With all due respect TomesofDestiny I would disagree that any suggestion that slavery was not the primary cause of the American Civil War is pro Confederate propaganda. I am far from pro Confederate and I always put forth the view that slavery was the vehicle, the primary cause was the southern aristocracy's desire for empire, slavery was the vehicle that filled the coffers and brought followers, yet they quickly shifted gears when defeated, and instead encouraged racism to achieve their goals and embraced the philosophies of fascism, yet it always boils down to the desire to rule and to consolidate power to their chosen. The desire for empire and dynasty was the primary cause.
Many slaveholders were actually Northern absentee landlords, and they were all wealthy Republicans. Lincoln originally felt that the slaves should be dumped back in Africa, but was forced to deal with enough "black" people to realize that they weren't sub-human. The original emancipation proclamation only applied to areas under control of the Confederacy and was designed to counter the relaxed rules for slaves enlisting in the Confederate army. Despite records that show about 70,000 "colored" soldiers fought for the South, many people try to deny the records which indicate this. Many more took up arms such as shovels and hoes to defend their homes against advancing troops from the North. The South was exploited both before and after the war.
I certainly hope that you are being facetious. Much of what is taught in both public and private schools is highly influenced by the powers that be. Many teachers are highly prejudiced one way or the other. I had one teacher who thought that Labor Unions were communist (anyone remember labor unions and Poland?) and that the KKK(reconstituted) was Christian. I taught school with a white woman from NY who hated Southern White kids. Most of the "black" kids at that school did not respect her because the white kids were their friends.
I am a teacher and I can tell you for a fact the Civil War isn't being cover in full details where I work. Although I teach preschool, I work at a school that goes up to 8th grade. I have friends who teach 8th grade history and the curriculum in regards to The Civil War is very basic. It boils down to State's Rights and good vs. evil with Northern and Southern States. Slavery isn't even mention in full totality and it's relation to the war.
Yeah the truth is that regardless of what "should" happen, the teachers values are usually presented in the class creating some sort of bias. I have had many teachers though that excelled in the area of neutrality, but it varies, of course. Education isn't perfect, and it likely never will be. I'm glad we teach as much history as we do.
The war's main cause was slavery, but tensions had already been happening between the two sides. Slavery was the tension that pushed it over the edge, and made it unstable enough to create full out war between the south and the north. It wasn't the only factor, but it was a large one.
Hot-damn, I just had an Epiphany -- a rare moment of clarity. The American "Civil War" was not caused by the Institute of Sle battlecyavery per say, but the Political Tensions which existed in regional sectors North and South. Yes, Slavery was chief among reasons for these tensions but the killing and the placing ones self in harms way was not the motive for the war fever. It was known at the time, at least among scholars of the subject, that war is the extension of POLITICs to its most violent form. And it was not with a battlecry of "slavery or die" that the first shot were fired upon Fort Sumter, but one of "state's rights." It was that the orators and editorialists of the South felt that the POLITICAL RIGHTS of the South had been violated when by the Constitutional Institution called the ELECTORIAL COLLEGE that a damn northerner was elected POTUS. They felt robbed and violated because this "Republican" was not even on the ballot in many Southern States. And these orators and editorialists feared him, mistakenly, as an Abolishianist whose goal was to end the rightous institution of slavery. In reality Lincoln had stated several times that this was not his intention nor his ambition. But the orators and editorialists were speaking not of the man A. Lincoln but of the Political scarecrow of A. Lincoln -- the POTUS, as the destroyer of States Rights. No, my friends, it was not for the right of one man to own another that the war was fought but for the right of states to have a say in the politics of the day.
