re: Was slavery an important factor in the Civil War?

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There was a switch

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Well, there wasn't a "switch" and certainly not a "switch" based on racism. What you are saying doesn't make any sense.

Blacks had started moving to the Democrat Party, noticeably, in the 1930s and 1940s - BEFORE the Dixiecrat campaign of 1948. So, I must assume blacks were not changing to Democrat during this period because they were racist.

Now, let's look at the "racist Southern whites" who switched to the Republican Party because - "racism", I guess:

1960 - Alabama and Mississippi did vote for Harry Byrd (admittedly, a guy not very fond of desegregation). Virginia, Tennessee and Florida went Nixon. The rest of the "racist" South voted for virulent racist, Jack fricking Kennedy.

1964 - LBJ carried 6 states of the old confederacy, Arizona Senator of Jewish ancestry carried the other 5. I know you guys want Barry Goldwater to be a racist, but it just wasn't so - he was a rare Republican who opposed the 1964 CRA, but did so on principled, Constitutional grounds not because he was in favor of Jim Crow or Slavery.

1968 - "Racist" Nixon was unable to carry the increasingly "racist, Republican" South, because they voted for Dixiecrat 2.0 candidate, George Wallace.

1972 - "Racist" Nixon was able to get those Wallace racist Dems to vote for him - AND EVERY OTHER STATE EXCEPT MASSACHUSSETTS (and D.C.)

1976 - Those fickle-arse racists who voted for Republican Nixon in 1972 - ALL VOTED FOR JIMMUH in 1976, except Virginia.

1980/1984, Reagan, much like Nixon in 1972, won everywhere.

1988 - I suppose this is when you cats think the "switch" was final, as HW comfortably won the Confederacy.

1992 - Again, their racism must be fickle AF as 4 of the 11 now (presumably) Republican, heavily racist Southern states voted for the first Black President, Democrat William Jefferson Clinton.


What you're missing is - the South became MORE Republican over things like gun control, taxes, general conservative values that became more a part of the Republican platform and less a part of the Democrat platform over these 2 generations of voting.

And they became MORE Republican as they became LESS racist. Period.

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Almost every western country has abolished slavery by 1865. In France, Denmark, Netherlands, Great Britain, it had been abolished for many years.

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And what method was used? Reparations to the slave owners for the lost property. And it continued in the colonies in various forms under different rules (contract labor usually) well past to colony phase.

Abolishing slavery was a very positive byproduct of a war for money. Those men on statues, and even more so, the young men we'll never know, were fighting to defend their states. Like them, hate them, respect them or not, they're all very important pieces of our nation's history.

You know what happens when we erase history and don't teach the truth (both good and bad) anymore? One day the country will be lead by a generation of people who don't know what really happened. They won't be able to learn from mistakes of the past. They will lead their country down a very dark path.

And in typical Yankee fantasy fashion ...revisionist history once again rears it's ugly head. There is better question, you would fail to be able to answer.

What exactly what the north fighting for?

It certainly has nothing to do with freeing slaves. It has nothing to do with secession ....That statement makes Lincoln out to be the ultimate liar. A modern day version of the combination of Schumer and Pelosi.

12 Years earlier, Lincoln stood up before Congress and embraced the ideals of secession. In john Kerry fashion, he was for the bill before he was against the bill.

MONEY, pure and simple. The North embraced slavery, as long as, they did not have to admit their citizens had slaves of their own. 60-80% of all income came by way of the tariffs collected at southern ports. Lincoln's Treasury Department was on the way to becoming nothing more than an empty closet.

So I ask again ..If the freedom of slaves was not the reason for the north starting a war ...Exactly what was the issue for the north to cross the Potomac?

Not only was racism on full display up north in the 1800's ....it continues to be on full display today. There are no Saints in the north ....

Regarding statues ...I've never seen one and have never owned a Confederate Battle Flag. Statues don't bother anyone ....If they did, why are there three Lenin Statues no one is demanding to have removed from US shores?

Why would Military Generals start a demand to have Confederate Battle Flags censored from Military Bases ...yet turn a blind eye to BLM stickers on the base? It's reverse discrimination. A Military base is no place to display any political statement of any kind ....That environment has one purpose and one purpose only ...the defense of the Nation ..

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And in typical Yankee fantasy fashion ...revisionist history once again rears it's ugly head. There is better question, you would fail to be able to answer.

What exactly what the north fighting for?

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I'm no Yankee pal, I'm from Southern Louisiana where we consider everyone north of the sothern boundaries of Shreveport a Yankee but the facts are the facts.

Many Southern Democrats decided on succession the moment Lincoln won the 1860 election and some had done so before he was even inaugurated.

And the simple, irrefutable fact is that the Confederacy attacked the United States of America. Lincoln did not start the war neither did he cause the Confederacy.

The Southern Democrats who did both are to blame, pure and fricking simple.

ETA:I never realized that Lincoln was inaugurated in March, the Confederacy was formed and had a fully installed government in FEBURARY and they attacked Fort Sumter in APRIL.

So they formed the Confederacy BEFORE Lincoln was President and attacked US Troops less than a month into his Presidency and some of you yokels want to blame Lincoln for the Civil War...?

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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.

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VERY WELL STATED

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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.

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/\ 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.

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

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and ever so.

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and where "exactly" was Ft Sumner situated? and by what agreement were the union forces still there? South Carolina had already seceded - they had asked the US govt to evacuate their personnel.

Instead, the US decided to REINFORCE their stronghold in SC.

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So, less than 1 month into Lincoln's Presidency hes ordered to abandon US Military installations that are rightfully owned by the people of the United States and you think he should have just so OK?

Thats as absurd as the dumb bitch in Seattle ceding CHOP to terrorists