So, to settle this once and for all, was the civil war about slavery or not...

So, to settle this once and for all, was the civil war about slavery or not? Was the emancipation proclamation just a tactic to cripple the south, or did Abe actually care about the slaves themselves?

It was about the state rights to own slaves.

Every war since the French Revolution has been orchestrated by the Jesuits, Freemasons and Illuminati to further their purposes.

>So, to settle this once and for all,
You'll just remake this exact thread tomorrow.
I'm on to you, you are like the Yakub dude.

didn't he offer the southern states a deal where they got to keep their slaves if they didn't attempt succession? What is the response to that

I don't really post in Veeky Forums very much I just come here to learn

>Civil War
Well this is complex and it isn't a singular cause. I do think slavery was the biggest divide between north and south. Also without it I don't think there would be succession. But it wasn't the only reason. I mean the south also deeply feared being turned into an unimportant area of the country, and being dominated by northern forces. Cause remember for most of its history the United States politics was dominated by southern forces.
>Emancipation Proclamation
I think Lincoln personally devised slavery, but the Emancipation Proclamation was a political move. It was two part. One was to remove the Southern workforce and two was to make it impossible for a European power superficially Britain or France to interfere

>Lincoln personally devised slavery

That's a hell of a smart move on his part, to go back in time millenia to invent something for his opponents to depend on in the future so he could cripple them by ending his own creation.

>Lincoln devised slavery.
Strategically decisive. However if he had a time machine couldn't he simply kill his enemies while they were babies?

Assuming you're genuine, we get this thread every other day.

The war's core issue and cause was slavery. Almost every issue people claim was the principle cause of the war traces back to slavery.

States' rights? To own slaves.
Rigged 1860 election? Lincoln was far from a pro-slave candidate, even if he didn't advocate for abolition. Controversy over the circumstances of his election beckoned action by southern, slave states.
Western territories faced issues of being admitted as slave or free, Bleeding Kansas, Senate balance, entrenchment of dominant agricultural economy in the South, all attributed to slavery.

Also, the Proclamation was meant to somewhat attack the Southern labor base, yes, but it also shifted the focus of the war from being about state rights and such to explicitly slavery, which also had the effect of keeping Britain out of the war. England was worried about getting its cotton from the South, but being an anti-slave nation, decided not to intervene in a war for the cause of bondage, and decided to just seek resources from its colonies elsewhere.

>I think Lincoln personally devised slavery

now that the dust has cleared, you really might be on to something

No and we should not fall for this meme that wars are about one thing.
They're incredibly complicated affairs, often arising from circumstances that contemporaries regard as spontaneous in the moment and inevitable in hindsight.

Plenty of men fighting for the union would have been motivated or at the very least legitimized by their abolitionist backgrounds but many of them would have been indifferent and a significant number were averse to the culmination of the practice, McClellan hoped the war would not have any effect on the practice. E Lee had far more nuanced and interesting views.

To use a not at all overused analogy, I think to say the civil war was about slavery is tantamount to saying that WW2 was about the Holocaust.

It's the ad hoc ex post facto way liberals justify a million good men dead.

If you believe Steve Piecznik, and I see no reason not to, Lincoln (like Osama bin Laden) had Marphan Syndrome. Your connective tissue basically falls apart and you die.

He claims there are more similarities between Lincoln and Pol Pot than there are differences. Both men basically committed auto-genocide by causing hundreds of thousands and millions of deaths of their own people.

Lincoln was no Wilbur Wilberforce; he basically thought the blacks should be shipped back to Africa.

John Wilkes Booth may not be the villain in this story.

The Jesuits were murdering millions of people for centuries prior to the French Revolution.

>Lincoln was no Wilbur Wilberforce; he basically thought the blacks should be shipped back to Africa.

He thought they should voluntarily move """""back""""" there until he abandoned that position when he realized most ex-slaves didn't want to. In his final address, he advocated suffrage for black veterans and the educated.

>John Wilkes Booth may not be the villain in this story.
Fun fact: he was in the audience of that final address, and presumably decided to kill Lincoln as a result of it.

"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. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume V, "Letter to Horace Greeley" (August 22, 1862), p. 388.

Yeah, not so much.

He did not seem to me to be in favor of abolishing slavery as much as he did not want slavery to spread to the new territories.

Then again, he and his wife seem batshit crazy to me.

"Do the people of the South really entertain fears that a Republican administration would, directly, or indirectly, interfere with their slaves, or with them, about their slaves? If they do, I wish to assure you, as once a friend, and still, I hope, not an enemy, that there is no cause for such fears." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume IV, "Letter to Alexander H. Stephens" (December 22, 1860), p. 160.

Seems like nothing more than a lying politician.

Three years later, from your same source.

>It is also unsatisfactory to some that the elective franchise is not given to the colored man. I would myself prefer that it were now conferred on the very intelligent, and on those who serve our cause as soldiers.

I also have an quote made by John Wilkes Booth after he witnessed the speech:

>(autistic screeching)

Yeah, let's try that today. Let's say that only blacks with a poll tested IQ of over 100 can vote.

>(autistic screeching intensifies)

What's that got to do with the discussion at hand, I wonder?

Perhaps you do not know what "elective franchise" means, coupled with not reading the quote properly.

>some people want black people to vote
>i would prefer if it was limited to the literate & veteran (black man)

?

...

He objectively cared about ending slavery before the Civil War, before he was President -- he helped build a new political party based on abolitionist ideals. What he thought about them as people is debatable.

Damn I love Harpo.

Back to the thread now...

Lincoln was not a particularly radical abolitionist by the standards of the Republican party. He did support the idea that all future states should be free, which basically put a deadline on Slavery: it would only continue until enough free states were admitted to meaningful prohibit it in the Senate. The south was "right" to fear that eventuality. However, I have not read about any serious plans by the southern states to adapt to a slave-free economy in the face of eventual political pressure and economic trends. Their first and only solution seemed to be secession.

He wanted to free slaves because he was racist. Thought white people shouldn't live with black people.