” Sherman. ”
Splutter!
Complete and utter cockhead he is.
Do I even have to post references to such obviousness.
No fucking way should his intellect and talents be lauded.

“To be fair, it’s GOOD that academics were beginning to look beyond slavery as the sole factor contributing to the Civil War. ”
This is quite an insightful comment.
Im a little surprised it needed to be said though.
If ones thesis is x is a sole factor, one pretty much must examine the nullish idea of multiple factors and eliminate em to reach such a conclusion.
Its no good concluding first and then beginning to do the research.
I know this is years later but i like your style of writing.
Li D
Australia

“but I assure you, the South did not start the war with the intention of fighting the North against slavery.”

The thing that needs to stated “with assurance” is that you are an idiot.

They actually said they did in their written declarations of secession.

http://sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war/reasons.html

It is true that most Confederate soldiers did not own slaves, but if you read the secession convention debates and contemporary newspapers accounts, they show clearly how the slaveowners manipulated their poorer neighbours into believing that Lincoln and the Republicans planned a social revolution in legislating black equality. It was not a Revolution, it was a reactionary counter-Revolution.

It is clear your Civil War reading is limited – you should read Allan Guelzo on Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation for starters, McPherson on secession, and Harry Jaffa and Lincoln’s views on secession and the Constitution.

Southern non-slave owners still overwhelmingly supported slavery. It’s not a philosophical difference; it’s simply the difference between the “Haves” and the “Have nots.” Every oppressive regime has its fans among the oppressed (see: North Korea); every political party has constituents whose personal goals seem wildly at odds with the part itself (see: “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” Frank, 2004).

Again, that argument is only a tool of self-delusion. Southerners were fighting for their way of life, and that way of life included slavery, whether or not the individual Southerners owned slaves.

Break break

Separately, I was on a forum discussing the terrible new Paisley-LL Cool J collaboration, “Accidental Racist.” This stated a maddeningly ignorant debate in the comments section regarding, of course, slavery and its role in the Civil War (far, far worse than here).

In light of getting some feedback from more of the general, less-educated public, I would like to retract some of my dissent from earlier posts: apparently, there are PLENTY of people who think that the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery, the Confederate flag does not symbolize racism, and the South were just some poor oppressed NASCAR fans that Lincoln was out to destroy economically.

And these are the people we let vote. I’m tempted to side with Adams over Jefferson on this one.

Most Southerners who fought in the war didn’t own slaves. In fact, their standard of living was markedly worse because of the availability of unpaid labor for the “ruling” class; slavery was counter to their own economic self interest. So for them, and their descendants, to say the war wasn’t about slavery in a way makes sense.

In their eyes, they probably weren’t fighting for slavery per se, since it didn’t benefit them. They weren’t fighting for state’s rights either. Rather, it was some combination of pride, defending the homeland, or fighting off their oppresors.

And before you laugh at that last point, think about this: how many people in America, to this day, think Iraq had WMDs or that Saddam was a key player in 9/11? Millions of them. Despite the easy availability of information to prove them wrong. Now think about a rural farmer in the 1860s with no real source of information about the outside world. How easy must it have been for the ruling class to shape public opinion as to the reasons for the war and how the North was oppressing the South and coming to take all their possessions and impose their will?

In hindsight, it’s easy to see that slavery was the root of the war, and anyone who today argues otherwise is an idiot and/or racist. But it may not have been so easy to see at that time for millions of people, who then passed down stories through the generations. So it’s no surprise that the state’s rights justification gained prominence. And as psychology has taught us, people have an amazing ability to justify their beliefs while ignoring contrary evidence.