It wasn't about slavery, I mean yeah the vice president of the confederacy made a speech saying slavery was the cornerstone of the CSA, and multiple seceding states released documents that explicitly stated they were seceding in large part because of slavery, and all the seceding states were slave owning states, and West Virginia exists because they split from Virginia as they had no slaves and thus no reason to fight to hold them, and the CSA constitution mandated that any new state would be required to be a slave state... but... umm...

So, this annoys me to no end, because the first dude is technically right, Lincoln came in to office with no intention to outlaw slavery, although he did want to keep it confined to the states it was already legal in. And what he’s actually wrong about is that Lincoln made it about slavery to get the support of the northerners - he actually made sure that it northerners believed it was about “keeping the union together.” Remember the union still had the slave states of Kentucky, West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware and Missouri. He wanted to keep these states in the union.

Lincoln (through Seward) stressed the anti-slavery stuff to Europeans, many of whom wanted to intervene on the side of the confederacy because that was where they got their cotton. The industrial north also was a threat to industrial Europe, but the agrarian south was a source of raw materials. But by stressing the anti-slavery stuff in Europe (and then of course the emancipation proclamation which didn’t actually outlaw slavery in the border states) he ensured Europe could not intervene on behalf of the confederacy since it would be so unpopular. So, in the states it was about the union, abroad it was about slavery.

But anyway, he’s right on a technicality that, for Lincoln, it was not really about slavery. But this does not mean the war itself was not about slavery. His conclusion rests on the assumption that in a war, two sides must be diametrically opposed to one another, so if Lincoln and the north were not fighting against slavery, therefore the south could not be fighting for slavery.

But as others have pointed out, the south explicitly says they are fighting to preserve the institution of slavery. They are worried about waning political power also - if Lincoln stopped the spread of slavery across the continent as he desired, the growth of free states would mean congress would not be as evenly split between slave and free states, opening up the possibility of legislating an end to slavery.

So the war was about slavery, and would not have occurred without slavery. Often we point to the Battle of Sumter as the beginning of the civil war, but many historians also point out the popular civil war could instead be said to begin in 1859 in Harper’s Ferry, or with Bleeding Kansas and the Pottawotamie Massacre, or maybe the caning of Charles sumner or the murder of Elijah Lovejoy, or any of the political battles that arose when the US began to expand west and the question arose “what about slavery.” All of these events are directly about slavery and it would be difficult to argue otherwise.

And also, just as a last thing “many southern generals didn’t care about slavery.” I have no idea how true that is and it doesn’t matter, because the war was not fought because of southern generals but because of politicians, southern landowners, and an economy resting on the subjugation of Black people, and that’s why they were fighting.

As bad as this lie is, it's not as bad as the lie that "slavery was good for the slaves" that republicans are pushing now.

💀

iT wAs AbOuT sTaTeS rIgHtS!

yeah states rights to do what exactly?

Of course it was about slavery. Aka money. They were intrinsically linked, and outlawing slavery would have trashed their largely cash crop economy while the North's industrialization kept right on chugging away. The racism was more complicated but primarily served to keep the poor - free - white citizenry from realizing that the rich elite were the real enemy. Just like today, really.

I had some teachers pushing this bullshit. And they want to claim systemic racism doesn't exist.

The best part is when they refer to it as "The War of Northern Aggression." I suspect they will someday refer to WWII as "The War of Liberal Aggression."

It's, I think, sort of true that the Civil War wasn't always going to necessarily mean the end of slavery if the north won.

It started as a war to keep the union together, and initially a lot of people in the north thought that it would end quickly and that the states would return to the union and give up their rebellion.

However, as time went on and the losses started to pile up, it became clear to Lincoln and the other northern leaders that a war with this much bloodshed must end the slavery debate for good. That is why Lincoln ultimately wrote and delivered the Emancipation Proclamation.

But it's a point that's splitting a lot of hairs and very nuanced, because the Civil War started when pro-slavery states seceded from the union because they were afraid that a president elected without consent from any of the southern states might move to eliminate slavery...so summarily, the Civil War was definitely about slavery from beginning to end.

TL;DR: The Civil War was about slavery.

The easiest counter to the States’ Rights argument is “States’ Rights to do what?”.

They are part right, if we really want to give them the benefit of the doubt. For the south it was absolutely about preserving slavery, but for the north abolishing it was still kind of a controversial topic.

The decision to make it about ending slavery from Lincoln's part was part tactical, even though he personally always wanted to do so anyway. It made a lot of former slaves and other black people available for enlistment and also secured the support of people opposing slavery.

But initially it was more about the southern paranoia of the north forcing them to abolish slavery and since the north could not provide any security about this, they decided to quit, which lead the north to try and preserve the union.

At least as far as I know.

fighting a war over slavery was so fun for texas; they did it twice and the american civil war was the second one.

and then continued with segregation; you would think they learn their lesson by now. lol

Now, hear me out! It wasn't about Slavery, it was about not ending Slavery!

This is why we need school standards. I was taught this at home and believed it till I got to college.

This is the shit you get when your knowledge of history is based solely on broadcasts from your preferred 24-hour news network and/or Youtube.

Apparently reading history books is hard.

(Also, for everyone here, read up on Benjamin Lay. The founding fathers knew what piece of shit slavers they were because there was at least one prominent person willing to tell them in the Mid-1700's.)

Just look at the primary source documents that declare the purpose of the war, Mississippi is a good example:

A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union.

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.

Saying something with the word “fact” at the end makes it true. Fact.

Just decontextualized nonsense. I suspect this is a corruption of some idea about lincoln's thoughts about slavery paired with some wholly fabricated victimhood propaganda about the slave states.

For anyone who (like me) had trouble with history: After Kansas elected to be a free state the soon-to-be confederacy saw the writing on the wall for slavery. When the electoral college fucked up with a split vote between 4 candidates lincoln (an abolitionist) came out on top after several vote rounds as he was the closest to start. Instead of taking the political L peacefully the pro-slavery faction decided to kill as many people as possible and got wrecked.

Lost Cause Cultists make me sick.

As long as you don't ask the traitor leadership, who said over and over again that the war is explicitly about slavery and enslaving PoC in particular. The legalization of slavery was a requirement for entry into the confederacy. It was built into their constitution that anyone who wanted to join had to allow slavery.

When someone comes at you with this, hit 'em with the cornerstone speech. Never had it fail yet.

That's how they teach it in Floriduh.

Too bad that when the North won, the South moved towards segregation with the Jim Crow laws because they were a bunch of racist shit headed sore losers.

#confederationly incorrect

So, prepare for nuance. There is the slightest bit of truth in what they're saying. Lincoln did not initially make the war about slavery. Yes, the south 100% did leave over slavery, but originally the war was just about getting the states back together. It still feels incredibly disingenuous to say "the war wasn't about slavery" because of that though. For one side leaving it was, it just wasn't about slavery to the other side yet. I'd have to see the context of this comment but I feel hard pressed to imagine it as anything other than Lost Cause propaganda.

It wasn't about slavery, it was about owning people, okay?! Duh!