question: could there have been a civil war without slavery?

Intosh said:
This idea is very simple : the South seceded because they lost the elections and a northerner (and abolitionnist) was elected President of the USA.
was Lincoln an abolitionist? I had the idea that he personally abhored slavery, but politically didn't pledge to outlaw it...

I should rephrase it : the Southerner believed falsely :
- that Lincoln was an abolitionnist,
- and that Republican presidency will be the beginning of the end of slavery...
 
Would you mind rephrasing this? It reads almost as if you are saying the abolitionism v. states rights argument is the revisionist theory, so I'm sure I must be misreading you.:confused:

It looked to me like he was saying that the idea that it was "state's rights" that led to the war was the revisionist theory, which makes sense to me!
 
In 1860 Abolitionist meant more than disliking slavery (which Lincoln did) It meant people who felt it was so evil that it should be abolished regadless of the Constitution.

It also meant a belief in racial equality.

Lincoln moved a great distance in his racial views between 1860 and 1865
 
In 1860 Abolitionist meant more than disliking slavery (which Lincoln did) It meant people who felt it was so evil that it should be abolished regadless of the Constitution.

It also meant a belief in racial equality.

Lincoln moved a great distance in his racial views between 1860 and 1865

There were those who favored abolition without citizenship, or both but not the rights of the vote and sitting on juries.
 

Maur

Banned
Would you mind rephrasing this? It reads almost as if you are saying the abolitionism v. states rights argument is the revisionist theory, so I'm sure I must be misreading you.:confused:
Ah yes, i fumbled my sentence again :D

I was saying something similar to Jakewilson, that states rights was post-civil war argument. Revisionist one, and it didn't appear in that form before (if there was a mention of states rights before the secession it was usually in the context of slavery afaik. After all, southerners didn't want to feel shame about slavery, the whole fugitive slave act wasn't about the rather unimportant amount of fugitive slaves, but about forcing northerners to accept slavery as being ok. so they didn't hide much that the slavery was the big heated argument between the north and south)

If someone thinks i just said secession was caused by slavery, no :p I said slavery was heated argument, but not one leading to secession in 1861. Tariffs did :D
 
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Maur

Banned
Maur

There's a gentleman who came to my door to give you a message. He was dressed in a ragged white robe, carrying a huge cross, and had the nastiest scars on his hands and feet you ever saw (the sandals were weird too). I asked him his name, but he would only reply: "I have been called the Prince of Peace." His message to you was: "Tell your poor misguided friend not to be beguiled by the tempting fruits of false knowledge. Sometimes, the simplest, purest answer is the truth." When I asked Mr. Peace why he didn't just tell you himself, he just smiled and said: "One day, it is he who will be standing before me." In a flash, Mr. Peace was gone. I went straight to my computer to give you his message. You should heed his advice. I have to say he had the most trustworthy eyes I'd ever seen.
I think i have similar level of understanding of your post that you had of mine. Say what? :D

(seriously, i think i missed some obvious cultural references here. prince of peace???)
 
Heres perhaps a question to expand upon this. Don't quote me on that :p

Taking the American Civil War (which had many causes, some bigger than others :D) out of the picture, could we say that the the US would never experience a civil war?

It seems to me (and any of you can refute this) that almost every country in the world has faced some sort of Civil War at some point in their history.(this of course does depend on how exactly you define a "Civil War")

So, if the 1860's ACW was avoided, does that mean we wouldn't face such an issue? Or would the US be one of the exceptions in history?

Granted, I know that its hard to say one way or the other (especially since the US is still a young country and we have no idea what may come in the future) but I am curious about this.

Also, while I am a followe of States Rights (after all, without the states, there is no United States of America :D) but I do for the most part believe that a large part of the blaim for the ACW was on slavery.

Of course, if the north had left things alone, then there wouldn't have been a problem and the south would have had no reason to get riled up. :p
 
But these differences are highly unlikely to lead to secession and civil war.

I would consider that slavery was a contributor to some of the grievances between the South and the North. Without it there would still be enough differences, cultural and societal, that would still lead to a difference of interpretation on the limits and interpretation of the Constitution.
 
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