• Godric@lemmy.worldOP
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    13
    arrow-down
    7
    ·
    7 hours ago

    Yeah, no, get outta here with that confederate bullshit. Southern Slavery was an evil institution, and the Union shooting it out of the South was a good thing.

    • orioler25@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      2 hours ago

      Okay, this person is completely incorrect in their claim about sharecropping. But yes, the US federal government did not think slavery was an issue worth going to war to end. The Confederacy explicitly existed to continue slavery even though it was not threatened whatsoever in the South and more by freesoilers out west, including Lincoln and most “antislavery” activists. The US invaded the Confederacy because the Confederacy picked a fight and decided to shoot first, it was not about any moral ground. The decision to implement antislavery policy as a tactic during the war is more accurately attributed to the growing food and resource crisis the Confederacy suffered relative to the huge advantage that guaranteeing freedom to the overwhelming enslaved population there created.

      So, yes, it was good that slavery was abolished as a consequence of this War, but it would be distortive to suggest the Union fought to do that specifically. Solidarity among property-owning classes was a much more influential element in whether war broke out, and was indeed a huge reason why the war did not start until southerners started it despite the many good moral reasons to shut it down.

    • Doomsider@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      arrow-down
      7
      ·
      7 hours ago

      Oh yes, but the resulting sharecropping was cool and pitting families against each other to fight the wealthy’s war was great. Now run along like a good little propagandized fascist fuck.