# Was the U.S. Civil War all about slavery? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 23, 2010, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-u-s-civil-war-all-about-slavery/540432 "2010-05-23T03:36:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2010, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-u-s-civil-war-all-about-slavery/540432/181 "2010-05-30T03:03:42Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > The South employed a “states rights” argument only in the area of slavery, making it a secondary issue at best. That’s not accurate. They had also employed it with respect to the tariff. (Resulting in the nullification crisis.) ---
**Author:** ![AllFreedomUnlessDefyingScience](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@AllFreedomUnlessDefyingScience](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AllFreedomUnlessDefyingScience)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2010, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-u-s-civil-war-all-about-slavery/540432/182 "2010-05-30T03:04:54Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > I think that this is getting the consequences confused with the causes, again. Just as the North did not go to War to abolish slavery, I doubt that many Southern infantry enlisted to promote “states rights.” > As already noted, the rhetoric of the South was hugely involved with “preserving” slavery. Among other things, slavery was a principal factor in establishing class in the South. The phrase “poor white trash” was coined to indicate people who were so much an underclass that they weree only saved from being the bottom rung by being white. Abolition of slavery would have destroyed that class structure, endangering the personal perceptions of people all along the class hierarchies. > Poor Southerners did not enlist to preserve slavery, _per se_, but it was slavery–much more than state rights–that set the foundation stone upon which their place in society was recognized. > > This is not a claim that states rights played no part in the thinking of any particular Southerner, but it was not much of an actual point of instigation for secession. As has already been pointed out several times, Southerners were absolutely indignant that Northern states felt they had any “rights” to avoid prosecuting the various Fugitive Slave Laws. The South employed a “states rights” argument only in the area of slavery, making it a secondary issue at best. Your reply is valid and well thought out. I think I’ll quit contributing to the discussion while laying out my primary point and indicating that this is an opinion and one that a definite answer is not possible to come by as far as I know. Nothing as big as a war is ever about anything as simple as one issue. I’d also like to add one last thing that hasn’t been mentioned in the discussion that I noticed, certainly not prominently. As the saying goes: “The victors write the history books” since reconstruction the North embraced slavery as the cause of the civil war, yet making slavery illegal and declaring war to enforce it would never have happened. The war was sold in the north as 'For the Union!" and only after the fact when the abolition of slavery was established was the war portrayed as being to free the slaves. A good part of today’s regional prejudice against southerners involves attributing some kind of guilt to us for slavery usually by implying that we would still endorse it. That is why I object to the characterization that the civil war was all about slavery and that all southerners were alike on the subject. Slavery is one of the most abhorrent, evil institutions ever invented by man, and I am very glad that it was abolished. I find that the people who tried to preserve and profit from it were as evil as any S.S. officer. However, I reiterate my original position: Nothing as big as a war is ever about anything as simple as one thing. Thank you all for your patience and words, I’ll still be reading the thread to see what else you have to say. AllFree ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2010, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-u-s-civil-war-all-about-slavery/540432/183 "2010-05-30T03:23:42Z")
> [@spoke-](#): > > That’s not accurate. They had also employed it with respect to the tariff. (Resulting in the nullification crisis.) While denying it in regard to the Hartford Convention and vigorously denying it in the case of the Fugitive Slave Laws, so it seems that they wanted it only when they wanted it. At any rate, after 1833, it was not a serious, recurrent rallying cry throughout the 27 years leading up to the Civil War, (except to oppose it regarding the Fugitive Slave Laws), until it was resurrected around the time of the 1860 Democrat Convention. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2010, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-u-s-civil-war-all-about-slavery/540432/184 "2010-05-30T03:36:59Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > While denying it in regard to the Hartford Convention and vigorously denying it in the case of the Fugitive Slave Laws, so it seems that they wanted it only when they wanted it. Yes, that’s a fair point. And a _non-sequitur_. I was responding to your inaccurate claim that a states’ rights argument had only been used in response to the slavery issue. Your statement does nothing to negate my point. In addition to the nullification crisis, Jefferson and Madison had written the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions setting forth a states’ rights argument in response to the Alien and Sedition Acts. In other words, it wasn’t a philosophical argument that the Confederates pulled out of thin air. It was something that had been asserted whenever the federal government had been perceived to be overreaching its authority. But yes, specifically with regard to the Civil War the states’ rights argument was being asserted primarily in defense of slavery. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2010, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-u-s-civil-war-all-about-slavery/540432/185 "2010-05-30T14:19:08Z")
> [@spoke-](#): > > In other words, it wasn’t a philosophical argument that the Confederates pulled out of thin air. Speaking of _non sequiturs_, I did not claim that they invented the argument out of thin air or even that it was an _ex post facto_ argument regarding the Civil War. I noted that it was not a long and ongoing issue with which the South had a persistent investment for one position. It was an issue that came up from time to time throughout U.S. history between 1789 and 1861, in both the North and the South, that was decided in April, 1865, but it was not a “Southern” issue except when they wanted it to be. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2010, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-u-s-civil-war-all-about-slavery/540432/186 "2010-05-30T14:46:52Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > And that IMHO put major limitations on what could be done with slaves; they couldn’t educate them not just out of fear of rebellion but because successfully educating them would amount to an admission that they weren’t subhuman. I agree. I also think this attitude shaped racial relations throughout the United States following the Civil War. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2010, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-u-s-civil-war-all-about-slavery/540432/187 "2010-05-30T16:08:46Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > I noted that it was not a long and ongoing issue with which the South had a persistent investment for one position. Well, that was your fallback position, anyway. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2010, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-u-s-civil-war-all-about-slavery/540432/188 "2010-05-30T18:38:48Z")
:dubious: yourself. That is the postion I have maintained for years on this board in these discussions. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2010, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-u-s-civil-war-all-about-slavery/540432/189 "2010-05-30T19:06:58Z")
Well, no. You said (and I quote): > [@tomndebb](#): > > **The South employed a “states rights” argument only in the area of slavery** , making it a secondary issue at best. (my emphasis) …which is a false statement. Before, I gave you the benefit of the doubt and called it “inaccurate.” But if you insist on clinging to a demonstrably false position… ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2010, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-u-s-civil-war-all-about-slavery/540432/190 "2010-05-30T19:49:01Z")
And since the discussion is specific to the origin of the Civil War–meaning the period just prior to 1860 and after, you are simply looking for matters on which to quibble to no point. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2010, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-u-s-civil-war-all-about-slavery/540432/191 "2010-05-30T20:09:38Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > And since the discussion is specific to the origin of the Civil War–meaning the period just prior to 1860 and after, you are simply looking for matters on which to quibble to no point. And your statement is _still_ false. Slavery was obviously the principal cause of secession, but it was not the only cause cited. So “states rights” was being used not only in support of slavery, but also in opposition to tariffs. Which makes your statement FALSE. Example of a seceding state citing tariff issues, from the [Georgia Declaration of Secession](http://www.civil-war.net/pages/georgia_declaration.asp): > [@](#): > > The material prosperity of the North was greatly dependent on the Federal Government; that of the South not at all. In the first years of the Republic the navigating, commercial, and manufacturing interests of the North began to seek profit and aggrandizement at the expense of the agricultural interests. Even the owners of fishing smacks sought and obtained bounties for pursuing their own business (which yet continue), and $500,000 is now paid them annually out of the Treasury. The navigating interests begged for protection against foreign shipbuilders and against competition in the coasting trade. Congress granted both requests, and by prohibitory acts gave an absolute monopoly of this business to each of their interests, which they enjoy without diminution to this day. Not content with these great and unjust advantages, they have sought to throw the legitimate burden of their business as much as possible upon the public; they have succeeded in throwing the cost of light-houses, buoys, and the maintenance of their seamen upon the Treasury, and the Government now pays above $2,000,000 annually for the support of these objects. Theses interests, in connection with the commercial and manufacturing classes, have also succeeded, by means of subventions to mail steamers and the reduction in postage, in relieving their business from the payment of about $7,000,000 annually, throwing it upon the public Treasury under the name of postal deficiency. The manufacturing interests entered into the same struggle early, and has clamored steadily for Government bounties and special favors. This interest was confined mainly to the Eastern and Middle non-slave-holding States. Wielding these great States it held great power and influence, and its demands were in full proportion to its power. The manufacturers and miners wisely based their demands upon special facts and reasons rather than upon general principles, and thereby mollified much of the opposition of the opposing interest. They pleaded in their favor the infancy of their business in this country, the scarcity of labor and capital, the hostile legislation of other countries toward them, the great necessity of their fabrics in the time of war, and the necessity of high duties to pay the debt incurred in our war for independence. These reasons prevailed, and they received for many years enormous bounties by the general acquiescence of the whole country. Is it really so hard to admit you were wrong, Tom? ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2010, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-u-s-civil-war-all-about-slavery/540432/192 "2010-05-30T20:24:11Z")
> [@spoke-](#): > > Is it really so hard to admit you were wrong, Tom? In your latest foray, you demonstrate that they argued against the tariff structure, without actually addressing states rights, based on the difference between their slavery based economy and that of the industrial North. Simultaneously, they were arguing against states rights in regard to the Fugitive Slave Acts. So, basically, they simply grabbed whatever was handy for whatever fight they were in, rather than making a principled stand for states rights. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2010, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-u-s-civil-war-all-about-slavery/540432/193 "2010-05-30T20:52:09Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > So, basically, they simply grabbed whatever was handy for whatever fight they were in, rather than making a principled stand for states rights. That’s a fair argument, but a _different_ argument from the one you made earlier. Before, you wrongly asserted that the philosophy of states’ rights was only used to defend slavery. Now you are arguing that the assertion of states’ rights was disingenuous. Which is a nice fallback, once your initial argument has been shown to be false. ---
**Author:** ![MOIDALIZE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@MOIDALIZE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MOIDALIZE)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2010, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-u-s-civil-war-all-about-slavery/540432/194 "2010-05-31T02:11:56Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > In your latest foray, you demonstrate that they argued against the tariff structure, without actually addressing states rights, based on the difference between their slavery based economy and that of the industrial North. Simultaneously, they were arguing against states rights in regard to the Fugitive Slave Acts. So, basically, they simply grabbed whatever was handy for whatever fight they were in, rather than making a principled stand for states rights. Well…sort of. Northern resistance to the Fugitive Slave Acts did manifest itself in an assertion of states’ rights, and took the form of [personal liberty laws](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_liberty_laws) which stopped short of nullification (though the Wisconsin Supreme Court did declare the Act [unconstitutional](http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/llst:@field%28DOCID+@lit%28llst026div4%29%29)). But I will point out that in the _Printz_ case, the Supreme Court declared the part of the Brady Bill that directed state officials to handle regulatory duties on a federal law to be unconstitutional, so the northern states who refused to help execute the Fugitive Slave Acts arguably had a sound constitutional basis for doing so, even if the US Supreme Court had yet to decide the issue. In any case, I don’t think southern anger over the refusal of northern states to do the job of the federal government makes them hypocrites on the issue of states’ rights. Different states bring different perspectives to the law. There are people today that believe that states should be able to decriminalize marijuana, yet don’t believe states should be able to restrict the right of abortion. Does that make them hypocrites? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2010, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-u-s-civil-war-all-about-slavery/540432/195 "2010-06-02T15:11:35Z")
From [“Texas Textbooks and the Truth about the Confederacy,”](http://newamerica.net/publications/articles/2010/texas_textbooks_and_the_truth_about_the_confederacy_32464) by Michael Lind, Salon, 05/31/10: > [@](#): > > Let Texas schoolchildren, as well, read the Confederate Constitution. It is surely the most bizarre constitution ever adopted. It is a copy of the U.S. Constitution, rewritten to cripple the central government. The Confederate Constitution bans the government of the new federation from spending money on infrastructure, with a few exceptions like harbors and lighthouses, and prevents the new government of the South from fostering industry. > > With a central government that was deliberately weakened at its formation, how did the Confederacy expect to prevail in a war against the forces of the Union? The answer is that the rich oligarchy of slave lords who ruled the South hoped that the British empire would intervene to secure their region’s independence, just as France had intervened in the American Revolution to help the United States win its independence from Britain. > > When the British declined the offer, the geniuses in charge of the Confederacy realized that they would have to win their independence with their own resources. This was no easy thing to do in a wannabe country that prided itself on its absence of factories and banks. But they tried anyway. They threw libertarianism overboard and mobilized for war. They instituted a draft. They passed an income tax and inflated the currency to push citizens into higher brackets. Lacking a native Southern capitalist class, they put generals and colonels in charge of government-owned factories and munitions plants. > > But conscription, taxation and state socialism were not enough. Too many Southern men were avoiding the draft or deserting, to say nothing of slaves who ran away to freedom or to join the U.S. Army. And there was the resistance. In the semi-mythical “free state of Jones” in Mississippi, in the Big Thicket in East Texas, in the Texas German Hill Country, rebels fought the rebellion, in the name of the United States or their own rights. The tradition of anti-Confederate resistance survived in the South after the war, to inspire Radical Republican “scalawags,” populists, socialists and New Deal Democrats. The Southern right and the Northern left have erased the resisters from history. But not all of us have forgotten them. > > Toward the end of the war, Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis came up with a plan. Following Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, they proposed to save the Confederacy by freeing and arming slaves. In “Confederate Emancipation: Southern Plans to Free and Arm Slaves During the Civil War,” Bruce Levine quotes some typical responses. Brig. Gen. Clement H. Stevens: “If slavery is to be abolished then I take no more interest in our fight.” Gov. Zebulon Vance of North Carolina: “Our independence is chiefly desirable for the preservation of our political institutions, the principal of which is slavery.” Once it became clear that the only way to save slavery and anti-statism in the South was to abolish slavery and adopt statism, the malfunctioning Confederate Mind short-circuited completely. > > That is what my fellow Texans of younger generations should learn about the Lost Cause. Under British protection, the CSA might have evolved into a squalid banana republic run by landlords for the benefit of investors and industrialists in Britain. Without British protection, the CSA might have survived as a proto-fascist regime, with an economy of permanent war socialism and a government run by colonels. In either case, the victory of the Confederacy would have been far worse for most white and black Southerners than its well-deserved defeat. For ensuring that I would be born in the United States of America instead of a broken-down failed state that combined the least attractive features of apartheid-era South Africa and death squad-era Honduras, I say: Thank you, President Lincoln, and thank you, Gen.Grant. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2010, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-u-s-civil-war-all-about-slavery/540432/196 "2010-06-02T16:08:17Z")
Lind gets some significant things wrong, there, however. The Central Government wasn’t crippled - in fact, it was if anything too powerful for its own good. While some polticians, such as Zebulon Vance of North Carolina and Brown of Georgia, resisted it successfully, the Confederate government managed to control a _lot_ during the war, and its weakness was due largely to structural issues (lack of time, lack of talent, lack of resources, lack of support) than weak power. The Confederate Constitution didn’t cripple the central government at all, as it was nearly a perfect copy of the old Constitution with a few slavery flourishes (and few significant changes in any case). I also can’t say they were libertarian in any sense, ever, much less that they “threw their libertarianism overboard.” The South defintiely was not Libertarian, though the planter elite did keep taxes ans services extremely low. Of course, they did this to keep economic activity they didn’t like out. Let us simply say his version of the final actions of Davis, as well as the role of Lee in it, are overly brief, insipidly written, and communicate no substantial truth. Some, such as Patrick Bleburn, had proposed this long before. Cleburn, much like Lee, wasn’t really a Southern nationalist - but they were both patriots of the South. Not only were both heralded as good men and great commanders, they also both looked somewhat dubiously at the politicians in Richmond, while supporting them in what they felt to be their duty. Southern minds did not “short-circuit” - when presented with the stark choice, they indeed opted to live another day no matter the cost. This is precisely the choice humans almost always take: keeping fighting in the hopes of a better turn of events. And there were huge differences of opinion between people like Lee, and arch-resisters like Davis, and states-rights slaveholders like Vance or Brown, and the many localities of the South. Note that Vance was nearly pushed out of office by at least a quasi-Unionist, and Brown might have pulled Georgia from the war but got cold feet. There simply never was a united South - but the most of the southern ‘aristorcracy’ could never that. I’d also doubt the South would have been especially poor had it survived - it had great economic strength in its agricultural program as well as considerable latent energy. All in all, I find this to be poorly written, overly dramatic, and a poor lesson inhistory, written to ilustrate his personal proclivities and politics rather than a factural. That he manages to wrangle some historical truth out of it is testament more to how densely he packs his interpretations in. ---
**Author:** ![Strassia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e8c25b/32.png) [@Strassia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Strassia)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2010, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-u-s-civil-war-all-about-slavery/540432/197 "2010-06-02T18:25:13Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > Lind gets some significant things wrong, there, however. The Central Government wasn’t crippled - in fact, it was if anything too powerful for its own good. While some polticians, such as Zebulon Vance of North Carolina and Brown of Georgia, resisted it successfully, the Confederate government managed to control a _lot_ during the war, and its weakness was due largely to structural issues (lack of time, lack of talent, lack of resources, lack of support) than weak power. The Confederate Constitution didn’t cripple the central government at all, as it was nearly a perfect copy of the old Constitution with a few slavery flourishes (and few significant changes in any case). I think you missed his point. The Confederate Constitution laid out a system with less central power, but the central government ended up even more powerful relative to the states than the pre-war U.S. In other words, if states rights was one of their goals, they killed the patient to save it. > [@](#): > > I also can’t say they were libertarian in any sense, ever, much less that they “threw their libertarianism overboard.” The South defintiely was not Libertarian, though the planter elite did keep taxes ans services extremely low. Of course, they did this to keep economic activity they didn’t like out. > > Let us simply say his version of the final actions of Davis, as well as the role of Lee in it, are overly brief, insipidly written, and communicate no substantial truth. Some, such as Patrick Bleburn, had proposed this long before. Cleburn, much like Lee, wasn’t really a Southern nationalist - but they were both patriots of the South. Not only were both heralded as good men and great commanders, they also both looked somewhat dubiously at the politicians in Richmond, while supporting them in what they felt to be their duty. > > Southern minds did not “short-circuit” - when presented with the stark choice, they indeed opted to live another day no matter the cost. This is precisely the choice humans almost always take: keeping fighting in the hopes of a better turn of events. And there were huge differences of opinion between people like Lee, and arch-resisters like Davis, and states-rights slaveholders like Vance or Brown, and the many localities of the South. Note that Vance was nearly pushed out of office by at least a quasi-Unionist, and Brown might have pulled Georgia from the war but got cold feet. There simply never was a united South - but the most of the southern ‘aristorcracy’ could never that. He is not referring to the minds of individuals, but rather the concept of a national mind of the South and pointing out that it was not completely rational by the end of the war. Even those that argue for other causes of the civil war must admit that preserving slavery was one of the motivations for succession. So by the end of the war they had restricted states rights to preserve them, resisted excess taxation by raising taxes even higher, and proposed freeing and arming slaves in order to protect the institution of slavery. > [@](#): > > I’d also doubt the South would have been especially poor had it survived - it had great economic strength in its agricultural program as well as considerable latent energy. Can you name any generally prosperous economies based on raw material export with a rigid class structure and intentional limitation of education, industry, and financial institutions? > [@](#): > > All in all, I find this to be poorly written, overly dramatic, and a poor lesson inhistory, written to ilustrate his personal proclivities and politics rather than a factural. That he manages to wrangle some historical truth out of it is testament more to how densely he packs his interpretations in. So, three simple questions: Do you think the Confederates States of America would have had more or less freedom than the U.S. as a whole, or even in comparison to the post Reconstruction South? Do you think the Confederacy would have been economically better off than the post Reconstruction South? Would you want to live there if you were not one of the plantation owners? ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2010, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-u-s-civil-war-all-about-slavery/540432/198 "2010-06-02T19:47:50Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > From [“Texas Textbooks and the Truth about the Confederacy,”](http://newamerica.net/publications/articles/2010/texas_textbooks_and_the_truth_about_the_confederacy_32464) by Michael Lind, Salon, 05/31/10: > > > [@](#): > > > > …Once it became clear that the only way to save slavery and anti-statism in the South was to abolish slavery and adopt statism, the malfunctioning Confederate Mind short-circuited completely… 😃 That’s a pretty good line, and I think it describes the situation pretty well. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2010, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-u-s-civil-war-all-about-slavery/540432/199 "2010-06-02T19:55:11Z")
> [@Strassia](#): > > I think you missed his point. The Confederate Constitution laid out a system with less central power, but the central government ended up even more powerful relative to the states than the pre-war U.S. In other words, if states rights was one of their goals, they killed the patient to save it. But that is also incorrect. The Confederate Constitution differed only slightly in layout, and in fact strengthened the national executive with a line-item veto. Further, I do not believe that States’ Rights was a significant force overall, though it did have real power as an ideal among a minority. > [@](#): > > He is not referring to the minds of individuals, but rather the concept of a national mind of the South and pointing out that it was not completely rational by the end of the war. Even those that argue for other causes of the civil war must admit that preserving slavery was one of the motivations for succession. So by the end of the war they had restricted states rights to preserve them, resisted excess taxation by raising taxes even higher, and proposed freeing and arming slaves in order to protect the institution of slavery. The entire concept of a “national mind” is inherently moronic, contrary to all history, and the product of people reading a unified narrative out of the complex weavings of millions of individual lives and viewpoints. Moreover, it is not great feat of perception to note that people make painful choices between things that they want. > [@](#): > > Can you name any generally prosperous economies based on raw material export with a rigid class structure and intentional limitation of education, industry, and financial institutions? The South did have these things - simply not as much as the North. To claim it would never have developed them further had history done something, oh, utterly different like seeing a viable Southern Confederacy on completely unstated terms is a feat of perception far gerater than the author is capable of, and quite worthy of mockery. > [@](#): > > So, three simple questions: > > Do you think the Confederates States of America would have had more or less freedom than the U.S. as a whole, or even in comparison to the post Reconstruction South? > > Do you think the Confederacy would have been economically better off than the post Reconstruction South? > > Would you want to live there if you were not one of the plantation owners? First, why are you even asking me this? Should you read other posts I have made, you’ll find me no friend of the Southern power elite who made and executed policy and defined Southern culture. Second, your terms are impossibly vague, because you fail to define what time periods you are talking about. Third, you have demanded I answer completely hypthetical questions based on an alternative history, in which case I can only answer in the probable and short-term. In short, you have disproven the notion that there are no stupid questions, a particularly vile bit of glurge I have no truck with. There are stupid questions. ---
**Author:** ![Strassia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e8c25b/32.png) [@Strassia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Strassia)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2010, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-u-s-civil-war-all-about-slavery/540432/200 "2010-06-02T20:57:42Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > But that is also incorrect. The Confederate Constitution differed only slightly in layout, and in fact strengthened the national executive with a line-item veto. Further, I do not believe that States’ Rights was a significant force overall, though it did have real power as an ideal among a minority. > > The entire concept of a “national mind” is inherently moronic, contrary to all history, and the product of people reading a unified narrative out of the complex weavings of millions of individual lives and viewpoints. Moreover, it is not great feat of perception to note that people make painful choices between things that they want. Of course treating the Confederacy, or any political entity as having a single brain is not a realistic notion. The point of the whole piece is that subscribing to the idea of the noble Lost Cause is both morally and factually wrong. The point I got out of that passage was that mythologizing the Confederacy as some noble endeavor of freedom loving people or a heroic effort to preserve cultural integrity cannot stand up to the true facts of the Civil War. > [@](#): > > The South did have these things - simply not as much as the North. To claim it would never have developed them further had history done something, oh, utterly different like seeing a viable Southern Confederacy on completely unstated terms is a feat of perception far gerater than the author is capable of, and quite worthy of mockery. Sure they had them, hence the term “limited” in my phrase. The point is that industrializing the South would have been just as big a threat to the power and status of the elites as freeing the slaves. > [@](#): > > First, why are you even asking me this? Should you read other posts I have made, you’ll find me no friend of the Southern power elite who made and executed policy and defined Southern culture. Second, your terms are impossibly vague, because you fail to define what time periods you are talking about. Third, you have demanded I answer completely hypthetical questions based on an alternative history, in which case I can only answer in the probable and short-term. > > In short, you have disproven the notion that there are no stupid questions, a particularly vile bit of glurge I have no truck with. There are stupid questions. The reason many people dislike the direction history has been taken by the Texas school board, and many other individuals and groups in the last hundred and fifty years (including Woodrow Wilson), is that it sets up the Confederacy as the romantic and doomed hero and brushes aside all the vileness at the core. People today whose ancestors may have fought against the succession and who themselves would have been little more than peons whose only status was they were above the slaves in the Confederacy actively romanticize and promote it due to not really understanding what happened. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-u-s-civil-war-all-about-slavery/540432.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-u-s-civil-war-all-about-slavery/540432.md?page=11)