Quote:I can't speak for everyone, but when I went to public school in the south, the history books were the same as the ones being taught in the north.  The North beat the South because the North wanted to abolish slavery and the South wouldn't do away with it.  It wasn't until I grew older and began reading more literature where I came to the opinion that it was a complex war waged over complex things, such as politics and money more than any righteous cause.  It was a war that had been brewing for 30 or 40 years, long before abolishing slavery had any kind of traction.  Slavery was just the straw that broke the camel's back.

 

 

Quote:The textbook I used at a Jacksonville high school for AP US History specified slavery as a cause first, then spent most of a chapter explaining several other causes that were about equal to slavery in their influence over the decision to go to war. My history teacher, who I still hold a great respect for but now strongly disagree with on this one point, took a similar stance. In her view, slavery was a cause of the Civil War, but states' rights, economic disparity and the tariff were the main causes. The losers wrote the history books and taught the future teachers in that instance.

 

I have to agree with FreeAgent01.  Yes slavery was much of what the war was about, but the reasons for slavery had everything to do with economics, politics, money, etc.  In that period, the north was more industrialized as in most people lived in cities and worked at jobs in the cities to support themselves.  They had no use for slaves.  The southern states produced food and raw materials, and slavery to them was necessary in order to produce at the levels necessary to be economically competitive.  Remember, not everyone who lived in the southern states owned slaves.  It was the larger land owners and the wealthier among them that owned slaves.

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