“THE CIVIL WAR WAS NOT ABOUT SLAVERY.”

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[SouthernGentleman]

The civil war was about patriotism and duty to one’s home, not slavery.

“We Are Fighting for Independence, Not Slavery”. - Jefferson Davis President of the Confederacy to Edward Kirk 1864

“I worked night and day for 12 years to prevent the war, but I could not. The north was mad, blind, would not let us govern ourselves, and so the war came.” - Confederate President Jefferson Davis 1861

“Is it worth while to continue this union of states, where the north demands to be our masters and we are required to be their tributaries.” - Thomas Cooper of South Carolina 1860

“In this enlightened age, there are few I believe, but what will acknowledge, that slavery as an institution, is a moral & political evil in any Country.” - Robert E Lee 1856

“While we see the Course of the final abolition of human slavery is onward, & we give it the aid of our prayers & all justifiable means in our power we must leave the progress as well as the result in his hands who Sees the end” - Robert E Lee 1856

“I am rejoiced that slavery is abolished. I believe it will be greatly for the interests of the South. So fully am I satisfied of this, as regards Virginia especially, that I would cheerfully have lost all I have lost by the war, and have suffered all I have suffered, to have this object attained.” - Robert E Lee 1865

“All I think that can now be done, is to aid our noble & generous women in their efforts to protect the graves & mark the last resting places of those who have fallen, & wait for better times.” - Robert E. Lee

“I have always been in favor of Emancipation.” - Robert E Lee

"I consider it a privilege to die for my country." - Paul Jones Semmes

On the third day of the battle, Confederate General Lewis Armistead led his brigade during Pickett's Charge, fixing his hat on the point of sword and reputedly urging his men to “remember what you are fighting for – your homes, your friends, your sweethearts!”

In an 1863 letter to his home state congressman, Elihu Washburne, Grant summed up his pre-war attitude: “I never was an Abolitionist, ” he said, “not even what could be called anti-slavery.”

“Slavery exists. It is black in the South, and white in the North.” - Union Vice President Johnson.

“We're not fighting for the perpetuation of slavery, but for the principles of states rights and free trade, and in defense of our homes which we were ruthlessly invaded.” -VMI Jewish Cadet Moses Jacob Ezekiel 1864

“Abolish the Loyal League and the Ku Klux Klan;
let us stand together. We may differ in color, but not in sentiment. Many things have been said about me which are wrong, and which white and black persons here, who stood by me through the war, can contradict.” - Nathan Bedford Forrest

“African Americans should have the right to vote.” - Confederate Colonel John Salmon Ford

The confederate soldier “Fought because he was provoked, intimidated, and ultimately invaded”
-James Webb Born Fighting a History of the Scoth-Irish in America

“I was fighting for my home, and he had no business being there”
-Virginia confederate Soldier Frank Potts


“Let me tell you what is coming. After the sacrifice of countless millions of treasure and hundreds of thousands of lives, you may win Southern independence if God be not against you, but I doubt it. I tell you that, while I believe with you in the doctrine of states rights, the North is determined to preserve this Union. They are not a fiery, impulsive people as you are, for they live in colder climates. But when they begin to move in a given direction, they move with the steady momentum and perseverance of a mighty avalanche; and what I fear is, they will overwhelm the South.” - Texas Sam Houston



List of causes of the Civil War-

Harpers Ferry

On the night of October 16, 1859, Brown and a band of followers seized the federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia), in what is believed to have been an attempt to arm a slave insurrection. (Brown denied this at his trial, but evidence indicated otherwise.) They were dislodged by a force of U.S. Marines led by Army lieutenant colonel Robert E. Lee.

Brown was swiftly tried for treason against Virginia and hanged. Southern reaction initially was that his acts were those of a mad fanatic, of little consequence. But when Northern abolitionists made a martyr of him, Southerners came to believe this was proof the North intended to wage a war of extermination against white Southerners. Brown’s raid thus became a step on the road to war between the sections.

States' Rights

The idea of states' rights was not new to the Civil War. Since the Constitution was first written there had been arguments about how much power the states should have versus how much power the federal government should have. The southern states felt that the federal government was taking away their rights and powers.

Political power

That was not enough to calm the fears of delegates to an 1860 secession convention in South Carolina. To the surprise of other Southern states—and even to many South Carolinians—the convention voted to dissolve the state’s contract with the United States and strike off on its own.

South Carolina had threatened this before in the 1830s during the presidency of Andrew Jackson, over a tariff that benefited Northern manufacturers but increased the cost of goods in the South. Jackson had vowed to send an army to force the state to stay in the Union, and Congress authorized him to raise such an army (all Southern senators walked out in protest before the vote was taken), but a compromise prevented the confrontation from occurring.

Perhaps learning from that experience the danger of going it alone, in 1860 and early 1861 South Carolina sent emissaries to other slave holding states urging their legislatures to follow its lead, nullify their contract with the United States and form a new Southern Confederacy. Six more states heeded the siren call: Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. Others voted down secession—temporarily. When President Lincoln called for Volunteers to invade the south, six southern states voted to join the Confederacy.

The issue of slavery

The burning issue that led to the disruption of the union was the debate over the future of slavery. Secession brought about a war in which the Northern and Western states and territories fought to preserve the Union, and the South fought to establish Southern independence as a new confederation of states under its own constitution.

Most of the states of the North, meanwhile, one by one had gradually abolished slavery. A steady flow of immigrants, especially from Ireland and Germany during the potato famine of the 1840s and 1850s, insured the North a ready pool of laborers, many of whom could be hired at low wages, diminishing the need to cling to the institution of slavery. Child labor was also a growing trend in the North.

The agrarian South utilized slaves to tend its large plantations and perform other duties. On the eve of the Civil War, some 4 million Africans and their descendants toiled as slave laborers in the South. Slavery was part of the Southern economy although only a relatively small portion of the population actually owned slaves. 🇺🇸

[alexmartin]

Like this. Its very interesting to hear an actual verteran of the time voice his views of the war.

[MrTTR]

“It was necessary to put the South at a moral disadvantage by transforming the contest from a war waged against states fighting for their indepdence into a war waged against states fighting for the maintenance and extension of slavery…and the world, it might be hoped, would see it as a moral war, not a political; and the sympathy of nations would begin to run for the North, not for the South.”
Woodrow Wilson, “A History of The American People”, page 231