Wow, you really need to brush up on your history! Everyone who reads history knows that the Civil War was not about slavery! Anyone with any discernment at all would also know that making the Civil War about slavery when it never was about slavery has bred much of the enmity in the U.S. between blacks and whites especially north of the Mason Dixon line. For example, cruelty to slaves was much worse in Brazil and they kept slavery into the 1880s. They got rid of the instituion peacefully and blacks are much more integrated into that society than they are here. In fact, you could make the argument that slavery persisted in the U.S. until the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s! It may not have been called slavery but whats the difference? Blacks were totally stripped of their political power and were still dependent on whites for their economic welfare.

Hitchens, I am really dissappointed in you! Your article is suprisingly naivete in its assertions and conclusions. Robert E. Lee fought under the Confederate Stars and Bars and I would say I admire him much more than a two-faced Lincoln. Lincoln supported the rascist colonization of blacks back to Africa. Lee was in it out of loyalty to Virginia.

To simplify such a complex period in our history makes you as silly as the creationists that you seem to impune!

ok what was the civil war about then? All the other issues could have been peacefully decided, but not slavery, it poisoned everything.

It was about slavery. And economics. And regional power and domination. The issue of slavery provided the passions and angers between the three general populations (north, south, and west), though the leaders north & south were first more concerned over economic and political domination.

blueskies:

It was about slavery. And economics. And regional power and domination. The issue of slavery provided the passions and angers between the three general populations (north, south, and west), though the leaders north & south were first more concerned over economic and political domination.

yes

The Civil War was about states rights. It also had a lot to do with the fact the South was paying over 70% of federal taxes. Now being that the South had 9 million people and the North had 32 million people, what is fair about that? Early in the war, if you look at the statements of the unionists, you will see that what they lamented the most was the loss of the Southern revenue stream to the federal government. Lincoln himself siad that if he could bring the Union back he would be happy with never freeing any slaves.

Considering that we fought a war against Britain over repressive taxation just 85 years prior to the Civil War, it amazes me that people find it so hard to understand that the more correctly named war of northern aggression was never ever about slavery. Go to a chalk board and write 100 times that the "Civil War was not about slavery." That always helped me when I was a kid.

I was born in Pittsburgh, not the South. It is so self evident to me. If you are objective, you will reach the same conclusion.

My personal feeling is that race relations would be so much better if the Civil War had not happened. Blaming the war on the blacks created a horrible stigma and branded them with even greater hatred than may have already existed and persists to this day. The Civil War was a tremendous tragedy. I believe over 600,000 people died. Many more were maimed. The economies of the South have never recovered even until this day. Back then, many Southern states were the richest states in the nation per capita. Today, they are still among the poorest.

The only beneficiary of this war was the increase in power given to the federal government. In the Civil War, you will find the seeds of the income tax, a military industrial complex for endless war, and the beginnings of socialism in America.

blueskies: It was about slavery. And economics. And regional power and domination. The issue of slavery provided the passions and angers between the three general populations (north, south, and west), though the leaders north & south were first more concerned over economic and political domination.

yes

No. It was about slavery, pure and simple. The Southern states left the Union for no other reason.

What about Texas's articles of secession?

Sure, it was about state's rights. A state's rights to own and traffic in other human beings.

The Southern states had a right to secede. They did. The north declared war. A civil war is when 2 groups are fighting over the power to control the government. A war of aggression is fought when the government tries to force its will on a population. What is so hard to understand about this? Why then did the war start when the Southern states seceded? Why not in 5 years or 10 years? Afterall, it was their right! Why did the North's determination to start a war that killed 600,000 people just happen to coincide with secession? Its not like the Union couldn't have been re-instated at some future point.

When the war started, none and I mean absolutely none zilch zero of the reasons Lincoln gave for fighing the war involved slavery. Slavery was only a factor in that Lincoln, being a rascist, despised blacks in the South and the North and wanted them shipped off to Africa or worse. How anyone could believe that a war at any time in history was fought for the weak and oppressed is beyond me. Generally wars are fought by the powerful and soon to be powerful. Of course, we have to believe that the Civil War is the one time in thousands of years of human history that was fought for the little guy. Give me a break!

If you want to talk about the Civil War in an abstract way, you can say almost anything you like about it. However, as soon as we bring in the actual words and events of history; the Missouri Compromise, Bloody Kansas, Dred Scott, John Brown, Lincoln's House Divided speech, and the slavery touting Consitution of the Confederacy, then what you say turns into pure Stormfronting crap.

There is no right to secede. That's not in the Consitution and can never be. If a state wants to leave the union, it either has to win its right by force or it has to negotiate an agreement. The problem with secession is twofold: it takes Federal property with it and it leaves citizens who don't wish to seceded bereft of their rights. And there were in fact many such citizens in the South.

For instance, consider the port of New Orleans. That was an important port for many farms and businesses of the North, as it is today. The whole country supported that port, built that port, and benefited from that port. Now suddenly the local hicks think they can take it without permission? No, not possible. Taking the port of New Orleans is an act of war, pure and simple. And the North treated it that way.

Excuse me, "Ranger," but it is YOU who needs to brush up on their history, and you need to brush up on your literacy as well. Hitchens never said the Civil War was about about slavery. Go ahead- quote the line from his article. But to imply that it was not a factor in the war is ridiculous. How can you refute these points: The "stars & Bars" is NOT the state flag as Huck said; the raising of the flag over the capitol was done in response to the civil rights movement, so its connection to racism is obvious; and Huck is himself an outsider and therefore a hypocrite for making that point? Hitchens, love him or hate him, has again made points that the rest of the media have completely overlooked.

Did you ever stop and think that the KKK, Stormfront, and all the other bigot groups were forged out of the Civil War? Do you have the insight to see that wars cause unintended consequences? Do you know what blowback is?

I live in Nashville in an integrated neighborhood. Blacks and whites live right next together. I go back to Pittsburgh where I was born and I hear stories about a black family moving into a neighborhood and everyone else packs up and leaves. The South is not inherently rascist any more than the self righteous in the North.

The ultimate irony about Hitchens article may be this. The people in the North clamoring for war were the relgious nutcases in New England. The middle states of New York and Pennsylvania even flirted with secession for a time. So, Hitches an avowed atheist is aligning himself with the Civil Wars "evangelical" crazies of the time who pushed a needless war that killed hundreds of thousands of American.

Of course any cogent argument against the all powerful state ultimately has to be aligned with a fringe group so as to shoot the messenger rather than evaluate the message. So I guess I am a stormfronter now. Thanks so much! I am so glad that peace and understanding can be promulgated today in political discussion (sarcasm here if you can't figure it out and I imagine if you believe the history books you will need this admonition).

"ok what was the civil war about then? All the other issues could have been peacefully decided, but not slavery, it poisoned everything."

Only if you lack a background in US politics.

It was over oppressive tariffs that allowed the Northern Industrial Complex to monopolize the Southern trade.

The Whiskey Rebellion was fought over less.

"The issue of slavery provided the passions and angers between the three general populations"

Except that slavery wasn't made an issue until the Emancipation Proclamation, which allowed the South to keep slaves if they sided with the North, and that most of the Northern troops were drafted from Immigrants who rebelled over fighting in the war and didn't want to be sent.