Yes--It WAS about slavery

That the states seceded because of slavery is true.  However, there are several points not covered.  Southerners, who would never hope to own slaves, fought because their states were invaded -- Americans owed an allegiance to their home states, before the nation.  West Point taught cadets that the union was voluntary, including when Lee was the commandant.   Lee, the Southern commander, never bought a slave, freed those he inherited and, generally, was against slavery. Grant, the eventual Northerner commander, owned slaves, had no problem with the peculiar institution, and refused to free his slaves until the passage of the 13th amendment. 

The South wouldn't have made it long as a slave society is a simplistic summary.  The South exported cotton to England and shipped cotton to the north,  At both locations, cotton was spun into thread and, thence woven into cloth.  The north and England were great rivals for the export of finished cotton cloth.  Northern mill owners and ship owners desired the southern cotton to be kept in the US, so supported the war.  Keeping of slaves was expensive -- owners had to provide for them in old age, until death.  Many of the great plantations were constantly in debt -- mainly to northern bankers and factors.  One bad crop and the plantation could be lost. 

Myth No. 6

However, Lincoln’s own anti-slavery sentiment was widely known at the time. In the same letter, he went on: “I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every where could be free.” A month later, Lincoln combined official duty and private wish in his preliminary Emancipation Proclamation.

The Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves.

The Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves.

The Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves.

There.

Said it three times and it still isn't true.

______________________________________________

I might note that the South was so much in need of soldiers at the end of the war that the South was freeing slaves provided that they would take up arms. Even before that point, freedmen joined the Confederacy.

Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation to free slaves in states in rebellion is a political ploy dating back to our Revolutionary War.

King George did the same thing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Loyalist

The South out of necessity.

Patrick Cleburne's Proposal to Arm Slaves

http://www.civilwar.org/educat...-cleburne-et-al.html

Don't know who Cleburne was?  Go home, gol-durn Yankee.

Under Cleburne's command was the 16th Alabama Infantry, CSA.  Mustered in Courtland, they were represented by men from Northwest Alabama ... Lauderdale, Marion, Lawrence, and Franklin.  Colbert County did not exist at the time and was created after the war from lands formally in Lawrence and Franklin.  So yes, Colbert, too.

One of my "greats" was in Co. F.

BTW, I just love the way the author argues with himself in Myth #3.  Most Southerners did not own slaves but envied those who did.  Total BS.

One of the best you ever read, Contendah?

I don't doubt it.

I wouldn't put much stock in anything the Washington Post prints... mostly left-wing wackos spreading their garbage.

I'm going with Contendah (bitternpoo) on this.  He was there.

Well, he may have been there, but from what we've seen lately we know his memory isn't doing so well. Saying the war was about slavery is one more example of his bad memory.

Slavery was not a nice thing, to put it very mildly, but I don't see the need to lie, to keep hatred for people that had nothing to do with it simmering and then brought to a boil every once and a while for over 150 years. Blacks are only slaves today when they choose to make themselves slaves. Billions of dollars have been spent on the black race and it's time they sthu about reparations and such. They have been paid, and since most of them don't have slave ancestors, they were paid for no reason whatsoever but that they are black. Even the ones with slave ancestors weren't due anything in the form of payment imo. Now the lefties can get all upset and start squealing and slinging that race card at me. I don't care. I am going to 'speak' my mind, and that is not racism.

Northern Involvement in the Slave Trade

A central fact obscured by post-Civil War mythologies is that the northern U.S. states were deeply implicated in slavery and the slave trade right up to the war.

The slave trade in particular was dominated by the northern maritime industry. Rhode Island alone was responsible for half of all U.S. slave voyages. The DeWolf family may have been the biggest slave traders in U.S. history, but there were many others involved. For example, members of the Brown family of Providence, some of whom were prominent in the slave trade, gave substantial gifts to Rhode Island College, which was later renamed Brown University.

http://www.tracesofthetrade.or...-in-the-slave-trade/

I'm not going to spend a lot of time searching for articles, because I feel pretty sure beternnun knows all this and just wanted to get something going. Then again, given the problems with his memory he's had lately, maybe he has forgotten.

All they have is race and class warfare best.  What else is he going to talk about?

5 Things You May Not Know About Lincoln, Slavery and Emancipation

http://www.history.com/news/5-...ery-and-emancipation

Lincoln was a criminal.

I will call my star witness, the Vice President of the Confederate States of America, Alexander Stephens:

Contendah:  "Tell us Mr. Stephens, upon what basis was the Confederate States of America formed?"

Mr. Alexander Stephens:  "Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and moral condition."

(From an oration delivered by Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens at the Athenaeum in Savannah, Georgia on March 21, 1861).

Contendah:  I rest my case

You should, that's the same thing Abe Lincoln said........

BTW beternnun, you didn't/don't have a case.

Tell us beternnun, If the war was about slavery, why did Lincoln say the states that didn't secede could keep their slaves?

"You think slavery is right and ought to be extended; we think it is wrong and ought to be restricted. For this, neither has any just occasion to be angry with the other. " The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln

"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." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume V, "Letter to Horace Greeley" (August 22, 1862), p. 388.

"I hold it to be a paramount duty of us in the free states, due to the Union of the states, and perhaps to liberty itself (paradox though it may seem) to let the slavery of the other states alone; while, on the other hand, I hold it to be equally clear, that we should never knowingly lend ourselves directly or indirectly, to prevent that slavery from dying a natural death---to find new places for it to live in, when it can no longer exist in the old." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume I, "Letter to Williamson Durley" (October 3, 1845), p. 348.

___________________________________________

Condie,

No, you gave a reason for secession, not the War of Northern Aggression, to quote my great-grandmother, when amongst family.  I gave you a major reason for the war, itself, not secession.

The South exported cotton to England and shipped cotton to the north,  At both locations, cotton was spun into thread and, thence woven into cloth.  The north and England were great rivals for the export of finished cotton cloth.  Northern mill owners and ship owners desired the southern cotton to be kept in the US, so supported the war.

The North destroyed the South, which was a major portion of the US economy -- producing the raw materials (cotton among other items), eliminating the export of cotton to English mills.  After the war, the South, under military occupation, became a cheap supplier of cotton and other agricultural products to the North. The British Empire developed Egyptian cotton as an alternate, which they could grow within their empire.

From 1864 NY Times:

"Previous to our civil war in America, the sum total of this production was limited to about 500,000 cantars.

In 1861, Egypt exported in all directions 600,000 cantars, without counting what she retained for her own consumption. In the year 1862 the exportation amounted to 820,000 cantars, and in 1863 it reached no less than 257,411 bales, which, at the average rate of 5 cantars per bale, formed a total of 1,287,055 cantars. By these statistics it will be seen that the exportation and consequently the production, have actually doubled since 1861: and this rate of increase even falls behind the accelerated speed it has assumed in the present year.

The 257,000 bales exported from Egypt from January 1, 1863, up to January 1, 1864, were distributed as follows: -- England received 196,422 bales, against the total of 130,839 in 1862; France, 47,691 bales, against 31,3[???]9 in 1862; and Austria 13,398, against 7,430 in 1862. The Austrian importation nearly doubles that of the former year, and this is but an index of the growing demand throughout Germany."

http://www.nytimes.com/1864/06...e-of-the-supply.html

Now, Condie, be a  nice little scalawag and skedaddle.

Looks like abe held all sorts of views on slavery.

You have already explained this to him once. I doubt he's gained any more brain cells in just 3 hours.

______________________________________________

But, this time, I typed slower and used a slightly simpler vocabulary.

____

Had there not been slavery, there would have been no war.  Simple as that.

_____________________________________________________________

Really!  If, the South had not seceded, the North would have no reason to attack  a portion of the nation.  Lincoln stated, that preserving the Union was foremost -- did you not read his earlier statements in this thread?  Or, do you believe he was lying!

I guess it couldn't have had much to do with Tariffs..........huh..??

Besides, how many banks were printing their own money..?

Lincoln promised not to resupply the Union forts in southern territory.  South Carolina fired the first shot, but Lincoln broke a promise.