The implication of Trump's question about the civil war are ... bizarre. But the question itself is actually interesting: why did it happen?
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(It goes without saying that the north was in the right on this one. But I'm saying it anyway.)
What interests me is "Why was the north willing to invade another country over slavery?" Mobilizing a huge population for altruism is rare.
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I think it's safe to say that the 1860s North felt no ethnic affinity for the slaves, which can motivate such altruistic defenses.
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Nor was there any particular personal or economic gain to be had from invading the south.
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There's a nationalistic "how dare you take part of my country!" but federal identification was much weaker then, state id much stronger.
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So how did millions of Northerners care enough to send a huge percentage of their sons, husbands and fathers to be brutally slaughtered?
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"The south wasn't another country" isn't an adequate answer. Nationalism was much weaker in 1860 than it became in the 20th century.
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And it doesn't explain, then, how the north was willing to court secession in the first place, which was obviously where they were headed.
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How did the north come to care so much about far-off strangers they didn't particularly like as to tear their country & their men to shreds?
- 他9件の返信
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Because it wasn’t another country… And democracy doesn’t work if the losing side launches an armed rebellion to get their own way.
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People don't court death over abstract notions like "democracy doesn't work if the losing side launches an armed rebellion to get their way"
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Are you sure?
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Pretty sure. War comes from visceral, not theoretical, motivations.
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We've retconned WWII into "war to stop the holocaust", but US evinced little interest in the holocaust. We fought because Japan hit us 1st.
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I see no evidence countries are willing to bear the devastating costs of mass war simply to save someone comfortably far off.
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To curb the power of rivals, yes. To avenge slights. To rescue close ethnic relatives. To maintain international power & prestige.
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Did you miss that whole Battle of Fort Sumter thing? That whole invasion of Pennsylvania thing? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Fort_Sumter …
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Not altruism for the vast majority, though passionate minority was real. The fight over the west & control of the federal gov't motivated...
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a lot of non-abolitionist northerners who perceived, plausibly, southern intention to dominate the union. Dred Scott & Fugitive Slave Act...
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Right, so these are interesting answers! This is my point: it's actually an interesting question. Just not for the reasons Trump thinks.
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Though of course, this turns it from "a war to abolish slavery" into "war for northern dominance, in which slavery was an incidental proxy"
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It was a war to *confine* slavery, and to protect the north (with its emerging capitalist economy) being subsumed into overall slave state.
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This seems like an overcharitable read of where the north was by the time they were arming up, and also at odds with likely outcomes.
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Founder effects are pretty strong in where states end up, and the North had a much higher population to send west than the south.
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読み込みに時間がかかっているようです。
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