Quote:
Originally Posted by wehateporn
?Every man should endeavor to understand the meaning of subjugation before it is too late? It means the history of this heroic struggle will be written by the enemy; that our youth will be trained by Northern schoolteachers; will learn from Northern school books their version of the war; will be impressed by the influences of history and education to regard our gallant dead as traitors, and our maimed veterans as fit objects for derision? It is said slavery is all we are fighting for, and if we give it up we give up all. Even if this were true, which we deny, slavery is not all our enemies are fighting for. It is merely the pretense to establish sectional superiority and a more centralized form of government, and to deprive us of our rights and liberties.?
Maj. General Patrick R. Cleburne, CSA, January 1864 |
It is true, the winners are the ones who will write the history and determine how things are viewed in the future.
There is a book called "When in the Course of Human Events" that is a very good read for anyone interested int he civil war. The author makes the case that slavery was only one of the many reasons behind the civil war and that it likely would have ended without the war. The real reason was money. At that time the US was very much an agricultural power and we sold a ton of crop like tobacco and cotton. Most of these cash crops were grown in the south, yet the leadership of country was based in the north. Those in the south were getting sick of paying taxes on their crops to pay for those in north and that led to the beginning of the secession. The author even points out that slavery wasn't presented as one of the reasons for the war until about three years into the war when the popularity of the war started to lag in the north.
The author is a tax historian so you expect him to look at things with a economic/tax slant, but it is still good read that makes you take a little different look at one of the major events in our history.