Changing history

[Godscreated]

Everyone here has made valid points about slavery and the Civil War, showing how complex these subjects are. They are connected and disconnected in the form of fighting a war to free them. As Dirch said and history records through Lincoln's writings, Lincoln's main concern was keeping the nation together and most people of the north didn't really wanted slavery abolished and of coarse the people of the south didn't want it abolished. The biggest reason the Civil War was fought, economics, money in the pocket of many off the backs of slaves. Cotton was the white gold for America, no other nation could supply cotton in the amount needed for the world, America had a monopoly of enormous value, so enormous it fueled the economy of the country. The bankers, freight companies (shipping by water), factories, the garment industry, and anything that used cotton were benefiting from the white gold and this reference is about the northern states. The northern states weren't interested in abolishing slavery because they were getting cotton at a very low price. The north wanted the Union to be intact because they knew that cotton would have become more expensive if the south formed a separate country and had more control over the prices of the cotton, plus the extra taxes associated with deals between two different countries. So money was the greatest driving force for the war, but no one at the time believed the war would destroy so much of the country and thus cost so much to rebuild that cotton prices would by necessity go much higher to pay for the rebuild of the south especially. When the damage became such as everyone knew it would cost so much to rebuild no matter who won, a new idea was needed for such devastation, freeing the slaves was the new old idea, it became the bigger reason for the war, why, because people needed something to make sense of what America had done to itself. So in reality the whole war had shifting meanings to the north, the south always fought for money and the ability to control that money. That's why the south came close to winning the war at one point, they had a common cause. The best thing that came out of the war was freedom for the slaves and as CapnA said if I'm not mistaken lead to inventions that helped replace the slaves and actually started a flurry of inventions that put this country back on track. Now even what I've stated is a very simple view of the war, there were many ideas with the individuals who fought and died in the war and to put all those individual reasons in perspective today would be an impossibility. 

GC