+1 it’s ironic af that America may have been more Free if it had lost the revolution.
…But not surprising given economics / human nature.
IIRC, George Washington did realize that slavery was evil. And then sort of vaguely wanted to get rid of them. Which is about what I would hope for from modern people too.
(And, yes that’s exactly my point.)
So which facts are true about the War Between the States? Was this war fought over the abolition of slavery or over the larger issue of states rights? Is the school just supposed to say, “There was a war,” and not why?
(My state rep heads a committee on state rights bc our legislature is convinced there is too much federal overreach. Meanwhile our schools are underfunded, we have a huge mental health crisis (which contributes to poverty and homelessness), and a ridiculously high prison population. Oh, and we’re happy to take all the federal funds we can get, unless they relate to Medicaid expansion. And my rep claims he is working for me.)
Or America may have been configured differently.
The US of today could well have been two or more countries and/or include more parts of Canada. My province of BC, for example, almost became part of the US in the 1860’s. It had very close ties to the US than.
Not necessarily. New things get discovered all the time.
One example is the Cuban Missile Crisis. It happened in 1961. Kennedy and his staff didn’t know if the missiles were armed with nuclear weapons or not. It was reasonable to assume they were, but he didn’t know for sure… no one did… until glasnost resulted in the Soviet Union declassifying documents. I think it was in the 1990s that we learned that there definitely were nukes on the missiles.
For almost two millennia there had been no concrete evidence (outside of the Bible) pointing to the existence of Pontious Pilate, the Roman governor who ok’d the crucifixion of Christ. But in something like the 1960’s an archaeological dig uncovered something with his name on it that was dated to the first century.
So yeah, new stuff is being discovered about historical events all the time. Those are just two examples off the top of my head.
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Yes, we all assumed at the time that the Cuban missiles were armed with nuclear weapons. I still remember the anxiety I felt watching that play out. JFK played it just right though.
It was over the states right to keep slavery.
The South ceded because it saw it was losing power in the federal gov’t and feared losing economic status. Slavery was a key part of that economic status.
The armed conflict started after the South “fired first” when Lincoln ordered the military to recover federal property located in a Southern state.
not you saying this during pride month!
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I’d actually encourage folks interested in the subject to read the various Confederate states’ secession documents. While a couple of states did cite those as reasons, Mississippi in particular focused on slavery (in arguably one of the most racist documents prepared by a state legislature), while other states cited the militarization of the north / the failure to let the already-seceded states depart as the primary reasons for secession.
My wife grew up in the rural deep south and received the “it was just about states rights” indoctrination in school. At one point early in our marriage, we argued about whether “it was about slavery”. I printed a copy of Mississippi’s declaration of secession, gave it to her…and a few minutes later she said “it was about slavery”.
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And further, since at least the civil war, “states rights” has mostly been about keeping the vestiges of slavery around.
I think we have a what-if thread, but what if the US Constitution had banned slavery? Would the southern states not have agreed to it, made their own country at that point? Would each southern state have made their own country? Would two or more countries be less powerful and thus vulnerable to invasion and takeover?
If they didn’t ratify, I don’t think that would necessarily mean that they’d split off, but that the articles of confederation would have kept going.
IIRC, this was a topic of consideration in the initial drafting. But given that several of the founding fathers had slaves, and their loss would’ve resulted in significant loss of economic power, they were against any such explicit statements in the Constitution and agreement to keep that issue a “state-determination” issue.
The result was the eventual identification of “slave states” and “free states” . . .
I know what really happened. You understand what “What If” means, right?
I don’t know whether this subject warrants its own thread as it is the type of discussion that merits being included in a high school history or social studies class, which is the subject of this thread.
I would have argued in high school that slavery gave the US a competitive agricultural advantage versus other countries that generated more wealth than without slavery. That is, without slavery, the US would have been a poorer country. A more interesting question may be how the distribution of wealth within the US would have been different in the absence of slavery?
Less powerful and poorer as well. A huge competitive advantage that the US has is its large domestic market. Size matters in this respect.
The “Search” here doesn’t find anything, I mean ANYTHING. I’d like it to move this to that thread. Mods will save the day.
I agree with you, and to the whole point that USA is what it is are today because of Slavery. Because it was kicked down the roat for 70 years, and there was A LOT of kicking.
Suffice it to say, I don’t think the US Constitution banning slavery in 1787 would be the same USA in 1788 as we now know it.
The Southern states would not ratify it.
I think The War of 1812 might have ended differently, with half the USA going back to Great Britain.
Washington, DC would not have been built between MD and VA. Capitol might have stayed in Philly or NYC, until 1813 or so.
Lots of dominos fall (even China!) if slavery were banned in the Constitution, ratified by only six states.
So, just to pin this back to this thread: It would be an interesting “think project” in history class to ask my question.
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