For most, probably not so different from the way you learned it. Some people claim the war was fought over (the Southern states wanting to retain their right to) slavery while others say it was fought over the Southern states' rights (to own slaves). and none on the scale of New York City. I was wondering why people began to believe this and why it's still being taught. One word can make quite a difference. Friend of mine grew up very very very conservative in the deep south and learned about "The War Between the States" in school, which was a war for state rights, and not slavery. I was listening to a lecture about the events that led up to the civil war and I was curious if you guys learn it in a different way from the Northern schools. Not as a necessary evil, not as a good means to bringing Africans up to modern Western standards. I went to elementary and middle school in Arizona and high school in Maryland. Basic people owned people and it was bad kinda stuff. Just read this after posting. We talked about how slavery was the cause of the Civil War and how the Lost Cause narrative, which came after the war, tried to rebrand the war as one about states' rights, even though that wasn't an issue at the time. Thanks for your cooperation and enjoy the discussion! Hamilton and Jefferson famously quarreled over this issue (see also: the National Bank), so there was an established, root-conflict at the heart of the United States that had little to do with slavery. High school was a little more in detail but it's not like we learned about it all that extensively. After graduating teachers are not under any obligation to keep up on current research, I'm not a Civil War historian but I did get my master's from a moderately sized university in the south where I was required to take courses on southern history and can say that no one actually teaches this any more. I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. serious replies only. We learnt about slavery within the sugar industry, but we do live relatively close to an Australian South Sea Islander settlement. Pretty sure OP meant to say "What were you taught about slavery in school?" Now, just to briefly interject.
I think reading Blight's Race and Reunion would be beneficial to better understand the Lost Cause mindset, the politics of memory, and why the Civil War was taught differently in the southern states than in others. How did you learn it? A reporter visiting there, Sidney Andrews, wrote extensively about the political arguments and debates going on.
Some of the states even complained that Northern states were nullifying the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 - they were arguing that the federal government wasn't exerting enough power to protect slavery, which directly contradicts the idea that they were fighting for states' rights. I was in the 5th grade. Also from NY. I bring this up because it is important to understand where OP’s friend’s biases come from, because it actually pre-dates slavery, the Civil War, and even the country itself. After the Emancipation Proclamation, the need to cling to this “state’s rights” narrative became even more important for the south, because they had to sell their struggle to Britain and France (who they hoped would recognize them) not as a fight for slavery, but as a noble struggle for autonomy. I didn't hear the states' rights reasoning until I was well into my 20's.
:(. We were taught that there were many reasons for the civil war, not just slavery. No text book I've run across in teaching 3 sections of US to 1876 has said anything about state's rights, I graduated from high school 10 years ago and even then I was told it was fought over slavery. He praised the students with the white index cards for nothing and gave them candy while purposefully ignoring/ making disgusted faces as he passed the colored index card students. Did slave owners simply not teach that portion of the Bible to their slaves?
I got a pretty bad education about Slavery until I hit college.
By contrast, they're falling all over themselves to tell us it was slavery. Some of the very same people who, just a decade later, would lead the C.S.A.
The declarations for the causes of secession issued by several of the Southern states make it very clear they were seceding over slavery. There were a few other reasons I can't remember, but slaves weren't treated too well, since I mean they were slaves.
The soldiers and generals who had sacrificed so much, and shown so much bravery needed to be redeemed so that these southern communities could celebrate their past. Large parts of the senate meetings were spent on abolishing slavery and whether or not the war was even over slavery. I think this is a giant red herring. r/AskReddit is the place to ask and answer thought-provoking questions. Pretty much what I said. As a result, this state’s rights narrative was a lifeline. Please read the rules before participating, as we remove all comments which break the rules. If you see others posting comments that violate this tag, please report them to the mods! This was, of course, an illusion, as Lincoln didn’t wage war on southern institutions of slavery directly until the Emancipation Proclamation was announced in late-1862. About one-third of Southern households had slaves and far more benefited indirectly from slavery. ", http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/cornerstone-speech/, http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/chapter-and-verse/2015/0708/The-famous-1861-Cornerstone-Speech-that-aimed-for-hard-truths-about-the-Confederate-battle-flag-video. I learned at a later age that the teacher made it a point to separate close friend pairs with the bracelets to foster discussion among closer friends about their experiences. It was taught as harsh, often barbaric, and degrading to all involved. It would be a good read for your friend.
The teacher had us line up outside the classroom and randomly gave us either white index cards or colored index cards to take with us to our desks and were to place them on our desk. So the conflict was born in the midst of this argument over the narrative of the struggle itself: an issue that was, at its heart, slavery, but was cloaked in talk of state’s rights.
Yes, slavery was the hot-button topic that led to the Civil War, and was undoubtedly the main issue that brought the conflict to a head. Southern politicians almost always did not flinch to use big government when it suited them and supported their aims. I was educated in a California public school system and we learned that for all intents and purposes the civil war was about slavery.
New comments cannot be … Pretty clear cut, "it was bad, but we know better now". There were other issues involved but the elephant in the room was slavery. who fought in the war, this is a much more pleasant and palatable story. As a Southerner I liked it because Andrews was simultaneously keenly interested in the politics of the South but also wanted to portray them as people.