"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 Simpsons has the best take on this.
Apu is taking his citizenship test and the question is, "What was the cause of the Civil War?"
Apu starts to go off on economic and other causes and the testor says, "Just say slavery".
I would like to think that if the Civil War had never happened or if it had ended differently we still would have ended slavery long ago.
I would like to think that if the Civil War had never happened or if it had ended differently we still would have ended slavery long ago.
You fail to appreciate the role slavery played in Southern life. The reality was that prior to the Civil War there were in fact TWO American Dreams, one Southern, and one Northern. The war was about whether or not it would stay that way.
Lincoln's primary objective was to save the Union. He saw, wisely, that only by saving the Union could slavery be later eradicated. I suspect he really wanted slavery to be gone, but knew that he could only take it one step at a time.
My own view is that except in certain areas, slavery is economically inefficient. It works in the sex industry and a few other areas, but basically it's less efficient than a paid, motivated work force. Furthermore, too many southerners contemporary to the Civil War already viewed the institution negatively; it's fairly clear to me that it was on its way out, even if many of the wealthier southerners viewed with resentment the north's effort to push them to end it immediately. My guess is that without the civil war, slavery would have grown more and more unusual and finally been ended on its own, quite possibly without as much anger and destruction.
Then again, there are others who disagree and see my view as naive. Obviously I can't prove they're wrong.
If we take the model of the European peasant, tied by law to his Lord's land as a model, we can see that it did die out all over Europe. Considering the existence of such concepts as the droit de seigneur, European peasants weren't much different than slaves. Sometimes the change was bloody, like the French Revolution, and sometimes it wasn't. The last hold out was Russia, sometime around WWI, IIRC.
I suppose this is one of those times when we misintepret the practicality and moderation of a politician for revisionist ends.
Consider: what about Lincoln and the Republicans was so objectionable to the South?
It is true, yes, that the South considered it unconscionable that the North would dare lecture it on morality. Which precise moral issue did the North mostly lecture the South on?
And yes, some people fought out of loyalty to their homeland. But why did the leaders of those lands decide to invoke those loyalties (or, more accurately, invoke a crisis of conflicting loyalties)?
I am sympathetic to the beating Southern culture and life takes because of their unfortunate past. But the answer is not to pretend their past was not unfortunate; the answer is to let go of that unfortunate past, and let the South (and the rest of us) move on.
(And General Gordon's "undeniable" fact is quite deniable, unless one redefines "near its close" as "less than half-way through". The Emancipation Proclamation was issued on September 22, 1862, and took effect on January 1, 1863. Are we surprised that Confederate generals were eager participants in revisionist history, given their defense of a cause with such a rotten thread in it?)
Tom, the Russian serfs were freed in the late 1850s and early 1860s, gradually. Thus, the Russians beat us, strictly speaking, though some of the details weren't worked out until much later.
World War I was when the October Revolution happened, and the czar was deposed. Not long after, the Bolsheviks took over, and the Soviet Union was formed.
Rereading my previous post, I think it was too strong. I do not accuse Dean, or anyone else in this thread, of revisionism.
My point is that revisionism does exist in Civil War history, and the place of slavery in the conflict is one place where it is rampant--on both sides.
Slavery became a dead man walking in the United States when California entered the Union as a free state. The agrarian South was just not capable of adding people as fast as the industrialized North, so the North's population advantage would continue to increase. As the North became increasingly abolitionist, so too would the House of Representatives and the Electoral College, eventually giving the abolitionists control of all branches of the federal government except the Senate.
From the 1790's (when slaveholding Kentucky and Tennessee were added to the Union to balance free Rhode Island and Vermont) until 1850 free states and slave states were added to the Union in an alternating pattern, preserving balance on this issue in the Senate. Then in 1850 California, geographically a southern state, entered the Union as a free state, followed by Minnesota, Oregon, Kansas, and Nevada, all free states (presumably without the Civil War West Virginia would never have split off from Virginia).
If the West entered the Union entirely as free states, as Lincoln planned, slavery would eventually die by the mechanics of our Constitution. The writing was on the wall by 1861 (which is why the South seceded).
Jeff: If Lincoln had been offered surrender if he'd revoked the Emancipation Proclamation, I can't say he would have accepted it--but most of what I've read leads me to believe he would have.
The most important and undeniable fact, to me, is the simple fact that the vast majority of those who fought for the confederacy never owned slaves or had any intention of owning slaves. Some were abolitionists--and indeed, Robert E. Lee tried talking Jefferson Davis into emancipating the slaves as the war dragged on. Meanwhile, slave owners fought for the Union, and Maryland, a slave state stayed loyal.
Continuously denying people of southern heritage their dignity and their pride in the honor of their ancestors is destructive and foolish--and utterly unnecessary.
I'm pretty sure the Spaniards allowed slavery while they held it. Moreover they had a labor system that was close enough to make no never mind in some cases.
Apu is taking his citizenship test and the question is, "What was the cause of the Civil War?"
Apu starts to go off on economic and other causes and the testor says, "Just say slavery".
I would like to think that if the Civil War had never happened or if it had ended differently we still would have ended slavery long ago.
That's the quote I was looking for! Thanks.
You fail to appreciate the role slavery played in Southern life. The reality was that prior to the Civil War there were in fact TWO American Dreams, one Southern, and one Northern. The war was about whether or not it would stay that way.
Lincoln's primary objective was to save the Union. He saw, wisely, that only by saving the Union could slavery be later eradicated. I suspect he really wanted slavery to be gone, but knew that he could only take it one step at a time.
Yours,
Wince
Then again, there are others who disagree and see my view as naive. Obviously I can't prove they're wrong.
If we take the model of the European peasant, tied by law to his Lord's land as a model, we can see that it did die out all over Europe. Considering the existence of such concepts as the droit de seigneur, European peasants weren't much different than slaves. Sometimes the change was bloody, like the French Revolution, and sometimes it wasn't. The last hold out was Russia, sometime around WWI, IIRC.
Yours,
Tom Hawkson, aka Wince
Consider: what about Lincoln and the Republicans was so objectionable to the South?
It is true, yes, that the South considered it unconscionable that the North would dare lecture it on morality. Which precise moral issue did the North mostly lecture the South on?
And yes, some people fought out of loyalty to their homeland. But why did the leaders of those lands decide to invoke those loyalties (or, more accurately, invoke a crisis of conflicting loyalties)?
I am sympathetic to the beating Southern culture and life takes because of their unfortunate past. But the answer is not to pretend their past was not unfortunate; the answer is to let go of that unfortunate past, and let the South (and the rest of us) move on.
(And General Gordon's "undeniable" fact is quite deniable, unless one redefines "near its close" as "less than half-way through". The Emancipation Proclamation was issued on September 22, 1862, and took effect on January 1, 1863. Are we surprised that Confederate generals were eager participants in revisionist history, given their defense of a cause with such a rotten thread in it?)
World War I was when the October Revolution happened, and the czar was deposed. Not long after, the Bolsheviks took over, and the Soviet Union was formed.
My point is that revisionism does exist in Civil War history, and the place of slavery in the conflict is one place where it is rampant--on both sides.
From the 1790's (when slaveholding Kentucky and Tennessee were added to the Union to balance free Rhode Island and Vermont) until 1850 free states and slave states were added to the Union in an alternating pattern, preserving balance on this issue in the Senate. Then in 1850 California, geographically a southern state, entered the Union as a free state, followed by Minnesota, Oregon, Kansas, and Nevada, all free states (presumably without the Civil War West Virginia would never have split off from Virginia).
If the West entered the Union entirely as free states, as Lincoln planned, slavery would eventually die by the mechanics of our Constitution. The writing was on the wall by 1861 (which is why the South seceded).
Mike
The most important and undeniable fact, to me, is the simple fact that the vast majority of those who fought for the confederacy never owned slaves or had any intention of owning slaves. Some were abolitionists--and indeed, Robert E. Lee tried talking Jefferson Davis into emancipating the slaves as the war dragged on. Meanwhile, slave owners fought for the Union, and Maryland, a slave state stayed loyal.
Continuously denying people of southern heritage their dignity and their pride in the honor of their ancestors is destructive and foolish--and utterly unnecessary.