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The Fort Pillow Massacre ... and other Civil War debates
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by MinutiaeMan: [QB] [QUOTE][b]Originally posted by Snay:[/b] The Confederate states were motivated by what they saw as a growing movement in the North to end slavery. This included declarations in states such as Massachussets that slavery was unConstitutional.[/QUOTE]Well, that's the funny thing -- approaching the issue from both directions can be considered correct. And I guess that's part of the reason why the American Civil War is such a contested issue even today. I can point out a number of converging issues that caused the actual confict: � The vast majority (and I do mean [i]vast[/i]) of Southern wealth was holed up in the form of slaves by the late 1850's. I attended a lecture by Dr. James Horton a couple of weeks ago... I don't have an exact figure, but the value of the slaves, both in terms of purchase price (at the auction, for example) and in terms of labor value and output in the Old South, actually [i]exceeded[/i] the wealth of the North. Freeing the slaves meant a huge financial loss for the South as a whole. � In the Federal government, the Old South was the central power, especially in Congress, from the very beginning. Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe... is it any coincidence that four of the first five Presidents were Southerners? Even into the 1850's, the South controlled the vast majority of the Senate. But... with the growing anti-slavery movement, the so-called "free" states were increasingly outnumbering the slave states. Any American student should know about the Missouri Compromise of 1820, keeping a precise and equal balance of slave and free states up until 1850, when California was admitted. The South was increasingly marginalized, both in terms of population (outnumbered by Northerners) and in political power. � A lot of people forget (or gloss over) the Dred Scott decision of 1858. Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney was a Southerner (South Carolina, I think, though I could be wrong). If one single event outside of the actual firing of shots could be considered a cause of the war, it'd be this decision -- mainly because the Court's ruling made it an all-or-nothing deal. Basically, Taney ruled that the Federal government could not limit slavery AT ALL, anywhere in the country, because a man could not be denied his property. Of course, it was a blatantly racist argument that completely infuriated the Abolitionists and many Northern states... basically, rather than glossing over the issue or continuing a compromise, the Dred Scott decision forced a conflict then and there. � Did anyone know that the United States was one of only THREE COUNTRIES IN THE ENTIRE WORLD in which slavery was legal in 1863? I'm not sure which were the last two, but even Russia -- Tsarist Russia, for cryin' out loud! -- had abolished slavery in 1861. ~~~~~ I could go on rambling for hours on this stuff, but I'd better stop before I get carried away. ;) [/QB][/QUOTE]
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