In a recent episode John Oliver said the cause of the American Civil War as 99% slavery and 1% other stuff?

b8

But the answer is yes. There may be literally no other war in history whose cause is as clear and well-preserved as this one's; everything, from the statements of the leaders of the South to their constitution to their official declarations of secession mention slavery as their casus belli. If you deny something so well-supported by contemporary evidence then you're basically living in a world where no history is ever verified to have ever happened.

I thought that the Revolution was strongly motivated by mercantile types wanting to protect their business against unfair taxation/privileges granted to competitors?

From what I can tell, the merchant class were getting screwed over by the british simply making prices so cheap that they couldn't compete, and the rich were paying taxes to compensate.

I know this is a bait thread, but yes it was about slavery.

For the most part you're right, and yet the CSA still had to be put down. Not for the reasons that actually made that happen, but for clinging to chattel slavery. Again, that wasn't REALLY why they put it down, or something common soldiers gave a shit about (except like 1/10 of union soldiers) but that's why it needed to happen.

The vast majority of soldiers on both sides didn't really give a shit either way, they were in the war because both sides instituted a draft. If you live in Mississippi, and the government comes knocking at your door and says you gotta go to war or face consequences, are you going to say no because you have no stake in it, or are you going to take the path of least resistance? Well reality shows 99% will just say "fuck it, I guess I'm going to war"

What if slaves never was and maybe the South would be better and then USA would not be a war country?

Essentially, yes. It should be noted, however, that the Union's will to fight wasn't particularly motivated by freeing the slaves, as some people like to portray.

If common soldiers didn't care about it, then why were John Brown's Body and Battle Hymn of the Republic so popular as marching hymns? Why did practically all other marching hymns make reference to freeing slaves? Why did the Emancipation Proclamation enhance morale? The fact is, slavery had been outlawed in most of the nation since 1803 (that's an important part of the narrative people forget, outside of the South with 1/5 of the free population, slavery wasn't a thing for the country since shortly after the Revolution), and the vast majority of Northern soldiers saw it as an evil. Even if they didn't think that blacks were actually equal to whites; they thought blacks were inferior humans, but that even inferior humans shouldn't be treated that way.

Also it would be about 1/10 even if literally the only ones who cared about it were black Union soldiers. There were near 200,000 of them.

Reading comprehension. You're right.
And the CSA still had to be destroyed.

I might underestimate the white northerners a bit, but hardly any of the white ones were ACTUALLY willing to die over it like the blacks. They wouldn't go die of their own accord just for that. To most of the whites it was just a facet of their wider revulsion at best.

What I don't get is how General Lee has to be either 100% lionized or 100% demonized. Yes he fought for the south, but he literally only did so because Virginia joined the Confederacy, and he didn't want to be put into a scenario where he had to possibly raze his own hometown to the ground and kill his friends and family because his state picked the wrong side. He was a Virginia patriot far more than a Confederate loyalist. If Virginia had stayed with the Union, he would've most likely taken Lincoln's offer to lead the Union army.

That being said the man was no saint. While he wasn't the biggest fan of slavery out there, he seemed to genuinely believe that bringing blacks here even as a slave was better than letting them live in what he saw as the savagery of Africa, he said as much in one of his letters.

Well yeah, probably. But still, it should be noted that 94% of Union troops were volunteers. So they were strongly motivated by a variety of factors, more than their Confederate counterparts (who were 83% volunteers).

>expecting a British comedian to give you accurate information about the American Civil War

Now that the dust has settled can we all agree that the Civil War was not about North vs South but more about East vs West

He also enslaved free black man during his campaigns into the North.

Classic my man, just throw your political opponents into prison! Fantastic idea why didn't we think of this before

>larp as a pinko
>reply to larper as if their post were real
>????
>profit
Except if you do it with all the subtlety of a thrown brick, you only fool yourself.

He's right about that, yes. It doesn't matter if the person saying it is an unfunny british fag, he's still right.

Well, he's right, but he's wrong about why he thinks he's right.
The Slave States very much wanted to keep their slaves, and it was their driving motivation, but that's not what started the war.

The War was about representation. You see, Lincoln was never going to take the Slaves, and it was not his intention to do so, despite being anti-slave. He was perfectly willing to let them keep the slaves in the short term, ie their lifetimes or thereabouts, in order to preserve the Union.

The reason why they didn't take that deal is because they realized that the election of Lincoln was the writing on the wall for the South. If the trend continued, more and more Slave States would come into the Union, and skew the elections away from their interests.

They wanted to build a country that would reflect their interests without their individual voices being drowned out by the numerical superiority of the Electoral Votes of the Union allied states. That's why the constitution of the Confederacy was so heavy on instituting Slavery, to make sure nobody could ever stop it.

So, ultimately he's correct, but that doesn't make him not a retard

Why do you leftists subhumans lick the boots of niggers?

isn't there a proclamation by the Confederacy that the war is literally over slavery?

My only political opinion is that those who defy me must die horribly.
Oliver lives, because I still need to determine his position on Thomas Cromwell.

Thanks for the hot tip

>Is this correct
No. It was a main factor in the war, but of course he is engaging in ye old
>Northerners were progressive heroes who wanted to free the slaves
Meme. When most of it was
>We want to preserve the Union at all costs, goddamn traitors in the South
And
>Oh top of the morning to you there conscription officers! Need something?

The main causes of the Civil War were
>Slavery
>States Rights
>Sectional tensions
The Northerners had abolitionist elements to them as well, but all you have to do is read biographies on Lincoln and Sherman and the modern liberal myth of the progressive heroes is misspelled pretty fast. Not ever everyone who fought for the South was pro slavery.

No you're probably thinking of the declarations of secession, they also list other issues like states right and just general complaints about the North.

All of which are summed up in the Cornerstone Speech, which is a posthumous name to a specific line in the speech that says "anti-racial egalitarianism is the cornerstone of the Confederacy". Among other things it states a lot more than just slavery though

>>Oh top of the morning to you there conscription officers! Need something?
Except 94% of them were volunteers.

"slavery" is the most commonly used word in all the documents relating to the war, and the confederate constitution

just saying

>"slavery" is the most commonly used word in all the documents
You sure it's not some article or conjunction?

>In a recent episode John Oliver said the cause of the American Civil War as 99% slavery and 1% other stuff?
True, but the 1% of other stuff begat why slavery was so important to the South. The entire economy of the United States, the North included, was built on the backs of enslaved plantation workers. The North abolished slavery for purely economic reasons; the level of industrialization had risen to the point where one free person could perform the work of several enslaved people and require none of the upkeep of slaves. The Southern economy hadn't industrialized enough to support this and they feared that the North would force abolition on them, which would have destroyed their economy.

tl;dr the war wasn't fought over a question of slavery, but slavery was the way that question was framed.

Not all of them.

I'm reading these here, by the way.

It's as if god himself made an OP designed solely to infuriate dixiefags

>forgot link

avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/csapage.asp

>ctrl+F "and"
>154 results
woops user-kun looks like you were wrong

>letting you pedantry get in the way of a perfectly valid point

If you want to get boringly technical, one could argue that the idealogical foundations for succession were laid during the nullification crisis. South Carolina just decided to declare the tariff of 1828 (aka the tariff of abominations) null and void within the state, superceding federal authority and nearly triggering a constitutional crisis.

John c Calhoun's advocation of a policy of "nullification" throughout this crisis and after did form the backbone of successionist thought. This is the "how" rather than the "why" of South succeeding, which is of course about slavery.

Tl;dr- tariffs were a huge fucking economic divide between north and south, so much so that the civil war could've started 20 years earlier. But that economic divide was enabled by, y'know, slavery.

>Pic related because I know few of you were taught American history between the Rev and civil war

God I wish the US would get some real udssr style communism.
All you snowflakes would get thrown into the gulag and/or shot in the first weeks of it.

Delusional fucking faggots.

t. old ass russian guy.

Completely transparent.

>I can't make good opinions, so I rely on bunch of edgy buzzwords

>the revisionist anti white leftist saying others can't argue

Argue these:

>its not about slavery, only every second word is "slave"

See Saying that the Civil War was fought because of slavery is like saying WWI was fought over a blood feud.

That has absolutely no relevance to what we're discussing here.

Present an argument instead of le edgy buzzwords or leave, brainlet

the direct cause of the Civil War was the Republicans' curtailing of slavery's expansion in newly admitted western states. the south believed this was part of a slippery slope where the north would slowly take away slave owners' legal rights at the time until slavery was illegal which isn't too illogical given the situation in other countries where slavery was legal/recently legal at the time.

the north didn't want to free the slaves, they wanted slavery to only be part of the south where plantations could be operated with a high revenue from its presence. Republicans weren't equal to abolitionists in ideology, they were just similar.

He's wrong.

It was 100% state's right. To own slaves.

>If the Civil War wasn't fought over slavery explain why slavery is all over their articles of secession
>No, not like that

except none of that had happened, the Republicans had just won election but the Civil War starts before they are even put into office, this wasn't over some Republican policy that was enacted, it was over fears of what Republicans might do, namely points that you mention, but there is a big difference between something that actually happened already and something that might happen

also that is only the view of some Republicans, some were full abolitionists given they were considered more radical in 1860 although eventually the whole party aligns more with the radical wing

also you fail to mention that arguable the question of western slavery had been settle decades before but Southern Judges on the Supreme Court threw out the old compromises. So one could argue that the South was expansionist in regards to slavery while the North just wanted to stick with what had already been agreed to on the subject

>The war wasn't about slavery, it was about economy!!!!!
... which was about slavery.
>It was about culture and tradition!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
... which was about slavery.

The war was about slavery, put as many hoops as you want in front of it.

If you get your information from a low quality TV personality, you're a brainlet. This goes for left and right.
This. Union, like their name suggests, wanted to preserve the Union. Lincoln himself wanted to ship all the blacks 'back' to Liberia.

Among other things.

>the war was fought over economy based on slavery, not over slavery
>economy based on slavery has nothing to do with slavery
>sjws btfo!

>udssr
Fuck off, Hans

>God I wish the US would get some real udssr style communism.

?

State governments - Soviet
Federal government - the Party

how doesnt anyone see this is sarcastic

>Hurr, I'm a fucking idiot and can't tell the difference between cause and effect.

Slavery is an economic system, imbecile.
The wars was fought over slavery. You just call it "economy" so you can take pride in your grandfather's life instead of making your own better.

>The war was about slavery, put as many hoops as you want in front of it.
The hoops matter. If there were no abolitionist fears then the institution of slavery would have died out within a generation or two, just like everywhere else in the world. If the federal government had a way to offset the lost incomes of plantation owners until they could industrialize their production there would have been no fears of abolitionism. If the US had industrialized at a uniform rate then the idea of slave/free states doesn't rise. If you want to understand why the Civil War happened you cannot reduce it to "slavery, lol" and expect to be taken seriously by anybody with an interest in history.

well he is right.
>articles of secession say that it was because of the state's rights to own slaves.

>an economy based of slaves is not slavery.

Slavery is a caste system, shithead. The economic system you're looking for is the "plantation system," characterized by large, labour intensive agricultural systems known as "plantations." When slavery was abolished the plantation system survived, despite major upheaval, through sharecropping.

>The labour force determines the economic system
No wonder leftist economies always fail.

>I might underestimate the white northerners a bit, but hardly any of the white ones were ACTUALLY willing to die over it like the blacks
Most soldiers aren't willing to die. Read `The Face of Battle` most soldiers think that dying is mostly done by the others, not they themselves.

>massive shift in what counts as property.
>not linked to the system itself.

In what way doesn't it? A labor force of industrial workers will by necessity be an industrial economy.

>Farming done with draft animals
>Farming done with combustion engines
>Different economic system?
You don't have the first clue about economics.

Not him, but I think those would result in different economic systems. The former will be more labor intensive, and see a larger rural peasantry, whereas the other will likely see enclosures and such, resulting in a greater urban population.

A labour force of industrial workers is predicated on industrial methods of production. The means of labour are the cause and the labour force is the effect.

Leave him alone. Put yourself in his position, his family were slave owners, he'd have to face reality and demonize his own kin.
Feelz > realz, he'll always invent a reality in which slavery was not why his grandfather killed americans.

your tangent was some incomprehensible point about anti white leftists and not replying to the original statement, which was that the civil war was fought over slaves rights.

Again, present an argument or fuck off

Eventually, as the economy adapts to a labour force that isn't as preoccupied with farming. The point was that an economic system doesn't change just because you're using different tools.

>Projecting this hard
My family wasn't even on the continent during the Civil War, buddy.

I mean, take a step back and analyze it logically even if he is a dickhead. The slave states (or at least the rich plantation owners who effectively hold political, cultural and economic power) fought hard for their right to own other human beings.

Its true the Union and most people living there didnt really care so much about slavery, some even hated blacks and the threat free blacks posed to labour markets but they wanted to deserve the union so indirectly it was about slavery.

Plus the Confederacy were re-enslaving free blacks during their campaigns in the north. Something Lee should have stopped but either couldnt or wouldnt. I could understand him wanting to fight for his state but his failure to prevent reprisals against escaped slaves and freedmen shows a lack of moral character (when compared to his personal views).

no, but you go out of your way to defend slavery and try to separate it from the plantation economy forgetting that things like the great migration happened after slavery ended and the decline of cash crops in the south that followed.

>The point was that an economic system doesn't change just because you're using different tools.

But... like, I don't mean to nitpick, but I think that's the driving force behind a change in economic systems. The switch from agrarian to industrial was brought about due to new tools becoming the norm, at least in part.

Are you really this dense? Are you really arguing that the Civil War was fought over slavery because suddenly free labour left poor economic conditions for better prospects? Are you really arguing that the entire institution of slavery in the South existed in a vacuum? Are you ignorant of how the Southern economies rebuilt themselves largely on sharecropping, a prototypical form of serfdom? Get the fuck out of here if you're going to project your modern views on history.

You're looking at the big picture, which I completely agree with. I'm talking about the difference between one set of tools and another on a single farm.

Maybe a better example for me to give would be the difference between human power and animal power.

>because
No, it was an immediate after effect of the civil war because suddenly a large group of darkies weren't being shackled to their plantations and could move for better prospects.

The institution of slavery in the south continued to run in a world that had had left behind slavery. The brits managed to grow cash crops without buying and selling people outright for some time.

The southern economy was largely eclipsed by the north in terms of economic sophistication and value added to the economy by that point. They kept continuing the institution of slavery beyond it's economic merits until the war forced them to free their slaves.

There were a myriad of reasons per sé, but if you pulled the thread, and walked the dog on them, most were rooted in the issue of slavery

>No, it was an immediate after effect of the civil war because suddenly a large group of darkies weren't being shackled to their plantations and could move for better prospects.
So what does this have to do with the War?

>The institution of slavery in the south continued to run in a world that had had left behind slavery. The brits managed to grow cash crops without buying and selling people outright for some time.
The difference between the British and the South was the efficiency of labour. The British used industrial equipment and techniques where they could. The South did not have access to the same, whether physically or economically.

>The southern economy was largely eclipsed by the north in terms of economic sophistication and value added to the economy by that point.
This is why the Great Migration happened when the South was unable to support free labour.

>They kept continuing the institution of slavery beyond it's economic merits until the war forced them to free their slaves.
There were still economic merits to the plantation system, hence sharecropping during Reconstruction and beyond. Until industrial techniques and equipment are implemented, slavery is the most efficient form of labour in the plantation system.

whoops, I fucked up and replied to myself

bit embarassing desu, refer to

>slavery is the most efficient
yes, which is why every other cash crop producing economy stopped slavery.
The british cash crops were grown in india and at the time of the civil war farming was still done in largely the same way. We are talking about cash crops which still needed a lot of tending via human labor.

Waddup OP. Enjoying your thread so far?

You mean to tell me that Britain managed to grow labour-intensive cash crops in a region where there was an abundance of labour and a pre-existing caste system? I guess this completely different set of circumstances changes everything about American slavery!

>pre existing caste system
americlap education.

>In a recent episode John Oliver said the cause of the American Civil War as 99% slavery and 1% other stuff?
>Is this correct?
No but if you're watching John Oliver it's obviously not the most retarded thing you believe

Except the South was perfectly fine with the ugitivefugitive slave act. They didn't care about states rights, only the right states' rights.

>India never have caste sir only white devil came to give us caste sir
Fuck off, Pajeet.

India had a caste system, yes.
It was going out of fashion, but it was still tradition and everyone was aware of it.
The British revived and promoted it to mainstream and made use of it.

>caste system is the same as slavery.
fuck off deShaun