Civil War History

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I am listening to a course on the Civil War by historian David Blight on my drives. It is really good and certainly challenging and informing me of this part of history. I was interested because of the recent monument discussions and other things in the air. 

It seems the typical argument over this from a southerners perspective is -- it wasn't about slavery, it was about states rights. And then to support this they may say, heck only maybe 10-20% owned slaves anyway. In truth I think it was more like 2/3 rds. that owned or had owned slave (s). And the argument about states rights seems to be misdirection ... it was a states right to do what --- own slaves. There are 27 lectures and I am only on #8, but I think the re-painting of this issue and this war for southerns comes of how a country can deal with the aftermath of something like the civil war. 

After the south lost (was defeated) and rejoined the union how do they go on, facing all that death and "the north" telling them what to do ... so they came up with something besides slavery to be proud of --- military genius, hard fighting, rebel yell, etc. ---the Lost Cause romance.

Anyway, he is filling in a lot of this ... the first 8-9 lectures are just on the run-up to the civil war ... one of the big factors was western expansion, Mexican War and California gold rush ... where those to be free states or slave states --- which was really a question what is the future of America. The south was already threatening to secede over these questions -- hence the Compromise of 1850. Which also had the fugitive slave act which meant there was now something like ICE chasing runaway slaves in the north ... which led to famous gun battles between northerners harboring slaves and other northerners who were trying to capture them and send them back south. 

Anyway, the course is really good and I thought I would share with you the link.

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