How the US civil war started, in a nutshell:
North: "Slavery is immoral. We should plan to get rid of slaves."
South: "Are you fucking kidding me? Our whole economy is based on slavery! We'd better leave before that happens."
North: "What? No you can't leave! Because then we couldn't tax you anymore!"
So the North moved their military
And the South said "They are about to strike! Let's strike first!"
and that is how it started.
The civil war was not started because of slavery, it was started b/c of trade rules imposed on south by Washington. Slavery was a means to an end for Lincoln.
Slavery had nothing to do with it. That is a 4th grade articulation of the conflict. New England almost secceded before 1805. The north and south was always a power struggle
except that Lincoln literally said he did not want to free the slaves ...
why would he want to destroy his own tax base ? or was he uniquely moral ? so moral that he is the biggest mass murderer of Americans in history ...
and as Ron Paul said all white countries have ended slavery but only America fought a civil war around the issue.
and Slavery still exists in Africa.
sorry to say Mike but your other commenters are right - yours is a bad take.
and here is a Brilliant take: Lincoln is considered greatest president in history because he killed the most Americans. this is a general rule. the more people a president kills the "greater" he is considered. presidents who don't kill anybody ( like Trump ) are considered the worst.
I agree with yoru statement on Lincoln, except for the word "except" because it is not at all in contradiction to what I wrote. The North had slaves throughout the war. The North did not fight to free the slaves. Read my statement again. Slavery was not an issue for the North.
As it always is in war, the two sides were not on the same page. The South feared slavery was coming. Read the statements they made when they seceded.
off track from this a little..
i've been thinking of this concept a lot lately, this idea of how society can get completely convinced that something so insane and cruel like slavery is the right thing and an economical boost and it spreads globally. The only large communities who fought for the freedom of slaves early on were the pirates. It took a long time for people to come to a realisation that slavery was so messed up.
The other idea is extreme cruelty during war. most people don't go around shooting everyone randomly, raping women, forcing children to shoot their parents. The RUF rebels in Sierre Leone did this in the name of recruiting child soldiers and this kids who were so innocent become wrapped up in this cruelty and it replicates.
In the book Tipping Point by Malcom Gladwell, he talked about a suicide trend in South Pacific islands of Micronesia. Prior to it, it was unheard off. And then one young teenage boy committed suicide because of some problems he had with a girl (or two girls) - and eventually it became cultural. Arguments with parents and the kids commit suicide
And you see this similar pattern through the influence of Bollywood movies and the rise of emotions. The influence normalising drugs usage and selling among black kids. The list goes on and on
It's so easy to get trapped into a "cultural" bubble. Scary even
Cool thread, new info to me.
I had the 4th grade view :)
In the old days it was the winner writing the history books, now it's everybody, which is then the challenge, cuz what to believe...?
