My conservative brother told me at dinner last night that the civil

[Maraya1969]

war was a war of aggression against the south. I tend to get excited and he stayed cool and collected so I was the one that lost.

Any good pages that explain why the war was because of slavery and something to debunk what he said? He said his wife always said that but she is from N. Carolina

Thanks in advance

[JaneyVee]

1. Doesn't get much better than this:

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/06/what-this-cruel-war-was-over/396482/

Directly from the mouths of southern generals.

[apnu]

6. That link is awesome (nt)

[The_Commonist]

2. Of course it was a war of aggression against the South!

The South had decided to keep other humans in bondage, long after most the rest of the world realized that was morally repugnant. Rather than to try to find a way to change that, they decided to leave the Union. They even went so far as to fire on a Union-controlled fort that was on "their territory." The North said "fuck that shit, and these back-wards shit-stains. Let's take that it back, burn some of it to the ground, and force these idiots, whether they like it or not, into the modern world." Unfortunately, the reconstruction part of it did not turn out so well, and because of that, we may need to do the whole thing over again.

[daa]

3. The north was hostile to slavery

The south loved cheap labor. The south seceded and Lincoln went to war to preserve the union.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

12. That's not so clear cut.

The North was anti-slavery and they had the majority if the industry.

The South was agrarian and the majority if their industry was in slaves.

I am not defending the South, Slavery or anything that they stood for.

My family fought for the Union, and I am proud of that.

[apnu]

4. Here you go, basic US history, 8th grade level.

Known facts every 8th grader knows:

* The Southern states voted to Secede from the Union in violation of the Constitution.

* They seceded only after Abraham Lincoln was duly elected President by the rules of the Constitution.

* In their secession papers, every session state stated slavery was why they were leaving.

* Southern States then attacked the Union and declared war to the Union.

Conclusion: Southern states directly caused the Civil War, they even egged it on. They'd got all the war they wanted.

As my history teacher friend says of the Civil War: "he South realized that they were losing the argument, so they tried to flip the table and sneak out the back."

Next time your brother brings that tripe up, just laugh in his face.

[mercuryblues]

5. revisionist history

http://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/five-myths-about-why-the-south-seceded/2011/01/03/ABHr6jD_story.html

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_missec.asp
Confederate States of America - Mississippi Secession

A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union.

In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.

http://www.civil-war.net/pages/texas_declaration.asp

Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one of the Confederated Union to promote her welfare, insure domestic tranquility and secure more substantially the blessings of peace and liberty to her people. She was received into the confederacy with her own constitution, under the guarantee of the federal constitution and the compact of annexation, that she should enjoy these blessings. She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery - the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits - a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time. Her institutions and geographical position established the strongest ties between her and other slaveholding States of the confederacy. Those ties have been strengthened by association. But what has been the course of the government of the United States, and of the people and authorities of the non-slave-holding States, since our connection with them?

http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/primarysources/declarationofcauses.html

The Constitution declares that persons charged with crimes in one State and fleeing to another shall be delivered up on the demand of the executive authority of the State from which they may flee, to be tried in the jurisdiction where the crime was committed. It would appear difficult to employ language freer from ambiguity, yet for above twenty years the non-slave-holding States generally have wholly refused to deliver up to us persons charged with crimes affecting slave property. Our confederates, with punic faith, shield and give sanctuary to all criminals who seek to deprive us of this property or who use it to destroy us. This clause of the Constitution has no other sanction than their good faith; that is withheld from us; we are remediless in the Union; out of it we are remitted to the laws of nations.

[deutsey]

7. I'm doing research on the post-bellum period in America

and actually came across this morning the following reference to the Civil War in a presentation from 1892 in which the speaker (a co-founder of the Free Religious Association) called the war "the Great War for extinguishing the Slaveholders’ Rebellion."

William J. Potter: “Free Religious Association: Its Twenty-Five Years and Their Meaning. An Address for the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary of the Association, at Tremont Temple, Boston, May 27th, 1892.”

This probably isn't very useful to you, but I just thought it was an interesting coincidence.

What your brother and sister-in-law said is generally how people in the South saw the Civil War. Many Northerners saw it as a rebellion that needed quashing. Abolitionists like Potter saw it about ending slavery.

That's probably over-simplifying it, but it's accurate, I believe.

[gratuitous]

8. Introduce a few facts

Here, for example, is South Carolina's own statement of why they were breaking away from the Union:

http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/south-carolina-declaration-of-causes-of-secession/

It's kind of lengthy, but in anticipation of further erosion of their "right" to keep humans as slaves, the state declared itself an independent nation, and followed on by firing on Fort Sumter.

Tell your brother that South Carolina and rest of the confederate traitors tossed the dice that they could beat the United States and lost badly.

[rogerashton]

9. "War of Northern Aggression?"

Well -- there are two possibilities.

1) South Carolina's secession was illegal and illegitimate. In that case, their attempt to form a separate military and their attack on Fort Sumner was treason, for which all participants might legally have been hanged. The Union, humanely, chose not to go that far.

2) South Carolina's secession was legal and legitimate, so that South Carolina was a separate country. In that case,
a) The Union had the legal right to make war on South Carolina for any reason whatever.
b) Aggressive war was not then considered a wrong. That was a Twentieth Century development.
c) The war against South Carolina was a just war, by the doctrine of a just war, in so far as it was aimed to eliminate the crime against humanity known as slavery.
d) South Carolina made no attempt to negotiate the withdrawal of Federal forces that had been stationed in North Carolina when it was a state, but simply attacked them without any attempt to avoid conflict. This was an act of aggression by South Carolina against the Union, and violated at least the second of the canons of a just war.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_war_theory#Just_War_Doctrine

[Erose999]

10. The Mississippi declaration of secession spells it out bluntly.

[TexasProgresive]

11. You will never win at this

It doesn't matter what you say, for that matter it won't matter what he says because just like the factors that brought about the Civil War, War between the States, War of Northern Aggression they run very deep. It would be nice if we could boil down the complexities of the world to one issue. There are strong arguments that states had the right to leave the union. I tend to agree with President Lincoln that the union needed saving.

The deep philosophical differences that lead to contention between the industrialized northern states and the agricultural southern states really began before the union. It is a miracle that the nation went so long without major trouble.

It wasn't the abolishing of slavery that torqued the southern slave states it was that they were sure that no more territories would be admitted into the union as slave states. This issue came right to the forefront during the 1850s and when Lincoln was elected the pot boiled over and 7 states succeeded before Abe was inaugurated. This is like a couple whose marriage has been in trouble for years and something happens, great or small, and leads to divorce or murder.

Good luck, but I think you and brother may have to agree to disagree, because it should be good that families compromise and continue to love one another.