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Comments on: Why it’s important to keep a clear focus on the true cause of the Civil War https://civilwarcavalry.com/?p=2475 Bringing obscurity into focus Thu, 11 Apr 2019 15:39:26 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.0.22 By: Robert Thompson https://civilwarcavalry.com/?p=2475&cpage=1#comment-45598 Sun, 25 Mar 2012 01:28:52 +0000 http://civilwarcavalry.com/?p=2475#comment-45598 I have always admired one of the comments that General Longstreet makes in the movie Gettysburg. He is talking about the war and states, “We should have freed the slaves first and then fired on Ft. Sumter.” This is a telling statement as it truly reveals that the war really did revolve around the issue of slavery. At the same time, it acknowledged that, though much of the Confederate High Command were slave owners, there were hundreds of thousands of non-slave owners in the gray ranks that were fighting for many other reasons than slavery. The legislators in the deep south truly seduced many of its citizens through unfounded fears of a general slave uprising, mixing of races, deeper abject poverty when slaves would take southerners jobs, and even the rape of southern women by black men. So, even many of those southern soldiers, as brave and honest as they may have been, were fighting for causes that, at their roots, were born from the fear of a world rid of slavery and thus were fighting to protect the institution.

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By: jacks https://civilwarcavalry.com/?p=2475&cpage=1#comment-44373 Fri, 15 Apr 2011 23:25:18 +0000 http://civilwarcavalry.com/?p=2475#comment-44373 And I guess that we are to surmise that the same spirit of independence that motivated the English colonists in North America against the Crown was about tea, right? Yes of course the slavery issue cannot be divorced from the war. Only a few dunderheads would attempt to argue that. Slavery is what impelled all of the other factors behind secession to include politics, finance and most importantly the balance of power. Slavery is not what caused the war though and I am amazed at how many people cannot get this right. Secession, and more appropriately the Federal reaction to secession, is what caused the war. I have never liked the ‘states rights’ argument unless that right is about the right to secede and become independent. The ‘right to own slaves’ was never in jeopardy in 1861 and few in the North had the inclination to take that ‘right’ away at that time. Lincoln himself in the first inaugural makes it clear that slavery was not a concern. So if the ‘right’ was not in jeopardy and could not have been taken away, how is it that the ‘right to own slaves’ was what compelled a war? Capcodlew, can you not process the idea that the right to be free and independent of a government that you no longer consent to be governed by is at least a ‘right’ that one can see some merit? I don’t care for the Libyans rebels currently fighting against Gaddafi (I think there is plenty of Islamic radicalism lurking amongst them) but I can appreciate that they no longer consent to Gaddafi and are willing to take up a rifle to force the issue. As for our own secession, the Constitution is silent on the matter. How much better off we would all have been if the issue could have been decided with attorneys rather than with armies.

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By: Steven Hill https://civilwarcavalry.com/?p=2475&cpage=1#comment-44369 Thu, 14 Apr 2011 05:51:30 +0000 http://civilwarcavalry.com/?p=2475#comment-44369 This is great detail, and prepares me better to address the fiction of state’s rights as the cause. All that I do now, when it comes up, is ask a series of questions:

1. What was the primary product of the South in the 1850s?
2. What was the means of production of that product?
3. What state right secured the means of production?
4. What would Southern aristocracy and governing powers do if they felt that they might lose the means of production of their primary product?

It is human nature to try to revise history. Yes, it is important to keep the focus.

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By: capecodlew https://civilwarcavalry.com/?p=2475&cpage=1#comment-44367 Mon, 11 Apr 2011 21:08:31 +0000 http://civilwarcavalry.com/?p=2475#comment-44367 Eric,
This is a great article. I am the facilitator of a Civil War reading group here on Cape Cod and I made copies of this to give to everyone tomorrow evening. I had many (at least 30) relatives that fought for the Confederacy — in fact, my great-grandfather was killed at Kernstown — and will do everything I can to honor the cause they fought for. However, if I could look them in the face I would tell them that I believe they were wrong. I had thought about forming a chapter of the SCV here in Massachusetts, but decided against it because I do not believe what the majority of the members of the SCV seem to believe. It is interesting that most of the Confederate re-enactors here in New England believe in the Lost Cause — and this is the message they pass on while speaking with the public at events. I have gotten “reprimanded” because I tell people that the only “states right” the South was fighting to protect was the right to own slaves. This all being said, I believe that there is plenty of blame to be shared by both sides — North and South — for the war.

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By: Scott Manning https://civilwarcavalry.com/?p=2475&cpage=1#comment-44364 Mon, 11 Apr 2011 15:26:09 +0000 http://civilwarcavalry.com/?p=2475#comment-44364 Good article. I disagree with this part though.

By contrast, Gallagher searches in vain for a scene in any recent film that “captures the abiding devotion to Union that animated soldiers and civilians in the North.”

I thought Gettysburg did a great job of treating the Union devotion in the monologues by Chamberlain, his brother, and their fictitious Irish soldier. In addition, I thought the portrayal of Buford was one of the strongest performances in any Civil War movie. However, I would agree that there should be more.

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By: cwehner https://civilwarcavalry.com/?p=2475&cpage=1#comment-44363 Sat, 09 Apr 2011 03:12:16 +0000 http://civilwarcavalry.com/?p=2475#comment-44363 Sad thing is I know there are high school teachers still teach variances of the Lost Cause, that slavery was not a cause, Ect. I have witnessed it….

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