# Was the America Civil War fought over slavery? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 21, 2016, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-america-civil-war-fought-over-slavery/743766 "2016-01-21T10:03:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2016, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-america-civil-war-fought-over-slavery/743766/141 "2016-01-26T23:35:52Z")
Oh, and let’s not imagine that the Republicans wanted to make sure all new Western states were free states. No, their radical proposal was that each new state would decide for itself whether it would be free or slave. Of course it was obvious that the new states would overwhelmingly vote to be free states. Get enough anti-slavery Senators, and eventually slavery gets more and more circumscribed. So state’s rights be damned. The slavocracy was overwhelmingly opposed to state’s rights, and the first change they made in the Confederate Constitution was to forbid any state from outlawing slavery. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2016, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-america-civil-war-fought-over-slavery/743766/142 "2016-01-26T23:53:07Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > I am not aware of this. Its sort of what made the slavery thing an issue. Up until about 1812, states that were admitted into the union were pretty balanced between slave states and free states. After 1812, there were many more territories that wanted to be free states and this led to states being admitted to the union in pairs, one slave state and one free state. After 1850, they started to let the territory decide if it wanted to be a free state or a slave state and the western states generally chose to be slave states and free states were soon going to become a supermajority, like constitutional amendment level supermajority. So the south saw the writing on the wall and after decades of forcing the rest of the union to admit one slave state for every free state, they decided to leave the union rather than abide by the will of the majority now that they were no longer in the majority. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2016, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-america-civil-war-fought-over-slavery/743766/143 "2016-01-27T00:08:33Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I After 1850, they started to let the territory decide if it wanted to be a free state or a slave state and the western states generally chose to be slave states and free states were soon going to become a supermajority, like constitutional amendment level supermajority. You mean "… and the western states generally chose to be\* free\* states… "? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2016, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-america-civil-war-fought-over-slavery/743766/144 "2016-01-27T01:36:37Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > It’s pretty simplistic, true. Slightly more complicated – Southern white leaders couldn’t fathom a future in which their capacity to control and rape and brutalize black people might be threatened, so they declared secession. It’s not reasonable to say that the South in general wanted to secede, considering how many millions of people’s opinions were ignored. > > After they declared secession, a Union army officer moved his troops from one Union base to another that was under construction in one of the states in which the white leaders claimed had seceded. This pissed off the local assholes, and the local assholes shot at these soldiers. > > And so a war was started. Its not quite that simple either. There was going to be a war, regardless of who fired the first shot. The shots fired on fort sumter are not as simply explained as you seem to think. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2016, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-america-civil-war-fought-over-slavery/743766/145 "2016-01-27T01:39:13Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > In but not _on_. It’s quite possible for a Nation to own a bit of land inside another nation- Hong Kong, GITMO, Gibraltar. > > Not to mention Embassies, etc. Sure. so if you can show me the agreement whereby south carolina agreed to lease that land to the federal government, then I guess you have some sort of parity. Otherwise, they are not really the same thing. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2016, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-america-civil-war-fought-over-slavery/743766/146 "2016-01-27T01:47:50Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Its not quite that simple either. There was going to be a war, regardless of who fired the first shot. The shots fired on fort sumter are not as simply explained as you seem to think. What’s not so simple? US soldiers at a less secure fort were worried, so they moved to Sumter. Southern states (or, more accurately, the rich white people in charge of them) seceded because they, probably correctly, anticipated that slavery was unsustainable if they stayed in the USA. Days after those soldiers moved to Sumter, a resupply mission was sent, and Southern assholes fired on that supply mission, preventing them from resupplying Fort Sumter. Perhaps it was inevitable, but if so, it’s because the rich white assholes in charge of Southern states couldn’t conceive of a future without slavery, and they were willing to cause lots of death and destruction to try to avoid it. In every sense, those Southern rich white assholes were responsible for starting the Civil War. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2016, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-america-civil-war-fought-over-slavery/743766/147 "2016-01-27T01:58:15Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Sure. so if you can show me the agreement whereby south carolina agreed to lease that land to the federal government, then I guess you have some sort of parity. Otherwise, they are not really the same thing. There was no lease. South Carolina deeded the property in full to the federal government in 1836. > [@](#): > > Resolved, that this state do cede to the United States, all the right title and claim of South Carolina to the site of Fort Sumter. [Cite.](https://books.google.com/books?id=fc4DAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA376&lpg=PA376&dq=Resolved+that+this+state+do+cede+to+the+United+States+all+the+right+title+and+claim+of+South+Carolina+to+the+site+of+Fort+Sumter&source=bl&ots=eKxeVmgeX_&sig=9Y0xdlkvNAmkrvnkgF6iE80OcDI&hl=en&sa=X&ei=j2BjUffbO_Ot0AGG5oEw#v=onepage&q=Resolved%20that%20this%20state%20do%20cede%20to%20the%20United%20States%20all%20the%20right%20title%20and%20claim%20of%20South%20Carolina%20to%20the%20site%20of%20Fort%20Sumter&f=false) ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2016, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-america-civil-war-fought-over-slavery/743766/148 "2016-01-27T01:59:56Z")
Let’s put aside the issue of Fort Sumter for the moment. Let’s discuss another federal institution that was located in a seceding state: the New Orleans Mint. The mint contained a large quantity of gold and silver that belonged to the United States government. When Louisiana seceded, it confiscated that gold and silver. Do people feel that was legal? Was the Confederate government entitled to that gold and silver because it was located inside the territory they controlled? Was it just property that belonged to the United States government that the CSA had a right to take? Or could they confiscate property that belonged to American private citizens? Could the Confederate government confiscate property that belonged to countries other than the United States? ---
**Author:** ![Deeg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deeg/32/2955_2.png) [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2016, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-america-civil-war-fought-over-slavery/743766/149 "2016-01-27T06:26:34Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > There was no lease. South Carolina deeded the property in full to the federal government in 1836. And, in a bit of irony, it was built on granite imported from New England to shore up the island. So it wasn’t even all SC soil. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2016, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-america-civil-war-fought-over-slavery/743766/150 "2016-01-27T14:36:32Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Its sort of what made the slavery thing an issue. Up until about 1812, states that were admitted into the union were pretty balanced between slave states and free states. After 1812, there were many more territories that wanted to be free states and this led to states being admitted to the union in pairs, one slave state and one free state. After 1850, they started to let the territory decide if it wanted to be a free state or a slave state and the western states generally chose to be slave states and free states were soon going to become a supermajority, like constitutional amendment level supermajority. > > So the south saw the writing on the wall and after decades of forcing the rest of the union to admit one slave state for every free state, they decided to leave the union rather than abide by the will of the majority now that they were no longer in the majority. I don’t think this is completely accurate. But in any event, the specific claim I was responding to was that "_one of the biggest complaints leading to numerous political deals is that the southern states did not believe that states should be allowed to decide whether they were slave or free in the first place, that it should be dictated by the Federal government."_ I was (and am) not aware of that. And as it turned out, the poster making this claim was referring to the Fugitive Slave Act, which does not support his claim. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2016, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-america-civil-war-fought-over-slavery/743766/151 "2016-01-27T14:41:47Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Oh, and let’s not imagine that the Republicans wanted to make sure all new Western states were free states. No, their radical proposal was that each new state would decide for itself whether it would be free or slave. Of course it was obvious that the new states would overwhelmingly vote to be free states. I don’t know that this is accurate. From [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_War_(US)#Territorial_crisis) > [@](#): > > By 1860, four doctrines had emerged to answer the question of federal control in the territories, and they all claimed they were sanctioned by the Constitution, implicitly or explicitly.[44] The first of these “conservative” theories, represented by the Constitutional Union Party, argued that the Missouri Compromise apportionment of territory north for free soil and south for slavery should become a Constitutional mandate. The Crittenden Compromise of 1860 was an expression of this view.[45] The second doctrine of Congressional preeminence, championed by Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party, insisted that the Constitution did not bind legislators to a policy of balance – that slavery could be excluded in a territory as it was done in the Northwest Ordinance at the discretion of Congress,[46] thus Congress could restrict human bondage, but never establish it. The Wilmont Proviso announced this position in 1846.[47] > > Senator Stephen A. Douglas proclaimed the doctrine of territorial or “popular” sovereignty – which declared that the settlers in a territory had the same rights as states in the Union to establish or disestablish slavery as a purely local matter.[48] The Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 legislated this doctrine.[49] In Kansas Territory, years of pro and anti-slavery violence and political conflict erupted; the congressional House of Representatives voted to admit Kansas as a free state in early 1860, but its admission in the Senate was delayed until January 1861, after the 1860 elections when southern senators began to leave.[50] > > The fourth theory was advocated by Mississippi Senator Jefferson Davis,[51] one of state sovereignty (“states’ rights”),[52] also known as the “Calhoun doctrine”,[53] named after the South Carolinian political theorist and statesman John C. Calhoun.[54] Rejecting the arguments for federal authority or self-government, state sovereignty would empower states to promote the expansion of slavery as part of the Federal Union under the U.S. Constitution.[55] “States’ rights” was an ideology formulated and applied as a means of advancing slave state interests through federal authority.[56] As historian Thomas L. Krannawitter points out, the “Southern demand for federal slave protection represented a demand for an unprecedented expansion of federal power.”[57][58] These four doctrines comprised the major ideologies presented to the American public on the matters of slavery, the territories and the U.S. Constitution prior to the 1860 presidential election. What you’re describing seems to be the Douglas position. But Lincoln, whose election triggered the secession, apparently took a harder line and wanted future states to be free by federal mandate. ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2016, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-america-civil-war-fought-over-slavery/743766/152 "2016-01-27T14:52:36Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > I was (and am) not aware of that. And as it turned out, the poster making this claim was referring to the Fugitive Slave Act, which does not support his claim. I was not referring to the Fugitive Slave Act when I made that claim, I was referring to the history of admitting states to the union and whether they were free or slave in the 1800s, including the Missouri compromise, compromise of 1850, and Kansas-Nebraska act. Southern States were consistently and vehemently opposed to new states determining their slave or free status on their own, which runs directly counter to claims that they valued ‘states rights’. It appears that my mistake was that I gave you the benefit of the doubt in assuming that you had a very basic knowledge of events leading up to the start of the Civil War to back up your claims about how it started. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2016, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-america-civil-war-fought-over-slavery/743766/153 "2016-01-27T14:58:27Z")
> [@Pantastic](#): > > I was not referring to the Fugitive Slave Act when I made that claim, I was referring to the history of admitting states to the union and whether they were free or slave in the 1800s, including the Missouri compromise, compromise of 1850, and Kansas-Nebraska act. You yourself indicated that you were referring to the Fugitive Slave Act. Here’s your response to my statement: > [@Pantastic](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > I am not aware of this. > > Not to put too fine of a point on it, but if you’re not aware of the Fugitive Slave Act, you really don’t know enough to make informed comments on the causes of the Civil War. It was a huge deal, and was cited specifically in several States’ declarations of secession. I’m only going with what you said. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2016, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-america-civil-war-fought-over-slavery/743766/154 "2016-01-27T16:11:16Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > Conscription is definitely slavery, and more likely to result in a premature death. Both sides did it, because governments are immoral, but slavery it is. Governments are only as moral s the people that direct it. In a democracy, the morality of government reflects the morality of the people it governs. The South might have been a bit plutocratic but there was a pervasive flaw in the morality of most southerners that allowed them to not only tolerate slavery but see it as fundamental to their society. Conscription may or may not be immoral in theory but was usually immoral in practice. The sons of privilege frequently found themselves in safer billets than the sons of ditchdiggers. > [@](#): > > Self-ownership is the fundamental principle of a free society. When a government engages in conscription it is asserting a right of ownership over your body. Conscription is governmental ownership of the means of production in this way. You ever hear of a social contract? Conscription might be at the far end of that social contract but when the security of the state requires physical defense, doesn’t the social contract permit the state to conscript people in its defense? > [@](#): > > Murder is the number one “sin”. In my opinionslavery would not have existed much longer if the South was permitted to secede. Libertarians frequently think that if things are simply left to their own devices, everything will simply work itself out. Should we have left the segregated lunch counters alone? Should we have left child labor alone? Should we have left monopolies alone? The south could have languished for many many years as a slave nation if there wasn’t some sort of intervention. Looking at the politics in the 1960’s, do you really think that there would have been a spontaneous movement for people to simply give up their slaves? > [@](#): > > State level aristocracies are constrained by movement of peoples, and are forced to liberalize over time, organically, without bloodshed, and without blowback that lasts another century or more How do the slaves move away? Or are you saying that the poor whites who firmly believed in a social structure that included slavery would have left? > [@](#): > > Federal abolition by invasion was coupled with massive loss of life, crony, wealth destroying economics, and severe blowback that lasted over a century. I thought we all agreed that the war wasn’t waged by the north to abolish slavery but to put down a rebellion. > [@](#): > > Most libertarians are either left-libertarians or believe in reparations for slavery (on an individual basis) as I do, so I don’t know what you’re babbling about. See Rothbard, Block, etc. Are you fucking kidding me? All those tea party libertarians in the south (and they are the dominant species of libertarian in the south) are neither left leaning nor are they are they in favor of reparations. Sure there are some ivory tower types that can make a case for reparations but its not a commonly held belief among libertarians, particularly white libertarians. 94% of Libertarians are white, in other words a Libertarians is more likely to be white than a black person is to vote for a Democrat (even Obama). IOW, Libertarians are more racially homogeneous than blacks are politically homogeneous. Quite a coincidence, don’t you think? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2016, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-america-civil-war-fought-over-slavery/743766/155 "2016-01-27T16:19:38Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > They’d had time to liberalize. They not only failed to, they refused to. They viewed slavery as a positive good, both for slaves and slave owners, and saw it as the cornerstone of their whole way of life. > > Further, [sharecroppers were not always economically free to leave](http://mshistorynow.mdah.state.ms.us/articles/228/farmers-without-land-the-plight-of-white-tenant-farmers-and-sharecroppers):It’s a half-shade off the company store system, a form of debt peonage where people are forced to work as slaves in all but name. That, too, was an aspect of the Old Southern Aristocracy, and not one they were going to give up, either. > > The South had its chance. It wasn’t even attempting reforms and was, in fact, doubling-down on laws and rhetoric meant to preserve the old ways of life, right up until it was finally so beaten down by war and so close to collapse it considered allowing slaves to fight in the Confederate Army. (Not a very popular proposition in the Confederate Congress, BTW.) Until the labor movement (and today’s social safety nets) the price of labor was pretty much what you needed to eat and feed your family because the alternative was starvation and if you wanted more than what you needed for subsistence then there was another subsistence farmer ready to take your place. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2016, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-america-civil-war-fought-over-slavery/743766/156 "2016-01-27T16:54:25Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > The first shots of the Civil War were indeed at (or near) Fort Sumter, but they were fired on [January 9th, 1861](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Sumter#Civil_War), several months before the Battle of Fort Sumter, by cadets at The Citadel, to prevent Fort Sumter troops from being resupplied. > > _Those assholes attacked US forces days after US troops moved to Fort Sumter_. > > So no, it’s not a flaw in my understanding. US troops moved from one base to another that had been under construction for a while, and when US logistical forces tried to resupply them, they were attacked, and the resupply was prevented. OK, my mistake. you WEREN’T talking about the battle of Fort Sumter like everyone else, you were talking about the previous attack by college students at the South Carolina military college firing on a ship that was attempting to resupply a fort that was pointing its cannons at Charleston. > [@](#): > > From the point of view of “slavery must be defended and preserved at all costs”, the attack made sense. But I don’t think that’s what you’re saying. US troops moved from one fort to another that US engineers had been constructing for a while, and days later a supply mission was attacked. Those were the first shots of the Civil War. > > When the SC assholes, days after announcing secession and after US troops moved to another fort, fired guns at a resupply mission, it’s not reasonable to blame anyone else but those assholes for starting the war. If I point a gun at you and you shoot me, you might have fired the first shot but it is hard to say that you started it. Federal troops trained cannons at charleston from an island fort in charleston harbor but didn’t have any cannon balls. The supply ship might have been carrying those cannon balls, should they have just let the supply ship through? Is THAT what you are saying? I don’t think you are using the term reasonable correctly and how do you know they were assholes? How do you know that the guys in the fort weren’t assholes? I mean, isn’t training your cannons on a large civilian population an asshole thing to do? > [@](#): > > See above. SC assholes fired at US troops days after secession, and days after US troops moved from one base to another, waiting for supplies. See above, those supplies might have included cannonballs that could be fired on Charleston. > [@](#): > > Bullshit – they were attacked within days of moving to Sumter. By college students. Are you under the impression that the demands to vacate didn’t start until they moved to fort sumter? They were told to vacate before they moved to fort sumter. Its pretty silly to argue that they vacated one fort so the fact that they moved to another fort one island over means they complied with the request. > [@](#): > > Sure it matters who fired the first shot – the South definitively started the war, because they could see the writing on the wall – slavery was unsustainable with the South remaining in the USA. They could see that slavery would have inevitably ended had they remained in the long term, even though the North was willing to allow them, in the short and maybe medium term, to keep their slaves. See above. Is it really your fault if you shoot me when I point a gun at you? Can i really say you started it? > [@](#): > > All the blame for the Civil War lies with the South, for building up a society based on extreme brutality and oppression, and for being unwilling to see a future without it. The North was a shitty place too, with regards to the treatment of black people, but not as bad as the South, and more importantly for this discussion, _they didn’t start a fucking war to support this mistreatment_. A lot of this seems like opinion based on little more than a one sided emotional argument. South=slavery - slavery=evil therefore its all the fault of the south, there is no “other side of the story” Right? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2016, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-america-civil-war-fought-over-slavery/743766/157 "2016-01-27T17:00:13Z")
> [@Pantastic](#): > > I never made a claim that the national debt justified the civil war, and it is an absurd strawman, so you haven’t seen anyone express that notion. Rather, I ‘expressed the notion’ that the South was not behaving like a part of a country attempting to peacefully secede and listed that as a specific example of behavior supporting that claim. Oh OK then your statement was meaningless. America didn’t negotiate their share of the British debt when they declared independence either. And like I said earlier the debt (while not negligible) was not a sticking point or an indicator of fuck all. > [@](#): > > Slavery was a core value of the Confederacy. Perusing the documents of secession clearly shows that the Confederacy believed in it as a moral good, and wanted to found the country on the principle of preserving the institution at all costs. When you are defending a country founded specifically on the principle of denying people their individual rights and denying them the option to voluntarily associate, you can’t legitimately make an argument from a principle of individual rights for your actions in founding the country diametrically opposed to individual rights. A lot of that depends on how you see things. The south didn’t see blacks as humans, so why would individual rights apply to them? But it sounds like you are now limiting your criticism to individual rights as opposed to “any moral standpoint” ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2016, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-america-civil-war-fought-over-slavery/743766/158 "2016-01-27T17:09:23Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > OK, my mistake. you WEREN’T talking about the battle of Fort Sumter like everyone else, you were talking about the previous attack by college students at the South Carolina military college firing on a ship that was attempting to resupply a fort that was pointing its cannons at Charleston. “Pointing its cannons at Charleston”? Cite? Do you just mean that Fort Sumter had cannons, and some of them incidentally might have been pointing in that direction? That’s not anything close to a justification. > [@](#): > > If I point a gun at you and you shoot me, you might have fired the first shot but it is hard to say that you started it. Federal troops trained cannons at charleston from an island fort in charleston harbor but didn’t have any cannon balls. The supply ship might have been carrying those cannon balls, should they have just let the supply ship through? Is THAT what you are saying? Bullshit on this “point a gun…” analogy. There’s no way to see the situation as the US troops threatening Charleston. There’s no way to see their stationing there as _anything_ but a defensive posture. > [@](#): > > I don’t think you are using the term reasonable correctly and how do you know they were assholes? How do you know that the guys in the fort weren’t assholes? I mean, isn’t training your cannons on a large civilian population an asshole thing to do? Forgive me for injecting some opinion. It’s my opinion that guys who shoot at federal troops because they (or those who manipulated them) can’t see a future together without slavery are assholes. The US troops might have been assholes as well, but nothing you’ve presented gives any evidence of that for me. > [@](#): > > See above, those supplies might have included cannonballs that could be fired on Charleston. So what? It was a US fort, occupied by US troops, under pretty reasonable threat of attack, especially _considering that they were just fucking attacked!!!_ > [@](#): > > By college students. You’re aware of the age of most soldiers, right? They’re about college aged folks. > [@](#): > > Are you under the impression that the demands to vacate didn’t start until they moved to fort sumter? They were told to vacate before they moved to fort sumter. Its pretty silly to argue that they vacated one fort so the fact that they moved to another fort one island over means they complied with the request. “Told to vacate”… by who? Vacate what? How were they “told”? When were they “told”? > [@](#): > > See above. Is it really your fault if you shoot me when I point a gun at you? Can i really say you started it? It’s a bullshit analogy. The troops at Fort Sumter posed no threat to Charleston whatsoever. Their position was purely defensive and they had no ability to attack. > [@](#): > > A lot of this seems like opinion based on little more than a one sided emotional argument. South=slavery - slavery=evil therefore its all the fault of the south, there is no “other side of the story” Right? There are lots of sides to the story. None of them present any reasonable evidence that the war should be blamed on anyone but the rich Southern assholes who demanded secession because they couldn’t see a future without slavery. How could anyone else be at fault? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2016, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-america-civil-war-fought-over-slavery/743766/159 "2016-01-27T17:17:20Z")
> [@orcenio](#): > > You know **Damuri Ajashi** , it’s hard to justify the righteousness of the Confederate [Casus belli](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casus_belli#American_Civil_War) of the civil war; while simultaneously denying the righteousness of all the Confederate’s slaving/belligerent/domineering actions that lead them to start the Civil War. > > Contrary to what you claim, who fired the first shot **does matter**. Now if (as you say) it doesn’t matter, what were the reasons that drove both sides to attack/not attack? If everyone was to throw out _Casus belli_; the Confederacy would still come out as Nazish-evil in comparison to the union. > > This whole discussion just reminds me of what I read about the war from Ta-Nehisi Coates. It wasn’t a tragedy, but legitimately the most ethical war ever fought by the USA. Take pride in it my American brothers. Can we PLEASE agree that NO ONE in this conversation thinks that slavery was anything but evil. Can we PLEASE do that because otherwise you are just telling me to shut up and stop contradicting people who are invent history as long as they invent that history to make the south look as bad as our imaginations permit. Who fired the first shot doesn’t matter much more in the civil war that it did during the revolutionary war. Who fired the first shot at concord, no one knows but it doesn’t matter, the war was coming no matter what and firing the first shot gives no moral high ground to either side when shots are exchanged by the military components of either side, unless there was a massacre or slaughter. ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2016, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-america-civil-war-fought-over-slavery/743766/160 "2016-01-27T17:18:24Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Governments are only as moral s the people that direct it. In a democracy, the morality of government reflects the morality of the people it governs. The South might have been a bit plutocratic but there was a pervasive flaw in the morality of most southerners that allowed them to not only tolerate slavery but see it as fundamental to their society. No. Governments are immoral. The confederacy was immoral. > [@](#): > > Conscription may or may not be immoral in theory but was usually immoral in practice. The sons of privilege frequently found themselves in safer billets than the sons of ditchdiggers. Kidnapping and slavery is always immoral. > [@](#): > > You ever hear of a social contract? Yes it an abortion of a theory in some hands and a propaganda tool in yours. > [@](#): > > Conscription might be at the far end of that social contract but when the security of the requires physical defense, doesn’t the social contract permit the state to conscript people in its defense? The social contract doesn’t permit anything because it is simply a hodgepodge magic words. > [@](#): > > Libertarians frequently think that if things are simply left to their own devices, everything will simply work itself out. Should we have left the segregated lunch counters alone? Should we have left child labor alone? Should we have left monopolies alone? “We” shouldn’t have done anything because “we” don’t act, individuals act. The govt should have stayed out of those issues. By acting on them, the govt hampered prosperity and peaceful society. > [@](#): > > The south could have languished for many many years as a slave nation if there wasn’t some sort of intervention. Thousands of people could have been murdered and years of wealth destroyed if there had been an intervention. Oh wait… > [@](#): > > Looking at the politics in the 1960’s, do you really think that there would have been a spontaneous movement for people to simply give up their slaves? Spontaneous movements happen all the time, and I know that there were thousands of years of slavery and it has been virtually given up in the span of a few centuries. > [@](#): > > How do the slaves move away? Or are you saying that the poor whites who firmly believed in a social structure that included slavery would have left? As the cost of keeping slaves increased due to runaways, productivity issues, and other economic factors, slavery would have become a poor business model. > [@](#): > > I thought we all agreed that the war wasn’t waged by the north to abolish slavery but to put down a rebellion. Yes but folks insist slavery wouldn’t have ended without the war. It would have. They justify mass slaughter and conscription because of this reason alone. > [@](#): > > Are you fucking kidding me? > > All those tea party libertarians in the south (and they are the dominant species of libertarian in the south) are neither left leaning nor are they are they in favor of reparations. Sure there are some ivory tower types that can make a case for reparations but its not a commonly held belief among libertarians, particularly white libertarians. 94% of Libertarians are white, in other words a Libertarians is more likely to be white than a black person is to vote for a Democrat (even Obama). IOW, Libertarians are more racially homogeneous than blacks are politically homogeneous. Quite a coincidence, don’t you think? [/QUOTE] Reason-left libertarian, Cato-left libertarian, Rothbardians-reparations. There are no other libertarians really. Not even if Rachel Maddow calls them libertarian. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-america-civil-war-fought-over-slavery/743766.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-america-civil-war-fought-over-slavery/743766.md?page=9)