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I describe it like this - slavery was NOT the engine of the Civil War.

But it was the fuel in the tank during that time.

The "engine" was a complex component made up of a lot of regional differences going back to the founding.

Most Confederate soldiers were loyal, patriotic citizens of their states first and the nation second (obviously, something had to give with secession). Likewise, most Union soldiers were loyal, patriotic citizens of the nation first and the Yankees really didn't have (or quickly lost by the early 19th Century) that state identification that Southern residents retained (still do, by and large).

Most Confederate soldiers did not individually fight to preserve that peculiar institution (and, no question, it was an explicit goal of the various secession instruments, but I'm talking about the individual level here). Most Union soldiers did not fight to free slaves and by 21st Century standards, probably 80% of Union troops would be considered white supremacists.

So, the war was paradoxically (and simultaneously) not really about slavery at all, and mainly about slavery.

VERY WELL STATED

quote:
Most Confederate soldiers did not individually fight to preserve that peculiar institution (and, no question, it was an explicit goal of the various secession instruments, but I'm talking about the individual level here). Most Union soldiers did not fight to free slaves and by 21st Century standards, probably 80% of Union troops would be considered white supremacists.

/\ THIS /\ is the key nugget that applies to TODAY's 'wokeness' which is the "supposed" raison d'être for the current push to marxism.

The people who actually fought the war and shed their blood and suffered financially calamity and endured reconstruction did not explicitly endorse nor oppose slavery.

It was all about serving their states - and of course the cultural environment of the times was merely a continuation of a condition that had existed since the beginning of time.

I have discussed at length here and elsewhere about my upbringing during from the mid-40s up thru the mid-60s. I never harbored a 'white supremist' thought in my life. None of my family harbored such thoughts that I ever knew of - my older brother comes as close to that as anyone I ever knew = he joked often about other football teams beating LSU because "they had better n!&&*%$ than us."

I have also defined ad nauseam that the word n!&&*%$ did not have the hand-wringing connotation it does today - it was merely the common word used to define an identifiable group of people. Just as 'YES SIR!' can be either a polite recognitions of authority, or a 'spit in your face' mockery of someone you want to demean. CONTEXT is the only important aspect of a textual description of an utterance.

Nobody in my entire life has ever uttered one word of support for the KKK.

And yes - I honor the great military leaders of the Civil War. Forrest is as close as it comes to fitting the "slaver" context. He did trade in slaves prior to the war - and he was instrumental in originating the KKK. BUT - he became an ADVOCATE for including blacks into the common mainstream - and his association with the KKK was at the beginning when it had a political purpose to oppose the abuses of reconstruction. He QUIT the KKK when they began to concentrate on terrorizing blacks.

If you hold that agains Forrest - you should be in West Virginia right now tearing down anything that has 'soul of the Senate' Robert Byrd's name associated with it. OR Hillary Clinton's & Biden's unwavering and unretracted PRAISE for him. MILLIONs of other instances of MORE RECENT examples of unvarnished rotten HYPOCRISY can be demonstrated.