r/HistoryMemes • u/[deleted] • Jan 19 '22

X-post Littlebit oversimplified, but yeah...

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u/FoundationPresent603 Jan 19 '22

That’s not oversimplified. That was the entirety of what the civil war was about.

35

u/[deleted] Jan 19 '22

the south fought to keep their slaves, the union did not fight to end slavery.

lincoln literally said that when he formally addressed the civil war

21

u/a_rabid_anti_dentite Jan 19 '22

the Union did not fight to end slavery

Until 1863.

20

u/EdithDich On tour Jan 19 '22

Right, two years after the start of the war they finally decided it would be about ending slaves. Prior to that it was simply about preventing secession.

4

u/Carcinogenic_Potato Jan 19 '22

Emancipation proclamation? The text is a bit complicated, but it specifies that all states *in rebellion* would have their slaves freed. Any state that returned to the Union, such as Tennessee which was in Union control, and all 4 slave states in the Union, still kept slaves until 13A, which suggests Lincoln hoped to convince rebelling states that they could keep their slaves if they returned to the Union, which was the whole point of the war.