. They didn’t like the government so they rebelled. Woooo! James Dean bitches! Unfortunately that values system they feared was the notion that owning slaves isn’t cool. The historical facts, which have already been so well presented by other Dopers, clearly indicate that slavery was the main reason why the South seceded. And that the argument for greater states’ rights was mainly constructed as a defense against abolition. And that other issues, such as the tariff, were mainly byproducts of slavery. > I think it is worth pointing out that due to the 3/5 compromise, the South was very much overrepresented in the Federal Government. [Three-fifths Compromise - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3/5_Compromise) > I will also say that holding libertarian political beliefs does not mean one is a Confederate apologist or a pro-secessionist. I am vaguely annoyed that some people are trying to defend the actions of the Confederacy for some sort of contemporary political gain. My argument here is not to defend the South, but to criticize the North (Lincoln, specifically). Those who seceded due to slavery were wrong. But there were abolitionists in the South and there were plenty of racists in the North. So many people were killed in this war needlessly. My point is that there WERE peaceful means to end slavery, Lincoln just didn’t pursue them. And, given that Lincoln was not against slavery, his motivations were very suspect. The North had all the power. It was their prerogative in how the dealt with this issue. This may be controversial, but my own opinion was that we could have let the Southern states secede and work peacefully to abolish slavery and entice them to again rejoin the Union, even if it meant conceding tax policy or other economic concerns which the South had issues with. Anything would have been better than war. And historically, slavery was on its way out. Industrialization was making slave labor economically inviable. It seems to me, the South was simply stubborn in supporting an institution after the writing was on the wall. Even secession didn’t justify war. Its not like the conditions for black men in this country were dramatically increased right after the war was over. They suffered through decades of abuse. Even if slavery lingered on for another five-ten years in the South, during which time the Abolitionists and the North worked to either buy out the slaves, or entice the southern states back into the union, the outcome would have been superior to what transpired. The South was wrong, but the North was also wrong in how they handled the situation. Lincoln could have resolved to provide leadership and the voice of persuasion to achieve emancipation, instead he pursued a course of war which tore the country apart and actually eroded the liberties of all Americans through the elimination of States Rights and the creation of a more powerful and authoritarian central government. ---
**Author:** ![Oldeb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ea666f/32.png) [@Oldeb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oldeb)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2010, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neo-confederates-and-revisionist-civil-war-history/535821/213 "2010-04-16T23:19:44Z")
> [@jrodefeld](#): > > Completely false. The amount of money it would take to buy the slaves and release them would have been less than the cost of the civil war. Check out this link: > > [What If the Union Had Bought Out the Confederacy Instead of Fighting? | Gongol.com](http://www.gongol.com/research/economics/slavebuyout/) > > It was completely feasible. As far as your point about who pays for it, the federal government would. Of course it would have to be taxed, but all Americans were partly responsible for the institution of slavery, directly or indirectly, and you can be sure this course of action would be much more favorable to any citizen than Civil War, which would kill over 600,000 men and tear the country apart. _sigh_ We already talked about the cost of a buyout vs the cost of the war. It’s not that far back in this thread. Besides, you still are left with paying for Reconstruction. That’s a topic you have completely avoided so far in this thread, with Point 5 in your OP going so far as to practically deny it ever happened. **Who pays for Reconstruction?** What makes you think that the Confederate States, **who seceeded because Lincoln was elected President, before he was even sworn in** , would have been willing to in good faith deal with Lincoln about buying out their slaves? **How, without a war, is Lincoln going to be able to get Congress to pass taxes increasing the Federal Government’s budget several times over?** ---
**Author:** ![Oldeb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ea666f/32.png) [@Oldeb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oldeb)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2010, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neo-confederates-and-revisionist-civil-war-history/535821/214 "2010-04-16T23:21:16Z")
> [@jrodefeld](#): > > So, I can envision a time not to far from now, when Americans will need the use of States Rights to establish independence from an overreaching and abusive Federal Government and to nullify unconstitutional federal laws. And I certainly don’t want to hear this bullshit about how those of us who would support such measures are racists and bigots. But can we still ask why you hate America and want to see it torn apart? ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2010, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neo-confederates-and-revisionist-civil-war-history/535821/215 "2010-04-16T23:28:24Z")
> [@jrodefeld](#): > > And I suggest you read up a bit more about the economic feasibility of a slave buyout (not bailout). Several people have pointed out that a buyout would not have been possible, and I have proved them wrong. It was certainly possible. Like some other people had said, it wasn’t politically possible. Even if southerners had agreed to it, there’s no way that Congress would have agreed to spend the money. Even though you and I know that it would have been cheaper than the Civil War, people wouldn’t have known that in 1861, and Congress wouldn’t have agreed to raise 5 billion dollars, which was a whole lot of money back then. In fact, when Lincoln tried it in the border states, the plan was rejected utterly, both by slaveholders in the border states and Congress. Also, remember, most of the southern states seceded even before Lincoln was sworn in. So by the time he became President, the seceded states weren’t in any mood to listen to anything he had to say. Today, by the way, is Emancipation Day in the District of Columbia, which celebrates the one time that compensated emancipation actually worked. On this date in 1862, Lincoln signed a law freeing the slaves in the District of Columbia and paying their owners. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2010, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neo-confederates-and-revisionist-civil-war-history/535821/216 "2010-04-16T23:54:56Z")
> [@jrodefeld](#): > > The South was wrong, but the North was also wrong in how they handled the situation. Lincoln could have resolved to provide leadership and the voice of persuasion to achieve emancipation, instead he pursued a course of war which tore the country apart. A reminder here that the “course of war” was initiated by the South. The Civil War is also regarded by some historians as perhaps the most justified and least avoidable war in history. I suggest you broaden your reading. “States rights” may be an acceptable rallying cry for certain people who’ve forgotten Civil War and civil rights history. Whatever traction it gains will vanish the instant people start trying to rip up the Union with that justification. And to add to what **Captain Amazing** said, most people thought the Civil War would be over quickly, as in a matter of weeks or at most months. The idea of a slave buyout across the South would have been rejected as intolerable interference by southern slaveholders, and dismissed as horrifically costly and morally unacceptable by notherners. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2010, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neo-confederates-and-revisionist-civil-war-history/535821/217 "2010-04-17T00:05:33Z")
> [@jrodefeld](#): > > **2. The Civil War was not fought over slavery. It was fought to destroy the original intent of the Constitution and to establish a much more powerful central government in violation of the Founders wishes.** > **5. All other nations got rid of slavery without a civil war. The policy our government should have taken would be to buy the slaves from the slave owners and release them. This is what Great Britain did and many other nations as well.** You never did answer, so I truly am curious, are you really unaware of the illogic between these beliefs of yours? Pretend for a moment that a slave buyout and subsequent reconstruction of the South was a feasible possibility, Lincoln had been elected campaigning on a platform promoting this, the South didn’t secede over it, Lincoln wasn’t laughed out off the floor when he asked Congress to taxably raise more money to do this than as **RickJay** said existed in the country or had been spent by the Federal government in its entire history and that taxing this amount of money didn’t lead to a Civil War in another form anyway - would you be praising Lincoln? I rather think you’d be here ranting about him being one of the vilest and evil presidents for his fiscal insanity and deviousness in establishing a much more powerful central government in violation of the Founders wishes using abolition as a cover. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2010, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neo-confederates-and-revisionist-civil-war-history/535821/218 "2010-04-17T00:30:05Z")
> [@jrodefeld](#): > > Whether you choose to deny reality or not, the shots fired at Fort Sumter were like the Gulf of Tonkin incident that justified Vietnam. They were a desired provoked response that Lincoln could use to justify a war he wanted to engage in. These are the facts. It’s just like Pat Buchanan said, if only Britain and that warmonger Churchill hadn’t started World War II by forcing Hitler into attacking Poland. ---
**Author:** ![jrodefeld](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/59ef9b/32.png) [@jrodefeld](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jrodefeld)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2010, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neo-confederates-and-revisionist-civil-war-history/535821/219 "2010-04-17T00:50:07Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Given your track record of dubious assertions in this thread, I’m not buying this one either. > And I’m saying I don’t believe this. I know the war bred resentment. Did it cause additional bigotry against black people? I don’t think so. First of all, I don’t think I’ve said anything here that I didn’t back up with facts and links. Doesn’t the verifiable fact that Lincoln was a racist make you think that maybe he had other motives to start the Civil War? (duh). Why don’t you tell me which “dubious” assertions I have made in this thread? I can defend everything I’ve said thus far, but not without knowing what the hell you are talking about. As to your second point, its perfectly acceptable to have reasonable disagreements over whether or not the civil war bred increasing hostility towards black people. I believe it did, and I am not alone in this assessment. Even people who were not overtly bigoted before the war used black people as a scapegoat to justify their anger and resentment. But even taking that out of the equation, obviously a legacy of the civil war is the continued divisiveness of our politics that continues to this day. It is unnecessary and could have been avoided. ---
**Author:** ![jrodefeld](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/59ef9b/32.png) [@jrodefeld](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jrodefeld)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2010, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neo-confederates-and-revisionist-civil-war-history/535821/220 "2010-04-17T00:58:41Z")
> [@Revenant\_Threshold](#): > > Doesn’t this rely on hindsight, though? Today, we may go back through the records and see how much the Civil War cost in terms of money, men, and material. But at the time, no-one really knew how much it would cost either side in those terms. You can have a guess, going in, at roughly how much you think you may lose, and whether it’ll end up pretty pyhrric or wildly successful. But it’s not as though Lincoln had those figures you post to compare against - he did not know, in advance, how much the war would cost. It’s unrealistic to claim that historical figures should have acted in accordance with our fullest understanding, today, of those events leading up to and those after an event. Right, you make some good points. I’m sure they didn’t know exactly how much the war would cost. But it was more than just money however. The moral argument against war was the strongest. The constitutional argument against much of what Lincoln did during the war was not in question. Obviously there were many who supported the North who could not be expected to understand the repercussions of this conflict and I don’t blame them one bit, especially as they considered it the fastest way to end slavery. But, we do have the advantage of hindsight. Basically my whole argument boils down to the fact that if we would have pursued an orderly buyout of the slaves we would have avoided so much hardship and unintended consequences for so many people. Couple that with the fact that Lincoln had ulterior motives for war and committed endless unconstitutional acts in the waging of that war, and I think my argument is pretty strong. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neo-confederates-and-revisionist-civil-war-history/535821.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neo-confederates-and-revisionist-civil-war-history/535821.md?page=12)