Nash,
About the only places I hear the Civil War debated at length are on these bbs and in college classrooms.
Truthfully, it's just not that big a topic down here anymore. Race relations gets more play than the War of Northern Aggression (heh!)
I think what riles up most Southerners on these boards is the tendency of some northerners to use the topic to "tweak their noses." These jibes are, in my opinion, more of a clash of urban and rural cultures than anything else. It has been my perception that some of our western posters have, at times sided with the rural side of this argument.
As evidence of the difference of the perceptions of the Civil War, witness the regional views of Abraham Lincoln's administration. northerners view him, for the most part, as one of the best presidents to ever occupy the office, while Southerners are quicker to point out his failings. That is not to say that all northerners view Lincoln as a saint; nor do all Southerners view him as a sociopath. Obviously, to any objective person, the truth about "Honest Abe" lies somewhere in the middle of the two extreme views.
What I'm trying to point out is that there is undoubtedly as much myth evident in one of those views as there is in the other.
For further evidence that both sides of the Civil War argument have some maturing to do, witness the arguments we've had on these boards about the "cause" of the Civil War. Slavery. The big "booger bear" of an argument that sets rival debaters here to foaming at the mouth.
Quite frankly, having studied the topic thoroughly while working on two degreees, and teaching about the war for 30 years in a high-school classroom, I can state that the actual cause was economics. Specifically the economic differences between north and South as embodied in the Nullification Crisis, which was touched off by the Tariff of 1828. That Tariff was strongly opposed by the Southern states, because their citizens purchased most of their goods from European nations. The Tariff protected Northern industries from cheap foreign competition, but drove up the prices of all manufactured goods purchased by the South. South Carolina threatened to secede and voted to nullify the act.
This brought up an argument over state's rights. Neither of these two arguments, over the tariff or over state's rights, was directly related to slavery. The argument over high tariffs would remain a sore point between the two regions for decades.
Slavery was also a majory issue between north and South, as evidenced by the Missouri Compromise, the Compromise of 1850, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Uncle Tom's Cabin, and the infamous Dred-Scott decision.
And yet, Lincoln did not cite slavery as the main issue driving his decision to send troops into the Southern States...it was preservation of the Union.
And it was not the Civil War, by itself, that left the widest rift between North and South...at least in my opinion. It was the Reconstruction Period, with Southern states under control of a hostile Republican congress, dominated by angry and bitter men such as Thaddeus Stephens and Charles Sumner (although Sumner had sufficient cause to hate the South, after the beating he took from "Bully Brooks.")
My previous post touched on some of the evils of the Carpetbagger governments in the South. While these governments accomplished much in the South that was good, they were, nevertheless, permeated with corrupt officials concerned mainly with lining their own pockets, and who committed the ultimate sin...organizing the black vote and using it to maintain themselves in power.
The main cause of the rift that existed between north and South, that persisted for so long and gave rise to Jim Crow and other evils, lie in the years of the Reconstruction.
Thankfully, much of that resentment has faded...indeed...the South is far different from what it was when I was a child. Things may not be perfect, but they are far better than they were.
Regards, Shuckins
