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ORIGINAL: rulemylife

I don't really think slavery was the cause, I think the cause had more to do with economics and slavery was a side issue.
Slavery was the economics of the South,well the landed gentry anyway amd how the gentry went so went the south
Of course, you could also argue that the southern economy depended on slavery, but I don't think that was the root cause of the war.
The economic issue involved far more than the continuation of the slave system,intelligent southern leaders knew that was not really an issue(it was protected by the Constitution and as such inviolate as things stood),what was an issue and deeply in question was whether slavery would be allowed to spread with the new nation.
To say that the status quo would be left unchallenged was a disingenuous statement by slavery's opponents .Slavery that did not expand with the nation could not continue to exist....as the nation grew slave states political power would dissipate.As the slave population in the slave holding states exploded.....the value of the slave plummeted.Slavery either expanded or it became the noose around the South's neck.What was a state like Virginia to do if there were not new territories in which to ship,at a profit ,it's excess slave population.They could not afford to free the slaves....but unchecked they would have been incapable of keeping such a booming population in bondage

I think it's telling that that Lincoln did not issue the Emancipation Proclamation until well into the war.
Lincoln's views on race were no better and probably no worse than most educated men of his time....all that is needed to know about Lincoln as the Great Emancipator can be gleaned from this quote...." My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause."
Nothing I have ever read about the period,the man or the events has ever led me to disbelieve the sentiments expressed above.To Lincoln it was all about the Union....the Glorious Union he took an Oath to protect against all enemies foreign and domestic.


Was Abraham Lincoln a Racist?


In his new book, Forced Into Glory: Abraham Lincoln's White Dream, black American author, Lerone Bennett, presents historic evidence supporting the theory that Abraham Lincoln was, in fact, a devoted racist harboring a life-long desire to see all black Americans deported to Africa.

Bennett suggests that as a young politician in Illinois, Lincoln regularly used racial slurs in speeches, told racial jokes to his black servants, and vocally opposed any new laws that would have bettered the lives of black Americans.

Key to Bennett's thesis is the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation which, Bennett argues, Lincoln was forced into issuing by the powerful abolitionist wing of his own party. Bennett asserts that Lincoln carefully worded the document to apply only to the rebel Southern states, which were not under Union control at the time, thus resulting in an Emancipation Proclamation that did not in itself free a single slave.

At one point, Bennett quotes William Henry Seward, Lincoln's secretary of state, who referred to the proclamation as a hollow, meaningless document showing no more than, "our sympathy with the slaves by emancipating the slaves where we cannot reach them and holding them in bondage where we can set them free."

quote:

ORIGINAL: kdsub
I’ll bet if those men and women that died in the war for the union were alive today they would not say freeing the slaves was why they fought but would be proud it was the outcome. Southern soldiers would say it was state rights and homeland

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ORIGINAL: jlf1961

The war between the states was about states rights, slavery became the issue only to keep support for the war in the Northern States after a few major defeats of the Union Army in Virginia.

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ORIGINAL: slvemike4u

quote:

ORIGINAL: jlf1961

The war between the states was about states rights, slavery became the issue only to keep support for the war in the Northern States after a few major defeats of the Union Army in Virginia.

I'm sure you were told that.....if you grew up in the south.The only states rights issue that mattered was slavery.And to say otherwise is to cling to the same lies that drove young southern boys to die for the cause.Most of which did not come from slave holding families.To admit,to state or to proclaim that it was a war over slavery might have led to an awful lot of cannon fodder to stay home.
Couldn't have that now could we ?

quote:

ORIGINAL: mnottertail

Lincoln coming from Ill bordered those states and was in some pain about taking away that livlihood as well, after all, he was eventually a republican....