Was the civil war fought over slaves?

Yes. I mean you can read the fucking declarations of secession from the southern States and they plainly say the main reason is the subject of slavery.

Confederate soldiers and generals during and after the war wrote that it was about slavery.

The States rights and white washing of the South started taking place in the late 19th and early 20th century, to the horror of surviving Union and Confederate generals.

but to simply it down to modern revisionist left stance of "they were all racist slave owners" misses out on a lot.

only 7% of Americans owned slaves.

almost everyone was racist towards blacks. even if they did oppose slavery.

the north started the war to maintain federal dominance. the 14th amendment was ratified unconstitutionally. the south was under unconstitutional military occupation government.

>The north started the war

Lel was Sumter an inside job or something? Because the south shot first.

The war was because americans don't have a democratic political culture. Economically it makes no big difference if you provide for food and housing to a slave or if you pay him the money equivalent for that (back in 1860s worker rights were not really a thing and workers didnt really have a higher standard of living than slaves. okay, maybe slaves were a bit cheaper but the difference is so small it is nothing worth fighting a war over).

So this war was fought because the americans were not able to come up with compromises, instead they just wanted to stick it to the other guys. Americans, especially southerners, have a very strong sense for tribalism and very weak will to compromise to achieve democratic consensus. There were plenty of northeners who tried to explain to the southerners that giving money to workers instead of food to slaves will not collapse the economy (and in fact, it didnt after the civil war, american cotton industry remained as strong as it was). but the southerners didnt want to listen, simply because it was one of "them" who said it. this is pretty similar to today's party politics in the US. Republicans treated Obamacare like something directly from the spawns of hell and end of the world - although it was quite literally the exact same thing Romney introduced in Mass. So the only reason they fought it is because it was done by democrats. Literally the only reason whatsoever. Note that I am from Europe and we dont have that kind of political culture here. We are much more consense-oriented.

Also note that back then war was seen as normal and was a much more accepted political tool. If that was still true today i could well imagine that there might have been another civil war in america already, but this time "about Obamacare", when in reality it is again the lack of consense-culture.

slaves weren't cheaper. they cost the equivalent of a tractor. then you had all the upkeep expenses.

they were necessary to have enough hands to get the job done.

Just read Jefferson Davis' reaction to the emancipation proclamation.

you can also just pay those hands. there was no shortage of labour supply in the US.

Not until the later years of the war

free farm hands made 16 cents a day, or $4.32 in current dollars.

the CSA states had 9 million people, 4 million of which were slaves. the union states have 22 million people.

So? the slaves dont disappear if you free them. They stay there and become workers.

So 4.32 makes around 100 dollars in wages. Thats probably about what food, housing, clothing and other expenditures for the slave would cost.

Omfg it wasnt even a civil war you raging faggots. The south never fought for control of the government it was literally an invasion from the north

>"This ignorant association between a Confederale soldier and slavery contradicts all known history. Slavery in the Southern states was confined to large argicultural tracts known as plantations. Slaves were the agricultural workforce. This institution long predated the Confederacy and the United States itself. It was an inherited institution from the time that the New World was colonized by European economic interests. Slaves were not a Southern invention. They were brought in long prior to the Declaration of Independence, because there were resources to be exploited but no work force."

>"The first slaves were white slaves, but they died like flies from malaria and yellow fevor. Next indigenious Americans (“Indians”) were used as slaves, but they would not work. Then it was discovered that some Africans had immunity to malaria and resistance to yellow fever, and finally a work force was located. The slaves were purchased from the African tribes that annually conducted warfare between themselves, the booty of which was slaves."

Oh Shenandoah, I long to see youuuu

>"As President Lincoln said over and over, the war is not about slavery. It is about “preserving the union,” that is, the empire. If the South were permitted to separate, it would mean that there would be two countries competing for the vast lands to the west of the Mississippi River. The budding empire in Washington did not want any such competition."

>"If the South were permitted to seperate, the North would lose its market for its relatively high priced manufactured goods that it hoped to sell to the South by placing a tariff against the cheaper British goods."

>"The South figured, correctly, that it would be doubly hit. Higher prices from the North and retaliatory tariffs from the British on its cotton exports."

>"This economic conflict between the North and South went on for a long time before it provoked secession. The left-wing American Historian, Charles Beard, explains the so-called “Civil War” in the economic terms that provoked it. It had nothing whatsoever to do with slavery."

>"Lincoln did not free the slaves. Moreover, had Lincoln not been assassinated, his plan was to send the blacks, whom he regarded as inferior to whites, back to Africa. This is not a “conspiracy theory.” It is the documented fact. It is totally impossible to refute this documented fact."

>"The Emancipation Proclamation was propaganda. It had two purposes: one was to shut up the abolitionists. The other was to promote a slave rebellion in the Southern states that would draw Confederate troops out of the front lines to protect the women and children at home. As Lincoln’s own Secretary of State, William H. Seward, said, we have freed the slaves where we have no jurisdiction and left them in slavery where we have jusistiction. Seward’s exact words: “We show our sympathy with slavery by emancipating slaves where we cannot reach them and holding them in bondage where we can set them free.”

>only 7% of Americans owned slaves.

Lol, because it was illegal for most Americans to own them. About 1/3 of Southern families owned slaves.

like many things in history it isn't that black and white, slavery was part of it but states rights and the ownership of private property were also factors, also many in the south just really fucking hated Lincoln and thought he was acting like a dictator

Yes, it was explicitly about slavery. The South seceded to preserve the institution of slavery indefinitely. That isn't a conspiracy theory - that's literally what they said they were doing.

>many in the south just really fucking hated Lincoln and thought he was acting like a dictator

...because he had spent his whole political career speaking against slavery. So that doesn't really count as a separate reason.

yes but that was also perceived as old abe taking rights away from the states and heavily centralising the country, you need to remember that before the war people identified more with their state than with their country

LINCOLN WAS AN OBSESSIVE WHITE SUPREMACIST

“Free them [blacks] and make them politically and socially our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this . . . . We can not then make them equals.” (CW, Vol. II, p. 256).

“There is a natural disgust in the minds of nearly all white people, to the idea of an indiscriminate amalgamation of the white and black races” (CW, Vol. II, p. 405).

“What I would most desire would be the separation of the white and black races” (CW, Vol. II, p. 521).

“I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races . . . . I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong, having the superior position. I have never said anything to the contrary.” (CW, Vol. III, p. 16).

“I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races . . . . I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people . . .” (CW, Vol, III, pp. 145-146).

“I will to the very last stand by the law of this state, which forbids the marrying of white people with negroes.” (CW, Vol. III, p. 146).

Until His Dying Day, Lincoln Plotted to Deport all the Black People Out of America

“I have said that the separation of the races is the only perfect preventive of amalgamation . . . . Such separation . . . must be effected by colonization” [to Liberia, Central America, anywhere]. (CW, Vol. II, p. 409).

“Let us be brought to believe it is morally right , and . . . favorable to . . . our interest, to transfer the African to his native clime . . .” (CW, Vol. II, p. 409).

“The place I am thinking about having for a colony [for the deportation of all American blacks] is in Central America. It is nearer to us than Liberia.” (CW, Vol. V, pp. 373, 374).

Lincoln Advocated Secession When it Could Advance His Political Career

“Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better.” (CW, Vol. 1, p. 438).

It was 1865. Women weren't even allowed to vote then. Saying you think blacks are 100% equal would be what we call polticially incorrect today. No politician would say that publically. Its quite the opposite like today: Today it would be too politically incorrect for Donald Trump even to say that blacks are not 100% equal. Even if you think that, as a politician you don't say that.

Who knows what he truly though of blacks. But as time went on his demands for black rights kept growing. In the beginning he just wanted to stop slavery, later he wanted full voting rights for them.

LINCOLN WAS ECONOMICALLY IGNORANT OF THE BIG ECONOMIC ISSUE OF HIS DAY: PROTECTIONIST TARIFFS

“[A] tariff of duties on imported goods . . . is indispensably necessary to the prosperity of the American people.” (CW, Vol. I, p. 307.

“[B]y the tariff system . . . the man who contents himself to live upon the products of his own country, pays nothing at all.” (CW, Vol. I, p. 311).

“All carrying . . . of articles from the place of their production to a distant place for their consumption . . . is useless labor.” (CW, Vol. I, p. 409).

“I was an old Henry Clay tariff whig. In old times I made more speeches on that subject, than on any other. I have not changed my views.” (CW, Vol, III, p. 487).

“The tariff is to the government what a meal is to a family . . .” (CW, Vol., IV, p. 211).

>“I must confess that I do not understand the subject [the economics of tariffs].” (CW, Vol. IV, p. 211).

Kek

LINCOLN ONLY RHETORICALLY OPPOSED SOUTHERN SLAVERY. IN PRACTICE, HE STRENGTHENED IT

” I think no wise man has perceived, how it [slavery] could be at once eradicated, without producing a greater evil, even to the cause of human liberty himself.” (CW, Vol. II, p. 130).

“I meant not to ask for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia.” (CW, Vol., II, p. 260).

“I believe there is no right, and ought to be no inclination I the people of the free states to enter into the slave states and interfere with the question of slavery at all.” (CW, Vol. II, p. 492).

“I have no purpose directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists.” (CW, Vol. III, p. 16).

“I say that we must not interfere with the institution of slavery . . . because the constitution forbids it, and the general welfare does not require us to do so.” (CW, Vol. III, p. 460).

They had every right to attempt to drive out the invading force

I'd just like to point out that this dixieboo retard is literally just copy-pasting some crank's entire website.

What invading force? It was U.S. government property. If I declare your house my property and try to force you out of it, I'm the invader, not you.

>LINCOLN ONLY RHETORICALLY OPPOSED SOUTHERN SLAVERY.
m8 he didn't even rhetorically oppose it until it was politically expedient. Also stop with the caps.

Amazon.com: Thomas J. DiLorenzo: Books, Biography ...

Cant post link also lewrockwell

>he didn't even rhetorically oppose it

Uh, yes he did. His whole public life.
Here ya go:
rogerjnorton.com/Lincoln95.html

He just (correctly) believed that ending it by force would cause all out war.

The 7 percent is misleading because, as another user said, that statistic includes the population of northern states where slavery was illegal. But also, ownership of slaves was attributed only to the head of households, not all members of a household. Not to say that is the incorrect way of listing ownership of slaves, but it obscures that point that if the head of the household directly benefit from owning slaves, so to does the rest of the family directly benefit from slavery.

If you were to give a more honest stat on who benefited directly from slavery in the South, you can easily get figures between 20-30 percent.

Okay, going with your explanation, it was a rebellion. So what?

That doesnt mitigate the fact that the South rebelled in order to protect slavery which morally bankrupted their reason for rebelling.

Why is this unquoted?
What's the direct response here?
I'm trying to learn, Veeky Forums

>heretofore have softened the asperities which necessarily are the concomitants
>now therefore i am compelled e necessitati rei to employ a measure

Speaks for itself, no?

And now the POTUS reads at a 2nd grade level.

see
It was fought over slaves *and more*.
You might say it was fought over slaves *because* of the more. The socio-economic reasons don't revolve around slavery, slavery revolves around the socio-economic reasons.

Currently the country relies on fossil fuels for most of its energy. This is what you call the status quo, and it cannot be helped.
If tomorrow the government declared coal illegal, the shit would hit the fan.
And if somehow that government won the ensuing fiasco, all but the richest and greenest states would be ruined for hundreds of years. This is what happens when you try to force the hand of progress. It's what happens when your vision of what the world *should* be does not take into account what it *is*.
Also see: Bolshevism, National Socialism

It does, but it's like taking the declaration of independence as the only document that represents american values. It lacks context.
See The Civil War had "nothing to do with slavery" as much as it had "everything to do with slavery". The issue was not good versus evil. It was Unionists versus Confederates.

Let me be clear!

That amount of labor being indroduced into the economy of the south would have dropped the wages far below what they were before the war, too many workers for not enough jobs.

Many Northerners hated the South because they thought an expanding Slave Power would bring black slaves into their communities, or onto the frontier. So in a sense, they fought to keep slaves AWAY from them.

While it wasnt starkly good vs evil, one side had a lot more good than the other.

No it's more like I in my house decided of my own volition to join a neighborhood watch, said neighborhood watch began doing things I disagreed with and I decided to leave because I thought that was okay but then some dude stood in my living room refusing to go. When I poked the dude with a stick to make him leave they burned my house to the ground and had 20 guys stand in the ashes while I tried to rebuild.

By what metric? Racism? Racists were everywhere in the Union. Don't think that because the north was an abolitionist union that they had overcome prejudice in a way the south hadn't. They simply had the convenience of being less agrarian. It's like fish outlawing air dependence.

Or is it something superficial, like bad teeth and funny accents? This is before widespread southern poverty.
Perhaps it's about principle - the southern principle to uphold the law above all else, even when it's inconvenient to face.
Or even mercy: did unionists murder less of their own bretherin in the war than confederates?

Would you call them traitors?
Try to also keep in mind that directly after the war, union generals still held confederates in high esteem. They were all veterans to one another and knew they deserved to be honored and respected. Winston Churchill has a very nice quote about the integrity of Robert E. Lee.

Meanwhile, millennial suburbanites who know as much about the war as their blogs tell them, and have as much patriotism as pop culture won't mock, have no qualms referring to ages-dead men as traitors.

Yeah but slaves was peoples so fuck you and your unmoral justificstion Nazi White Supremisist KKK southern.

T. Yankee, liberal, atheist femanon

>fpbp

>he says as he exhales deeply
Phew, you almost had to challenge your biases.