He didn't say the war had nothing to do with slavery, though. He said that he didn't agree with the public schools teaching that slavery was the ONLY factor involved in the war, which is a significant difference. He even goes on to say that "you can't deny it wasn't an important issue". However, he does make his opinion clear that he doesn't think ending slavery was the deciding reason for the civil war, something that I've actually heard is a historically defensible position.

Given that the Emancipation Proclamation didn't come until after the war had started, it's really difficult to frame the Civil War primarily as an abolitionist action.

Just because the war was not abolitionist driven does not mean the core reason for the war was not slavery.

Wow.

"They used the issue of slavery to precipitate the war and literally cancel out the whole concept of individual choice".

Reductio ad absurdum. He is right in the first part. Slavery was used to precipitate the war. The civil war was really a war about labour costs than liberty. The North had to pay the Chinese and Irish to build their railroads etc whilst the South had essentially free labour after generations of breeding slaves. The issue of liberty, because it is seen as a universal value, was capitalised upon in order to gain public support. This does not mean, however, that it had no bearing of the justice or cause for war. He has taken a distinctly realist view of the war without factoring in values held from within communities, except when he goes on to state that the civil war was used to "literally cancel out the whole concept of individual choice". This grossly over exaggerated statement denies the antecedent cause of the war as liberal individualism in favour of some kind of collective choice under the guise of individual choice. As a libertarian Rand should be in favour of such a move but his frequently incoherent world view takes a decidedly communitarian tact here by implying that state rights represent individual rights. Furthermore, he claims that slavery could have been ended by legislation. I thought such was attempted and rejected by the south hence the war. Is this not the case? Also, how can he be for legislation to end slavery but against the civil rights act a century later? Incoherent and agenda ridden nonsense. Still, best candidate the US has seen in generations.

Interesting. I had a typical, shitty American public school education. Slavery was definitely the predominant theme of that entire segment of US history, in the tone of "Rah! Rah! Look at how good we were to free all those people from the evil south!" (I grew up in California).
It wasn't until years later in college did I learn about all the other issues surrounding that war, and reflecting on that history it's very easy to spot the same tropes used today in politics. If the US could it would probably be telling the tale of the Iraq war 20-50 years from now as the gallant charge the US lead to free the people from the tyranny of Saddam.

As an aside, I have to say Pauls sounding remarkably hypocritical here when talking about legislation to abolish slavery, when he rails against legislation for civil rights so fervently. He seems very set on allowing States to decide what laws they follow in their local governments, but I wonder if that goes for something like slavery in his mind as well? Maybe I'm misunderstanding him.

No, you get it exactly. That is why I am so sour on Ron Paul. He rails against the tyranny of federal government, but seems to be OK with it at the local level.>> ^artician:

He seems very set on allowing States to decide what laws they follow in their local governments, but I wonder if that goes for something like slavery in his mind as well? Maybe I'm misunderstanding him.

>> ^Kreegath:

However, he does make his opinion clear that he doesn't think ending slavery was the deciding reason for the civil war, something that I've actually heard is a historically defensible position.

Heard from who?

Sorry, I must be hearing things, because I'm pretty sure I just heard him advocate the "purchase of slaves freedom". Are you fucking kidding me?

I'm sorry, there's no room for debate, practicality, states fucking rights or anything else on this. If someone owns slaves, you go to that person and you inform them that "their" slaves are no longer slaves. If they object, you shoot them in the fucking head. In fact, I'd go further. You then calculate how much the person owes the former slaves for the work they would have done, and you seize those assets to compensate the former slaves.

>> ^NetRunner:

>> ^Kreegath:
However, he does make his opinion clear that he doesn't think ending slavery was the deciding reason for the civil war, something that I've actually heard is a historically defensible position.

Heard from who?


http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2475

"While slavery and its various and multifaceted discontents were the primary cause of disunion, it was disunion itself that sparked the war." - Elizabeth R. Varon, Bruce Levine, Marc Egnal, and Michael Holt at a plenary session of the organization of American Historians, March 17, 2011.

Most historical works I have read about the American Civil War explain that, from the North's perspective, the war wasn't to end slavery, but to preserve the union. That said, the South's reason for seceding was based more heavily on protecting their right to have slaves.

As with all wars, there wasn't just one cause and, as much as I dislike Ron Paul, I have to agree with his statement that slavery wasn't the only reason for the Civil War.>> ^NetRunner:

>> ^Kreegath:
However, he does make his opinion clear that he doesn't think ending slavery was the deciding reason for the civil war, something that I've actually heard is a historically defensible position.

Heard from who?

Hell, yeah! I upvote anything Ron Paul! Ron Paul... fuck yeah!

Wait. What?

>> ^ChaosEngine:

Sorry, I must be hearing things, because I'm pretty sure I just heard him advocate the "purchase of slaves freedom". Are you fucking kidding me?
I'm sorry, there's no room for debate, practicality, states fucking rights or anything else on this. If someone owns slaves, you go to that person and you inform them that "their" slaves are no longer slaves. If they object, you shoot them in the fucking head. In fact, I'd go further. You then calculate how much the person owes the former slaves for the work they would have done, and you seize those assets to compensate the former slaves.


From our modern perspective and (genuinely) more civilized understanding of human rights, I totally agree with your statement. That is my perspective on the topic as well. However someone put it to me once that made me look at the entire clash between slave-holders and anti-slavery-abolitionists differently.

In that day, slaves were valued as property. Now, I'm paraphrasing poorly here, but the way it was described to me was that the total value of slaves in the south at that time was more than any other property, product or monetary value altogether. Inflated for today's markets it was on the scale of billions of dollars directly tied to the industry and economy of the south.

Now, as reluctant as we probably all are to do this, put yourself in the shoes of someone from the south at that time, accepting that slaves were basically the commodity of the highest value in the region. "Commodity-X", for analogy's sake. Ignore the human rights aspect for the sake of this example (horrible, but necessary to understand it from their perspective). Your states entire economic backbone relied on Commodity-X. Through it, economy and incomes were stable, prosperity was extremely high, and life was good all around for the majority of citizens.


Now imagine if the federal government came to your state and told you:
"We've decided that Commodity-X is 'wrong', therefore we are going to eliminate and ban all traces of Commodity-X from every person and property in this region."

Essentially imagine the government taking 80% of your personal property based on their own criteria without compensation of any kind. You would go nuts! You might storm the capital, or maybe even be angry enough to join a movement of militant resistance against that kind of theft.

So when I take that perspective into account, I can understand why Paul would make a comment like "purchase of slaves freedom", because it would essentially be compensation of the billions and billions of dollars lost to a quarter of the United States citizens.



Another, equally valid parallel that might be even easier to understand would be looking at today's resistance by the Oil industry to relinquishing their addiction to that commodity. Once again, the economy of a massive part of the world is affected, and those which rely on it for their lively hood are being asked to relinquish with no real compensation. Granted there are a number of inconsistencies between the two that I won't go into, but the similarities are such that it's very comparable, sans human rights issues.

It's an apt analog for understanding why those affected would be so butt-hurt over the whole ordeal.

@artican , all the more reason to shoot the slaveholders in the head.

>> ^artician:

However someone put it to me once that made me look at the entire clash between slave-holders and anti-slavery-abolitionists differently.



I understand the reasoning behind it from the slaveowners point of view, but the crux of the matter boils down to one sentence in your post.


>> ^artician:

Ignore the human rights aspect for the sake of this example (horrible, but necessary to understand it from their perspective).



For the sake of an intellectual exercise, that is totally valid. But this wasn't some hypothetical situation. A whole bunch of people were actually enslaved, so ultimately the human rights aspect trumps the economic, social and political aspects. IMHO, the human rights aspect almost always does.
Some things are just worth going to war for.

I can get behind that historian's way of describing it, and I agree with what you're saying about how the Civil War went down. I just disagree with your assessment of what Paul himself said -- he didn't just say "it's not the only issue" he later says "it wasn't the deciding issue" which is just...wrong.

The South seceded and fired the first shots because they wanted to keep their slaves so badly they'd rather leave the Union than give them up.

There was a confluence of other issues involved in the conflict, but "State's rights" was and always has been a euphemism for the bargain that was struck at the signing of the Constitution to let some states keep slavery, not some separate, lofty moral principle that has nothing to do with slavery.

>> ^Skeeve:

"While slavery and its various and multifaceted discontents were the primary cause of disunion, it was disunion itself that sparked the war." - Elizabeth R. Varon, Bruce Levine, Marc Egnal, and Michael Holt at a plenary session of the organization of American Historians, March 17, 2011.
Most historical works I have read about the American Civil War explain that, from the North's perspective, the war wasn't to end slavery, but to preserve the union. That said, the South's reason for seceding was based more heavily on protecting their right to have slaves.
As with all wars, there wasn't just one cause and, as much as I dislike Ron Paul, I have to agree with his statement that slavery wasn't the only reason for the Civil War.>> ^NetRunner:
>> ^Kreegath:
However, he does make his opinion clear that he doesn't think ending slavery was the deciding reason for the civil war, something that I've actually heard is a historically defensible position.

Heard from who?

Oh, and I updated the links in the description to include all the parts of the series I'd originally linked to.

There may have been many "other" reasons for the war but the core reason, the main reason and thus one can genuinely say the CAUSE of the war was slavery. It was going to happen eventually no matter what so long as we had founding documents with lines like "all men created equal" in them. Eventually enough people would look around and start to question just what the double standard was all about. The powerful have never been ones to relinquish it once gained, and anyone with enough money to own slaves had a fair amount of power as well. In the end so long as one side was unwilling to give up something this was going to happen. There serves little point in blowing all the smoke around with "oh there were other reasons too", this only serves as a distraction.

There were other reasons for WW2 but are you really going to try and argue that book burning was just as important a reason for the WW2 as the Holocaust? Or the conquering any country they felt like? Because that's exactly what all this "other reasons" crap comes out like. I've disliked Paul for a while now, his old Newsletters only fueled the fire and this just confirms it.

too much...

It seems the evidence pointing to Paul's support for racists is piling up. This video is not quite the smoking gun of Paul hosting a lynching party, but is one step closer.

I guess just like Paul is denying the real reason for the Civil War, his acolytes will deny the real reason for the modern displays of the "stars and bars" flag.

Can't be racism. No sir, no white supremacy here. What're you talking about? We're all for states rights is all.....

Certainly true. However, while Lincoln was undeniably against slavery (though not an abolitionist), he seemed to keep his feelings about slavery out of the war:

>> ^ChaosEngine:


Some things are just worth going to war for.


"I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views."
-Letter to Horace Greeley

Where does the money to "purchase the slaves' freedom" come from? I assume Paul wouldn't suggest public funds. This is where most libertarians argue for the invisible hand of massive, spontaneous, coordinated private charity. Let's accept that this is what would happen, for the sake of argument. Artician, above, drew a (admittedly shaky) parallel to the oil industry fighting to preserve the value of its investments. Would Paul advocate the same private charity course to soften their landing, or allow an inefficient industry to collapse?

The key difference is the morality of an oil industry investment vs. slavery as an investment. According to the parallel above and an extrapolation of Paul's stated positions, Paul would allow a purely financial investment to collapse when it lost value. But if the investment was slavery, we should instead ignore the morality and constitutional right of liberty for all citizens in favor of the protection of the investment and hope for fair-minded private individuals to trade their own financial resources to protect those rights?

This is nonsense.

Top Five Causes of the Civil War

1. Economic and social differences between the North and the South
2. States versus federal rights
3. The fight between Slave and Non-Slave State Proponents
4. Growth of the Abolition Movement
5. The election of Abraham Lincoln

Dr. Paul isn't presenting "revisionist" history, he's bringing perspective to the "winner-written" version of history. The first 18 months of the war were about the "other things" until Lincoln made the war about slavery (say, wasn't Lincoln a REPUBLICAN and the klan democrats? Libs seem to downplay that little fact).

Just another reason to get rid of federal government schools. Are you surprised big government is the "hero" in these creative interpretations of history when it runs the schools?

Slavery is the lazy, convenient answer for the Civil War, just like the Big Lie about FDR's big-government socialism "saving" the country from the Depression when in reality it prolonged it, and paved the way for the federal mafia we have today.

@quantumushroom, sounds to me like that's 5 different ways of saying slavery.

1. Economic and social differences between the North and the South

From the site you cited:

[T]he southern economy became a one crop economy, depending on cotton and therefore on slavery. On the other hand, the northern economy was based more on industry than agriculture.

Even though things were already coming to a head, when Lincoln was elected in 1860, South Carolina issued its "Declaration of the Causes of Secession." They believed that Lincoln was anti-slavery and in favor of Northern interests. Before Lincoln was even president, seven states had seceded from the Union: South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas.