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**citalopram** · 12-04-2011, 10:27 PM

The drive behind slavery was economic.

Slavery was the reason, but the reason was grounded on money and the genteel classes in the South, kind of like today's oligarchy, it relied heavily on the crutch of slavery to maintain their wealth and position. Today's oligarchy relies on the debasement of labor instead which is more humane.

For the South, to outlaw slavery would mean an economic upheaval (which happened anyway). That's where the States Rights issue came about. The Constitution didn't expressly prohibit slavery, so they argued it was a state sovereignty issue. When they started to lose that argument, AND new farmland territory was being added to the United States, which would have changed the balance of power in the Senate, that escalated the vitriol.

The religious debate in the United States between the evangelical south (Baptists, etc. who conveniently found nothing wrong with slavery) and the richer northerner Christians (Quakers, Catholics, Episcopalians) who took slavery as a religious issue also split on these lines. Yes that's right; Southern preachers helped spread the vitriol against Yankees in the pulpits and actually argued that it was a God-given right to own slaves.

So the vitriol went to the pulpits, and then nationalism also crept in before the war. The "Godless Yankees" were going to come take your property, your way of life, and oppress you to further their greed and gluttony up in the north. The demonetization was boundless. Us, vs. Them.

When religion was inserted, this put the Southern way of life at stake, along with the sovereignty of their state, so then greased the wheels for all the whites in the South who didn't own slaves, which was just about all of them, to jump into war and kill themselves. The Southern men didn't have a fight to protect slavery at the forefront of their minds, they were more worried about the aftermath IF the yankees did happen to win, and how that would destroy their family and way of life. They saw this as a revolution and to have their own national sovereignty that's totally centered in the South with no more Northern influences.

And that meant they had to keep slavery because that's what their entire economy was based on.

So 3 quarters of a million Americans volunteered themselves for the slaughterhouse.

12-04-2011, 10:27 PM	#24
citalopram Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 553 Senior Member	The drive behind slavery was economic. Slavery was the reason, but the reason was grounded on money and the genteel classes in the South, kind of like today's oligarchy, it relied heavily on the crutch of slavery to maintain their wealth and position. Today's oligarchy relies on the debasement of labor instead which is more humane. For the South, to outlaw slavery would mean an economic upheaval (which happened anyway). That's where the States Rights issue came about. The Constitution didn't expressly prohibit slavery, so they argued it was a state sovereignty issue. When they started to lose that argument, AND new farmland territory was being added to the United States, which would have changed the balance of power in the Senate, that escalated the vitriol. The religious debate in the United States between the evangelical south (*Baptists, etc. who conveniently* found nothing wrong with slavery**) and the richer northerner Christians (Quakers, Catholics, Episcopalians) who took slavery as a religious issue also split on these lines. Yes that's right; Southern preachers helped spread the vitriol against Yankees in the pulpits and actually argued that it was a God-given right to own slaves. So the vitriol went to the pulpits, and then nationalism also crept in before the war. The "Godless Yankees" were going to come take your property, your way of life, and oppress you to further their greed and gluttony up in the north. The demonetization was boundless. Us, vs. Them. When religion was inserted, this put the Southern way of life at stake, along with the sovereignty of their state, so then greased the wheels for all the whites in the South who didn't own slaves, which was just about all of them, to jump into war and kill themselves. The Southern men didn't have a fight to protect slavery at the forefront of their minds, they were more worried about the aftermath IF the yankees did happen to win, and how that would destroy their family and way of life. They saw this as a revolution and to have their own national sovereignty that's totally centered in the South with no more Northern influences. And that meant they had to keep slavery because that's what their entire economy was based on. So 3 quarters of a million Americans volunteered themselves for the slaughterhouse.
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