Levi and Jane

1)      The South Seceded over State’s Rights

2)      Secession was about tariffs and taxes

3)      Most White Southerners didn’t own slaves.  So, they wouldn’t secede for slavery

4)    Abraham Lincoln Went To War To End Slavery

5)    The south could not have made it long as a slave society

I read an article written by a man who obviously claims to be a some kind of scholar and authority on the subject of Why The South Seceded.  I would have linked to the article but I did not want to give this guy any more publicity than he already had.  Sometimes I think that the only reason people publish such crap is to generate publicity and controversy from people who disagree with them. 

This friggin retard scholar wannabe goes and writes about all of these things listed above as being myths about why the South seceded. Yet, he offers no explanation of why they did secede.  He only tries to argue against other people’s reasons.

In my opinion the main reason that the south did secede was over states’ rights.  There were a lot of little reasons that all stemmed from the fact that Washington DC wanted too much control over the states.  This power hunger from Washington (much of which is apparent today) caused a slowly boiling and slowly growing revolutionary shift in the mindset of citizens in the south.  The people of the south eventually hit a point where they said enough is enough.  They wanted out of the “great experiment” that was referred to as the United States.  They wanted other people to stop butting into their way of life.

Now, some of what the south stood for was nonsense.  The idea of slavery is nonsense.  The idea that the southerners wanted to be able to travel with their slaves through northern states was ridiculous.  Southerners should have accepted that it was reasonable for the northerners to express their distaste for it and their outright opposition to it.

The fact that the southern economic model depended on slave labor made their underlying economy fragile and ultimately destined for ruin.  Eventually the inherent immorality of slavery would have caused a revolution and civil war in the south whether or not it came from Washington DC.  This is the argument that people made in point number five that this writer called a myth.  He is wrong about that.  Slavery would have ended sooner or later in the south (probably later).

The fact of the matter is that the civil war happened because the southern states wanted a separate way of life than the northerners thought was acceptable.  Yes it was fought over the right to preserve that way of life (a.k.a. states’ rights).  Yes, it was fought over slavery as that was one of the fundamental differences between the north and south.  Yes, it was fought over tariffs and taxes.  Yes, Lincoln was opposed to slavery even before the war which definitely influenced his decision that the war was worth fighting.  And, yes it is true that the south could not have made it long as a slave society.

In short, I disagree with four out of five of the author’s arguments.  I think the guy is a friggin idiot.  What do you expect from someone who goes to college to become a sociologist?  You may as well get a degree in building play houses with decks of cards.