Because there were many more holdings that were run with say 40 -100 and you also had house servants of people who lived in the cities that amounted to no more than 1-4. You surely are welcome to not believe me but I tell you in all honesty that I've never in all my research run across any one owning more than the numbers I've said. You are welcome to prove me wrong but to make a statement without the facts to back it up is IMHO part of the problem when debating this time period. As for the "BIG" house theory, without going into a long drawn out affair. Most of the house was used to 1. Make the clothes for everyone (remember you have to make every stitch for 150 slaves plus all family members this work force comprised the Owners wife and 14 to 20 women and older children - both slave and the owners kids) 2. All living quarters had to be built by the male work force on hand free and slave **A side note of some interest here-One of the main reasons africans were ask for in the begining was because of their ability to build - they were very good craftsmen.** 3. A main kitchen was built behind the Big house to supply all the food to the Owners family and the main meal to everyone as cooking wasn't done in any of the living quarters because of the fear of fire. 4. Another part of the Big house was set aside for the very sick and birthing and this was overseen by the owners wife. All in all it was much more convenient and smarter to build one large house to do all these different things than to build several smaller ones. Which would have taken much more time and effort away from the job of growing the main crop as well as all the food to feed everyone. Don't get me wrong as I'm not excusing anything or not saying that some didn't live very well and make alot of money but when you say massive you seem to be saying to me that you are thinking in hundreds and thousands and that just isn't so. The amount of land set aside just to grow food for that number would be more than any man had the fortune to be able to own let alone the problems that overseeing such an operation. There were no machines to do anything so the bigger you got the more you had to own just to make it work at all and what if bad weather kills the crop? I'm sorry but imho you're wrong about the numbers my friend.
The Soviet Union broke up without a war. Most of the British Empire broke away without war. In point of fact most all civil wars are fought because of a sense of opression by the masses from the leaders of that country. The truth of the matter is that if a war over slavery were to be fought one would automatically think of an uprising by the slaves as the fuse to light such a war. As you rightly pointed out there were several states in the deep South that had as almost many slaves as non slaves. And although there was a fear of an uprising I would be willing to bet it was more a fear of the government's of said states and those who mistreated their slaves than the vast majority who did not. Remember you are talking of a family of say 6 to 10 living and working with upwards of 40 to 160 slaves. The ease of killing in such a situation only points to the reality of the fact that most blacks and whites lived a world of cooperation that was caused by many things. Was there bad and harsh treatment of slaves by some, of course there was, but I would be of the opinion that that was only a very small minority. Why? Because it was counter productive to getting a crop grown and to market. To pay upwards of $1000 or more for someone and then mistreat them is not only counter productive but stupid.
Wow...just found this forum..and this discussion. I love Civil War history, and have read quite a bit about it. Im not going to dig up any statistics but moreso rely on my own interpretation of what I have read and seen in documentary film. I voted States Rights with Slavery as a major issue...but it wasnt so much all of the reasons one would expect when it comes to the slavery issue. The South was largely an agricultural based economy. Many of the cash crops raised in the South during this time required an immense labor force. These crops, mainly Cotton, Tobacco, Indego, and Rice. It was also very rural, with according to an article in Mississippi Quarterly in 1995, roughly 13 people per square mile. The South relied HEAVILY on slaves to work on these large plantations. Think how much todays large farms rely on migrant workers....well in the mid 1800's it wasnt like you had the ability to find that many migrant workers....the South was economically vested in Slavery. Without slavery....many Southerners were afraid their economy would collapse. So...now you have an already outspoken critic of slavery elected Pres of the United States. And it wasn't just the Lincoln had won, it was more the large magnitude of his victory that would strike fear in the original 7 secessionist states.... "To southerners the election’s most ominous feature was the magnitude of Republican victory north of the 41st parallel. Lincoln won more than 60 percent of the vote in that region, losing scarcely two dozen counties. Three-quarters of the Republican congressmen and senators in the next Congress would represent this “Yankee” and antislavery portion of the free states. The New Orleans Crescent saw these facts as “full of portentous significance”. “The idle canvas prattle about Northern conservatism may now be dismissed,” agreed the Richmond Examiner. “A party founded on the single sentiment... of hatred of African slavery, is now the controlling power.” No one could any longer “be deluded... that the Black Republican party is a moderate” party, pronounced the New Orleans Delta. “It is in fact, essentially, a revolutionary party.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate_States_of_America I believe first and foremost it was the threat to economic stability that truly threatened the South. The North had the population centers and the manufacturing factories. The South enjoyed a slower lifestyle, one I feel many Southerner's not only enjoyed, but felt quite proud about. So...you had 7 states secede even before Abraham Lincoln takes office. I don't believe the North so much hated slavery, and there's some anecdotal evidence that suggests the North would have agreed to keep Slavery as long as it was kept in the South. But, what many in the North didn't like, was the fact that 7 states committed treason against the United States in America that less than 100 years earlier had fought for Independence from the tyranny of England. Great Northern Generals like Sherman in fact had no problem with Slavery and believed that blacks were not the equal of whites. So..I guess you could say the South had no choice in their minds but to secede or face economic ruin and the end of the Southern Way of life. The North may not have liked slavery, but seemed as though it would have tolerated it for quite awhile, had the seven states in the South not seceded. In no way do I believe any of this really had to do with the moral argument as to whether any human being had the right to OWN another.
Welcome, while a pretty good write up I really must disagree with your use of the word Treason as those states in question never, not once, tried to overthrow or disrupt the Government of the United States. They only declared their God given right to leave and I would further point out to you that the same Government that they tried to leave was quite sucessful in maintaining its viability even though publicly Lincoln and his newspaper friends would have you believe that said Union was headed to hell in a handbasket. Further more Slavery was legal within the framework of our Constitution at that time with little real fear that Lincoln or anyone else could mount an amendment challege to change it. The whole ploy was to upset the apple cart while also taking away a Southern strong hold on said Government by playing on the fears of White Southerners and Northern immigrants. That the South would lose its way of life and the North would lose its tax base from which it was using to build this nation. Slavery was the kindling that drove the wedge between the North and South and it was driven by Northern Abolitionist in Congress whose main interest was to tear down the Southern leadership that had, up to that point in our history, held the reins of the Government. While one can use the high moral ground of Slavery, and there is truth in it I will admit, the real reasons for a WAR was nothing more than POWER and money. I just had to come back and add: It is amazing and telling, if you really think about it by 1863 Lincoln's screaming about "saving the Union" was not enough and he had to switch horses "in mid stream" to make slavery and its demise the focal point of the war from that point forward. Adding it to the change in strategy of attacking civilians and not exchanging POWs and we have the very reason why, I feel, this part of our history draws such venom even 150 years later. The reasons were not simple then and they can not be labeled so now IMHO.
Yep. The real reason for the war was money and power. At that time, the south was paying around 87% of all the taxes that were coming into the US and also had a high percentage of cotton exports leaving from their ports. The US Federal Government had been using southern tax dollars to fund northern industrialism. In the north, textiles was becoming a big industry, but the north couldn't supply the cotton they needed for the textiles. They were relying on southern cotton for their industrial purposes. The federal government saw an opportunity to slow down southern exportation of cotton as well as an opportunity to take the cotton made in the south, give it to northern industrialists, and force the exportation to be out of northern ports only (New York) and keep that money in the north. For years upon years, the federal government tried to raise tariffs on exports, knowing full well that the raised tariffs would likely dry up southern exportation. These tariffs are what really drove a wedge between the north and the south, and this started many, many years before the War of Northern Agression. I think one thing that always gets left out in the history of the north and the south is the fact that there have been tensions between the two regions from the very beginning. The two regions have completely different cultures and did so from the very first settlement.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo180.html This is just more evidence that shows the War of Northern Aggression was not over slavery.
Another big reason for the switch in gears was to hold off any help to the Confederacy from Europe. It had already been outlawed overseas in many countries, but there was real and strong support of the Confederacy but the slavery issue was a sticking point with the general public. And once the Emancipation Proclamation was done it would have been so hard for the Brits, French or Prussians to throw their hat in with the Confederacy for fear of public backlash.
This is the absolute most false belief about the Civil War that it was fought because of slavery. The Union used Slavery as a last resort as a rallying tactic with the public to garner support and that "cause" factor and nothing more. It was a great outcome to end such a practice but the war was far from being caused by it.
I'm going to make a post here that isn't 100% on this topic, and I am going to try to keep it from being a political post. The War for Southern Independence/War of Northern Aggression was fought over states rights and against a federal government that had gone far beyond its limitations as written in the Constitution of the United States. Don't you find it interesting that everything is coming full circle? The federal government of the US has spent more than the last 155 years gradually destroying the constitution by ignoring it and ignoring the limitations placed upon it by said constitution. The people of this country have been blinded and hoodwinked over this course of time, but I think they are finally waking up. Those of us in the south have known this all along. We have fought against unconstitutional government involvment in state issues such as the so called Civil Rights movement that did nothing more than make race relations worse in the south and helped keep blacks down on the social ladder. That is a different topic for a different post though. Now, people are shaking off the blinders and are finally saying they have had enough. More and more talk about states rights is coming from the people of this country and not just people from the south. The federal government isnt listening though. They continue to push their unconstitutional programs in an attempt to gain more control over the lives of the people.
"So called civil rights movement?" Yeah, congress and that pesky Voting Rights Act screwed everything up. Your concept of history is so influenced by your heritage, its nearly useless. You have, not an ounce of objectivity.
That's fine. I think your concept of history is influenced by the revisionists history that is printed by the federal government in yankee textbooks. The fact of the matter is, the Civil Rights legislation was yet something else the federal government didn't have the power to do. It should have been left up to the states. To this day, blacks still have not been treated as poorly in the south as they did in the north. The so called "Great Emancipator" wanted to colonize the black people and send them to liberia. Oh, but that is something that is left out of the yankee textbooks.
As such, I take the legitimacy of that fact with a grain of salt. But its well known that Lincoln didn't emancipate the border states, to keep them loyal to the union. It wasn't an old fashioned good vs. evil war, with the south the slave mongers, and the north, the enlightened. There was plenty of bad to go around. I think most people know this. The Civil Rights Movement forced the governments hand through peaceful demonstration. I think the 1965 Voters Rights Act was something the Federal Gov't had to do. I think Brown vs. The Board of Ed was a ruling that needed to be enforced. If it were left up to the states, no progress would have ever been made. And the reasons African-Americans were treated "better" in the south, was because they were simply protected under slave ownership. Upon freedom, they still didn't have their rights upheld, but now they didn't have protection from random acts of racism and violence either. Not to mention means of surviving, after reconstruction and 40 acres and a mule failed. But just look at your signature. Look how you refer to "Yankee" textbooks in 2009? A historians main objective is to BE objective. To understand the time, the surrounding circumstances, and all that has taken place. Don't come with facts from dixierising.com. That's laughable. Go open a confederate pride and theory thread, thats where it belongs. Not a Civil War thread.
100% agree If anyone wants a good read on the Dictator Abraham Lincoln you need to pick up a copy of: "The Real Lincoln" by Thomas J. DeLorenzo
An even better one, although your's is good, "Lincoln The Man" by E.L. Masters. It came out in the 30's written by a man whos family knew Lincoln well and delt with him. To say it gives us a "different look" is to put it mildly. As they say the truth shall set you free.
Late in the game here; I just noticed this forum. Pretty cool. Thought I'd throw in my $.02 on this. I've studied this a good bit. My brother-in-law and best friend has a PHD in Southern Religious History from University of North Carolina (His dissertation was on Religion & Science in the South, 1860-1900) and he spent a great deal of time on the Civil War - its causes and impact - one of his primary studies was of R.L. Dabney, the greatest and most influential Southern Religious scholar of the 19th century, from South Carolina, and hugely influential in the South, before, during and after the Civil War. I've read several different articles and books in the process. Let me state that both my brother-in-law and myself are free market conservatives and were part of the young-conservatives / young-Republican movement in the early 80's. We started a private, conservative news paper at the University of South Florida in the 80's in order to counter the liberal USF paper. His conclusion, and I believe as well, is that slavery was central to this. Indeed, States Rights were at stake, it was a debatable subject for several decades following the Revolution, but the impetus behind the South's emotion toward States Rights was in fact, slavery. That's why South Carolina was among the first to secede. In actuality, the debate was not over the Federal Gov't telling the Southern states what to do (even Lincoln, prior to the war, was not publicly in favor of outlawing slavery in the south). It was about new states entering the union. The question was - could the Feds outlaw slavery in such states or could the states decide for themselves. Abolitionists clearly wanted it outlawed. Others did not. The Southern states favored states rights - but the primary reason for this was that they saw the 'writing on the wall' - that if the Feds could outlaw slavery in, say, Kansas, or some other new state, what prevented them from doing so in already established states? It was largely an economic issue for the south - their economy had been built on slavery and depended upon it. While racism was present (certainly, slavery was not just random - it was African blacks who were enslaved, they weren't importing the French!), it was not as dominant as it became after the war, interestingly. This is just a sidebar, but racism (white toward black) really emerged in the postbellum south as rules were enforced from the north - it created animosity & frustration of southern whites who were all about the "Lost Cause" of the south - and they tended to unleash that animosity and frustration on blacks - as part of the blame for what they saw as northern oppression. This is really what led to so many problems among whites and blacks in the first half of the 20th century in the the American south. Back to the War. Clearly there were abolitionists who went to war to free slaves. Further, there were southerners who sought to guarantee their rights to own slaves. But, states rights and Lincoln's desire to keep the original union of states together were involved. There is little doubt that had southerners chosen to give up slavery - which I think would have been the right thing to do as it was inherent in the Declaration of Independence as a foundational moral principle of the rights of all men (of course, they had been influenced in their views that African blacks were in some respects less than human - they even proffered "scientific" arguments about such) - that the government would not have been so overbearing and that states rights actually would have been secured more powerfully. Ironically, the south's choice to secede and protect its economic interests in maintaining slavery, ultimately led to greater central power in the federal government and less states rights. Now, I think it would have progressed that way anyways - power tends to become more centralized and continues to this day (as Obama-Care illustrates). But, I think it would not have been nearly as rapid nor would the Federal government have had as much ammunition. In many ways, the Civil War and its outcome smoothed the path to a more powerful central government that ultimately tends to undermine the rights to life, liberty and property. Hence, the ironic twist that in standing for "States rights" related directly and indirectly to such a controversial (and ultimately contradictory to the D of I) issue as slavery, the south undermined the "States rights" position on the Constitution and the movement behind it. In the poll - I voted for the middle option.
A great write up and while I agree with alot of your post I think to steer the blame totally towards the Southern side is where you error imho. An example; The south frees all slaves and Lincoln, as promised , pays all slave owners for their loss. Not in equal funds, of course but a stipend of the fair value, what then? There are no workers for those fields of cotton that the North depends on for its lifes blood in the form of Tarriff. To put it bluntly Slavery was the engine that drove a growing Federal government and paid for all the improvements that the Northern Federal government demanded at that time. Every argument I've ever seen concerning slavery takes on the moralistic view that slavery and the South were joined at the hip while the rest of the country had bloodless hands. "Uncle Tom's Cabin" reins surpreme it seems and even Lincoln used the writer as a whipping post when he stated as he was introduced "So you are the little lady who started this war." The facts are that many, I dare say even most Slave owners since the 1830's had been trying to find ways to end slavery, as you should know if you are a history buff of the history of slavery in this country, the problem being how to accomplish it, keep the country in good order, while also making sure the freed slave had enough education to be a self sustaining person. Jefferson and Washington both knew the truth of my statements. You say that moralisticly it was right to end slavery, and I agree, then where were our two greatest pillers of freedom when we needed them most. Also if moralisticly right to end it it was even more so moralisticly right to end it in a way that allowed the slave to benifit from the freedom he gained! Cotton was not king then, rice was and only two states raised any major objections concerning slavery , SC and Ga. Washington's one remark towards GA. brought her quickly to heel. IMVHO this one over looked fact and the War itself, which brought calimity on both the Southern white as well as the southern black, put both in a black hole for the next 100 years and brought about the need for MLK's movement. If freeing the slaves, advancing freedom, and truly saving the Union were the Northern goals as everyone moralisticly claims is true, then why not let the 6 states leave the Union (remember until Lincoln forced the firing on Fort Sumter Va and the other 6 states were waiting to see what Lincoln would do) why do anything? No, my learned friends, your Mr. Lincoln was going to have his war come hell or high water and he said plainly so several times. Or are you going to tell me that without Virginia any kind of Southern league would be sustainable? No, I will say it til the day I die, indentured servitude and slavery, was the engine that drove this country's growth from 120 years before the day it was born until the South was allowed to crawl out of the hole it was placed in 100 years earlier in the 1960's. While bringing today's morals into this equation of what to do and how to handle a gut wrinching problem that even both Jefferson and Washington grew up in and excepted as a way of life, though deep down felt was wrong, is to misjudge and misstate our history and while doing so allow this continued division among us all. IMVHO.
I just found this forum, so I'll add my bit. I'm an attorney. A defense attorney. A criminal defense attorney. One of the things I have to endure is circumstantial evidence. I understand why we use it -- it appeals to our reasoning skills, plus people lie. You sometimes just have to put things together. It seems to me that the prevailing view of the Civil War is decidedly influenced by the way the 100 years after the war went. The actions of somebody after they commit a crime are often used to make inferences about their intent. What the South did in that 100 year period in question arguably makes clear the intent was to secure the place of the white establishment by keeping black people down. Jim Crow in my book was a far worse sin than even slavery, and it colors the way people perceive the Civil War. After all, the South didn't go on a campaign of exalting states rights during that period -- they went on an outright war against blacks. If the war were about something different, what came along and changed that message? I know a lot of you are just itching to say Reconstruction, and I frankly agree with you to a degree. With that said, that's not a home run answer. A lot of the resistance to Reconstruction may have been due to the radical path taken, but a lot of it was resentment that was frankly right down racial lines. I agree that the war was fought over the question of whether a state or group of states could unilaterally leave a republic, but it seems to me that slavery was the single biggest issue that led to this dispute. I don't think you can escape the premise that the states wanted to leave because they wanted to maintain the status quo and that the biggest change sought was elimination of slavery. I also think this gets into my beef with selective incorporation to go into the law for a moment. The reason we have selective incorporation instead of complete incorporation is because of the Slaughter-House Cases, as they are called. Louisiana passed a law consolidating the slaughter houses in the city of New Orleans into one operation. The privileges or immunities clause appeared to forbid this. To get around that interpretation, the Supreme Court invented this conceit that the privileges or immunities clause didn't apply to states. This is what has led to the expansion of the concept of due process to include what is clearly analytically actually "privileges or immunities" over time. This tortured interpretation should have clearly been attacked from all sides, but the purity of that ideology was sacrificed in the name of giving states power, which for many years was used to keep the black man down. I agree that there were a lot of other issues involved, but I submit that there is at least a preponderance of the evidence that supports the position that slavery was the major issue of the war when the evidence is viewed in its totality.
IMO, what happened following the war had a lot to do with not having any type of a plan as to what to do next.....the ppl of the south, slave owners as well as non slave owners mostly slipped into a life of poverty that would last a hundred years and in some cases, it's still going on. You put ppl in desperate situations and they'll do desperate things. As far as fighting for slavery? Less than 10% of those that fought in the Confederacy were slave owners. Most of them had to compete with the bigger plantations to survive. And in many cases, ppl lived in areas where slavery wasn't prevalent. Ppl working in timber or naval stores or other trades that were considered "skilled" didn't use slaves. It was the big money planters that had the most to lose, so yes, if you're talking about them then you'd be right. The rest of the southerners just didn't like nor trust northerners and when the war started, were more than willing to grab their guns and go kill some or die trying to keep from falling under their tyranny. To them, the north was no different than the Brits that their grandfathers had fought. As someone else mentioned.......these seeds were planted from the very beginning, concerning the division between north and south. From the very first settlements..
Welcome JJ, a different view and some of which agree with, the Jim Crow laws are a plight that none should be proud of and made a mockery of the word Freedom and as I stated in the post above yours kept blacks down and opened the door for the need of a MLK movement. But in stating that and agreeing with you I must also remind you that those Jim Crow laws came from the northern area of this country and had been originally instituted to keep blacks out of those Northern states as they were divesting themselves of the slavery in their own back yard. In point of fact, blacks in the south, before the war were treated and cared for much better than in the North contrary to today's popular belief. There was a real sense of responsibility from the owners towards their slaves and there is not one person here who can argue that poor whites were looked down on and pitied even by the Blacks of that day, both free and slave. Also you are looking thru you're own dark shades when using your analogy of the South as a criminal. Just what crime did they commit and please don't use that standard wornout answer of the firing on the Fort, it takes two to tango, my friend (had to come back and add this was not meant as sarsacm directed at you as we all have our rose colored glasses to look thru so if affended; I'm sorry). You also fail to state any blame on the North in this 100 year supression of the Black man. If a crime has been committed then surely the jury deserves to hear and see all the evidence do they not? To leave out the above stated true history of our country and the difference in attitudes between North and South and the real political climate of that whole period. The infighting for power, North v South, in the halls of Congress and the WH and the whole financial underpinning of the country at that time and blame it all on the slavery issue from 1860 - 1960 is nothing more than to white wash and demean the Black mans history and value to this country and its history both good and bad. The Slavery question did not start in Charlston SC on April 12th 1861 but in a small court room in the Virginia colony of the King in the 1650's when one black man brought another black man (who was indentured to him) to court and the kings judge ruled that he was indentured for life. From that one obsured fact some 4 million Africans were brought into slavery on the shores of this country. To deny that fact and the resulting growth of wealth in this country directly caused by that act and the other facts of abuses the black man indured from that point on when his own desires were kept buried deep within him as was the horrific treatment of Native Americans during this same period of growth is the real criminal act imho. As I stated, and believe, the White Southerner has been used as the whipping boy for the last 150 years so that this Country and the Northern whites can gloss over their own part in this whole black hearted affair. What is even more amazing is that real growth is being fueled in the South these days by Blacks returning to their roots in the South in droves. While Northern cities are dying from this process of movement. GA will gain another 2 seats in the House and Fla. has quietly become almost as important as Cal. and two or three Northern states in terms of naming the President. As much as it pains me to say it the Jimmy Carter election was the Southern turning point. Oh how I wish we had a better man to represent us. He was Southern but dang!!! As for Slick Willie, a true Southern horse trader, I didn't vote for the guy but I have to admire his style. I'm betting he'd be a good Julip sipping rocking chair companion on the back porch watching the sun set. What tall tails he could tell, we love our black sheep down here! I apoligize to you JJ and to the rest of you for allowing myself to stray off topic somewhat but living in my beloved deep South all of my (soon to be 69 years) it gladdens this old heart to see how far we have dug out of that hole we were put into so long ago. As well as seeing the passing of the barriers of Religion and Color to the hightest office in the land. While it took 170+ years to put a Catholic in the WH it only took another 48 to put a black man there. While I voted for one yet not for the other I'm not displeased with either because of religion or race.
I am late to this thread, but slavery absolutely was one of the, if not the main cause of the civil war. I think there has been a lot of revisionist history and romanticizing of the South. I think if you just look at the reasons the south gave at the time it's hard to argue. http://sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war/reasons.html From Georgia's deceleration of session Mississippi's South Carolina's Texas's
Two links that will be of interest: http://sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war/warweb.html#letters http://valley.lib.virginia.edu/
My favorite historian on the matter is former president of the American Historical Association, Eric Foner. I would strongly recommend Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party Before the Civil War. I'm from New Orleans and was working on my master's in History before Katrina. . . . haven't yet resumed studies.
Madison's thoughts on this subject: Thoughts on Madison: http://www.lewrockwell.com/williams-w/w-williams57.1.html http://morganj428.blogspot.com/2010/08/jefferson-and-madison-on-secession-and.html http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa46.htm Madison again on the folly of the Governments use of force. http://shaysrebellion.stcc.edu/shaysapp/person.do?shortName=james_madison And on how citizens react when their civil rights are trampled on. As to the Bill of Rights he himself framed he said: While it is clear that both Madison and Jefferson understood the nature of a Free man and the desire within him to remain so neither man forsaw an Abe Lincoln type person, with no attachments to the land nor ingrained feeling of freedom, to ever become President. Through out all of his, Hamilton's, and Jefferson's writings there is this conflict between a Union and revolution. With the uppermost thought being of a patient Federal government who would eventually bow to the will of the people on matters that were unpopular versus allowing things to fester to the point of no return thus leading to the drawing of the sword by the Government. Yet in their heart of hearts they must have known such a thing could happen because they themselves had been put to the test of the Sword and had answered that calling. How could they in good conscience expect less from those who came after them? Truth be told both Jefferson and Madison warned of the possibility of a war between the states. Jefferson's thoughts: http://inclusion.semitagui.gov.co/Subjects/Politics/ThomasJefferson/jeff0300.htm And this: https://journals.ku.edu/index.php/amerstud/article/viewFile/2400/2359 And last a clear Warning By President Buchanan in his final speach before Congress echoing Madison's denial to the Government in use of the sword as a remedy against a rebellious state: http://www.civilwar-online.com/2010/12/december-4-1860-president-buchanans.html
Contrary to popular misconception most Confederates were not fighting for slavery. As what I know the Confederate soldiers were fighting for independence or for the states right.
http://www.linkedin.com/share?viewL...=5493270100607774720&trk=NUS_UNIU_SHARE-title With July 4th near, and the relation to this poll specifically I found this recap and past story of Lincoln's intentions interesting. President Lincoln talks with Gen. George B. McClellan (facing Lincoln) and some of his officers at Sharpsburg, Md. Lincoln was disturbed that McClellan’s men had not pursued retreating Confederates after the Battle of Antietam and soon learned that some officers, who did not oppose slavery, did not want a decisive victory.
One thing people continually fail to realize about the catalysts for the American Civil War is that the American south, Virginia, Arkansas, South/North Carolinas, Tenn, Alabama, Florida, Texas and Louisiana controlled much of the exported Cherry Marshmallow Twists. Especially Louisiana. Virginia and the Carolinas had more of a stranglehold on the liquorice production that left the states. Texas and the rest were primarily responsible for 97% of all colors of Peeps as well as Candy Corn. All of the aforementioned were responsible for the nation's Cotton Candy production, and thus exports. Naturally when the Northern based federal government wanted to further tax/regulate these exports, southerners were for a time distraught, but eventually took decisive action... and the rest as you know is history.
