Need a little help here...

[Archae]

A guy on FB is stating that the Civil War was the "War Of Northern Aggression," that slavery wasn't an important cause of the war, and that blacks did fight for the South. (Willingly?)

Anyone know a good source to debunk these?

[MineralMan]

1. Just laugh at that person and then unfriend him or her.

There is no amount of evidence that will change such people's minds. Don't waste your time.

[NastyRiffraff]

2. Any good history book

covering the Civil War.
Civil War Book List

If he's unwilling to read, screw him. No sense wasting your time.

[packman]

3. Never wrestle with a pig

And even if you win, the pig will never admit it

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

4. Considering which side fired the first shots,

that name is totally inappropriate.

The Civil War should be renamed "The War of Southern Treason".

[TexasProgresive]

5. That is the southern interpretation.

I personally think that, like most things concerning human conflicts, the causes are extreme complex. It is never simple when people are concerned, just look at the breakup of a "good" marriage. There may be one thing that tears it down, the proverbial straw that breaks the camel's back, but often we tend to discount or forget the load of bricks.

The war between the states begins at the beginning. The southern colonies moved to more agrarian economy while the northern colonies moved more industrial. This lead to an uneasy situation with the South supplying raw materials for the mills of the North and finished goods traveled the other direction. No doubt this lead to a trade imbalance.

Slavery was definitely a part of the Southern economy as well as the Northern. It soon came to be a galvanizing issue that polarized the nation into slave v. free, abolitionists v. states righters and so forth. The Missouri Compromise and the election of Abraham Lincoln ignited the massive pile of fuel that was laid.

A lot of people on both sides even now claim it was only slavery and others that slavery was not ever the cause. Because all of the rot of the whole economic structures of the nation were not cleaned out- only the emancipation of the slaves, we are suffering still to this day. Slavery was not THE disease it was a major part of a syndrome.

[brush]

9. God! If not for slavery, no war. Rocket science only to those who want it to seem complex.

[TexasProgresive]

10. If not the Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg

no War to end all wars (WW I).

[brush]

12. Snark with no substance to back up the contention is not a good look.

No slavery, no war. The articles of secession of the southern states state prominently their right to keep black people enslaved, often cloaking it as a "states rights" issue, just as their descendants cloaked their segregation, racism, lynching and poll taxes, etc. as states rights issues, and who now still contend that the Northern War of Aggression was an attack against their states' rights.

Why they were so determined to maintain "states' rights (slavery) that they even fired the first shots of the war.

Who would've thunk it of those so aggrieved, poor, victimized and set-upon southerners to start a war.

[GoneOffShore]

14. Game, set, and match.

[trof]

15. OK, just for the sake of argument, try this on:

Did the states have the right to secede?
Where in the constitution is secession prohibited?
I've read that many in the southern states believed that they had become part of the United States voluntarily, whether as one of the original colonies or later as a territory.
No one coerced them.
Therefore, they reasoned, they could just as easily elect to no longer belong.
Interesting point of view.

[brush]

21. Ok, go then. Don't let the door hit you in the ass, and don't start a war while you're at it.

[Bayard]

6. If I remember correctly

Slaves were sometimes pressed into service for the Confederacy to take the place of their masters.

[sarisataka]

7. December 24, 1860

South Carolina is the first state to declare secession. The first shots were fired by SC on Fort Sumter April 12, 1861. The North certainly was taking their sweet time to be aggressive. The first Union land attack did not occur until the Battle of Philippi in Virginia on June 3, 1861.

Was slavery an important cause? That is open to debate but here is an excerpt from "Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union "

The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution. The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia. Thus the constituted compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation.

Did blacks willingly fight for the South- yes, but with many more doing so unwillingly (forced to man cannon, use bayonet to kill mortally wounded soldiers...) But some free blacks did fight- see 1st Louisiana Native Guard (CSA). Estimates range from 3000-10,000. Compared to the lowest estimate of 750,000 Confederate soldiers throughout the war, blacks would represent .4% to 1.3% of Confederate forces. Numbers are difficult to come by as blacks were alternately allowed and banned from fighting as the fortunes of the Confederacy ebbed and flowed, so some may be counted multiple times. In any case the number was statistically insignificant.

Any good book on the Civil War can verify this information. (Hell, look on Wikipedia)

[TexasProgresive]

11. Thank you for a measure reply on an emotional topic.

[sarisataka]

18. Trying to reduce any War

Especially a complex one as the Civil War to a single Factor is a Fool's game.

I believe in looking at history and letting the events speak for themselves. Yes it was about slavery as that was the Cornerstone of the Southern economy. But the war was not a crusade to free the slaves, it was to preserve the Union. Even the Emancipation Proclamation left the slaves captive in those States not in Rebellion. It is often forgotten not every slave state chose to secede.

[safeinOhio]

8. Tell him we should make April 9 and national holiday

National Surrender Day.

Kids need a day off.

[sinkingfeeling]

13. Yeah, because it was the North that fired on Ft. Sumter.

[WinkyDink]

16. OMG. We should do homework now? "Help me refute." "Help me with a source." IGNORE, FGS.

[major debacle]

17. Try these sources

First, as to the Civil War being the "War Of Northern Aggression" keep in mind that the South initiated hostilities when the South Carolina militia bombarded the federal garrison at Fort Sumte for 34 hours straight. South Carolina had ceded in perpetuity the island on which Fort Sumter was built to the federal government. See Ownership of Fort Sumter.

As to the second point, that slavery wasn't an important cause of the war, on the contrary, according to the
Declaration of Causes of Seceding States, slavery was the main, if not the ONLY, cause that the seceding states mentioned as the reason for secession.

As far as blacks fighting willingly for the Southern Cause, the absurdity of the proposition speaks for itself.

[Archae]

19. I did some of my own research, and so did a another poster to that FB.

The other poster found a short lecture from West Point showing the main reason being slavery, and other reasons.

I found and posted a refutation of the "many blacks fought for the Confederacy" argument, and located most of this guy's arguments at the website of the "League Of the South."

Here's their current leader.

http://americanloons.blogspot.ca/2016/10/1735-michael-hill.html

[rug]

20. Tell them to read the Confederate Constitution.

ARTICLE I

Section IX

1. The importation of negroes of the African race from any foreign country other
than the slaveholding States or Territories of the United States of America, is
hereby forbidden; and Congress is required to pass such laws as shall effectually
prevent the same.

2. Congress shall also have power to prohibit the introduction of slaves from any
State not a member of, or Territory not belonging to, this Confederacy.

3. The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in
cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.

4. No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of
property in negro slaves shall be passed.

- snip -

ARTICLE IV

Section II

1. The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of
citizens in the several States; and shall have the right of transit and sojourn in any
State of this Confederacy, with their slaves and other property; and the right of
property in said slaves shall not be thereby impaired.

2. A person charged in any State with treason, felony, or other crime against the
laws of such State, who shall flee from justice, and be found in another State,
shall, on demand of the executive authority of the State from which he fled, be
delivered up, to be removed to the State having jurisdiction of the crime.

3. No slave or other person held to service or labor in any State or Territory of the
Confederate States, under the laws thereof, escaping or lawfully carried into
another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged
from such service or labor; but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to
whom such slave belongs; or to whom such service or labor may be due.

Section III

- snip -

3. The Confederate States may acquire new territory; and Congress shall have power
to legislate and provide governments for the inhabitants of all territory belonging
to the Confederate States, lying without the limits of the several Sates; and may
permit them, at such times, and in such manner as it may by law provide, to form
States to be admitted into the Confederacy. In all such territory the institution of
negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and
protected by Congress and by the Territorial government; and the inhabitants of
the several Confederate States and Territories shall have the right to take to such
Territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the States or Territories of
the Confederate States.

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_csa.asp

They're full of shit.