European views of the American Civil War.

Arkansan

I have always wondered what the view of the American Civil War was in Europe and the rest of the world at large was, and since I know that some of the members here are from outside the states I thought this a good place to ask. So what exactly do you think? Who was right? What really were the issues behind it? Or is it something you have ever even considered?

RemadE

I studied it and first off, I still don't get the term "Civil War" as George Carlin expresses perfectly here:

The South were told to my Class that they were more gentry, agrarian and obviously were shit scared of black people. Then again so weere the North which is what made me laugh as it's basically the lesser of the two evils. North had industry (hence the defeat of the South) whereas the South had farming and other not-so-battle useful items.
Nobody was right. Both had good points, obviously the whole race thing is still kicked around today so that got nowhere. As for the Nation, it just tore it apart and as for why it started, at least the South had the balls to make their own confederacy. Would love to see it happen nowadays and the reaction of Obama. My cynical attitude got me nowhere in my Module, but fuck it. I'd rather stick to my guns than accept some interpretation made up by a lowly, sun-lacking historian who needs money.
Fuck. That's me.

Lol just realised I'm listening to Brantley Gilbert.

And for the lulz

Arkansan

Right on, interesting way of looking at it. I was simply curious because its not really a perspective on the whole thing that I have ever really had access to in the past. I agree with you that there were some good and bad points to both sides of the thing. I have always been interested in how people looked at the war due to my upbringing, in my family it is something that is still a sore spot and something that the older people in the family teach the younger generations about. I was taught by my grandparents that the real reason for the war was the northern states manipulating the legal process to heavily favor themselves, tariffs in particular that helped northern industry by limiting their competition with overseas business but screwed the south by essentially making it unfeasible to do overseas trade which we relied heavily on at the time, amongst other reasons. I was also taught that Lincoln was essentially Satan incarnate. It's weird because academically speaking it was so long ago, but in our family my grand mother still remembers her great uncles talking about their experiences at the battle of Shiloh and shit like that.

As to my personal opinions, after doing a fair bit of research on it , I truly don't believe that slavery was the defining issue, or at least wasn't until Lincoln was up for re-election in 1862 and his popularity was sinking and the war was to that point going against the north, I think he made a smart political move and picked an issue that was popular with preachers, who at the time who held a great deal of sway over their congregation, particularly in the rural north. I do really get pissed over the fact that he has been made into a civil rights messiah while he made it quite clear that he personally cared little for black people and would rather have not freed the slaves, besides the fact that once freed he was all for shipping them off somewhere, not to mention the fact that he suspended Habeas corpus and detained northern journalists that published anti war pieces.