(11-07-2018, 10:57 AM)Kane Wrote:

(11-07-2018, 10:38 AM)mikesez Wrote: You're talking yourself in circles.  You're trying to say that the election of Lincoln was not that different than any other election where one particular region didn't get its way.  But it was different, obviously.  Usually the one region that feels disappointed doesn't feel so disappointed that they want to secede.  So the South's disappointment was on a different level, and it was all to do with slavery.
You seem to want to apologize for the South in this case, perhaps because you feel a personal connection.  Comfort yourself in this: most white people in the South did not own slaves and did not benefit tangibly from the labor of slaves.  Most white people in the South could not vote.  They did not get any choice about whether their neighbors would own slaves, and did not get any choice about whether their state would secede. Their lives sucked.  The only benefit most Southern whites got from African slavery was an enhanced sense of self-worth that there were men down the road who had an even rougher life than them.

What??

How did you get all that from what I said?
Talking in circles... not at all, just wanted to clarify the position I was taking, which was not one of pro-south or pro-slavery which is where this board is likely to place someone who says "the civil war was not all about slavery"
History is what it is. How it is taught in public schools is one often trimmed up to the federal government's liking. Like how most of Chris Columbus lessons are about his "discovery of America".
Apologize for the South? Why would I do that...?
As I've already said before, this war was much more about rich whites vs poor people and control of cash crops than the slavery itself. And yes, the rich whites in the south wanted to keep their free labor.

Lincoln was talking about drastically changing the way people did things, they didn't like it, they didn't vote for him, and they seceded when he won.
And it was well within their rights to do so.
Period.

Technically speaking... I believe states still have that right, though the federal interstate system surely makes it difficult (among many other things) for states to do so.

I should amend what I said before.
In states like Virginia, poor whites couldn't vote.
In states like South Carolina, poor whites could vote, but the districts were drawn such that wealthier areas had fewer people per district while less wealthy areas had more people per district, and the wealthier areas got much more seats.
In either case, poor whites didn't have a say in how the state was run.
The decision to secede belonged to the wealthy, slave-holding elite of white people without much input from other whites.  If you are saying that slavery was just part of a rich-poor dynamic in the South, and that poor whites were also victims of the rich whites, I don't disagree, but blacks were the main victims.  Slavery was the main issue.  Wealth inequality was an issue too, but slavery was a big part of that wealth inequality.

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