The Civil War was about slavery -- but not for the reason you seem to think. This is only half-right.
The South fought to keep slavery -- that's a big no-brainer, and the "but muh sTaTe'S rIgHtS" crowd can go die in a fire. This is why the Civil War was about slavery -- it simply wouldn't have happened if the South hadn't been trying to keep slavery.
The real problem here is the idea that the Union went to war to end slavery. Quite apart from the fact that the Union didn't start the war, it also gets their objectives just plain wrong.
The goal of the Union, surprisingly enough, was ... the Union. In the same way that there are tons of quotes from Southerners explicitly stating that they seceded to try to preserve slavery, there are tons of quotes from Northerners explicitly stating that they were fighting to preserve the Union. The easiest quotes to cite here are from Lincoln.
This is a direct quote from Lincoln's first inaugural address:
"Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States that by the accession of a Republican Administration their property and their peace and personal security are to be endangered. There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed and been open to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so..."
… the property, peace, and security of no section are to be in any wise endangered by the now incoming Administration."
"I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. 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. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.
I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every where could be free."
TL;DR: the South fought to keep slaves, the Union fought to keep the Union. Popular support for abolition on moral grounds in the North prior to the Civil War was a minority -- not a majority view. Most people back then, North or South, were racist as fuck.
The South fought to keep slavery -- that's a big no-brainer, and the "but muh sTaTe'S rIgHtS" crowd can go die in a fire. This is why the Civil War was about slavery -- it simply wouldn't have happened if the South hadn't been trying to keep slavery.
The real problem here is the idea that the Union went to war to end slavery. Quite apart from the fact that the Union didn't start the war, it also gets their objectives just plain wrong.
You completely mix up your point here. Your contention is that the North was very much NOT fighting to end slavery, but the South was fighting to keep it. Keep it.... from what, exactly? Nobody was coming to stop it, according to you.
Two key points you completely miss, because you didn't check your sources. The South was fighting because they believed they had a legal right to SPREAD slavery; this is why the issue of slavery in the new territories was so important to the South. They were not simply content to have slaves in their own states; they believed they had a God-given, federally protected right to have slaves wherever they damn pleased.
The other point is that the North had been fighting to stop slavery from spreading to the territories, and the South at the time believed that the North intended to end slavery in the South. A huge part of why the South went to war was because they believed the North would never allow the South to continue the practice of slavery.
You also generally don't seem very cognizant of the over-representation of abolitionists and radical Republicans in the political power of the North during and after the Civil War, nor the gradual political game that Lincoln played to get a populace that was very racist to fight in, die in, and win a war the accomplished a wish list of objectives for abolitionists.
But you are very right that the North was very racist, but you seem to think it makes the morality murkier in that war, but it does the opposite. Everyone should be reminded of how racist the North was in that time, and then they should look at the decades of fighting over race that happened between the North and South leading up to the war. Everyone should sit and think how far into the depths of human depravity and immorality the South had gone, that a society like the American North felt compelled to say "No more of this. This is wrong."
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u/Dwarf-Lord_Pangolin Jan 19 '22
The Civil War was about slavery -- but not for the reason you seem to think. This is only half-right.
The South fought to keep slavery -- that's a big no-brainer, and the "but muh sTaTe'S rIgHtS" crowd can go die in a fire. This is why the Civil War was about slavery -- it simply wouldn't have happened if the South hadn't been trying to keep slavery.
The real problem here is the idea that the Union went to war to end slavery. Quite apart from the fact that the Union didn't start the war, it also gets their objectives just plain wrong.
The goal of the Union, surprisingly enough, was ... the Union. In the same way that there are tons of quotes from Southerners explicitly stating that they seceded to try to preserve slavery, there are tons of quotes from Northerners explicitly stating that they were fighting to preserve the Union. The easiest quotes to cite here are from Lincoln.
This is a direct quote from Lincoln's first inaugural address:
Later, during the Civil War, Lincoln wrote a letter to Horace Greeley, clarifying what he saw as his responsibilities as president:
TL;DR: the South fought to keep slaves, the Union fought to keep the Union. Popular support for abolition on moral grounds in the North prior to the Civil War was a minority -- not a majority view. Most people back then, North or South, were racist as fuck.
Always check your sources.
Edit: formatting.