Why do we today think the civil war was over slavery and slavery alone? A variety of reasons:
1. The abolitionists did feel this way. I do not deny there were rich slave holders in the south that did care mostly about what they viewed to be their property. However, neither the pro or anti slavery extremists were the majority.. no more than pro life or pro choice extremists are the majority in the US in 2020.
2. The North won and wrote the history. Due to the north's pilgrim roots and misguided belief in american exceptionalism and the "shining city on the hill" and beacon of freedom, etc., they needed to be painted as the good guys and the south as evil. See, even
@Mr. Deez admits in abstract the South had the democratic right to secede. If the North was remembered as denying democratic freedom in the South, the North and therefore, the U.S., would be seen as anti-democratic. However, if the south was a bunch of evil slaveholders and only wanted to be independent due to the slavery and states rights only meant slavery... well then the north was justified invading and taking away the freedom of another democracy.
3. History has been simplified and our eduction dumbed down. Nowadays our education system has decided it would take too long to actually teach the many nuances of the civil war and American in history in general. It is easier to say "the Civil War was slavery. The north was good and south bad." Now, this dumbing down is driving people to go "oh, all these southerners were just evil white supremacists unworthy of praise and they should be removed."
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