Question About Slavery and the Civil War?
To Knowledge: The Civil War was clearly about slavery. The South secceeded from the Union because the north tried to say that no new states can have slaves and that slavery was bad. The South finally got fed up with the North's meddling in its affairs. Abolitionists like John Brown became terrorists and attacked trains with Southerners on them in Harper's Ferry. As far as what incentive did a Southern soldier have, well, for one, he didn't want free blacks to compete with him for jobs. That is the most basic incentive anyone could have. When is the last time anyone who replied to my question quit his/her job to graciously give it someone else more needy? None of your arguments make any sense. I still don't know what a northern white guy's incentive was during the Civil War.
Why did the civil war start?
Charles wanted to rule as an absolute monarch, was married to a Catholic and Parliament wanted to assert its right to decide matters of taxation. I take it, as you haven't said which Civil War that you meant the English civil war? If you meant the American Civil War, then it was over the rights of states - Slavery was the catalyst.
Were there white slaves in the USA before and during the Civil War?
No. This is a myth that some Americans of Irish descent like to tell, but there is no factual basis for it.Thousands of poor Englishmen and women did come to the colonies, especially Virginia and Maryland, as indentured servants obligated to work for a term of at least three years — usually longer, in practice — for a “master.” They were often cheated, abused, and exploited. Yet the vast majority of them had come willingly, knowing that selling their labor was the only way they could afford the voyage to America. Slavery, by contrast, is not something that people volunteer for.Indentured servants were not free, but they certainly were not slaves. They never lost their identity as British subjects with rights under the law. They had family ties back home in Britain, while a slave was not allowed to claim kinship with anyone . Once their term of service was over, many male indentured servants could claim a “headright” to a plot of land. It's true that large landowners eventually discovered ways to cheat servants out of their headrights. But no one disputed these servants’ legal right to own property if they could afford it. A slave could own nothing.Indentured servitude declined in the 1700s while chattel slavery expanded. It's not clear how many indentures were still being issued by the end of the American Revolution, but historians agree that they became far less common. By the time the Civil War broke out, indentured servants were a distant memory. (President James Madison was probably the last president who was acquainted with an indentured servant, and that was before 1800 during his youth on his father’s estate.)
Was the United States the only country to need a civil war in order to abolish slavery?
A book could be written in answer to this remarkable question as world history is rife with civil wars - and over slavery. Would you have asked this question of Rome during its servile revolts? As Spartacus and his army of slaves in the Third Servile War revolted would you have asked the Roman Senate - why do you need a civil war to end slavery? Would you have asked this of England and the Wat Tyler revolt? Why do you need a civil war to end serfdom?Civil wars abound in history and are hardly confined to ancient Rome and medieval England. Cuba for one example among many saw two civil wars - the first initiated by a people's army comprised of black slaves and whites opposed to slavery with the goal of ending slavery and Spanish rule. Both that civil war in 1797 and the second in 1807 were put down by Spanish troops. The civil war to end slavery in St.Dominque resulted in the country of Haiti. Would you ask France why it needed a civil war to end slavery - and after its revolution had specifically prohibited slavery? Would you ask France why it needed a revolution to grant its lower class a place in society? Simon Bolivar? If you are familiar with the name are you also familiar that his action was a civil war one of the goals of which was to end slavery - but slave owners refused his cause if he promoted abolitionism.Those are but a handful of examples in world history. Slavery, serfdom, the unempowered - the exclusion from power - many wars carry that banner.Slavery in the US could not be ended by royal decree as ultimately happened in Brazil and Cuba. Slavery ended in England through political machination - and the reality of a frightening slave revolt in the British-held colony of Jamaica. What is the distinction to be drawn between a civil war and a slave revolt? Between a civil war and a revolution?Has your home country been free of internal armed conflict in its history?
How were African-Americans treated in the North before the Civil War?
Good question.Most people in the Northern states had never seen a black person. The census of 1860 is very revealing. Something on the order of 95% of black people in the US lived in what became the Confederacy. Most “free” blacks lived in along the crescent of Philadelphia, New Jersey and New York City. Almost always close to a major port and working manual labor jobs.Their treatment is subject to a lot of speculation. Most Northern states had outlawed or otherwise discouraged slavery—see the census for exact numbers—but as the numbers were not all that large, it is safe to assume their lot in life was as tough as anyone doing manual labor at the time.Access to public education was limited, this much we know, but there seems to have been a relatively high levels of literacy. Again, anecdotally, this seems to be tied to a tighter sense of community and a reliance on religion. Most families regardless of color had at least one King James Bible in their possession, and it was used for both spiritual and practical reasons as a reading primer.This is a subject worthy of a rich and thorough study. Anyone out there recommending of a good work on the topic? If not, maybe we Quorons could crowd source one and do it collectively?Looking forward to reading what others have to contribute!Cheers,
Was the U.S. the only country in the world to go to civil war to abolish slavery?
Almost every war for independence in Latin America was at least partly about ending slavery. Slaves and free Blacks made up the majority of the rebel forces and a large number of the officers. Every independence movement offered freedom to slaves in exchange for their military service. For that matter the American Revolution was in large part a civil war. There were over 100 battles entirely between Americans, no British troops at all. Tens of thousands of Black slaves and free Blacks fought on both sides, but primarily for the British. Cubans also fought a failed war for independence, a bit prior to the US invasion in the Spanish American War, that brought an end to slavery on the island. As another answer pointed out, the Haitian Revolution ended slavery. Large slave revolts should count as civil wars, unless one has the despicable belief that slaves are not human.