Quote Originally Posted by PanzerJaeger View Post
Couldn't the same be said for the Northern leaders? What did your average Union soldier stand to gain from fighting?
Of course, we all know the stories of the feds picking the Irish right off the boat and handing them a rifle.

But to assume that the movers and shakers of the confederacy were concerened with states rights is to assume wrong, look at anyone seccesion vote and the most "for" votes are right in line with cotton belt.

Look at the Confederate speeches before the war and then after, they quickly changed their tune so it would fit the "Lost Cause" narritive

Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery -- subordination to the superior race -- is his natural and normal condition. [Applause.] This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science. It has been so even amongst us. Many who hear me, perhaps, can recollect well, that this truth was not generally admitted, even within their day. The errors of the past generation still clung to many as late as twenty years ago. Those at the North, who still cling to these errors, with a zeal above knowledge, we justly denominate fanatics. All fanaticism springs from an aberration of the mind -- from a defect in reasoning. It is a species of insanity. One of the most striking characteristics of insanity, in many instances, is forming correct conclusions from fancied or erroneous premises; so with the anti-slavery fanatics; their conclusions are right if their premises were. They assume that the negro is equal, and hence conclude that he is entitled to equal privileges and rights with the white man.
That is Alexander Stevens