tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1658138279766595241.post1342426483216230770..comments2024-01-04T04:31:00.481-05:00Comments on Mixed Race America: 150 years and one day ago...Jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13261371053113519712noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1658138279766595241.post-73603133830071767612011-04-25T09:12:09.502-04:002011-04-25T09:12:09.502-04:00Emma,
Thanks for leaving a comment. I wondered if...Emma,<br />Thanks for leaving a comment. I wondered if you wouldn't mind clarifying what other factors--ones not reducible to slavery--contributed to the Civil War. I'm asking this not to be argumentative, but because in some of the on-line debates that I've read, it seems as if nearly everything comes down to the institutional benefits of slavery that the South gained and that the North lacked.<br /><br />I think it's simplistic (and wrong) to say that the war was fought over the end of slavery--or that Northern Yankees were abolitionists who wanted to "free" the slaves. How Northern or Southern people felt about African Americans and the system of chattel slavery varied tremendously.<br /><br />However, whether one was of the planter class and therefore able of owning several (sometimes in the hundreds) of slaves or whether one was a poor white who did not own slaves, overall the economy of the South seems to have benefited from slavery, as a whole. Much in the same way we could say that while poor and working class Americans have not benefited from capitalism, Americans and the U.S., on the whole, do.<br /><br />So other than slavery, what are the nuances of economic differences between the Northern and Southern halves of the U.S. in the antebellum period?Jenniferhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13261371053113519712noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1658138279766595241.post-79068737057642575962011-04-24T21:29:40.238-04:002011-04-24T21:29:40.238-04:00I agree with you that slavery and the Civil War ar...I agree with you that slavery and the Civil War are completely intertwined. However, I think it’s not completely true that slavery was the only cause of the Civil War. It is a slippery slope to bring other causes besides slavery into discussions of the Civil War because in the aftermath of the Civil War, the emancipation of slavery is what is most often discussed. However, it is impossible to dismiss the role the economy played in the Civil War. The changing and polarizing economic needs of the south and the north were a major cause of the Civil War. Slavery was a large part of the economy that the South depended on. President Lincoln even said that as long as the strife between the North and South was resolved he wasn’t resolute on the issue of the emancipation of slavery. I am not disagreeing with you about the sometimes distasteful pride the South takes in it’s Confederate identity and ignoring the atrocities they supported that came along with that identity. I just feel it’s important to acknowledge these complexities so distaste for glamorizing plantations and Gone With The Wind related sentimental pride is factually founded.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04973244559801414962noreply@blogger.com