Civil War fought over slavery?

[FromTheForest]

Slavery persisted in the North until the 1830s. Racism is a naational, not a regional, issue, and was not and cannot be solved by orders of the Federal Government.

[StevusMagnus]

Did you guys read anything I wrote?

Lincoln HIMSELF totally guts the idea that he was fighting to end slavery through his own words...

I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.

[Credo]

Slavery persisted in the North until the 1830s. Racism is a naational, not a regional, issue, and was not and cannot be solved by orders of the Federal Government.

I forget her name, but actually there was a woman slave living in Connecticut until the eve of the Civil War.

[Heinrich]

Realize also that the dogooders from New England(Puritans) truly detested The South and her way of life. It was the incipience of the centralized fascism we have now. No wonder Marx loved reading the results in his cozy London flat.

 I do not have MiTOS's pedigree, but I have relatives who fought for Virginia and Kentucky. My allegiance is with Dixie. You will not find the culture of community, with its food, charity, and overall dignity anywhere else in the US.

http://dixienet.org/New%20Site/index.shtml
http://www.southernpartisan.net/

[Robb]

How was the north Calvinist in its nature?  New England had a heavy Calvinist nature but not all parts of the union favored war.  Lincoln in his own day was probably as popular as Bush is today. 

New

[Credo]

dogooders from New England(Puritans)

The Puritans - as we think of them - were long gone by the Civil War in terms of real public influence and congregational numbers. There were a few mutations that had morphed off of the groups (the Congregationalists come to mind), but the dour guys we picture with buckles on their hats (and the accompanying ideology) had passed from the scene. The debacle at Salem and other New England towns accelerated the decline of the group. By the mid-nineteenth century they weren't much to speak of.

[frerejacques]

The Yankee side of my family is about as Yankee as you can get. They were mostly Abolitionist intellectuals (doctors and ministers and the like),  but even they realized that the government's reason for the war was to preserve the Union.  (They weren't Calvinists, either.)

[MagisterMusicae]

The foundations of the culture in New England were Puritan (and thus Calvinist).

Even if the congregation numbers were low, the cultural (or anti-cultural) basis of the religion had a lasting impact on New England and the United States as a whole.

The South had a culture which was largely different until after the Civil War, hence it is quite correct to say that part of the war was over a cultural divide. At the very least this was the basis for other fights over politics and power.

[alaric]

The professor just sounds like another pc dope, "The Civil was fought over slavery, it was fought to free the blacks from evil white oppression, The Confederate south was just an evil institution that needed to be exterminated,. blah,blah,blah.." This guy doesn't have a clue, just another mealy-mouthed lib poisoning our youth in the educational system with a personal and political agenda.

The (un)-Civil War was fought for which almost all wars are fought over,economics and political might. The South was gaining on both fronts and was about to disband slavery anyway, it wouldn't even have been an issue soon enough, but it was so ingrained and seeped into the South's infrastructure and social landscape that they couldn't do it overnight as easy as the Union did. There were many issues surrounding it, but the Northern Industrialist were pushing hard for a reason to get a conflict going for financial gain.

The North absolutely had no monopoly on the moral high ground, especially the way they treated their own immigrants in the big industrial cities.

Do you think poverty stricken Irish conscripted into the Union Army the minute they stepped off the boats in NY harbor cared about freeing the slaves?

[HailGilbert]

The professor just sounds like another pc dope, "The Civil was fought over slavery, it was fought to free the blacks from evil white oppression, The Confederate south was just an evil institution that needed to be exterminated,. blah,blah,blah.." This guy doesn't have a clue, just another mealy-mouthed lib poisoning our youth in the educational system with a personal and political agenda.

The (un)-Civil War was fought for which almost all wars are fought over, economics and political might. The South was gaining on both fronts and was about to disband slavery anyway, it wouldn't even have been an issue soon enough, but it was so ingrained and seeped into the South's infrastructure and social landscape that they couldn't do it overnight as easy as the Union did. There were many issues surrounding it, but the Northern Industrialist were pushing hard for a reason to get a conflict going for financial gain.

The North absolutely had no monopoly on the moral high ground, especially the way they treated their own immigrants in the big industrial cities.

Do you think poverty stricken Irish conscripted into the Union Army the minute they stepped off the boats in NY harbor cared about freeing the slaves?

Hold the phone, Houston.

The South was gaining in economic and political might? How so?

From what I remember, they had a smaller industrial and manufacturing base than the North, and were more dependent on trade than the North, which made them vulnerable to the North's naval blockade.