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The idea that the civil war wasn't about slavery is mostly the view pushed by the North before the war. Before the war, there was a balance of slave and non-sl

The idea that the civil war wasn't about slavery is mostly the view pushed by the North before the war. Before the war, there was a balance of slave and non-slave states, and any time they were added, that balance was preserved. Lincoln's position was that slavery was OK, but should spread into any new states, and that would have tipped the balance in congress to anti-slavery. After Lincoln was elected, the states began to succeed, and in their succession documents, they quite clearly stated that it was about slavery. The public position of the North was that they fought to prevent the South from succeeding, and they didn't want to end slavery (followed with a wink, wink, nudge, nudge). And its that attitude that allowed the South, after the fact, to promote the idea that it wasn't about slavery, and the North wasn't about to correct them.

zaccus 8y ago
>Lincoln's position was that slavery was OK, but should spread into any new states He may have taken a more moderate stance for his presidential campaign, but for most of his political career Lincoln was a hardcore, outspoken abolitionist. Nobody at the time seriously thought Lincoln was OK with slavery; that's why southern states immediately started seceding.
- wallace_f 8y ago
  Lincoln used the military to block Southern ports, which was what I understood to be what prompted secession.
DFHippie 8y ago
This is a speech Lincoln delivered well before he was president: http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/cooper.htm http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/cooper.... This is the Dunning School: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning_School https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning_School It is Confederate apologia, not Union. It is the origin of the states' rights theory of the Civil War.
- wallace_f 8y ago
  He's not writing confederate propaganda. Can we graduate from this idea of calling everyone you disagree with a nazi or racist? You can see here, what he wrote is consistent with my reading of history: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jala/2629860.0032.105/--lincoln-s-critics-the-copperheads?rgn=main;view=fulltext https://quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jala/2629860.0032.105/--lincoln...

zaccus 8y ago

>Lincoln's position was that slavery was OK, but should spread into any new states He may have taken a more moderate stance for his presidential campaign, but for most of his political career Lincoln was a hardcore, outspoken abolitionist. Nobody at the time seriously thought Lincoln was OK with slavery; that's why southern states immediately started seceding.

wallace_f 8y ago
Lincoln used the military to block Southern ports, which was what I understood to be what prompted secession.

DFHippie 8y ago

This is a speech Lincoln delivered well before he was president: http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/cooper.htm http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/cooper.... This is the Dunning School: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning_School https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning_School It is Confederate apologia, not Union. It is the origin of the states' rights theory of the Civil War.

wallace_f 8y ago
He's not writing confederate propaganda. Can we graduate from this idea of calling everyone you disagree with a nazi or racist? You can see here, what he wrote is consistent with my reading of history: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jala/2629860.0032.105/--lincoln-s-critics-the-copperheads?rgn=main;view=fulltext https://quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jala/2629860.0032.105/--lincoln...