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Originally Posted by pelathais
Thanks for the thoughts, D4T. The chaotic nature of human history is what stands out to me as well. While obviously slavery was unjust, it's worth noting that the Bible doesn't even condemn it. The Bible merely sought to engage the practice and get the slaveholders in Roman times to act with compassion and brotherly kindness. I think that it was by emphasizing a "one-on-one" kind of relationship between slave and slaveholder that we got things to break up a bit. Also, by declaring the slave to be the slaveholder's "brother," the essential humanity of the slave could not be questioned.
The Civil War ended up being largely a conflict over slavery. Even the "States Rights" issue involved slavery - A state's right to do what? And, whether new states should be slave or free? The fact that the other intense regional and cultural differences between North and South ended up being summed up by the slavery issue speaks to both the importance of that issue, but also to the victory of the "Slave Aristocracy" over other elements within Southern society.
A lot of Southern history involved a fierce competition and dispute about how the economy of the region was to be built. There were intense debates over having a "Nation of Farmers" versus having a "Nation of Plantations." The price and availability of land was at stake along with other issues. If a man could not afford to own his own farm because the Plantation system was driving up speculation and prices, then he was as much a servant as most slaves.
The Slave Aristocracy temporarily won that contest, only to loose it all in the Civil War. For us today to equate all things "Southern" or all things "Confederate" with the "Slave Aristocracy" ignores the lives, contributions and values of the Southerners who opposed slavery. The vast majority of Southerners never owned a slave. And, those who didn't own slaves but still had antipathy toward blacks usually did so because they were in competition with the labor of black slaves, having been driven off their own land because of the very existence of the slaves.
Unfairness and injustice dominated the lives of so many people. Those that made it through those times can accurately be called "Heroes," IMHO (discounting the obviously horrendous scoundrels like those at Andersonville, etc).
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Yeah... There was far more to it than that.
But... even so. The pivot point of whether there would or would not be war is this one point. If the south seceded there was going to be war. If the south did not secede there would have been no war.
The war wasn't about slavery. Slavery was an issue of the day. An issue that every civilized society worked past without war during that same span of time. It was about exactly what Lincoln said it was about... to save the union... in other words... to keep the south from seceding.
That is the one factor that would have called war or no war.
One can discuss how much slavery had to do with the south seceding... but the war was about keeping the south from seceding.
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