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Originally Posted by UnderseaLcpl
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Originally Posted by Kapt Z
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Originally Posted by Happy Times
State rights was the real reason for the Civil War also.
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We're definately going a little off topic here, but....
I agree with you in the 'academic' sense, but I wonder if any 'states rights' issue other than slavery would have been severe enough to cause the South to secede.  |
Actually, the war* started over a tariff that the Federal Government wanted to place on good imported from abroad, especially English manufactured goods, thus making it cheaper to buy manufactured goods from the Northern States.
Slavery was just the excuse they offered to get Northerners to fight. A good indication of just how much the Union cared about slaves is the fact that it contained slave states. Even the emancipation proclamation didn't change that.
Inversely, most (if not virtually all) Southerners were not fighting to keep slaves. Only a handful of the populace was wealthy enough to afford slaves, anyway.
Even though the spark that started secession was a tariff, the state's rights issue the South was most concerned about was state's rights itself.
* or alternatively, the secession. |
I would certainly agree that many in the North(Lincoln included) were more interested (at least at first) in saving the Union than freeing slaves.
But, I don't think slavery was just an 'excuse'. It was the entire basis for Southern society and their economy. The threat that it might not be allowed in the territories and therefore might someday be outlawed in the existing states was too much for them to risk.
That threat was the Federal Gov't personified by Lincoln's election.
Now, what motivated each individual to take up arms and what they would say was their reason for fighting?
If you'd like to debate this further we should probably start a new thread.
