UK now world's oldest country

[tzor]

Slavery was the cause of the civil war, but one could argue that the civil was was not actually about slavery. Rather it became a complex game, each side trying to get an even hand in the game so as to not let the other side get the advantage of numbers in their position. A number of minor events would on occasion change the rules to the game, but the problem was that the game itself was causing a massive toll on the nation.

In what was generally a two or three party system the Whig and the Know Nothings both collapsed as a result of the issue. The Democrats became a party divided. Under the leadership of Lincon the Republicans won. His goal was not to abolish slavery, rather in a move that is similiar to a lot of 20th and 21st century attempts to destroy the smoking industry, his goal was to stop slavery's spread to new states, thus eventually resulting in a minority of states being on the slave side and thus having the majority resolve this issue once and for all.

As a result of the Civil War, Federalism came in to government with a vengence, but the real cause of the civil war was not the federal government vs the state, but the sates in majority vs the states in minority.

You don't have to be always united to be a government, you just need to be in agreement on the rules of the game. Long Island, New York City, and upstate New York are almost as far apart in many ways as the pre-civil war United States were, yet we are still one, sort of united, State.

[Crissa]

The Civil War was really an argument over whether these United States were a collection of states, loosely united, or a country together.

So of course those who won the argument would say that they were right back to 1789, but the argument wasn't resolved until 186-whatever, which is where outsiders count it.

-Crissa

[Maj]

This is so bringing back nightmares of my honors US History class in high school... I had this teacher who gave a different lecture every day for a week as to the "real" cause of the civil war. Slavery only took up one day.

[Neeek]

1200533666[/unixtime]]This is so bringing back nightmares of my honors US History class in high school... I had this teacher who gave a different lecture every day for a week as to the "real" cause of the civil war. Slavery only took up one day.

From what I gather, the emphasis on slavery being taught as the cause is much greater in former slave states than the rest of the country, where more generally accurate views are professed.

[Username17]

South Carolina specifically stated Slavery as the primary, indeed only cause of withdrawal.

In the present case, that fact is established with certainty. We assert that fourteen of the States have deliberately refused, for years past, to fulfill their constitutional obligations, and we refer to their own Statutes for the proof.

The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as follows: "No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping 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 service or labor may be due."

This stipulation was so material to the compact, that without it that compact would not have been made. The greater number of the contracting parties held slaves, and they had previously evinced their estimate of the value of such a stipulation by making it a condition in the Ordinance for the government of the territory ceded by Virginia, which now composes the States north of the Ohio River.

So much for "states rights" and all that shit. They withdrew from the Union because the free states were exercising their "states rights" to ignore the Fugitive Slave Law.

Full Text: Here.

-Username17

[Neeek]

1200571519[/unixtime]]

So much for "states rights" and all that shit. They withdrew from the Union because the free states were exercising their "states rights" to ignore the Fugitive Slave Law.

Full Text: Here.

-Username17

It's so much worse than you think. The Dred Scott decision effectively declared that every state was a slave state under the Constitution.