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[Telgin]

I remember the Civil War narrative swapping to "states' rights" when I hit high school history.

I wasnt too familiar with the American Civil War and I heard it thrown around.

Then I did some reading out of curiosity and found that it was outrageously  99.9% about slavery and *not* about states' rights. As it turns out the South was kind of against states rights (because it included the right to harbor runaway slaves) until they got worried about the federal goverment abolishing slavery. Its so obvious and so glaring that I dont get how conservative managed to distort the narrative.

I'm a little confused too, but as someone who lives in the state that was infamously the first one to secede, I've heard quite a few people who buy the narrative.

[Doomblade187]

I remember the Civil War narrative swapping to "states' rights" when I hit high school history.

I wasnt too familiar with the American Civil War and I heard it thrown around.

Then I did some reading out of curiosity and found that it was outrageously  99.9% about slavery and *not* about states' rights. As it turns out the South was kind of against states rights (because it included the right to harbor runaway slaves) until they got worried about the federal goverment abolishing slavery. Its so obvious and so glaring that I dont get how conservative managed to distort the narrative.

So, we have a state history class down here in public school. And I lived in a very racist town as a child, though I didn't know at the time. The local school board ensured that in said state history class that we were taught the "states rights" version of history. It comes down to control of education.

Edit: and I should note a lot of private/religious academies are also very fundamentalist and conservative in their education, coming from the legacy of "segregation academies", religious schools created after Brown v. Board of Education (the desegregation of schools case) that were created to allow segregation to continue for some families.

[Random_Dragon]

Personally I'm surprised the economic complications don't get thrown around more by southern apologists. Having a line of logic that can be followed to provide context for the situation that led the south to become less industrialized goes a long way towards explaining the pragmatic reasons, and to someone who doesn't care about reality "explains" is close enough to "justifies" for their purposes.

Then again, I would suppose "failed so hard at the industrial revolution that the rich people felt like slaves were still the more profitable option even as they were losing a war where industrial production is vital" probably doesn't sit well as an excuse to the sorts of (often also wealthy) conservatives who tend to end up in charge of screwing up education.

[Maximum Spin]

I keep hearing that, and I've yet to meet a farmer who didn't have over a million dollars in assets, or who had to pay taxes (you aren't a person, you're a business. Everything you buy is a business loss). You can't buy stuff directly with assets, but it's a lot better than having no money or assets like most of us.

Haha, what country do you live in? I'm guessing you're talking about large corporate farms in the west. This is not at all how farming works for the rest of us.

[McTraveller]

The American Civil War wasn't about states' rights or slavery. It was about money and power.  States' rights and slavery are subcategories of money and power.

The simplest evidence is that we needed the civil rights movement at all - the North didn't really do anything to stop the nonsense civil rights abuses in the South after the war was "won".

[Random_Dragon]

That would tie in with the economic explanation, yes. Though the moral failure that led to slavery becoming racial predates the invention of the cotton gin and thus the development that led to slavery becoming profitable again, so...

Seems like a chicken and the egg scenario where greed and racism create a feedback loop of "willing to justify profiting off exploitation" pinging back and forth off of "want to continue profiting"

[Maximum Spin]

The simplest evidence is that we needed the civil rights movement at all - the North didn't really do anything to stop the nonsense civil rights abuses in the South after the war was "won".

That's not really fair: Reconstruction was a thing. It would be more accurate to say that they gave up.

[MrRoboto75]

Reconstruction was a thing.

was it tho

[scriver]

The American Civil War wasn't about states' rights or slavery. It was about money and power.  States' rights and slavery are subcategories of money and power.

The simplest evidence is that we needed the civil rights movement at all - the North didn't really do anything to stop the nonsense civil rights abuses in the South after the war was "won".

The North wasn't fighting to end slavery to begin with, let alone any of the many civil right abuses that they themselves practiced in the north because they were racist too. The North was fighting a war that the South started to keep the Southern states from leaving the USA. The northerners had already made clear that they had absolutely no problem at all with the South keeping slaves as long as they didn't have to support it.

The civil rights movement wasn't just something the southern states needed, the northern states needed it almost just as much.

[Maximum Spin]

The North wasn't fighting to end slavery to begin with, let alone any of the many civil right abuses that they themselves practiced in the north because they were racist too. The North was fighting a war that the South started to keep the Southern states from leaving the USA. The northerners had already made clear that they had absolutely no problem at all with the South keeping slaves as long as they didn't have to support it.

No, sorry, that's completely untrue. The historical record is extremely clear that the North were ideologically committed to ending slavery; at best, they were at times willing to compromise on how soon. Abolition was a key component of the Republican plank, that's why Lincoln's election scared the Southern states so much that they seceded over it in the first place.

[McTraveller]

I think that some people used slavery as a means to an end. I mean FFS Great Britain abolished slavery in 1833 (I had to look it up; I new it was earlier) and they didn't even need a war to do it.

The North wanted the wealth of the South, they didn't want it to secede.  Yeah slavery was inextricably linked to it, but I think it's naive to think it was the reason for either the secession or the ensuing war.

[Doomblade187]

I mean, the south seceded because they wished to preserve slavery. It was the lifeblood of the plantation class, and as mentioned Lincoln had abolition as part of his platform. The North went to war to prevent secession initially, with the abolition of slavery as a war purpose being added later. The north was indeed also racist - the Union military was segregated, and black Americans were initially not allowed to serve in combat.

[Maximum Spin]

The North wanted the wealth of the South, they didn't want it to secede.

This is totally wrongheaded: The North was far wealthier than the South, which was basically completely backward in terms of infrastructure by this time. There wasn't even any future in cotton because of the opening of the Egyptian cotton market in 1820. The South was, at that point, over.

[WealthyRadish]

The American Civil War wasn't about states' rights or slavery. It was about money and power. 

Sure, but ultimately the slaveowners kept all their land after the war, and I doubt they really thought they'd lose it if slavery had been abolished peacefully. The cotton boom collapsed and the old profits never returned, but the Slavery-Lite_^TM systems of debt peonage and peasant sharecropping that replaced open chattel slavery were if anything more favorable to the ex-slaveowners than the old system, given the circumstances. What the slaveowners stood to lose was only the speculative resale value of their slaves, as well as their attachment to the abuses of the institution itself; in other words, it was just about slavery in particular.

[Madman198237]

I think that some people used slavery as a means to an end. I mean FFS Great Britain abolished slavery in 1833 (I had to look it up; I new it was earlier) and they didn't even need a war to do it.

They ended slave-trading as well; Royal Navy ships were, well before the American Civil War, authorized to search any ship found on trade routes from Africa and search them for slaves. I believe they started this even before Britain actually made illegal the possession of slaves in their colonies, but I'd have to go look at it again.

Oh, great, you made me go look at it again

Legally it was not allowed for anyone to be enslaved in Britain, and hadn't been since the year 1102. In 1722 a court case in Britain confirmed that people enslaved elsewhere could not be brought onto British soil and remain slaves, since slavery was, y'know, illegal. Finally in 1807 the slave trade was officially banned by Britain. True to Britain's present "we rule the ocean and therefore our word is law" stance, they didn't really specify that foreign ships were actually exempt from this particular policy, and the British government would carefully look the other way when one of their ships boarded a foreign ship that happened to be carrying slaves. Also during the beginning of this period the British were more or less at war with everyone thanks to Napoleon and company, and at the end of the war they forced basically everyone to agree to end the slave trade as well, leaving slavers with very few options for safe flags to fly to escape Royal Navy (And later other nations' ships) inspection.

Chattel slavery in most of the world was on the way out just because the British were the foremost naval power on the planet (And would be for another 100 years (until the very end of WWI, more or less) and they could singlehandedly stop the slave trade...and they did exactly that, at great cost and with no real benefits to themselves.

It's a cool bit of history. Here's a video from Drachinifel concerning it.