The Civil War: the Confederate-Southern Perspective
The Civil War: The Confederate-Southern Perspective
We are often taught in grade school the Union (or Northern view) of the Civil War because that is who won the war. In retrospect, both sides should be taught in American history, since, after all, this was a war with ourselves over differences. How different the nation would be if the South had won. Would we still engage in slavery? Would the United States have a completely different moral and ethical code in business? What of the impact of religion? Politically, how would our nation then be ran? These are just a few of the questions raised as I began my journey in search of Confederate ideals and Southern reasons for the war. In every story, there are three sides. With the Civil War, there is the Northern side, the Southern side and then there is the truth. While not all truths may be discovered, my purpose here to is to understand the defenses in which the Confederates believed they were fighting for. Business, politics, slavery and abolition, differences between Northerners and Southerners beliefs and values are all pieces to the puzzle that eventually led to the war. The Confederacy believed they had the right to secede were based on grounds that the United States Union no longer politically supported nor represented them as a people. According to the Declaration of Independence in the opening statement: “When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume…the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s god entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation”…“that, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government”. The South strongly believed their livelihoods were at stake, and
We are often taught in grade school the Union (or Northern view) of the Civil War because that is who won the war. In retrospect, both sides should be taught in American history, since, after all, this was a war with ourselves over differences. How different the nation would be if the South had won. Would we still engage in slavery? Would the United States have a completely different moral and ethical code in business? What of the impact of religion? Politically, how would our nation then be ran? These are just a few of the questions raised as I began my journey in search of Confederate ideals and Southern reasons for the war. In every story, there are three sides. With the Civil War, there is the Northern side, the Southern side and then there is the truth. While not all truths may be discovered, my purpose here to is to understand the defenses in which the Confederates believed they were fighting for. Business, politics, slavery and abolition, differences between Northerners and Southerners beliefs and values are all pieces to the puzzle that eventually led to the war. The Confederacy believed they had the right to secede were based on grounds that the United States Union no longer politically supported nor represented them as a people. According to the Declaration of Independence in the opening statement: “When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume…the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s god entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation”…“that, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government”. The South strongly believed their livelihoods were at stake, and
Bibliography: Bevin Alexander. How The South Could Have Won the Civil War: the fatal errors that led to Confederate defeat. New York: Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., 2007. Richard E. Beringer, Herman Hattaway, Archer Jones and William N. Still, Jr. Why the South Lost the Civil War. Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 1986. Kenneth M. Stamp. The Causes of the Civil War. New York: Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1991. William J. Cooper, Jr. Jefferson Davis, American. New York: Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., 2000. http://www.civilwarhome.com/confederatecause.htm http://www.americancivilwar.com/documents/confederate_constitution.html