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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH
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To: KonKilo who wrote (347948)1/26/2003 2:13:25 AM
From: Lazarus_Long  Read Replies (3) of 769670
 
For a significant fraction of the Union population, the Civil War was about slavery. They had been agitating against it for decades and making converts. How can Frederick Douglas, Harriet Beecher Stowe and "Uncle Tom's Cabin", bleeding Kansas, Dred Scott, and John Brown be said to have had nothing to do with that war?

And another fraction opposed the war: there was a large riot in NYC during the Battle of Gettysburg following the imposition of the draft by Lincoln. That was partially caused by the draft and partially by fear of economic competition from freed slaves. Some blacks were lynched during the riots. It was so bad that the troops that had fought at Gettysburg were marched to NYC after the battle to put it down.

But someone forgot to tell Lincoln the Civil War was about slavery, even though his party (Republican) had been created basically to abolish it and abolition was in the platform he ran on. He was eventually convinced, but international matters weighed heavily in that decision: France and particularly Britain were thinking about mediating a settlement and possibly even intervening to impose one. Britain was being hit economically: its textile mills were operating far below capacity because of a shortage of cotton. European mediation or intervention was the last thing Lincoln wanted. Britain was anti-slavery and had spent decades suppressing the slave trade on the high seas, so he thought if he announced that a Union victory would mean the end of slavery, Britain would stay out and consequently so would France. It worked.

But it is far from clear that he thought the Civil War was being fought to end slavery. His primary interest seems to have been the preservation of the Union.

And it has been pointed out that had the 13 states the formed the United States knew that joining was a one way street, none would have ratified the Constitution.
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