Mr ShamMan's post without all the weird colors and formatting so people can actually read it (Is this a first? Mr. ShamMan actually posts something worth reading?):
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"The Civil War began 148 years ago this month with the assault on Fort Sumter and ended when rebel forces surrendered in 1865, but the battle over how to teach the conflict to new generations of Americans has never stopped.
Ask Northerners the cause of the war, and the answer often is a single word: slavery. In many places in the South, the answers can vary: states' rights, freedom, political and economic power.
As students across the region begin springtime Civil War lessons, historians say the election of Barack Obama as the first African American president offers an unprecedented opportunity to break through stereotypes and view the era in broader ways.
"His election means we can be more honest. We can stop giving one-word answers," said Edward L. Ayers, a Civil War scholar who is president of the University of Richmond, in the city that became the capital of the Confederacy.
[Les] Albers said he is a living example of the regional mentalities over the war.
He grew up in New York, where, he said, he learned "the Northern philosophy" of the war, which was: "The war didn't hit us. We won the war, so get over it. . . . Northerners don't really think about it. There's a monument here or there, but that's about it."
Then he joined the Army and trained in the South, where he got a whole different perspective: "The South lost and was occupied. The entire economic system was turned upside down. That gets to the point about how the war was about political power."
Let's DO THIS, BigRob!!!!!
It's my contention that...our Civil War was all-about the Corporate/Industrialized North vs. the Agricultural South.
Up, until The Civil War, most, local political-power was held by farmers/land-owners....who had the products everyone needed; thereby giving them a little-larger voice in local (i.e. political)-issues.
That all ended when the Corporate/Indutrialized North realized they had the economic-power....and, bigger-GUNS....to go NATIONWIDE!!! (...and, take all the power & influence from the Agricultural-Boy$....a battle that still exists.).
Our Civil War spawned CORPORATE AMERIKA!!!!
(.....and, the eventual-Death of the family-farm.)
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The two main causes of the Civil War were slavery and economic abuse of the South by the North. In that order.
Slavery we all know about. And the main "state's right" the South fought for was, of course, the "right" of states to permit black slavery.
If there had been no other issues, Slavery was more than enough reason to fighte the Civili War.
But there was another issue. For years before the CW, Congress had passed increasingly oppressive tariffs and duties on Southern goods. Technically, all those tariffs applied equally to all states, not just the Southern ones. But in fact, taxes on exports of farm goods (tobacco, wheat, rice, cotton etc.) hit the South far harder than the North, since the South exported huge amounts while the North exported very little of those things. Most of the South's economy consisted of massive farming, and exporting its products to the North and to other countries, and using the money to buy machinery, clothing, and most hard goods, which were not made in the South.
And when the Federal taxes rose to 50% of the cargo's value (OR MORE), it was practically a death sentence to many southern farms and plantations, making it impossible for them to compete with European farmers. Even if there had been no slavery, it is possible that a war would have been fought over these economic-oppression issues alone, if they had continued.
These tariffs were passed by a House that had far more Northern representatives than Southern; and a Senate which had equal numbers of Nothern and Southern senators... but usually had vice-presidential tie-breakers who were picked by their (northern) Presidents for their Norther sympathies despite often being from the South themselves. So Northern legislatures were usually able to steamroller the South and ram through highly oppressive taxes and tariffs... while simultaneously passing spending plans favorable to the North.
And even these legislative travesties, while technically having nothing to do with slavery, were often passed with ringing declarations that the South deserved to be punished due to its tradition of slaveholding; and so the one-sided burdens imposed on the South were OK.
The two main causes of the Civil War were slavery and economic oppression of the South. Slavery was the main cause, but economic oppression was a very significant factor too.
