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[–] 181 points 5 months ago* (25 children)

This was in California. My American history teacher was a confederate defender. Marked it partial credit to say the Civil War was fought over slavery. Full credit for the answer "states rights." Fully wrong when I said "states rights for its citizens to own people like property." His ignorance was astounding even to my 17 year old self. When I recognized the joke I was dealing with, I treated the class like a joke.

Mr. Angle, I remember you and your bullshit.

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  • [–] 52 points 5 months ago (3 children)

    I mean bros last name was Angle. He was destined for failure

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  • [–] 7 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    did the news write it as "angel"? or is that a british thing

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  • [–] 4 points 5 months ago

    Probably a tiny town thing when that happens,wiith some dude that looked like Bond owning the grocery store. Hah like anyone that could play Bond just owning a store in a small town staffed with the Mountain, just having a laugh now. Next thing I'll hear is the angel dude is Scotty....did look like a lovely town mind you. I could go for a Cornetto. Think it was pretty similar to what my dad used to buy me as a treat growing up in Canada many many moons ago now.

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  • [+] -40 points 5 months ago (12 children)

    He's right though, the core issue was state vs federal sovereignty over internal matters which apart from slavery (yes, the biggest issue) also included tariffs and infrastructure investment (oh how times don't change)

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  • [–] 45 points 5 months ago (3 children)

    When you frame it that way you make it sound like slavery was not the most pressing factor on everyone's mind.

    If this was unintentional, go read either speeches from the time or the declarations of succession from the southern states.

    Our new government is founded upon . . . its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery – subordination to the superior race – is his natural and normal condition.

    • Alexander H. Stephens, VP

    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 ... For twenty-five years this agitation has been steadily increasing, until it has now secured to its aid the power of the common Government. Observing the forms of the Constitution, a sectional party has found within that Article establishing the Executive Department, the means of subverting the Constitution itself. A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that “Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free,” and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction.

    • South Carolina's declaration of succession
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  • [–] 22 points 5 months ago (3 children)

    He was not. The confederates said exactly why the started the war in their declarations and it was, in fact, slavery.

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  • [+] -10 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    There was no formal declaration of war, what declarations are you referring to?

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  • [–] 12 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 child)

    Different person, but I would assume that they meant each of the state's declarations of secession. Which, yeah, didn't really mince words.

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  • [–] 17 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    This is lost cause propaganda. The confederacy split because of slavery first, every thing was a later justification. The first usage of the term "states rights" wasn't until after the war was over.

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  • [–] -1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

    Not that bringing this up in isolation to other facts isn't propaganda, an encroachment onto the rights of the state of South Carolina was their stated reason for seccession.

    Were the rights they were upset over racist? Absolutely. Were they contradictory? Well, it calls out the fugitive slave act explicitly, so in my opinion, another yes.

    They were always racist pieces of shit. However! The states' rights argument has been there since the near beginning. A right to support a horrific tragedy, but still, let's be factual in our contempt. There really is no need to embellish when the evidence is already that damning.

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  • [+] -16 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (3 children)
  • [–] 11 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

    Someone better go back in time and tell the authors of the Confederate states' Declarations of Causes for Secession:

    Georgia (what follows is quite literally the very first sentence of their declaration. Read the entire thing and tell me it wasn't about slavery. They mention it in nearly every sentence):

    The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery.

    Mississippi

    Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world.

    Oops...

    South Carolina (while reading this one, I thought they were the only ones so far to follow the assignment -that is, pretend this wasn't about slavery. But even they couldn't help themselves and had to bring up the Fugitive Slave Act. Oops)

    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." [...] The same article of the Constitution stipulates also for rendition by the several States of fugitives from justice from the other States.

    Texas

    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.

    Virginia (emphasis mine)

    The people of Virginia, in their ratification of the Constitution of the United States of America, adopted by them in Convention on the twenty-fifth day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, having declared that the powers granted under the said Constitution were derived from the people of the United States, and might be resumed whensoever the same should be perverted to their injury and oppression; and the Federal Government, having perverted said powers, not only to the injury of the people of Virginia, but to the oppression of the Southern Slaveholding States.

    https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/declaration-causes-seceding-states

    So go on about how the Civil War wasn't about slavery, dawg

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