The American civil war wasn't about slavery

>the American civil war wasn't about slavery

I think you're oversimplifying things if you say it was entirely due to slavery.

wehavethisthreadeveryday.jpg

Why can we never have threads just talking about the war

Property rights were part of the question of state sovereignty.

The American civil war didn't become "about slavery" until after a point when the union needed more personnel and a stronger, moralistic rallying cry. People who think the civil war was about slavery are putting the cart before the horse. Nothing, in the original aspects of the conflict, mentioned once yes or no to slavery. It came later.

Nope

Except you know...most Confederate states writing that slavery and white supremacy over blacks was the reason for succession from the union. Usually as the first few paragraphs too.

"Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition."

Literally said by the confederate vice president a few weeks before Fort Sumter

I thought it was figuratively said

Yeah always wonder why southerners say that
>THE WAR ISN'T ABOUT SLAVERY ITS A BOUT STATE'S RIGHTS
>Ok, y tho.
>Because...we sort uh...don't like slavery removed

It was about states rights over slavery, the income derived from slavery, and the votes from counting slaves.

Not about slavery itself, fucking leftists

Wasn't it about tariff rates and the inherent conflict of interests between industrialized north and agrarian south?

I think there's inherent conflicts of interests when a man can be called a slave

...

Actually it was because the southern states were attempting to move away from slavery by industrializing. Problem is, the industrialized north wasn't all that keen on more competition, so they made it increasingly difficult for southern states to buy the infrastructure required to move away from a slave-based agrarian economy. One of the big issues at the time was whether states were allowed to treat with foreign powers individually or if that right fell with the Federal government. Since the Federal government was at the time using tariffs and embargoes to further hinder Southern attempts at industrializing by buying the material overseas, the southern states naturally felt that they shouldn't have to go through a central government to get the things they need.

So you have the Northern business owners and the business-backed Federal government keeping you from industrializing to move away from slavery. And now they want you to free the slaves that keep your economy running, after repeatedly denying you any attempt to move to a industrialized economy base.

Goddamn right you'd go to war over that.

Top kek

the civil war was about lifestyle and states rights with slavery being a huge factor in both of those

It's neigh impossible to discuss the civil war without talking about slavery. At the same time, it's dishonest at best to propose that it caused the war, or was even the the main focus of the war before the proclamation.

>We gud bois we dindu nuffin

Guess the blacks learned this from their masters...

Saying that is like saying WW1 was over Franz getting it in the head.

You're mentally deficient

It was but more also about economic vision. The north wanted an industrialised America with high tariffs and the south wanted to stay agriculture based and free trade with Britain.

The fact of slavery is just contingency. I'm not quite sure why slavery had to be outlawed for the north to realise their aims though. Lincoln himself was pretty ambivalent about the matter.

>Lincoln himself was pretty ambivalent about the matter.
inb4 debate quote

>I'm not quite sure why slavery had to be outlawed for the north to realise their aims though.

Further hinder attempts by the Confederacy to garner international support.

The north didn't care about slaves. Slavery was used as a casus belli to expand federal powers.

It was about a cultural divide which drove two blocs of the country into paranoid fear of one another. Look at the Northern reaction to John Brown, a man murders several people and tries to start Saint-Domingue 2.0 and people literally treat him like a saint, ring church bells in his honor and sing hymns about him.
This sort of stuff scared the shit out of white southerners, of all classes.

>debate quote
What?

>I'm not quite sure why slavery had to be outlawed for the north to realise their aims though
1.) It wasn't outlawed until well after the war ended.
2.) The anti-slavery rhetoric gave the North a moralistic crusade against the South which stirred jingoism. This was necessary as much of the North was ready to take their ball and go home or even fight against the draft in order to not fight in the war.
3.) It halted non-American pro-South sentiment as much of Europe had just gone on an intranational anti-slavery crusade and were very openly critical about slavery abroad.

The Emancipation Proclamation, despite the fact that it didn't actively do anything, was an extremely powerful tool to the North and gave them the boost they needed to finish the war.