SsgtC

Banned
Not really, no, they didn't. The vast majority of Southerners weren't fighting for slavery one way or the other. Maybe the state was, but most individual Southerners fought for their rights as they saw them. And fought for the right to be free of the Federal Government imposing it's will on them.

As far as the pressure the British could apply, think carrot and stick approach. The UK refuses to do business with any state that still maintains slavery. But they pour in the pounds to any state that renounces it. Slavery is dead within 30 years of the ACW.

British diplomatic pressure would be far from enough. Southern boys fought and died to preserve slavery and they aren't going to let their deaths be in vain merely because a bunch of foreigners tell them to. Try 1905 if you are lucky, 1925 being more likely.
 
Not really, no, they didn't. The vast majority of Southerners weren't fighting for slavery one way or the other. Maybe the state was, but most individual Southerners fought for their rights as they saw them. And fought for the right to be free of the Federal Government imposing it's will on them.

As far as the pressure the British could apply, think carrot and stick approach. The UK refuses to do business with any state that still maintains slavery. But they pour in the pounds to any state that renounces it. Slavery is dead within 30 years of the ACW.

That is a rewriting of history. One third of all Southern families owned slaves. So if you were White your family owned slaves or your more distant relatives and friends did. That is not talking about many Poor Whites who needed someone to look down on. No, most soldiers fought and died to preserve slavery.

The rights they fought for was the right to enslave other people due to their skin color. The US government did practically nothing outside delivering the mail and conducting foreign policy.
 

SsgtC

Banned
Actually, THAT is the rewriting of history. Yes, 1/3 of White Southerners owned slaves. Yes, almost all White Southerners looked down on black people. But the vast majority of the soldiers would have gotten offended by the assumption that they were fighting for black people one way or the other. Slavery wasn't as big of an issue in the ACW as it's made out to be. It was partially a cause. But not THE cause. Lincoln has promised many times to not outlaw slavery in states where it existed. Hell, some slave states even stayed in the Union during the ACW. Ending slavery only became a war aim when it became economically viable and a tool of international diplomacy useful in checking British and French recognition of the CSA.

That is a rewriting of history. One third of all Southern families owned slaves. So if you were White your family owned slaves or your more distant relatives and friends did. That is not talking about many Poor Whites who needed someone to look down on. No, most soldiers fought and died to preserve slavery.

The rights they fought for was the right to enslave other people due to their skin color. The US government did practically nothing outside delivering the mail and conducting foreign policy.
 
Actually, THAT is the rewriting of history. Yes, 1/3 of White Southerners owned slaves. Yes, almost all White Southerners looked down on black people. But the vast majority of the soldiers would have gotten offended by the assumption that they were fighting for black people one way or the other. Slavery wasn't as big of an issue in the ACW as it's made out to be. It was partially a cause. But not THE cause. Lincoln has promised many times to not outlaw slavery in states where it existed. Hell, some slave states even stayed in the Union during the ACW. Ending slavery only became a war aim when it became economically viable and a tool of international diplomacy useful in checking British and French recognition of the CSA.

No, they wouldn't have gotten offended. Southerners themselves were told that the main reason to go to war was over slavery. If slavery wasn't allowed to spread to the Western Territories then it was doomed to extinction. Maybe not tomorrow but soon. If not themselves their children would be doomed to see Free Black Slaves running around raping and pillaging. THAT is what they went to war to try and prevent.
 

SsgtC

Banned
While I disagree with you on it, I think it best if we just let it be. Slavery as a driver of the ACW is one of those hot button issues that people have very firm opinions about. And I doubt either of us is going to change the other's mind on it.

No, they wouldn't have gotten offended. Southerners themselves were told that the main reason to go to war was over slavery. If slavery wasn't allowed to spread to the Western Territories then it was doomed to extinction. Maybe not tomorrow but soon. If not themselves their children would be doomed to see Free Black Slaves running around raping and pillaging. THAT is what they went to war to try and prevent.
 
Not directly, no, it doesn't. But these States have fought a war specifically about the primacy of States Rights over the Federal Government. To then meekly submit to a new Federal government who will make the same demands on them is highly unlikely. Even during the war, several States very plainly told off Jefferson Davis and REFUSED to provide aide to the country as a whole if it would harm their interests. And Davis let them. That sets a very dangerous precedent.

The Confederacy was not fighting for States Rights. By 1850, the South was strongly supporting expansion of federal powers, with their support of the new Fugitive Slave Law, which overrode many existing state laws. Now, if someone was accused of being a runaway slave, it would be decided by federal officials, not state courts and no warrant was required. State guarantees for jury trial and the right of the accused to speak in their own defense were ignored. Law officers were paid more for making these arrests and judges were paid more if they declared the accused was a runaway slave. The South also strongly supported the Dred Scott Decision of 1857, a piece of judicial activism that was anything but constructionalist. Many states had considered black people to be citizens and bring suits in court, but the Taney court overrode that and ruled that blacks could never be citizens and had no right to bring suit in federal court. Backlash against the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 and the Dred Scott Decision led not many free states passing laws in an attempt to override these pro-slavery decisions. This attempt to exercise States Rights by the free states was clearly opposed by the states the formed the Confederacy.

"The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution. The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia." - South Carolina Declaration of Causes for Secession.

"The States of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan and Iowa, by solemn legislative enactments, have deliberately, directly or indirectly violated the 3rd clause of the 2nd section of the 4th article [the fugitive slave clause] of the federal constitution, and laws passed in pursuance thereof; thereby annulling a material provision of the compact, designed by its framers to perpetuate the amity between the members of the confederacy and to secure the rights of the slave-holding States in their domestic institutions-- a provision founded in justice and wisdom, and without the enforcement of which the compact fails to accomplish the object of its creation." - Texas Declaration of Causes for Secession.
 
Actually, THAT is the rewriting of history. Yes, 1/3 of White Southerners owned slaves. Yes, almost all White Southerners looked down on black people. But the vast majority of the soldiers would have gotten offended by the assumption that they were fighting for black people one way or the other. Slavery wasn't as big of an issue in the ACW as it's made out to be. It was partially a cause. But not THE cause.

Perhaps we should look at what the founders of the Confederacy had to say on the matter.

"For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery." - Georgia Declaration of Causes for Secession

"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." - Mississippi Declaration of Causes for Secession

"We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection." - South Carolina Declaration of Causes for Secession

"Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one of the Confederated Union to promote her welfare, insure domestic tranquility and secure more substantially the blessings of peace and liberty to her people. She was received into the confederacy with her own constitution, under the guarantee of the federal constitution and the compact of annexation, that she should enjoy these blessings. She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery-- the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits-- a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time." - Texas Declaration of Causes for Secession

" In all the non-slave-holding States, in violation of that good faith and comity which should exist between entirely distinct nations, the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party, now strong enough in numbers to control the affairs of each of those States, based upon an unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color-- a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of Divine Law. They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States." - Texas Declaration of Causes for Secession

"Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth." - Alexander Stephens, Vice President of the Confederacy
 
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