12-28-2023, 12:05 PM
(12-28-2023, 11:42 AM)hollodero Wrote: Was it really about that alone though? I get that this is the official teaching and it might seem like the right answer to give, but in the end... if I were asked to give a honest assessment, I'd have to argue there were way more factors in play and slavery was not the one and only cause. Maybe not even the most important one. This whole picture of the morally cleansed, good Union just fighting for the freedom of slaves against the evil South always was a tad too romantic for me to be entirely accurate.
I get it is considered a sacrilege to even contemplate additional reasons, but I am an uneducated foreigner and hence am allowed to be that kind of ignorant.
Btw. here's something that Lincoln said. "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that." Hm.
We can tap dance around all the other causes that are discussed but they all center around slavery.
Every state in the Confederacy mentioned slavery in their "new" state constitutions. The Articles of Succession discussed how slavery was paramount to their economy.
Economy-free labor
State's Rights-the right to keep slaves
Lincoln's election- he wanted to keep the country together but didn't want the expansion of slavery. His party, though, was for abolition
Fueled by the pursuit of greatness.
