Hidden Motives Behind a Massacre

The civil war was one of the most brutal and costly wars in American history.  Over six hundred thousand men died, and the North almost completely destroyed the South’s economy, culture, and basic infrastructure.  Did this war really bring slavery to an end?  And was president Lincoln’s real goal to end slavery?  Or was it because the North depended on the South for economic stability?  President Lincoln is often viewed as a hero, but if one looks at the stories of death, in a war that was his creation, things start to look very different.

First of all, the civil war was not necessary to end slavery.  The story of William Wilberforce, an English abolitionist, proves this.  William Wilberforce strongly opposed the English slave trade.  But rather than start a war with the slave traders, he spent thirty years appealing to parliament that the slave trade be abolished.  After thirty years and zero deaths, the slave trade in Britain was stopped.  Why wasn’t this method used in the American civil war?  Because abolition of Slavery was not the primary motive of the North.

So what was the primary motive of the North?  According to Howard Zinn, it was economic concerns.  He says “The American government had set out to fight the slave states in 1861, not to end slavery, but to retain the enormous national territory and market and resources. Yet, victory required a crusade, and the momentum of that crusade brought new forces in to nation politics…” You may question the validity of this statement yet Abraham Lincoln himself said, “I will say, then, that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races…I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, not of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people.”  Thus, it really makes no sense to say that the purpose of the civil war was to end slavery.  It was about holding the union together, but not just for the sake of unity, the North’s economy relied completely on the South to survive.  Now lets take a look at the effects of Abraham Lincoln’s declaration of war.

The Civil war killed over six hundred thousand soldiers, undoubtedly there were countless civilian deaths.  The new idea of total war influenced future American war morality, and attacking civilian targets is now viewed as acceptable by politicians, take Hiroshima, for example.  The civil war was incredibly ugly and bloody, it’s reputation stained by countless stories of soldiers losing their limbs to explosive shells and cannonballs.  Brother fought against brother, and families were destroyed.  The South’s culture was disintegrated, as well as it’s cities, and only when the Southern states had been beaten down by the casualties and bombs did the war end.  This is not a story of heroism on the part of the north, it is a story of the American Government bullying another nation into submission, not very unlike the Vietnam,

Afghanistan, and Iraq wars.

In conclusion, what was the real purpose of the Civil War?  Abraham Lincoln said himself that he didn’t believe that the Slaves should have rights, so why do we view him as some sort of abolitionist hero?  William Wilberforce is the example of a true hero, a man who stopped slavery by persuasive skill.  ’Honest Abe’, a man who killed 600,000 people, is not a hero, he is a killer who pretended to care about the slaves, when he was only concerned about the Northern economy.  This is why I ask you to look at the Civil War from a different angle, and to realize that the price paid to end slavery was not necessary to end slavery, it was necessary to maintain the wealth of the North.

Advertisement

~ by luke789 on March 8, 2010.