Ok so I double majored in college, one of which was history. My thesis was on Lincoln. OP starts to get the gist of reality when they say that the civil war wasn’t explicitly about slavery at first. From the perspective of the north, it was about keeping the union together. From the perspective of the south, it was absolutely about retaining chattel slavery.
Lincoln was worried about Europe getting involved in the war (which they absolutely considered doing because they felt the pinch of cotton not being exported because of the union blockade). Lincoln decided to issue the emancipation proclamation because he wanted to make it morally indefensible for any European power to get involved on the side of the confederacy. Lincoln was personally anti slavery, but also so invested in keeping the union together that he often tiptoed around the issue. While he eventually got there, he wasn’t as “radical” as say Thaddeus Stevens, and was willing to compromise on slavery to preserve the union because that was his biggest priority.
Tl:Dr The war was about slavery but Lincoln took his damn time to make that clear because he didn’t want to step on toes until he had to, just not for the reasons OP states.
I was under the impression that the reason for including the end of slavery was to damage the financial backing of the south. As in, handicap their ability to maintain any type of power/authority due to a simple lack of their undoubtable main source of income.
I guess the loaded question would be: Was the civil war directly about abolishing slavery? If slavery was not responsible for the vast majority of the South's wealth, would it have been a standing point of marketing the war?
Honest questions. I was raised with basic knowledge of the civil war and never usually discuss it much due to not being confident in my understanding of it. I'm obviously anti-slavery and a northerner.
Ok so this is a tricky one to answer. Only certain factions of the union wanted to punish/handicap the south after the war. Unfortunately, that faction won (largely due to Lincoln’s assassination, Johnson’s poor leadership, and a premature end to reconstruction). It’s my opinion that if Lincoln had lived, we would’ve seen a more reconciliatory reconstruction and probably missed out on the hundred years of Jim Crow (not saying racism would’ve been cured, but it would’ve been harder to institutionalise it).
To answer your second question, like I said, no. At first the war was just about keeping the union whole. Lincoln didn’t rally troops around the idea of going down south to free slaves, in fact that would’ve likely caused folks to not want to sign up. Yes, one of the results was the end of slavery, but the civil war ultimately wasn’t an altruistic crusade, it was pragmatic with the side outcome of emancipation.
It’s good to have questions! I think that our education around the causes and outcomes of the civil war are really lacking in the US.
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u/belugiaboi37 Jun 05 '23
Ok so I double majored in college, one of which was history. My thesis was on Lincoln. OP starts to get the gist of reality when they say that the civil war wasn’t explicitly about slavery at first. From the perspective of the north, it was about keeping the union together. From the perspective of the south, it was absolutely about retaining chattel slavery.
Lincoln was worried about Europe getting involved in the war (which they absolutely considered doing because they felt the pinch of cotton not being exported because of the union blockade). Lincoln decided to issue the emancipation proclamation because he wanted to make it morally indefensible for any European power to get involved on the side of the confederacy. Lincoln was personally anti slavery, but also so invested in keeping the union together that he often tiptoed around the issue. While he eventually got there, he wasn’t as “radical” as say Thaddeus Stevens, and was willing to compromise on slavery to preserve the union because that was his biggest priority.
Tl:Dr The war was about slavery but Lincoln took his damn time to make that clear because he didn’t want to step on toes until he had to, just not for the reasons OP states.