# Who Would You Support in the American Civil War **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 30, 2010, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-american-civil-war/558840 "2010-10-30T00:40:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2010, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-american-civil-war/558840/61 "2010-10-30T23:28:37Z")
I agree with InterestedObserver. I think my own feelings about which side I would have supported at the time would have had everything to do with where my ass was situated. And I think I could have supported the south while still not supporting slavery–slavery was only the particular issue that raised the larger issue that the war was about. I could have fought for the south to secede and then fought to end slavery in the south if I were successful. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2010, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-american-civil-war/558840/62 "2010-10-30T23:39:06Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > I was raised by a black nanny who I loved more than most of my own biological family and I have black family members in the Jeffersonian sense. Know who else had black family members in the Jeffersonian sense? ---
**Author:** ![Enuma\_Elish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5e9695/32.png) [@Enuma\_Elish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enuma_Elish)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2010, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-american-civil-war/558840/63 "2010-10-30T23:39:34Z")
The way it actually occurred, I voted for the north. If there had not been any type of slavery, I would have been on the side of the south. I like states rights and am unimpressed by rampant federalism. However, accepting the unchecked growth of federalism in exchange for beginning the demise of slavery is a choice I would make every time. ---
**Author:** ![Ura-Maru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/51bf81/32.png) [@Ura-Maru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ura-Maru)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2010, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-american-civil-war/558840/64 "2010-10-30T23:51:00Z")
Shagnasty, this is not an attack, but consider . . . Back when you were living in Georgia, what did you think of Yankees who moved there, ‘got twitchy’ around the locals, and complained about how much better the society and the people were back north? – I mean, seriously. Massachusetts gave the world the chocolate chip cookie. And Wonder Woman. I think a little respect is in order. ---
**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:** [October 31, 2010, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-american-civil-war/558840/65 "2010-10-31T00:09:44Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > So? Life isn’t fair. It was not about one single cause, but mainly they wanted to bail out so they could run their states the way they wanted to. Not true. The states bailed out in order to protect what they saw as a threat to slavery. When South Carolina seceded one of their main complaints (which they put in writing) was about states rights - and they were against it. They felt the United States government was wrong because it allowed states to set their own policy on slavery. They wanted a national government that would compel all states to have slavery. During the war there were some Copperheads in the north who talked about having northern states secede from the United States (their hopes were admittedly unrealistic). They traveled to the Confederacy and spoke with government officials there about the possibility of joining the Confederacy. They were told that it didn’t matter what their positions were on issues like states rights or secession - no state that didn’t have slavery they would be allowed to join the CSA. Someone pointed out above that there were slave states that stayed in the United States. That’s true. But what wasn’t mentioned was that in all of these states, slave owners did not form a majority of the state government. In every one of the border states, the slave owners in the government wanted to secede and join the CSA. But the non-slave owners in the government outvoted them and stayed with the United States. Slavery really was the cornerstone. ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2010, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-american-civil-war/558840/66 "2010-10-31T00:09:51Z")
I find the fact that 14 people voted for the confederacy on this message board to be incredibly depressing. ---
**Author:** ![appleciders](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85f322/32.png) [@appleciders](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/appleciders)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2010, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-american-civil-war/558840/67 "2010-10-31T00:10:35Z")
> [@GiantRat](#): > > That seems a bit harsh. Hell, would you have Mark Twain, George Washington, and Julius Caesar assassinated (wait… that last one actually happened). > > Slavery is a strong term. In many cases, slaves were akin to indentured servants (like anyone who has a freakin’ salaried job, but that’s a digression). Slaves were valued in most cases as productive property. Hell - the Irish were often more abused - you didn’t have to pay if they died. > > A slave in a decent environment - while not in an ideal situation, was given room and board that they wouldn’t be able to afford otherwise. And it wasn’t all about working cotton fields - there were house servants, carriage drivers… the same thing we have Mexicans, Indians, Middle Easterners, and other immigrants doing today. The difference is that the modern “slaves” migrated of their own free will (often to escape horrible situations in their country of birth). > > South does not equal Evil. Slavery does not equal good. > > Like Bob Dylan sang - “you might be the devil or you might be the Lord, but you’re gonna’ have to serve somebody.” > [@Peeta\_Mellark](#): > > No. > > You should look up such wonderfully dehumanizing practices as “slave breeding.” Southern newspapers during the time show that slave owners were obsessed with how many offspring certain slaves produced and the fertility of the women. There’s evidence that they were encouraged to have more children and punished if they failed to do so. Women often outnumbered the men by a sizable margin and they were priced based on their fertility and how many years of child-bearing they had in them. > > Many, many slave narratives talk about the sexual abuse and forced breedings in order to produce more slaves, with “stockmen” being chosen to impregnate the women. And that is, of course, completely ignoring the wide practice of white men raping black women, producing children of mixed race, and then selling their own offspring. > > There is a huge difference between being treated like an animal that can be bred as an investment and being an indentured servant. **Peeta Mellark** , I’d like to agree with you and note that not only did abhorrent processes like slave breeding exist and were widespread, one of their primary purposes was to produce more slaves _for sale_. These slaveholders were not breeding slaves to work their own plantations, but breeding them to sell to other slaveholders whose slave populations tended not to increase. This means that the plantations were so abusive toward their slaves, in beatings, overwork, and malnutrition, that many or most slaves died without reproducing. Children were born for the express purpose of being sold away from their parents. Less dramatically, the other difference between chattel slavery as practiced in the American South and wage slavery\* is that a wage slave can _quit_ if the job is really that bad. This is not what happens with immigrants to the United States today, except in rare and extremely illegal circumstances that we denounce and try to prevent. Comparing the existence of a house slave to a servant today isn’t valid. \*I’m not a big fan of this term, but it seems close to what you’re suggesting. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2010, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-american-civil-war/558840/68 "2010-10-31T00:14:53Z")
> [@DigitalC](#): > > I find the fact that 14 people voted for the confederacy on this message board to be incredibly depressing. Depressing but expected, for me. ---
**Author:** ![Peeta\_Mellark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bc8723/32.png) [@Peeta\_Mellark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peeta_Mellark)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2010, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-american-civil-war/558840/69 "2010-10-31T00:35:19Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > I was raised by a black nanny who I loved more than most of my own biological family and I have black family members in the Jeffersonian sense. Yeah, and the man who raped and impregnated my great-great grandmother could have said the same thing. There has been some very close interaction in the past and there continues to be. That doesn’t excuse the institution of slavery, though. I don’t walk around feeling guilty over it and I don’t like when Yankees condemn the South as a whole. But that still doesn’t mean the Confederates were right or worthy of support. ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2010, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-american-civil-war/558840/70 "2010-10-31T00:39:21Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > Depressing but expected, for me. Let’s say you could push a button and two things would happen: (1) There never would have been (and won’t currently be) slavery anywhere in the world (but everything now would otherwise remain the same) and (2) every child currently living on earth would die. Would you push the button? The point is that there are other things to consider than “OMG SLAVERY=BAD!!!” It’s perfectly possible for a person to have supported the Confederacy and hated slavery. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2010, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-american-civil-war/558840/71 "2010-10-31T00:39:47Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Slavery really was the cornerstone. [Indeed:](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornerstone_Speech) > [@](#): > > ``` > The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution — African slavery as it exists amongst us — the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split." He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. > > ``` > > Stephens went on to say > > ``` > (Jefferson's) ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. ... Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner–stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery — subordination to the superior race — is his natural and normal condition. > > ``` On the Northern side, you expand that their aim was perhaps more to preserve the Union than it was about slavery – at least, that would have been Priority Numero Uno. But this whole, “Noble States Rights” bullshit? That’s exactly what it is. Some of you don’t know nuthin’ bout learnin’ no history. 😉 [sub]Mods, please, that’s a joke, it’s NOT meant to be an insult, I’m sure most of you will recognize the reference[/sub] And to expand upon my place, even that far back, [Pittsburgh](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburgh_in_the_American_Civil_War) was a large industrial center, producing coal and iron ore, etc, and our three rivers for transportation gave us a huge advantage. We were a huge supplier for the U.S. military, and I doubt PA would have had a better deal going with the CSA. As a loyal “yinzer”, I can’t imagine going with the south. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2010, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-american-civil-war/558840/72 "2010-10-31T00:59:04Z")
I probably would have been a Copperhead. Fuck those pig-headed Southerners, Fuck slavery, but ten times more than that fuck the War. Let the South go, and in ten years they’ll be at each other’s throats, begging to be let back into the Union and more than willing to free their slaves for the price of readmission. Let them think they freed them themselves, out of Southern Chivalry, so they won’t start lynching them for the next 90 years. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2010, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-american-civil-war/558840/73 "2010-10-31T00:59:22Z")
USA, no question. I have a “mixed” ancestry, in that my father’s family were New Yorkers (until my grandfather and his brother moved out to California in the very early 1900s), while my mother’s family are from Arkansas. So I can’t say I’d choose based on where my ancestors lived. My great-great grandfather fought at Gettysburg with the New York regiment. My other ancestor on my mother’s side deserted from the Confederate army early on in the war, as did at least one of his brothers (I found the roster online in which they were listed as deserters.) I don’t know why they deserted; it was early in the war, 1862 as I recall and only maybe six months after they enlisted. This was before the South started suffering serious reverses. I guess it just wasn’t for them. Dunno, maybe coming from the fringes of the Confederacy and not even owning any slaves had something to do with it. I’m glad my ancestor did not get executed for desertion, because my next-generation ancestor was not born until after the war. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2010, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-american-civil-war/558840/74 "2010-10-31T01:09:30Z")
As this article points out much of the “rampant growth of federalism” was instituted by the South during the American Civil War who did a lot what Southern apologists accuse Lincoln of doing: [http://www.trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=256](http://www.trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=256) ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2010, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-american-civil-war/558840/75 "2010-10-31T01:13:56Z")
Well, if we’re going by ancestors, none of mine were here yet – they wouldn’t start coming over for another ten years or so. (Until the revolutions started in Germany) ---
**Author:** ![WarmNPrickly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d78d45/32.png) [@WarmNPrickly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WarmNPrickly)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2010, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-american-civil-war/558840/76 "2010-10-31T02:11:29Z")
> [@DianaG](#): > > And yet it wasn’t _anything_. It was slavery. That was the hill they decided to die on. Fuck 'em. Hear, hear ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2010, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-american-civil-war/558840/77 "2010-10-31T03:13:54Z")
I’m an abolitionist, so I voted for the Union 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Mangosteen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Mangosteen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangosteen)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2010, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-american-civil-war/558840/78 "2010-10-31T04:22:03Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > I would have supported the USA, and I’d have supported executing every single slaveholder on top of that. Including sending assassins to hunt them down if they fled to other countries. They were utter monsters. Without a trial? ---
**Author:** ![Gleena](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b3f665/32.png) [@Gleena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gleena)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2010, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-american-civil-war/558840/79 "2010-10-31T23:47:13Z")
> [@DigitalC](#): > > I find the fact that 14 people voted for the confederacy on this message board to be incredibly depressing. Yes, but did you see my caveat? Knowing what I know today, as an enlightened, 21st century person, I would surely support the Union. At the time, assuming I was born into the family I have, in the place that they lived, I would most assuredly have backed the CSA. My father, my brothers (if I had any), my uncles, grandfathers, cousins - all would have been CSA soilders. The Union would have occupied my family home. There would have been a battle on my front doorstep. The house itself would have been saved (barely), but others would have been burned to their chimneys. Is this right and proper in defense of slavery? No, of course not. I didn’t vote to defend slavery. The question was asked, but it didn’t clarify today or at the time. At the time, I would have backed my family from the depth of the only worldview I would have ever known. So, no, I don’t find it depressing. I find **Shagnasty’s** take on it depressing. ---
**Author:** ![shiftless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9c0ed/32.png) [@shiftless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shiftless)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2010, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-american-civil-war/558840/80 "2010-11-01T13:43:29Z")
Of course with my current knowledge and hindsight I would support the USA, as would almost anyone. Assuming I grew up at that time? Of course I would support my state (Virginia), as would almost everyone. My state would have been my sovereign for most purposes and, if they called for solders I would have probably answered, if only for the adventure. Remember that I would have had maybe a third grade education, would have never traveled more than 100 miles from my home (if that), would have almost zero knowledge about the wider world and would have had to toil daily to for my food and shelter. Even if I didn’t own slaves or even like the concept, the idea of freeing millions of slaves with no education of any kind, no possessions and no place to go would have been chilling. I would have wanted to put the question of slavery off on the next generation. Most people of the time didn’t have the internet, or even CNN(!), and didn’t follow the all the politics and debate over slavery. It was us against them. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-american-civil-war/558840.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-american-civil-war/558840.md?page=5)