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>The tie with slavery is all about the economy Yes except you're getting cause and effect reversed. The fundamental building block of the Southern economy was

>The tie with slavery is all about the economy Yes except you're getting cause and effect reversed. The fundamental building block of the Southern economy was slavery, as your own quoted excerpts explain. Take that away and their economy would collapse, along with the extremely comfortable plantation lifestyles of the Southern elite. Their economy depended on slavery, not the other way around. When slavery was threatened, they went to war to preserve it. I'm from the South, we were taught in high-school that it was about economics, but later in life I realized that, for the South, slavery was the economy, and the root cause of the Civil War. Southerners have to be honest about that, or they'll never be able to fully move on.

coldtea 6y ago
>Their economy depended on slavery, not the other way around. When slavery was threatened, they went to war to preserve it. Of course. That doesn't make it a war about slavery, it makes a war about a threatened economic advantage. In fact, I agree further with you: the South did fight for slavery both as an economic advantage and as a racist ideology. My issue is with the notion that the Civil War cause as it comes to the North was about the emancipation of the slaves - which I consider cant. It was about economy and control from the Northern side.
- dontreact 6y ago
  I would advise you that this is not how you are coming off in this discussion. You sound like you are arguing that the civil war was not about slavery.
- dontreact 6y ago
  Yeah you are trying to reframe from your original position “The civil war wasn’t about slavery” To “From the perspective of the north the primary motivation was not slavery” And it’s not convincing to me or to others. The big picture here: was the civil war about slavery? I think the answer is yes, what about you?
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > My issue is with the notion that the Civil War cause as it comes to the North There's no serious dispute about that; preserving the Union was the overt aim, and there were slave states in the Union, who clearly weren't fighting against slavery.
- goatinaboat 6y ago
  In fact, I agree further with you: the South did fight for slavery both as an economic advantage and as a racist ideology. But slavery doesn’t have to be on racial grounds directly. For example in California they use the prison population as slave labour, Kamala Harris built her entire success on it. It just so happened that the majority of the prison population is black, and she was the state’s top cop. Nothing to see here, move along now.
s1artibartfast 6y ago
Surely the desire of the north maintain the integrity of the union is an equal factor to the motivations of the Confederacy. There were incentives on both sides and they were not necessarily the same. You can have a war where two groups have different primary motiviations. This does not to provide a moral excuse for the institution of slavery, but simply a clairification of fact.
- SkyMarshal 6y ago
  Why would maintaining the integrity of union be an issue in the first place? It's not unless someone wants to secede. Who would want to secede, and why?
  - s1artibartfast 6y ago
    >Why would maintaining the integrity of union be an issue in the first place? That’s exactly the question I’m getting at. At a high level, the question of what events led up to the war is different from why the north and south chose to go to war. I think it is an interesting question that usually gets glossed over by focusing on the motivations of the south. For the north, I think it was some combination of manifest destiny, national pride, and economic incentives. Perhaps they did not want to compete with a rival for North American territory and have a reduced capacity for international defense/power projection. You can ask why any government go to war to stop separatist movements, or incorporate new territories, and the answers may be different in each case. For example, the reasons Spain does not want an independent Catalonia are different than why China opposes an independent Taiwan. >Who would want to secede, and why? The south and slavery, for the sake of simplicity.

coldtea 6y ago

>Their economy depended on slavery, not the other way around. When slavery was threatened, they went to war to preserve it. Of course. That doesn't make it a war about slavery, it makes a war about a threatened economic advantage. In fact, I agree further with you: the South did fight for slavery both as an economic advantage and as a racist ideology. My issue is with the notion that the Civil War cause as it comes to the North was about the emancipation of the slaves - which I consider cant. It was about economy and control from the Northern side.

dontreact 6y ago
I would advise you that this is not how you are coming off in this discussion. You sound like you are arguing that the civil war was not about slavery.
dontreact 6y ago
Yeah you are trying to reframe from your original position “The civil war wasn’t about slavery” To “From the perspective of the north the primary motivation was not slavery” And it’s not convincing to me or to others. The big picture here: was the civil war about slavery? I think the answer is yes, what about you?
dragonwriter 6y ago
> My issue is with the notion that the Civil War cause as it comes to the North There's no serious dispute about that; preserving the Union was the overt aim, and there were slave states in the Union, who clearly weren't fighting against slavery.
goatinaboat 6y ago
In fact, I agree further with you: the South did fight for slavery both as an economic advantage and as a racist ideology. But slavery doesn’t have to be on racial grounds directly. For example in California they use the prison population as slave labour, Kamala Harris built her entire success on it. It just so happened that the majority of the prison population is black, and she was the state’s top cop. Nothing to see here, move along now.

s1artibartfast 6y ago

Surely the desire of the north maintain the integrity of the union is an equal factor to the motivations of the Confederacy. There were incentives on both sides and they were not necessarily the same. You can have a war where two groups have different primary motiviations. This does not to provide a moral excuse for the institution of slavery, but simply a clairification of fact.

SkyMarshal 6y ago
Why would maintaining the integrity of union be an issue in the first place? It's not unless someone wants to secede. Who would want to secede, and why?
- s1artibartfast 6y ago
  >Why would maintaining the integrity of union be an issue in the first place? That’s exactly the question I’m getting at. At a high level, the question of what events led up to the war is different from why the north and south chose to go to war. I think it is an interesting question that usually gets glossed over by focusing on the motivations of the south. For the north, I think it was some combination of manifest destiny, national pride, and economic incentives. Perhaps they did not want to compete with a rival for North American territory and have a reduced capacity for international defense/power projection. You can ask why any government go to war to stop separatist movements, or incorporate new territories, and the answers may be different in each case. For example, the reasons Spain does not want an independent Catalonia are different than why China opposes an independent Taiwan. >Who would want to secede, and why? The south and slavery, for the sake of simplicity.