Most modern historians reject any suggestion that the South fought the Civil War over states’ rights. They insist that the only states’ rights the South cared about, “as neo-confederates are loath to admit,” was slavery. (According to Wikipedia, “neo-confederate is a term that describes the views of [those] who use [illegitimate] historical revisionism* to portray the [Confederacy] and its actions in the Civil War in a positive light.”) Thus, they conclude, slavery was the solitary cause of the war. They ignore evidence like the South’s persistent objections to federal public works spending, which antebellum Southerners regarded as a responsibility of the individual states and therefore a counterpart to states’ rights. But that’s another story.
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If it was the protect slavery, I believe that would have been justified.
ReplyDeleteI believe that you are right. I believe that 90% of Southerners felt oppressed by the North and wanted to give them hell. These same people (that 90%) were by nature feisty people, their heritage (Irish Scottish and English were accustomed to standing up for themselves), the times (people worked hard, struggled to be self sufficient) and they were very proud people. They would have gone to war over insults, unfair treatment, denial of rights as most people at that time interpreted the constitution. They got all of these and more. But the problem for those who would like to make this case is that there were some in the run up to the civil war who did indeed make it about slavery. And some were dragged into that argument and their pride made them stand up for it. And that's where we are today. That is there is a vast amount of history of supporters of slavery and defenders of slavery who were also defenders of the war and "apologists" for the war after it ended. That is what you are up against.
ReplyDeleteNow here is the issue. You (and I mean the generic "you") who would argue that there were other reasons for the war are still feisty, still prideful and instead of accepting that the mountain of history supporting that slavery was the cause of the war and dealing with it as what it is are trying to deny it. You can't deny it but you can try to prove that this opinion was the minority opinion and not what drove 90% of Southerners to do what they did.
Don't get me wrong. Your position is not an easy one. But you could make it easier.