Joseph that’s a really oversimplified and somewhat inaccurate synopsis. Put it in context – the country was so young that many people more readily identified with their personal state/former colony than with the federal government. If their state was to go one way it would be traitorous to align oneself with a more unfamiliar government in D.C. Many of them felt they weren’t the rebels but that the north was reneging on the social contact that the country was based on. The true reason for the civil war wasn’t “exactly” over slavery but more accurately how much sovereignty should the states be expected to sacrifice for the sake of the central government. Keep in mind just a little bit earlier a revolution had been fought to found a country in the spirit of rebelling against the ultimate central power – a monarchy. The south was fighting for the very ideal the country was made for in the first place – less rights and power for the central government and more for the local populace and the people. In an age when Obama is snooping through your phone calls and emails this is a very relevant issue even today. The horrific tragedy of the war is that the southerners used this great ideal to justify one of the cruelest phenomenons of enslavement (which is the ultimate hypocrisy fighting for one’s personal rights just to use them to deny others theirs in even the most fundamental ways).
Menu