# 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:** 5
**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:** [November 1, 2010, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-american-civil-war/558840/81 "2010-11-01T15:37:50Z")
> [@shiftless](#): > > 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. Not necessarilly-there were newspapers and telegraphs back then and in addition some Southerners did fight for the Union. ---
**Author:** ![MegaBee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f0a364/32.png) [@MegaBee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MegaBee)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2010, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-american-civil-war/558840/82 "2010-11-01T16:23:15Z")
I’m black, and revenge is delicious no matter the era. USA! ---
**Author:** ![Walmarticus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Walmarticus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walmarticus)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2010, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-american-civil-war/558840/83 "2010-11-01T17:36:58Z")
As a southerner with hindsight, I’d probably support the south vocally and the north inside. It just seems easier, even if it’s totally immoral. My support wouldn’t make much of a difference either way, because I’m not politically active and I’m scared of guns. When conscripted, I’d try real hard to be an extra terrible shot. Without hindsight, I’d support the south thoroughly. Much of my ability to free think is a result of education and leisure. As a poor southerner, I doubt I’d have much opportunity for either. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Excellent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f19dbf/32.png) [@Mr.Excellent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Excellent)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2010, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-american-civil-war/558840/84 "2010-11-01T17:39:56Z")
The Union, of course. I’ve no patience for treason or slavery, and would be happy to scourge the South clean of both sins. ---
**Author:** ![ElectricZ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/58f4c7/32.png) [@ElectricZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElectricZ)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2010, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-american-civil-war/558840/85 "2010-11-02T18:16:39Z")
As a soldier you are sworn to protect the Constitution of your country: [QUOTE=Constitution of the Confederate States of America] Article I: Sect. 9 (4) **No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed.** Article IV: Sect. 2 (1) The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States; and shall have the right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, **with their slaves and other property; and the right of property in said slaves shall not be thereby impaired.** Article IV: Sect. 2 (3)\*\* No slave or other person held to service or labor\*\* in any State or Territory of the Confederate States, under the laws thereof, escaping or lawfully carried into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, **be discharged from such service or labor; but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such slave belongs, or to whom such service or labor may be due.** Article IV: Sect. 3 (3) The Confederate States may acquire new territory; and Congress shall have power to legislate and provide governments for the inhabitants of all territory belonging to the Confederate States, lying without the limits of the several Sates; and may permit them, at such times, and in such manner as it may by law provide, to form States to be admitted into the Confederacy.\*\* In all such territory the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected be Congress and by the Territorial government;\*\* and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories shall have the right to take to such Territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the States or Territories of the Confederate States. [/QUOTE] States rights or no, I could not in good conscience defend this. Union. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2010, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-american-civil-war/558840/86 "2010-11-02T18:21:29Z")
I likely would have supported whatever side my state of residence was. So, if I was Georgia born and bred, I would vote CSA. If I was New York born and bred, I would vote USA. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2010, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-american-civil-war/558840/87 "2010-11-02T18:44:09Z")
> [@Zebra](#): > > The Missouri Compromise of 1820 was all about slavery. It was huge fight in the country. Slavery was a major issue about the settlement of the west. Indeed. Let me add the Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Also can’t forget the American colonization of Texas, its subsequent war of independence from Mexico, and our subsequent war with Mexico. And the movement to acquire or colonize various other parts of Latin America. Most of the history of the U.S. from 1800-1860 is about keeping the free/slave state balance ‘right’ so that the South wouldn’t walk. Hell, _Jefferson_ wrote about the causes of what would ultimately be the Civil War, and he died in 1826. ---
**Author:** ![LouisB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dfb087/32.png) [@LouisB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LouisB)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2010, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-american-civil-war/558840/88 "2010-11-02T21:46:40Z")
My father was a racist; a man who openly hated Black people with a degree of hatred that I never understood nor would he explain. I was disinherited by him because of my refusal to accept and live by his view of Blacks. My belief in civil rights and my views on discrimination made me a “nigger lover” in his view; he called me exactly that and carefully explained to me that it was that and that alone that caused him to cut me out of his will. So, I don’t believe I can be called a racist even though I live in THE SOUTH. That said, to ask whom I would have supported at the time of the Civil War is an exercise, IMHO, in stupidity: How the HELL could I know what I would have done all those years ago? It would have been entirely possible for me to have lived with entire life without ever hearing the concept that Blacks could and should be free. If I worked my ass off from dawn to night trying to wring a living out of a hardscrabble farm and if I could neither read nor write, my attitudes might well have been different due entirely to a lack of education and a lack of exposure to other ideas, other cultures, other ethical considerations and on and on and on. I think it is impossible to state with conviction what one would have done or would do unless one is in the soup at the moment. YMMV but I believe this is another in a string of useless and pointless polls. I voted but I’ll leave my choice to the imaginations of those who have an interest. Why anyone should have an interest to the answer of a meaningless question escapes me. (I made a choice in the poll just to have the option of posing my humble opinion.) ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2010, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-american-civil-war/558840/89 "2010-11-02T21:50:56Z")
> [@](#): > > I voted but I’ll leave my choice to the imaginations of those who have an interest. You voted CSA. This wasn’t an anonymous poll. ---
**Author:** ![LouisB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dfb087/32.png) [@LouisB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LouisB)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2010, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-american-civil-war/558840/90 "2010-11-02T22:55:11Z")
> [@Scumpup](#): > > You voted CSA. This wasn’t an anonymous poll. It wasn’t was it? You’re right, of course. My vote was based on the assumption that I would have been born and living where I was in fact born and lived. It wasn’t based on the fact that I am now or ever have been in favor of slavery. And I ain’t makin’ no damn excuses. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2010, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-american-civil-war/558840/91 "2010-11-03T18:16:53Z")
> [@Scumpup](#): > > USA. I understand the desire of slaveholders to be free to have their own ass-backwards, oligarchic, banana republic. I’m just a freedom-hater, I guess, because my desire is to see that place crushed, its leaders hanged, and slaves released. Including the ones from Delaware and Maryland? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2010, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-american-civil-war/558840/92 "2010-11-03T18:40:07Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Including the ones from Delaware and Maryland? 🙂 The slaves? Released of course. Since those states didn’t rebel, they would have no leaders to hang. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2010, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-american-civil-war/558840/93 "2010-11-03T18:55:43Z")
I’ve always thought the South had a somewhat logical argument about seccession; I simply don’t believe that South Carolina would have ever ratified the Constitution if its reps hadn’t believed they could leave if they chose too. But I also think that the line about the war not being about slavery is bullshit. As I would most likely have been a slave at the time, I’d be supporting the North for practical as well as moral reasons. Assuming I hadn’t escaped to Canada. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2010, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-american-civil-war/558840/94 "2010-11-03T19:13:02Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > I’ve always thought the South had a somewhat logical argument about seccession; I simply don’t believe that South Carolina would have ever ratified the Constitution if its reps hadn’t believed they could leave if they chose too. > > But I also think that the line about the war not being about slavery is bullshit. Very well said. I hope I would have been independent minded enough that, even born in Alabama to a racist family, I would have sided with the union. But I have my doubts. Don’t trust me when the revolution comes. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2010, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-american-civil-war/558840/95 "2010-11-03T19:40:27Z")
> [@bup](#): > > Very well said. I hope I would have been independent minded enough that, even born in Alabama to a racist family, I would have sided with the union. But I have my doubts. Don’t trust me when the revolution comes. The problem with this poll, I think, is while \*\*Qin \*\*thinks it is a reasonable question, in fact it is a silly hypothetical not unlike the one you-know-who is always starting. That is, it assumes a fantastic element: _If you were magically transported backin time to the 1860s in the United States, and had no way to get home, and retained the attitudes and belief system you were raised up with, but somehow did not retain your knowledge of history and thus did not know how the Civil War was going to end, which side would you support?_ Not even I would start that hypo. Not least because the retention-of-beliefs bit is difficult to reconcile with the _ignorant of history_ bit. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2010, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-american-civil-war/558840/96 "2010-11-03T20:13:55Z")
I’m Ohio born and bred, and dyed-in-the-wool Union blue. I would be, as were my ancestors, in favor of upholding the Constitution, suppressing rebellion, destroying slavery\* and acknowledging the lawful election of President Lincoln. \*Yes, I know that wasn’t a key U.S. war aim until later. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2010, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-american-civil-war/558840/97 "2010-11-03T23:54:54Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Not necessarilly-there were newspapers and telegraphs back then and in addition some Southerners did fight for the Union. Indeed. Consider such noteworthy sons of the South as David G. Farragut (Tennessee), George H. Thomas (Virginia), Sam Houston (Texas) and Andrew Johnson (Tennessee), all of whom stood with the Union, and rightly so. Nearly 120,000 Southerners served in the Union Army, and every Southern state except South Carolina raised Federal regiments. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2010, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-american-civil-war/558840/98 "2010-11-04T02:45:12Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > No, the South had pure slaves plain and simple. Where the ideological conflict gets Southerners in a tizzy is that most Southerners didn’t own slaves and had little connection to the institution. Furthermore, most of the importation was done through the North via African kidnappers and traders to sell in the South where slaves were necessary for agricultural needs. There was black slavery in Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire, and all or the original colonies. Good luck finding much awareness of that as well. I grew up in NY, and I learned about this in school - and indentured servitude as well. But the North was against slavery even at the time of the Constitutional Convention, thus the compromise banning imports. > [@](#): > > Those states just ended it earlier because they weren’t needed for agricultural purposes and shifted over to new models like white slavery in indentured servitude. None of the Eastern states are free and clear of that legacy. Southerners get tired of hearing about it because it is the most integrated part of the U.S. in black/white terms today which I think is the goal. Perhaps you forget that the integration you speak of was enforced on the South at gunpoint. I went to school in SW Louisiana, hardly the most racist part of the south. When I graduated, and moved to NJ, I remember thinking, “gee, there are black people in this restaurant” - not the case typically where I used to live. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2010, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-american-civil-war/558840/99 "2010-11-04T02:46:01Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Indeed. Consider such noteworthy sons of the South as David G. Farragut (Tennessee), George H. Thomas (Virginia), Sam Houston (Texas) and Andrew Johnson (Tennessee), all of whom stood with the Union, and rightly so. Nearly 120,000 Southerners served in the Union Army, and every Southern state except South Carolina raised Federal regiments. The First Arkansas Calvary, CSA, fought the First Arkansas Calvary, USA in Fayetteville, AR in 1863. Somehow, I cannot feel proud that brother literally slaughtered brother in a microcosm of the Civil War. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2010, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-american-civil-war/558840/100 "2010-11-04T02:46:57Z")
I vote US, though none of my ancestors were around then. My grandfather did plumbing work in Georgia in WW I. His last name was Sherman. Saying that he wasn’t related because he was Jewish didn’t seem to help. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-american-civil-war/558840.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-american-civil-war/558840.md?page=6)