Nikki Haley-What was the cause of the Civil War

[Belsnickel]

(12-28-2023, 01:17 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: You shouldn't feel odd asking this question, because the main cause has shifted over the years.  Oddly enough the "needs" of left leaning academia is, IMO, the cause.  For most of my life the war was about slavery, either ending it or fighting to keep it.  Then around my college years (mid early to mid 90's) it changed to states rights, i.e. a federation or a confederation.  The US is an institutionally flawed, and most importantly racist, nation and would never go to war to liberate nonwhites. Then around 2016 (I wonder why?) the issue of slavery became the laser focus of the Civil War, because absolutely everything in this country must be viewed through the lens of race.  So your confusion is founded in reality.

You definitely had a different exposure to the narrative around the Civil War than I have had. In my area it has always been a conversation of whether the "War of Northern Aggression" was about states' rights or slavery with the majority saying slavery (or at least the states' rights to allow slavery) and a minority answering much like Nikki Haley did. This has been the case for me ever since I was a kid to present day; not much has changed. I have a very interesting thing going here, though. My county did not want to secede from the union, voting for Bell, but also didn't want to be a part of West Virginia when they separated. Lincoln's father was born just down the road from me and his family cemetery has the graves of several slaves buried in it. There was also a large contingent of Brethren and Mennonites in my area, of which my family was a part, and they were both abolitionists and staunch pacifists. Some, though, were murdered for their ministerial work even though they did not take part in the war because they were accused of spying, like my cousin (six times removed).

(12-28-2023, 01:17 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Truthfully, I think it was largely (80%) about slavery, with the states rights issue hinging on, but limited to, that issue.  The interesting thing about that though, is that around 600,000 Union soldiers (almost exclusively white men) died fighting the Civil War to end slavery.  Which kind of complicates the whole white people are evil and the US is irredeemably racist argument.

To be fair, while the war at the top level was fought over the issue of slavery, that is not what the soldiers doing the fighting cared about. Union soldiers were, to be quite frank, just as if not more prejudiced against black people than their southern opponents. Lincoln himself said he would have prevented war without freeing a single slave if he could have done so. The southern states seceded out of fear that they were going to lose their way of life and the northern states went to war to prevent them from seceding. This is the complicated reality of the conflict. The north did not go to war to end slavery, they went to war to keep the country together. The south did secede to preserve the institution of slavery, though.