The civil war between the U.S.A. and C.S.A. was NOT a result of slavery. the Emancipation Proclamation and freeing of slaves came from the mere need for the union to ruin the C.S.A. economy AFTER the war had allready started. No offence to anyone but Lincoln was not the hero everyone changes history and makes him out to be. The freeing of the slaves was un-popular by the majority of the north and was NOT the cause of the american civil war. It was a by-product of it and only applied to 10 states in the C.S.A. Also, it dint include maryland, the newly forming west virginia, tennesee and others cause the north allready had control of them.
As an example: Maryland is below the mason dixon line (like tennesee) but the north had control of it allready so it was not included in the Emancipation Proclamation. (yes, there were many slaves in maryland)
They CAN't BAN the flag of the C.S.A now because the 1st amendmant constitutional rights of the U.S.A protect it. Also, it still to this day flies over the state capitol of south carolina and many other places in the south. It has nothing to do with slavery. The civil war was NOT started to free the slaves, it was started to stop the succesion of the south which from what i see of the criminals we have as polotitions now and the raping of our constitution by the supreme court and the patriot act, makes it a damm shame.
Many of my relatives fought in the civil war.
And I said that I wasn't going to get involved with this.
Ok, there are several different arguments that I can make against this. I had family that fought on both sides of the conflict. My Great great great grandfather fought at the Battle of Sabine Pass
http://www.wtblock.com/wtblockjr/battleof.htm and was one of a few Confederate soldiers to actually get a medal in the war. I have done a fair amount of research on the war.
First off, the origins of the Civil War did have slavery as its focus. Yes, it is true that the South seceded based upon its concepts of State's rights vs the rule of the Federal Government but in reality the driving force behind the secessionist movement was the right to own slaves. The Southern Gentry, the political class primarily responsible for secessionist movement looked upon the growing power base in the North with fear. Until the 1840s the South was the political and the military source of power for the United States and that dominance was fast starting to wane by the 1850s. The loss of Kansas as a potential slave state in the fighting of the 'Bloody Kansas' wars of the 1850s cemented the view of many Southerners that the North would eventually exert its control over the South and would make these landed Gentry give up their 'property'. These people were the ones that led the secessionist movements in the late 1850s and the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 simply cemented the fears of these leaders of the South.
As for Lincoln, he never ran on a platform of eliminating slavery in the South. In fact, until 1863 he continued to hold fast to the policy that if the Southern States returned to the Union there would be no elimination of slavery in the South. Lincoln originally ordered Union commanders to return escaped slaves to their owners, he was hoping that cooler heads would prevail. He had a famous quote, "If I could preserve the Union by freeing all of the slaves I would do it. If I could preserve it by freeing none of the slaves I would do that and if I could preserve the Union by freeing some slaves and keeping others enslaved I would do that too." Even after the Emancipation Proclamation was read not all slaves were officially freed. Slaves in Maryland, Delaware, Missouri and Kentucky, the four Southern States that did not leave the Union, were not included in the Proclamation. The EP only covered slaves in states that seceded from the Union. It wasn't until the 13th Ammendment that slavery was officially abolished.
In reality, the EP was actually used as a ploy to continue interest in the war. Up until Antietem the war had been a disaster for the Union forces. Again and again the Union Army of the Potomac was embarrased. Lincoln knew that the North was getting pretty tired of the war. Up until 1863 the entire focus of the war was the retention of the Union. Most of the early volunteers for the Union Army joined simply because they wanted to retain the Union. It was thought that the Southern secession was illegal and that this war was simply one to bring the union back together. Once it was realized that this war was not going to be an easy war many in the North began to wonder about the need for the Southern States. If Lee had won at Gettysburg (and he came darned close) then Lincoln more than likely would have lost re-election and McClellan would have won the Presidency. That would have meant a Southern Confederacy.
The Emancipation Proclamation turned the war from a political conflict into a moral one. The war shifted in its focus after the EP was put in place. In reality there was a lot of conflict among Union troops initially. Many didn't think that this war should be one of liberation and it took a while for the focus to shift to that.
In all honesty, I bristle when people say the war wasn't about slavery. It was entirely about slavery. If Lincoln, a member of an abolitionist party, hadn't been elected then it is unlikely that the South would have seceded. Even after Lincoln assured the South that he wouldn't eliminate slavery they still left the Union. In fact, most Southern States seceded before Lincoln even took office. Yes, it was a state's rights issue but it was an issue about a state's right to own another human being. I should also point out that the vast majority, 2/3 of the white population owned no slaves and less than 1% owned 50 or more slaves. Most of the slaves were on plantations and averaged 20 or more. Very few Southern whites, the ones that actually died in the war, actually owned another human being.
Sorry, this has been a fascinating subject for me for years and I have read quite a bit about it. Many Southerners, many of them friends of mine, have a hard time reconciling the causes of the Civil War with the reasons for it starting. The rationalle for the war doesn't diminish the bravery and the fantastic accomplishments of their leaders but the 'cause', as it was called, was not as noble as many of the Southern leadership tried to make it. In all honesty, many of the major leaders of the Confederate military, to include Robert E. Lee, James Longstreet, and PGT Beauregard after the war acknowleged that the concept of slavery was something that the South shouldn't have fought for. Lee was never for the war but he felt more loyalty to his state over his country. Before the Civil War this was a concept that many individuals held. It wasn't until the restoration of the Union in 1865 that this thought pattern was eventually diminished in the South.