Slavery; THE Cause?

[unionblue]

Elektratig,

Thank you for the above reference. I will check it out.

Unionblue

[ole]

Gentlemen:
The last two or three posts comprise totally the reason I continue with this board. Real scholarship. On point. Right or wrong. Great opinions! Gawd! Someone should give me a doctorate based on what I am learning. UNC, are you listening?

[unionblue]

"One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over ther Union, but localized in the Southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that his interest was; somehow, the cause of the war."

--Abraham Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address, March 1865.

"However much they who marched South and North in 1861 may have fixed on the technical points of union and local autonomy as a shibboleth, all nevertheless knew, as we know, that the question of Negro slavery was the real cause of the conflict."

--W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, 1903.

Unionblue

[seanachai]

I was taught in school, as I am sure many were, that the issue of slavery is what began the civil war. I have since discovered that history is written by the winners and that slavery was not an immediate cause for the war between the states. Research I have done suggests that initally it was an issue of states rights and unequal representation in government. I will have to locate the book, but to my recollection, at one point, things were looking bleak for the North. Other nations were beginning to get involved, and several were looking at backing the south. Lincoln, though not convinced of slaves equality, (it has been said that he himself did not find them as competent as whites) could quite possibly be one of the first of many to play the race card to garner support. Once it was spun that Lincoln was not fighting for control over states that were struggling for independence (hmmm...I'm having a flashback....I see......a large tea party.....) but rather for equality for all men, well hell....who wouldnt step up to the plate of that humanitarian effort?

Regardless of Lincoln's true intentions...what I find highly interesting is that while he claimed all men were equal, he was awfully busy trying to assimilate the Native American tribes, and not hesitating once to use force to "convert the heathens". Now, is it just me or does that not sound just a shade bit like a double standard??????

Seanachai

[unionblue]

seanachai,

History is written sometimes by the folks who are neither the winners nor losers, but just the folks who have researched it and laid it out.

I beg to differ that there was any other immediate cause than slavery that brought about the Civil War. It had long been a constant source of agitation and anguish between the states way before that little dust-up at Ft. Sumter and Ft. Pickens. Even the states who seceded were pretty plain what their reasons for leaving the Union were about. And it was not about tariffs, not about a big interferring federal government, and the only States Right the folks leaving the Union were upset about was taking men as property into other territories, states, and giving federal protection to do so.

As for your assertion about unequal representation, the South had the fedral government in its back pocket for a long time to include the White House, Supreme Court and the Congress. The unequal representation you must refer to is the one where a legal election took place under the US Constitution and the South refused to obey the law and abide by those legal results.

I think you may be a bit closer to the facts when you say that France and England might have intervened on behalf of the South, only if the war had been about anything but slavery, as that was the one fact that kept England and France from recognizing the South during the entire conflict. The Emancipation Proclamation just put the lid on the whole thing permanetly.

Lincoln had a lot to say about racial equality, the lack thereof and how he looked at it. I suggest you google on the internet a speech by Frederick Douglass and see what he had to say about Lincoln's final views in that area. You might be surprised.

As for your flashback to the American Revolution, you might recall they did NOT claim they were doing anything legal or had some hidden get-out-of-the Empire card hidden in the Magna Carter. They were totally honest in claiming they were in REBELLION.

As to actions taken by this nation against Native Americans, there is little excuse for what was done to them in the name of westward expansion, so you have me there.

Be glad to discuss the issue with you after you find your book and catch up a bit.

Until that time,
Unionblue

[ole]

seabachai:

"Regardless of Lincoln's true intentions...what I find highly interesting is that while he claimed all men were equal, he was awfully busy trying to assimilate the Native American tribes, and not hesitating once to use force to "convert the heathens". Now, is it just me or does that not sound just a shade bit like a double standard??????"

Please refresh my memory. Outside of the Santee Sioux uprising in '72, how was he awfully busy?

Seriously, this is a part of him I was unaware of and would like to look into it more closely.

Ole

[cash]

I was taught in school, as I am sure many were, that the issue of slavery is what began the civil war.
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When I was growing up, we never talked much about the Civil War. It was only when I went to college at an oustanding institution of higher learning in the south that I learned from a great teacher who is the descendant of a soldier of the Army of Northern Virginia, the truth, that had there been no slavery there would not have been a war.




I have since discovered that history is written by the winners
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Then you have discovered a myth.

Have you read any of the memoirs by such winners as Jefferson Davis, Alexander Stephens, James Longstreet, Jubal Early, Edward P. Alexander, G. Moxley Sorrel, Walter Taylor, Dabney Maury, John S. Mosby, John B. Gordon, Richard Taylor, Sam Watkins, John Bell Hood, Joseph E. Johnston, Robert Barnwell Rhett, Edward A. Pollard, Mary Chesnut, or William A. Fletcher? Have you read any of the writings of such descendants of winners as Charles Ramsdell, Grady McWhiney, C. Vann Woodward, James I. Robertson, Allen Tate, Robert Penn Warren, or Shelby Foote?

And when was the last time you read a history of the Vietnam War written by a Vietnamese historian?




and that slavery was not an immediate cause for the war between the states.
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You have discovered another myth. Have you read what Mississippi had to say on the matter? "Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery." [Mississippi Declaration of Causes]




Research I have done suggests that initally it was an issue of states rights and unequal representation in government.
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Then your research must have consisted of modern-day websites, charlatans like Thomas DiLorenzo, and postwar apologia from the likes of Margaret Rutherford, the SCV, or the UDC. It certainly didn't include the actual words written by the secessionists at the time.





I will have to locate the book, but to my recollection, at one point, things were looking bleak for the North. Other nations were beginning to get involved, and several were looking at backing the south. Lincoln, though not convinced of slaves equality, (it has been said that he himself did not find them as competent as whites) could quite possibly be one of the first of many to play the race card to garner support. Once it was spun that Lincoln was not fighting for control over states that were struggling for independence (hmmm...I'm having a flashback....I see......a large tea party.....) but rather for equality for all men, well hell....who wouldnt step up to the plate of that humanitarian effort?
------------------

That's another myth. See Allen C. Guelzo's book, Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America. If the E.P. were nothing more than a political ploy to drum up support, it was the absolute worst instrument at the absolute worst time. It had just as much chance of provoking foreign intervention as preventing foreign intervention because the British viewed it as a provocation for servile insurrection. It was unpopular in many parts of the North as well, helping Democrats gain seats in the 1862 elections.

As for those flashbacks, stay away from the LSD, or the mushrooms, or whatever.




Regardless of Lincoln's true intentions...what I find highly interesting is that while he claimed all men were equal, he was awfully busy trying to assimilate the Native American tribes, and not hesitating once to use force to "convert the heathens". Now, is it just me or does that not sound just a shade bit like a double standard??????
--------------------
It sounds like someone has sold you a bill of goods regarding Lincoln's policy toward the Native Americans. You may want to check out what David H. Donald [A Mississippian] has to say in his book, Lincoln.

Regards,
Cash

[seanachai]

To quote Kenneth C. Davis :Convinced of slavery’s immorality, Lincoln was NOT, however, and abolitionist. In the strange world of mid-nineteenth-century politics, when slavery was the one issue on which most politicians rose or fell, Lincoln walked a careful line. Believing that slavery was wrong, he also held that it WAS legal under the constitution. A pragmatic and ambitious “nonextensionist,” opposed to allowing slavery to spread beyond its current boundaries, Lincoln thought it would gradually die out, echoing the same vain hope that Jefferson and Washington had voiced some seventy years earlier.

By modern standards, much of what Lincoln thought and said about blacks would be called racist. He did not think blacks equal to whites in intellect or ability. He opposed the idea that blacks should vote, serve on juries, or intermarry with whites. For the sake of winning a state election, he was willing to keep emancipated blacks out of Illinois.

Earlier in his political life, Lincoln believed that all blacks should be removed from the US and resettled in some other country:”My first impulse would be to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia, to their own native land. But a moment’s reflection would convince me, that whatever high hope there may be in this, in the long run, its sudden execution would be impossible.” Still he did believe fiercely that when the Declaration said “all men are created equal,” it included Negroes, and Lincoln took that to mean that blacks should be given the opportunity to labor for wages as white men did.” (but not the right to vote or be on a jury or marry a white person...???)

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October 1855: Separate elections in Kansas produce proslavery and antislavery representatives in congress. Free-soil Kansans adopt a constitution that bans slavery but also EXCLUDES all blacks from the territory. (free'em but dont send'em here)

August 21-October 15, 1858: The Lincoln Douglas debates. In a series of seven debates, Lincoln confronts Senator Douglas. Lincoln takes an antislavery stand; Douglas defends the American right to decide the issue by popular sovereignty, even though the Dred Scott decision has negated that idea.

Stephen Douglas, in a debate with Abraham Lincoln (1857):

Mr. Lincoln tried to avoid the main issue by attacking the truth of my proposition, that our fathers made this government divided into free and slave states, recognizing the right of each to decide all its local questions for itself. Did they not thus make it? It is true they did not establish slavery in any of the states, or abolish it in any of the territories; but finding thirteen states, twelve of which were slave and one free, they agreed to form a government uniting them together, as they stood divided into free and slave states, and to guarantee forever to each state the right to do as it pleased on the slavery question. Having thus made the government, and conferred this right upon each state forever, I assert that this government CAN exist as they made it, divided into free and slave states, if any one state chooses to retain slavery. He says that he looks forward to a time when slavery shall be abolished everywhere. I look forward to a time when each state shall be allowed to do as it pleases. If it chooses to keep slavery forever, it is not my business, but its own; if it chooses to abolish slavery, it is its own business—not mine. I care more for the great principle of self-government, the right of the people to rule, than I do for all the negroes in Christendom.

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Lincoln’s goal was to preserve the union not to emancipate the slaves. During his debates with Stephen Douglass, Lincoln made his position on race quite clear: “ I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races. I, as much as any other man, am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.” In late 1862 he proclaimed “My paramount object in the struggle is to save the union. If I could save the union without freeing any slaves I would do it. If I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.”


(One large reason for sectional friction in the US was not slavery but economics. The south desired to buy cheaper imported European products but the powerful northern manufacturers imposed stiff import tariffs. These tariffs were quickly increased after southern congressmen left Washington in 1861. The industrial north, had no need for slaves because they had immigrants willing to work for very little, while the major planters of the agrarian south were totally dependent on human labor! So basically, there were two nations, divided by politics, economy and culture. The north was booming with the industrial revolution and a massive influx of immigrants and the southern states were pretty much at a standstill. They were an agricultural slave based economy that had been the norm since the creation of the nation. Most of its wealth was tied up in slaves and the production of cotton produced by those slaves. [ Lets say you had thousands of dollars tied up in Kathie Lee stock when it came out that she was using child labor…would you give away all your stock causing you to lose those thousands of dollars and purposefully put yourself in financial ruin? Honestly…or is it different because those kids weren’t in the U.S?])
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One of Davis’ first acts as president of the confederacy was to dispatch three commissioners to Washington in an attempt to negotiate a settlement with the union. Leading them was VP Alexander Hamilton Stephens of GA. At Christmas, before going to Washington, Lincoln had sent Stephens a letter marked “for your eyes only”, promising that his administration would not interfere with slavery. Now Stephens arrived in Washington, hoping to negotiate an end to the crisis. With the situation moving toward a showdown, Stephens and the other delegates met in secret with Lincoln’s secretary of state, William Henry Seward, but Lincoln refused to meet with Stephens, unwilling to legitimize a confederate government he now viewed as a collection of rebels.
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On Sept. 22, Lincoln announced his plans to order the freeing of southern slaves unless the southern states returned to the Union. With no response form the south, Lincoln announced the EP. It was purely a political act as obviously he had no authority in those territories but it brought the issue of slavery to the forefront of the conflict. Lincoln later explained this pragmatic gesture by saying:”Things had gone from bad to worse until I felt that we had reached the end of our rope on the plan of operations we had been pursuing. We had about played our last card . We must change our tactics or leave the game. I now determined upon the adoption of the emancipation policy.” In other words it was halfway thru this bloody war that slavery became a central issue! The proclamation was a brilliant maneuver as the citizens of neither Britain nor France would have accepted their nations support of slavery and it strengthened Lincolns hand in the N. When Lincoln instituted the first military draft in 1863, there were many riots in several major cities including NY. Btwn July 13 and 16 more that 1000 people were killed or wounded as army troops restored peace at gunpoint. To control the Northern insurrection, Lincoln ignored the constitution once again by suspending the right of habeas corpus which made it possible for the govt to imprison its critics w/o formal charges and w/o trial. By fall 1863, Lincoln was becoming increasingly concerned with foreign military presence in Canada and Mexico. His concern over the French in Mexico led to a hasty attack at Sabine Pass at the mouth of the Sabine River separating TX from LA. Sept 8,1863, 47 Texas militia men with 6 cannons chased off a flotilla of union ships composed of 22 transports carrying 5000 yankee troops escorted by 4 gun boats. With France and Britain coming dangerously close to recognizing and aiding the south it was Russia’s pro north Czar, Alexander II, who tipped the balance the other way after receiving info that England and France were plotting war to divide the Russian empire. Alexander ordered two Russian fleets to the US in the fall of 1863. One anchored off the VA coast and the other in San Francisco, both in perfect position to attack both British and French commercial shipping lines. No threats or ultimatums were made public, but it was clear that should war come, the Russian navy was in a position to wreak havoc. Due chiefly to the presence of these fleets coupled with the effect of the EP on their constituents, Britain and France declined to intervene for the south as planned. By early 1865 the south had been bled dry both in men and materials. The Mississippi River was in federal hands and union general Sherman had cut the confederacy in two with his infamous march to the sea thru GA. The confederate nation was able to keep an army in the field only because of matchless endurance and determination of its surviving soldiers. Opposing it was a nation which the war had strengthened instead of weakened. The war could only end as it did. The confederacy died because the war had finally worn it out.

We can analyze the hell out of this war, but to truly see it for what it was, we must look at it thru the eyes of those in the middle of it. Unfortuantely, no matter how you paint the picture, it will be tainted with our "future" perspective. Suffice it to say, we can always agree to disagree.
Seanachai

[unionblue]

Seanachai,

I agree totally with your very last statement in your above post, "we can always agree to disagree" and my how I disagree with almost everything else in your post!

But that is the fun of this board, is it not? To disagree, to debate, to learn? My one area I love to discuss is that the war was about economics instead of slavery. My basic view on the matter is no way did the tariff or anything about economics have anything to do with the war. Please refer to the thread entitled "How did Tariffs Work?" and you will find abundant evidence that the tariff was simply not an issue to force the North and the South into war that would lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans.

The rest of my post will have to wait as I must quit this thread for a time. But I promise I will be back to debate a bit more, as per your last comment.

Sincerely,
Unionblue

[cash]

To quote Kenneth C. Davis :Convinced of slavery’s immorality, Lincoln was NOT, however, and abolitionist.

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He was not an immediate abolitionist. Lincoln favored compensated gradual emancipation.



By modern standards, much of what Lincoln thought and said about blacks would be called racist. He did not think blacks equal to whites in intellect or ability. He opposed the idea that blacks should vote, serve on juries, or intermarry with whites. For the sake of winning a state election, he was willing to keep emancipated blacks out of Illinois.
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This was Abraham Lincoln in 1858, NOT Abraham Lincoln in 1864 or 1865. And please give the citation that supports your claim he was willing to keep emancipated blacks out of Illinois.

"How to better the condition of the colored race has long been a study which has attracted my serious and careful attention; hence I think I am clear and decided as to what course I shall pursue in the premises, regarding it a religious duty, as the nation's guardian of these people, who have so heroically vindicated their manhood on the battle-field, where, in assisting to save the life of the Republic, they have demonstrated in blood their right to the ballot, which is but the humane protection of the flag they have so fearlessly defended. The restoration of the Rebel States to the Union must rest upon the principle of civil and political equality of the both races; and it must be sealed by general amnesty." [Abraham Lincoln to James Wadsworth, January, 1864, Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Vol 7, pp. 101-102]



Earlier in his political life, Lincoln believed that all blacks should be removed from the US and resettled in some other country
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This is true. He abandoned this notion in 1864, but colonization was a concept embraced by the most eminent statesmen of the time. Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, Henry Clay, Roger B. Taney, Andrew Jackson, Francis Scott Key, and Daniel Webster all favored colonization. A belief in colonization is not evidence of racism, though. It is evidence the individual believed there was so much rancor caused by slavery that the two races would not be able to live together peacefully once slavery was ended. The behavior of white southerners after the Civil War shows they weren't altogether wrong.



October 1855: Separate elections in Kansas produce proslavery and antislavery representatives in congress. Free-soil Kansans adopt a constitution that bans slavery but also EXCLUDES all blacks from the territory. (free'em but dont send'em here)
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This was the Topeka Constitution, which was rejected by Congress. The Constitution adopted by freesoilers and accepted by Congress was the 1859 Wyandotte Constitution, which had no such exclusion of blacks:

http://www.kshs.org/research/collect...nstitution.htm



Lincoln’s goal was to preserve the union not to emancipate the slaves. During his debates with Stephen Douglass, Lincoln made his position on race quite clear: “ I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races. I, as much as any other man, am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.”
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Once again, that was Abraham Lincoln in 1858, not during the Civil War.



In late 1862 he proclaimed “My paramount object in the struggle is to save the union. If I could save the union without freeing any slaves I would do it. If I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.”
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And he wrote this with the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation already written and shown to his cabinet.


(One large reason for sectional friction in the US was not slavery but economics. The south desired to buy cheaper imported European products but the powerful northern manufacturers imposed stiff import tariffs. These tariffs were quickly increased after southern congressmen left Washington in 1861. The industrial north, had no need for slaves because they had immigrants willing to work for very little, while the major planters of the agrarian south were totally dependent on human labor!
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Completely wrong. The above paragraph has little resemblence to the actual history.

Slavery was the largest factor in the sectional tensions. The tariff was a comparatively minor irritant. At the time of secession it was at its lowest point in 50 years. And manufacturers do not impose tariffs. Tariffs are imposed by the US Congress, and had to have southern support to get through the Senate.

"What was the reason that induced Georgia to take the step of secession? This reason may be summed up in one single proposition. It was a conviction, a deep conviction on the part of Georgia, that a separation from the North-was the only thing that could prevent the abolition of her slavery." [Henry Benning to Virginia Secession Convention, 18 Feb 1861]

Southerners primarily bought US-made goods.

In the 1850s there was a movement in the South for direct importation into Southern ports.

"There were difficulties to be overcome before direct importations could be established other than deficiency of capital and credit, the long credit system, or the absence of a thoroughly Southern mercantile class. One lay in the comparatively small amounts of foreign goods consumed in the South. There is no way of calculating accurately the value of the foreign imports consumed in territory naturally tributary to Southern seaports; but the probabilities are that it did not so greatly exceed the direct importations as Southerners generally supposed. Some Southern writers made the palpably untenable assumption that the Southern population consumed foreign goods equal in value to their exports to foreign countries, that is about two-thirds or three-fourths of the nation's exports or imports. More reasonable was the assumption that the per capita consumption of imported goods in the South was equal to that of the North; but even that would seem to have been too liberal. A much higher percentage of the Northern population was urban; and the per capita consumption of articles of commerce by an urban population is greater than the per capita consumption by a rural population. Southern writers made much of the number of rich families in the South who bought articles of luxury imported from abroad; but there is no doubt that the number of families who lived in luxury was exaggerated. That the slaves consumed comparatively small quantities of foreign goods requires no demonstration. Their clothing and rough shoes were manufactured either in the North or at home. Their chief articles of food (corn and bacon) were produced at home or in the West. The large poor white element in the population consumed few articles of commerce, either domestic or foreign. The same is true of the rather large mountaineer element, because if for no other reason, they lived beyond the routes of trade. Olmstead had these classes in mind when he wrote: 'I have never seen reason to believe that with absolute free trade the cotton States would take a tenth part of the value of our present importations.' One of the fairest of the many English travelers wrote: 'But the truth is, there are few imports required, for every Southern town tells the same tale.' " [Robert R. Russel, Economic Aspects of Southern Sectionalism, 1840-1861, pp. 107-108]

The idea that the North was industrialized is another fiction. There was more industry in the North than in the South, but the North was still an agricultural area, not an industrial area. A simple glance at the 1860 Census shows this to be the case. And slavery was abolished in the North not due to economics but due to the influence of the Revolutionary War's philosophy of "all men are created equal." Once again, see Arthur Zilversmit's The First Emancipation: The Abolition of Slavery in the North.



So basically, there were two nations, divided by politics, economy and culture. The north was booming with the industrial revolution and a massive influx of immigrants and the southern states were pretty much at a standstill. They were an agricultural slave based economy that had been the norm since the creation of the nation.
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If there were two nations, the reason for the difference was the effect of slavery. And once again, the North was not an industrialized area. It was still an agricultural region.



One of Davis’ first acts as president of the confederacy was to dispatch three commissioners to Washington in an attempt to negotiate a settlement with the union. Leading them was VP Alexander Hamilton Stephens of GA.
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I'm afraid you may be confusing the Hampton Roads Peace Conference in 1865 with the three commissioners sent to Washington in 1861. The three commissioners were Martin J. Crawford, A. B. Roman, and John Forsyth. Stephens did not accompany them.


At Christmas, before going to Washington, Lincoln had sent Stephens a letter marked “for your eyes only”, promising that his administration would not interfere with slavery.
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And saying, "You think slavery is right and should be extended; while we think slavery is wrong and ought to be restricted. That I suppose is the rub. It certainly is the only substantial difference between us." [Abraham Lincoln to Alexander Stephens, 22 Dec 1860]



Now Stephens arrived in Washington, hoping to negotiate an end to the crisis.
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No, he didn't.



It was purely a political act as obviously he had no authority in those territories but it brought the issue of slavery to the forefront of the conflict.
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Wrong again. Slavery was at the forefront from the very beginning. "Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery." [Mississippi Declaration of Causes] One can say Lincoln had no authority in those territories only if one accepts that secession was a legal act. If, however, one accepts the position of the United States and the US Supreme Court that secession was an unconstitutional act with no legality whatsoever, then Lincoln did indeed have authority in those areas.


In other words it was halfway thru this bloody war that slavery became a central issue!
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Wrong again. Protection of slavery had always been the issue for the confederates. The Union's goal for the first half of the war was solely to preserve the Union. In the second half of the war, the Union added the destruction of slavery as a second goal.



The proclamation was a brilliant maneuver as the citizens of neither Britain nor France would have accepted their nations support of slavery and it strengthened Lincolns hand in the N.
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Wrong again. Lincoln didn't know what the affect would be on the British or the French. As they saw the E.P. as possibly encouraging servile insurrection, there was as much chance for them to intervene immediately on the issuing of the E.P. as there was for them not to intervene because of it. Additionally, the E.P. was unpopular among the citizens of the North, as the results of the 1862 Congressional elections show us.


When Lincoln instituted the first military draft in 1863,
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No. The confederates instituted the first military draft.



there were many riots in several major cities including NY.
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There was a draft riot in New York at this time. Which other cities do you contend had riots?



To control the Northern insurrection, Lincoln ignored the constitution once again by suspending the right of habeas corpus which made it possible for the govt to imprison its critics w/o formal charges and w/o trial.
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False again. The Constitution provides for suspension of habeas corpus in the event of insurrection or invasion, so it's impossible for him to have ignored the Constitution. And perhaps you can provide the date for this particular suspension?



With France and Britain coming dangerously close to recognizing and aiding the south it was Russia’s pro north Czar, Alexander II, who tipped the balance the other way after receiving info that England and France were plotting war to divide the Russian empire. Alexander ordered two Russian fleets to the US in the fall of 1863. One anchored off the VA coast and the other in San Francisco, both in perfect position to attack both British and French commercial shipping lines. No threats or ultimatums were made public, but it was clear that should war come, the Russian navy was in a position to wreak havoc. Due chiefly to the presence of these fleets coupled with the effect of the EP on their constituents, Britain and France declined to intervene for the south as planned.
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Wrong again. They were there only to winter in American harbors because Alexander II didn't want them to be bottled up in the Baltic in the event there was a war between Russia and Great Britain. See David H. Donald, Lincoln, p. 468.



The confederacy died because the war had finally worn it out.
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The confederacy died because they were beaten militarily.



Unfortuantely, no matter how you paint the picture, it will be tainted with our "future" perspective. Suffice it to say, we can always agree to disagree.
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You're allowed your own perspective, you're allowed your own conclusions based on the facts, but you're not allowed your own facts, and as I showed above, in many cases what you claimed as fact was not really true.

Regards,
Cash