Growing up during segregation, I heard many, many stories about how the cause of the American Civil War was oppressive economic restrictions placed on the South by the Union. It was all about taxes and States Rights and tariffs placed on Southern cotton, and other goods, that burdened southern farmers. It was all total bullshit, of course but that was the meme of that day and time.
The truth is that southern "gentlemen" farmers, not content to merely make a good living, could not have become stinking rich without slave labor. They were able to pursued the rank and file, dirt poor redneck crackers that they were somehow superior human beings to the negro slaves, so much so that the poor dumb bastards willingly marched off to fight and die for the rich man's right to own other human beings.
Whether orchestrated by Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglas, or by God himself, that war was about removing the blight, that was slavery, from the American conscience, its hypocrisy, and its contradiction of the promises in our constitution. Anyone who says that war was not about slavery is either woefully ignorant of history or lying to cover his own sense of guilt.
The truth is that southern "gentlemen" farmers, not content to merely make a good living, could not have become stinking rich without slave labor. They were able to pursued the rank and file, dirt poor redneck crackers that they were somehow superior human beings to the negro slaves, so much so that the poor dumb bastards willingly marched off to fight and die for the rich man's right to own other human beings.
Whether orchestrated by Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglas, or by God himself, that war was about removing the blight, that was slavery, from the American conscience, its hypocrisy, and its contradiction of the promises in our constitution. Anyone who says that war was not about slavery is either woefully ignorant of history or lying to cover his own sense of guilt.
