Robert E. Lee may have opposed slavery...but it was not a strong enough belief to cause him to not secede

freeman3 wrote:My mom is from Louisiana (near Shreveport)--I have quite a few relatives from Louisiana and Texas, so I am not detached from this issue. I certainly would not want to say my ancestors were bad people. Most of the people fighting for the South did not make up the rules. They were conditioned to think that slavery was a good thing. And none of us know whether if we were put in the same position we would have the moral sensibility to have gone against the prevailing views of society. Part of the reason that slavery flourished in the South as opposed to the North was due to agricultural conditions were more favorable in the South for it (also of course, for whatever reason, the South seemed to inherit the Cavaliers whereas the North got the Puritans if we want to analogize to the British Civil War). In any case, a certain perspective needs to be taken with regard to the South and slavery--they were a bit slower to get rid of slavery but others were not blameless, either.

I think that just about every Southern soldier knew that ultimately they were fighting about slavery. What did they think the South seceded for in the first place? But of course they were also fighting to protect their homes, their families (typically there were a lot of Southerners who would straggle anytime the Southern army went up north), to not appear cowardly...They knew the war was about slavery but they were not going to refuse to fight for their homes, their friends, their families regardless of their degree of support for slavery (or how important that issue was to them).

Robert E. Lee may have opposed slavery...but it was not a strong enough belief to cause him to not secede.

Every southern soldier had some complicity in not standing up against slavery, but as I said that is not an easy thing to do when belief in the rightness of slavery is a central prop of the society you grew up in. And you would be seen to be abandoning your friends and families and neighbors when they were most in need Let's just say it's not a black and white issue--there are a lot of shades of gray there.

So I think you can laud the exploits of Southern soldiers and keep that as a part of the cultural heritage (and sort of forget that the fighting was ultimately about slavery) without at the same time to be implicitly supporting Southern slavery.

Maybe I am wrong about that but that's my instinct on it. Probably would not feel the same way if I were black.

The flying of the Confederate flag by Southern states was not appropriate, but I don't think that Southerners have to completely reject their heritage. But I don't think it is appropriate to revise history to say that the Civil War was not about slavery. Of course it was and everyone knew it. But I think to be fair you have to factor in everything else that I discussed above.

Sassenach wrote:How many more direct quotations from the decision makers at the time explicitly stating in so many words that secession was about slavery do you want me to wheel out before you'll be prepared to admit that slavery was what the war was about ? I have plenty.

You're the one trying to rewrite history here DF. There are more primary sources than you can shake a stick at which prove beyond all reasonable doubt that it was the issue of slavery, and only the issue of slavery, which caused the South to secede from the Union. I'm flabbergasted that you're working so hard to try and argue otherwise.

In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.

That we do not overstate the dangers to our institution, a reference to a few facts will sufficiently prove.

The hostility to this institution commenced before the adoption of the Constitution, and was manifested in the well-known Ordinance of 1787, in regard to the Northwestern Territory.

The feeling increased, until, in 1819-20, it deprived the South of more than half the vast territory acquired from France.

The same hostility dismembered Texas and seized upon all the territory acquired from Mexico.

It has grown until it denies the right of property in slaves, and refuses protection to that right on the high seas, in the Territories, and wherever the government of the United States had jurisdiction.

It refuses the admission of new slave States into the Union, and seeks to extinguish it by confining it within its present limits, denying the power of expansion.

It tramples the original equality of the South under foot.

It has nullified the Fugitive Slave Law in almost every free State in the Union, and has utterly broken the compact which our fathers pledged their faith to maintain.

It advocates negro equality, socially and politically, and promotes insurrection and incendiarism in our midst.

It has enlisted its press, its pulpit and its schools against us, until the whole popular mind of the North is excited and inflamed with prejudice.

It has made combinations and formed associations to carry out its schemes of emancipation in the States and wherever else slavery exists.

It seeks not to elevate or to support the slave, but to destroy his present condition without providing a better.

It has invaded a State, and invested with the honors of martyrdom the wretch whose purpose was to apply flames to our dwellings, and the weapons of destruction to our lives.

It has broken every compact into which it has entered for our security.

It has given indubitable evidence of its design to ruin our agriculture, to prostrate our industrial pursuits and to destroy our social system.

It knows no relenting or hesitation in its purposes; it stops not in its march of aggression, and leaves us no room to hope for cessation or for pause.

It has recently obtained control of the Government, by the prosecution of its unhallowed schemes, and destroyed the last expectation of living together in friendship and brotherhood.

Utter subjugation awaits us in the Union, if we should consent longer to remain in it. It is not a matter of choice, but of necessity. We must either submit to degradation, and to the loss of property worth four billions of money, or we must secede from the Union framed by our fathers, to secure this as well as every other species of property. For far less cause than this, our fathers separated from the Crown of England.

Our decision is made. We follow their footsteps. We embrace the alternative of separation; and for the reasons here stated, we resolve to maintain our rights with the full consciousness of the justice of our course, and the undoubting belief of our ability to maintain it.

freeman3 wrote:Brad you could not be more wrong. Lincoln was not a coward; it was his unflinching determination to save the Union that played a major role in the victory. Personally opposed to slavery Lincoln realized that if he espoused abolitionism as the reason for the war then he would lose support in the North and the South would win. So he focused on what people in the North could agree on--union. As the terrible costs of the war piled on, he realized that he needed to strike harder at the South and provide at the same time a moral purpose to the war. So he issued the Emancipation Declaration . Lincoln had the political intuition to see what the country was ready for--that's not cowardice, that's great political judgment.

bbauska wrote:

freeman3 wrote:Brad you could not be more wrong. Lincoln was not a coward; it was his unflinching determination to save the Union that played a major role in the victory. Personally opposed to slavery Lincoln realized that if he espoused abolitionism as the reason for the war then he would lose support in the North and the South would win. So he focused on what people in the North could agree on--union. As the terrible costs of the war piled on, he realized that he needed to strike harder at the South and provide at the same time a moral purpose to the war. So he issued the Emancipation Declaration . Lincoln had the political intuition to see what the country was ready for--that's not cowardice, that's great political judgment.

Exactly. It was not just Southern support of Slavery that was a problem. Your statement infers that there is Northern support as well. I agree that Lincoln was fighting for Union, though not as much for abolition.

And, I don't care how many State declarations Sass posts. They tell us nothing about what motivated the enlisted troops.

Look at James McPherson's book on Why Men Fought in The Civil War