Was the Civil War About Slavery?|5 Minute Video
What caused the Civil War? Did the North care about abolishing slavery? Did the South withdraw since of slavery?
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Script:
Was the American Civil War fought because of slavery? More than 150 years later on this remains a controversial question.
Because numerous individuals do not want to think that the people of the southern states were prepared to pass away and combat to preserve an ethically repugnant institution. There has to be another reason, we are told.
Slavery was, by a wide margin, the single most essential cause of the Civil War– for both sides. Before the presidential election of 1860, a South Carolina newspaper cautioned that the problem before the country was, “the extinction of slavery,” and called on all who were not prepared to, “surrender the institution,” to act.
The secession files of every Southern state made clear, crystal clear, that they were leaving the Union in order to safeguard their “peculiar organization” of slavery– a phrase that at the time meant “the thing unique to them.” The vote to withdraw was 169 to 0 in South Carolina, 166 to 7 in Texas, 84 to 15 in Mississippi. In no Southern state was the vote close.
Alexander Stephens of Georgia, the Confederacy’s Vice President plainly articulated the views of the South in March 1861. “Our new federal government,” he stated, was established on slavery. “Its structures are laid, its cornerstone rests upon the terrific truth that the Negro is not equivalent to the white male; that slavery, submission to the remarkable race, is his typical and natural condition.” Regardless of the evidence, lots of continue to argue that other elements superseded slavery as the cause of the Civil War.
Wasn’t it to spread and preserve slavery? All the states– North and South– sought to safeguard their rights– in some cases they petitioned the federal government, in some cases they quarreled with each other. The South was preoccupied with states’ rights since it was preoccupied first and foremost with keeping slavery.
Some argue that the cause of the war was financial. The North was industrial and the South agrarian, and so, the two lived in such financially various societies that they could no longer stay together. Not true.
In the middle of the 19th century, both North and South were agrarian societies. In truth, the North produced much more food crops than did the South. However Northern farmers had to pay their farmhands who were free to reoccur as they pleased, while Southern plantation owners exploited servants over whom they had overall control.
The rich had several motivations for wanting to maintain slavery, but so did the poor, non-slave holding whites. That’s why another argument– that the Civil War could not have been about slavery since so few individuals owned servants– has little merit.
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Did the South secede because of slavery? Before the presidential election of 1860, a South Carolina paper cautioned that the problem before the country was, “the termination of slavery,” and called on all who were not prepared to, “surrender the organization,” to act. In spite of the evidence, lots of continue to argue that other factors superseded slavery as the cause of the Civil War.
The South was preoccupied with states’ rights because it was preoccupied initially and foremost with retaining slavery.
That’s why another argument– that the Civil War could not have been about slavery because so few people owned servants– has little benefit.