# Why isn't the "Cornerstone Speech" used to shut down "The Civil War was about economics" apologists? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 2, 2015, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-cornerstone-speech-used-to-shut-down-the-civil-war-was-about-economics-apologists/724060 "2015-07-02T17:01:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2015, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-cornerstone-speech-used-to-shut-down-the-civil-war-was-about-economics-apologists/724060/81 "2015-07-07T08:15:47Z")
> [@Grotonian](#): > > So according to your own cites, there were MORE LYNCHINGS in the West, MORE ANTI-MISCEGENATION laws in the West and Plains, and MORE SEGREGATION in the North, West, and Plains (de facto), but the Southerners were MORE RACIST, right? You’re hilarious. > > Well, hey, the South still wins for slavery and Jim Crow. [ol] [li]I don’t know where you are getting that according to his own cites there were more lynchings in the West. According to the article “More than 85 percent of the estimated 5,000 lynchings in the post-Civil War period occurred in the Southern states”–if you want to challenge that number, you’ll have to do better than say “your own cite says _gotcha!_”[/li][li]There were “more” anti-miscegenation laws in the West and Plains in the sense that there were _more states_ in the West and Plains. Since _ALL_ of the Southern states had anti-miscegenation laws at the time of the _Loving_ decision, there was really no way the South could have passed any more of them short of maybe invading Northern states and forcing them to pass anti-miscegenation laws at gunpoint.[/li] Also, outside of the South, people mostly got rid of their anti-miscegenation laws voluntarily, instead of having to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 20th Century by the Supreme Court. Of course that doesn’t excuse the bigotry of having passed them in the first place, but _no_ Southern state–not a single one–said “Gee, maybe if two people love each other but one of them happens to be black and one of them happens to be white (maybe even a black _man_ and a white _woman_), well, that’s no one else’s business. Mazel tov, y’all!” [li]_De facto_ segregation is bad, but _de jure_ segregation is worse. It’s not just the bigotry of one business owner (who may have non-bigoted competitors we can choose to patronize instead); _de jure_ segregation is a legally-mandated and inescapable system of racial oppression. And hell, yes, slavery and Jim Crow were a big fucking deal.[/li][/ol] ---
**Author:** ![Grotonian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c2a13f/32.png) [@Grotonian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grotonian)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2015, 9:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-cornerstone-speech-used-to-shut-down-the-civil-war-was-about-economics-apologists/724060/82 "2015-07-07T09:57:05Z")
[quote=“MEBuckner, post:81, topic:724060”] [li]There were “more” anti-miscegenation laws in the West and Plains in the sense that there were _more states_ in the West and Plains.[/li][/QUOTE] Thank you; my point exactly. There were more racist states outside of the South than within it. Just what I’ve maintained all along. > [@](#): > > _De facto_ segregation is bad, but _de jure_ segregation is worse. It’s not just the bigotry of one business owner (who may have non-bigoted competitors we can choose to patronize instead); _de jure_ segregation is a legally-mandated and inescapable system of racial oppression. Nice explanation. So de facto segregation was never pervasive? There MAY have been other non-racist businesses? You have no idea how segregation worked and works up North. My grandmother worked at a lunch counter here in Michigan. No segregation laws. Know what happened to blacks? A full salt shaker would be dumped in their food, for which they still had to pay. My granny thought it was awful, but all she did was take orders. Usually the cooks would yell, “How’s that soup, nigger?!” followed by uproarious laughter. That’s better than a “No Coloreds” sign? That’s a system that you’ll defend as better than the South? I am just loving the lengths people will go to in this discussion to defend the North’s racism. It’s really eye-opening. > [@](#): > > And hell, yes, slavery and Jim Crow were a big fucking deal. > [/list] Well, good; they’re gone. How’s the North doing with eliminating racism and segregation? De facto segregation, not that it was ever a big deal, anyway, is gone up North, right? ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2015, 10:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-cornerstone-speech-used-to-shut-down-the-civil-war-was-about-economics-apologists/724060/83 "2015-07-07T10:08:25Z")
I think in the western states you had immigrants who had no connection to the slavery issue so they saw a black person, while they certainly saw them as “different” they didnt associate them with slavery and treated them differently. For example in the Dakotas a German immigrant was more likely to despise a Swede or Norwegian. I know up where my family was from a black farming family, the Carters, who treated as equals. Yeah sometimes they got made fun of because they looked different (same as someone with red hair might be treated) but there was no outright prejudice. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2015, 10:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-cornerstone-speech-used-to-shut-down-the-civil-war-was-about-economics-apologists/724060/84 "2015-07-07T10:23:31Z")
> [@Grotonian](#): > > I am just loving the lengths people will go to in this discussion to defend the North’s racism. No one is defending the North’s racism. The questions at hand here are: “Why did eleven Southern states try to secede from the Union?” “What, therefore, was the Confederate Cause during the Civil War?” and “What, therefore, are the symbols of the Confederacy _inescapably_ associated with?” Would you care to try to answer those questions, or would you like to continue trying to animate your army of strawmen and seeing if you can teach them how to tap-dance? ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2015, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-cornerstone-speech-used-to-shut-down-the-civil-war-was-about-economics-apologists/724060/85 "2015-07-07T11:16:25Z")
Yeah this is like claiming that it is just as dangerous living in the USA because it has more murders than Guatemala. ---
**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:** [July 7, 2015, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-cornerstone-speech-used-to-shut-down-the-civil-war-was-about-economics-apologists/724060/86 "2015-07-07T11:24:05Z")
> [@Grotonian](#): > > So according to your own cites, there were MORE LYNCHINGS in the West, False. > [@](#): > > MORE ANTI-MISCEGENATION laws in the West and Plains, “more laws” is meaningless – far, far fewer people were affected in the South. > [@](#): > > and MORE SEGREGATION in the North, West, and Plains (de facto), Much less segregation (by law) in terms of population. > [@](#): > > but the Southerners were MORE RACIST, right? You’re hilarious. > > Well, hey, the South still wins for slavery and Jim Crow. Since most of your ‘facts’ are false, then yes, in terms of who made life worse for black people (which is the best measure of racism/oppression/discrimination in this sense). > [@](#): > > But really, don’t we all already know that Southerners are just a bunch of toothless, in-bred, morons with guns, Bibles (King James Versions), and Confederate Flags? Let’s not let some silly facts stop us from ridiculing them. If all else fails we can always scream, “SLAVERY!” Nope, I don’t believe that about Southerners (which includes myself) as a group. ---
**Author:** ![Grotonian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c2a13f/32.png) [@Grotonian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grotonian)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2015, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-cornerstone-speech-used-to-shut-down-the-civil-war-was-about-economics-apologists/724060/87 "2015-07-07T20:54:24Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#): > > No one is defending the North’s racism. Read the thread. Saying, “The North wasn’t as bad,” is definitely a defense. Saying, “they were equally bad,” is not defending the North’s racism. You, and a couple others, cannot get to, “both were equally bad,” so I’m helping you. > [@](#): > > The questions at hand here are: > > “Why did eleven Southern states try to secede from the Union?” > “What, therefore, was the Confederate Cause during the Civil War?” > and > “What, therefore, are the symbols of the Confederacy _inescapably_ associated with?” > > Would you care to try to answer those questions, or would you like to continue trying to animate your army of strawmen and seeing if you can teach them how to tap-dance? The answers to your questions are: 1.)States’ Rights to voluntarily withdraw from pact they voluntarily entered 2.) An independent CSA 3.) An implicit threat to federal authority that they may again assert a right to secession. You can pretend, “The South was MORE racist” is not a defense of the North. Any favorable comparison of anything is a defense. Why can’t you, or **;?)Andy£@!** (did I get the punctuation marks right?) condemn the North’s racism as harshly as the South’s? You’ve both already made it clear: you don’t believe it was as bad and it doesn’t deserve to be as harshly condemned. That is a defense. When you write, “The North’s racism was as bad as the South’s,” that’s when I’ll be arguing against a straw man. And then I’ll stop pointing out how racist the North is. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2015, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-cornerstone-speech-used-to-shut-down-the-civil-war-was-about-economics-apologists/724060/88 "2015-07-07T21:03:43Z")
I’m sorry, you didn’t get _any_ of the questions right! The answers are: 1.) In order to defend slavery from the threat posed to it by the election of a Republican president. 2.) The preservation of white supremacy and a race-based system of slavery. 3.) The preservation of white supremacy and a race-based system of slavery. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2015, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-cornerstone-speech-used-to-shut-down-the-civil-war-was-about-economics-apologists/724060/89 "2015-07-07T21:32:56Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **Sage Rat** : > > Realistically, if the North had volunteered to purchase every slave and replace them with a robot that would do the same work at the same overall expense of time and resources, I don’t think that the South would have complained. They would have let the slaves go. > > By that standard, the South wasn’t fighting for slavery, they were fighting for their economic foundation. But such a replacement for slaves did exist: They could have replaced the slaves, one for one, with free people. Free workers are in fact more economical than slaves, and yet the South could not accept them. Racism was the cause, not the effect, of their economic system. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2015, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-cornerstone-speech-used-to-shut-down-the-civil-war-was-about-economics-apologists/724060/90 "2015-07-07T22:27:23Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Racism was the cause, not the effect, of their economic system. Actually, I think it’s more complex than that. The creation of “race” as a category in colonial America (and the identification of that category with the notion of chattel slavery) seems to have had essentially economic roots: A desire to exploit the living hell out of working people, and to keep the lower classes down by dividing free or semi-free (indentured) Europeans or “whites” from previously free or semi-free (indentured) but now outright enslaved Africans or “blacks”, and persuading the poor “white” people that they were on the same “side” as the rich “white” people rather than being in the same boat as their poor “black” counterparts. This ideological creation of the notion of “race” undoubtedly came to have a life of its own and to reinforce and perpetuate the economic system (even if the economic system maybe no longer made any sense on its own strictly economic terms); but even at the eve of the Civil War, the slave owners talked about the slaves constituting [$3,000,000,000](http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_geosec.asp) or [$4,000,000,000](http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_missec.asp) worth of property; that [works out](http://www.measuringworth.com/uscompare/) to (depending on how you reckon it) the equivalent of tens of billions-with-a-“B” of 21st-century dollars–which is a hell of a lot of money–to a truly mind-boggling twelve or sixteen _ **trillion** _ modern dollars (“economic power”, basically the amount the slaves were purportedly worth compared to the entire mid-19th century American economy). Regardless of how truly efficient slave labor is compared to free labor or what intensive cotton production was doing to the soil of the “Cotton Belt” in the long term and so forth, when you have the equivalent of trillions-with-a-T dollars at stake, a lot of people are going to be able to convince themselves of the truth and rightness of all _kinds_ of crazy-ass and downright evil bullshit. ---
**Author:** ![Asimovian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asimovian/32/172_2.png) [@Asimovian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asimovian)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2015, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-cornerstone-speech-used-to-shut-down-the-civil-war-was-about-economics-apologists/724060/91 "2015-07-07T22:28:31Z")
> [@Grotonian](#): > > Why can’t you, or **;?)Andy£@!** (did I get the punctuation marks right?) condemn the North’s racism as harshly as the South’s? Given that [you, specifically, have been told that modifying someone’s username could be construed as worthy of moderation](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=18355420&postcount=8), I shouldn’t have to tell you not to do this. Don’t repeat it. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2015, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-cornerstone-speech-used-to-shut-down-the-civil-war-was-about-economics-apologists/724060/92 "2015-07-07T22:46:07Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > But such a replacement for slaves did exist: They could have replaced the slaves, one for one, with free people. Free workers are in fact more economical than slaves, and yet the South could not accept them. Racism was the cause, not the effect, of their economic system. No, it was the effect. If you look at the history of anti-black racism in the US and Europe generally, it doesn’t really start until after the adoption of black slavery. Before that, Africans were seen as exotic and alien, but not inherently inferior. Racism starts coming about as a way to justify the slavery. And free workers are generally more efficient as a whole than slaves, but slaveholding is a trap that once you’re in, it’s hard to get out of. In a slaveholding society, holding slaves brings you wealth and prestige, and those individuals with the most slaves tend to be the leaders of the society, and those individuals without slaves seek to acquire them. This was true in ancient Rome, this was true in the medieval middle east, and this was true in the south before the Civil War. The society has a vested interest in maintaining slavery. This is true whether the slavery is racial or not. Ancient Rome didn’t abolish slavery even though slavery in ancient Rome wasn’t race based. ---
**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:** [July 7, 2015, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-cornerstone-speech-used-to-shut-down-the-civil-war-was-about-economics-apologists/724060/93 "2015-07-07T23:03:36Z")
I’m pretty sure it’s a myth that, at least for large-scale agricultural labor, slavery was less efficient than free labor. It made economic sense for plantation owners in the South and Caribbean to utilize slaves – the only expenses were bad food, bad accommodations, bad medical care (or no medical care), and overseers. If it didn’t make economic sense, then plantations with free labor would have had an economic advantage, and at least been competitive – but they were not (and there were none, I’m pretty sure). And a system of brutality and terror was put into place to maintain this slave agriculture system, because otherwise it would have been unsustainable, when slaves outnumbered whites in many parts of the region. ---
**Author:** ![Grotonian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c2a13f/32.png) [@Grotonian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grotonian)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2015, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-cornerstone-speech-used-to-shut-down-the-civil-war-was-about-economics-apologists/724060/94 "2015-07-07T23:11:30Z")
> [@Asimovian](#): > > Given that [you, specifically, have been told that modifying someone’s username could be construed as worthy of moderation](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=18355420&postcount=8), I shouldn’t have to tell you not to do this. Don’t repeat it. Fine. I won’t. But I was never “told that modifying someone’s username could be construed as worthy of moderation.” I was told it could be interpreted as an insult if it were CHANGED into an insult or SHORTENED into an insult. I was not, and am not, aware of any insult spelled “;?)” or “£@!” so I had no idea I had run afoul of any rule. I, specifically, was never told not to modify a username; I was only told not to shorten one into an insult. (In fact, I was left with the impression, which was apparently incorrect, that innocuous modifications were not a rules violation.) ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2015, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-cornerstone-speech-used-to-shut-down-the-civil-war-was-about-economics-apologists/724060/95 "2015-07-07T23:57:23Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Free workers are in fact more economical than slaves Cite? I’m willing to believe you, but this statement sounds like someone saying that it’s just as cost effective to hire a gringo as an illegal alien to clean dishes in your restaurant kitchen. I’d have to imagine that if it was the case, the market would have figured that out and adjusted accordingly. ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2015, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-cornerstone-speech-used-to-shut-down-the-civil-war-was-about-economics-apologists/724060/96 "2015-07-08T00:09:20Z")
The Civil War wasn’t about economics: it was about independence. It was about whether a group of states had the right (or the ability) to separate themselves from the rest. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2015, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-cornerstone-speech-used-to-shut-down-the-civil-war-was-about-economics-apologists/724060/97 "2015-07-08T03:30:47Z")
> [@LinusK](#): > > The Civil War wasn’t about economics: it was about independence. It was about whether a group of states had the right (or the ability) to separate themselves from the rest. If only the secessionists [had left some kind of extensive written record](http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/06/what-this-cruel-war-was-over/396482/) of [what they were fighting for](http://www.mebuckner.com/civwarquiz.htm). ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2015, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-cornerstone-speech-used-to-shut-down-the-civil-war-was-about-economics-apologists/724060/98 "2015-07-08T04:13:38Z")
I’m going to recommend to everybody here, by the way, that you read Douglas Egerton’s “Year of Meteors” about the 1860 election. It’s a good book in general, and it spends a lot of time on the tensions within the Democratic party over slavery and the tensions between pro-secession and pro-Unionist Southern Democrats, and the way that moderate southern Democrats (like Alexander Stephens) found themselves backed up to the wall by the more radical faction. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2015, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-cornerstone-speech-used-to-shut-down-the-civil-war-was-about-economics-apologists/724060/99 "2015-07-08T04:30:31Z")
Sorry, but while yes, the Civil War was over slavery, I do not think the Confederate soldiers who in July 3rd 1863 in Picket’s charge were doing it for the glory of owning slaves, not do I believe the Union soldiers firing the cannons on the other side of the battle of Gettysburg were doing it to free the slaves. Nor were the sailors on the Monitor and the Merrimac. They were just soldiers and sailors doing their duty. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2015, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-cornerstone-speech-used-to-shut-down-the-civil-war-was-about-economics-apologists/724060/100 "2015-07-08T05:12:10Z")
The reason that wars are fought are usually different than the things that motivate individual soldiers to fight. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-cornerstone-speech-used-to-shut-down-the-civil-war-was-about-economics-apologists/724060.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-cornerstone-speech-used-to-shut-down-the-civil-war-was-about-economics-apologists/724060.md?page=6)