"I would not call 2/3 a overwhelming majority. (majority yes, overwhelming, no)
Especially not considering that many of that group was still dependent on slavery. Rented slaves or sold good to plantations or in other ways worked in a profession that benefit from slavery.
And if that was why, then they are the most stupid people in history... all they needed to do not to have government troops in their backyard, was not to start a war in the first place."
Dude from Denmark of all places said this.
I said this:
And where did you get the 2/3rds number? 2/3rds among the wealthy population? 2/3rds among the planter class, or the entire south as a whole? Numbers have ranged from 3% to 30%, and facts are twisted to fit an agenda. The modern agenda is to vilify the southern confederacy and the soldiers who fought for it.
Dude from Minnesota said this:
"You put the cart before the horse, Ethan. Had the white Southerners not rebelled (to protect slavery) no Northern armies would've come south."
I said this:
Had the Northern states stayed out of it, the South would have left peacefully and that would have been the end of it. Actually, it would have only been a few states because when Lincoln called for regiments to be formed, and an army be readied, states like Virginia and North Carolina and such took it as a threat. The yankees would have to march through them, to get to the seceded states. Only the original seceded states would have left, not all 13. Lincoln created a bigger enemy when he called up for more troops.
I do not excuse the Southern states politicians and planters racist behavior at that time. However, I refuse to let the common confederate soldier, the lowly privates who fought so bravely, be mocked, shamed and ridiculed by modern folk who want to end the story of the confederacy. Whether you like it or not, they were Americans, they fought as Americans and died as Americans, and for one group of Americans to be portrayed as evil because of the actions of a few rich men, is shameful. God bless the boys in blue, for preserving the union, for freeing the slaves, and for I am descended from those who fought for the Union. And God bless the boys in gray, who fought so bravely throughout the war, who stood up to the government and died trying to protect their states and families. God bless the soldiers of the Civil War, blue and gray.
And they are still throwing up numbers that I think they are pulling out of their butts. 40% of Lees army were slave owners?? Since when could poor farmers afford slaves? What would doctors, lawyers, teachers, shop owners do with slaves? It was the cotton planters and the tobacco planters that used them, and exactly how many plantation owners left their money making plantations to go get themselves killed? It doesn't make sense, and it is an effort to vilify the republican South, plain and simple.