The war for states rights ^to^ ^enslave^ ^people^
this post was submitted on 18 Mar 2026
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Where we meme (joking in tone and detail, serious in sentiment) about General Sherman, the Civil War, and how the secesh traitors had it coming.
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No bigotry. The Union, or at least the part of the Union WE support, fought AGAINST that shite. We are anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-homophobic, anti-transphobic, and in general anti-bigot here, even if not all the lads in Union blue uniforms were.
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No Confederate sympathizing. Anti-democratic racist slaver traitors don't deserve shit.
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And also the states' rights to legally force other states to return self-liberated former-slaves to their former enslavers.
States Rights to violate rights.
The Confederate Constitution also made it compulsory for all states to be slave states.
It was about states' rights, specifically taking rights away from states
Grew up in the South. Learned that it was a Civil War about slavery. What was taught was a brief overview, maybe at best a week, far more is covered now in a single Youtube video. And definitely didn't learn about the darker parts of the war or the aftermath, including atrocities that happened locally to blacks who were managing to find a path from their days of bondage (Wilmington, Tulsa, plenty of others). I get that everything can't be covered in grade school and often times the basics taught is not only the bare minimum but even incorrect because the details are far too many and are university level courses of their own. But I was shocked as an adult that someone wasn't mentioned. The Civil War was almost glorified in the little we really learned.
I also grew up in the South, and my experience was also definitely a lot more limited and "both sides" coded than what I've heard from others I know who grew up in the north. Very much driven by the lost cause myth.
Slavery was billed as an unfortunate consequence of the South, lumped in with other "it was a different time" hand-waves of historical atrocities. The North was still sorta branded as the "good guys," but in a way that implied the Civil War was still necessary for the North to realize its "neglect" of Southern issues. And Southern leaders (still enslavers all, but again, "different time") were upheld as heroes who did the right thing by nobly fighting for their homes after the (again regrettable but still necessary) acts of secession. The "Union" and the Confederacy were basically framed like sports teams, with each side having pros and cons, and the Civil War was taught as a necessary reconciliation of their differences.
I also put "Union" in quotations because I learned more recently that even this type of language plays into the lost cause myth. It encourages people to think of the Union and the Confederacy as equal peers that emerged from a collapsed United States, and only by rejoining with the Union could the United States exist once again. The reality is that the United States never collapsed, and the aftermath of the Civil War was not a reunification, but the defeat of an unjust rebellion.
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I want to dispell a misconception that keeps getting spread as a gotcha. It was never about states rights. No not even states right to slavery. It was about the preservations AND expansion of slavery. States did not and were not allowed to ban slavery. Read the consitution of the confederacy. It is almost a copy and paste of the US constitution but with minor changes that both empower and disempower the executive branch, but also banning the outlaw of slavery among one or two other slavery stuff. If it was about states rights to slavery, they would allow their states to ban it cause it would be their right to choose. But it was never that, they wanted slavery to expand. Even if you add the caveate of slavery to the "states right" myth, you are still perpetuating the myth. Just a less savory version of the myth.
The only way it was about states rights was how it was about establishing slavery as a right that could not be infringed.
Is the states rights issue when mentioned in any letters of secession, I wonder? Kinda doubt it...
But slavery is explicitly named as an issue in every single one, so yeah..
We recognize the fact of the inferiority stamped upon that race of men by the Creator, and from the cradle to the grave, our Government, as a civil institution, marks that inferiority.
-Jefferson Davis,
Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the n**** is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.
-Alexander Stephens,
Hard to dispute when it comes straight from the president and vice president's mouth. Hard to believe anyone would pretend it was about anything else.
Oh.
Fuck
Not that I disagree, but is that just an aside, or did I miss an implication in the screenshot?
An aside, directed at the comments
When I taught Civil War and Reconstruction just outside Atlanta I had no problem teaching it as accurately and truthfully as possible. My students understood the concept of slavery and how awful it is very well. Nobody censored me in any way. I had a blast teaching fourth and fifth grade social studies.
Thank you for doing the Union's work, sir or ma'am! o7
Thank you for teaching me something new every day. You are appreciated.
I'm from rural illinois.
I recall some history teacher confusing the hell out of me in class.
She reiterated repeatedly that the civil war was not caused by slavery. But in the textbook it said it was.
And when it came time to take the test I was like...
Pretty sure it was about slavery. But I know she wants me to say it wasn't.
So I checked it was about states rights. And I got it correct.
I remember this because I felt like I was being tricked.
It obviously was about slavery. I mean the whole thing with Lincoln and freeing the slaves.
But she said it wasn't.
I wonder how many teachers like her are still around.
Yeah the Confederacy was against states rights. Member states were not allowed to be abolitionist. And they left the union because they weren't allowed to force northern states to follow their laws. Anyone saying it was about states rights is a racist pos
I had almost the opposite experience. The textbooks barely mentioned slavery in the context of the war, besides the freeing of slaves after the war. They book said it was all about states rights. But our teachers did tell us it was mostly about slavery.
But I did grow up in the south, so much so that my middle school was pretty much segregated when I was there in the mid 00’s. What a shithole
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They refer to it as "The War of Norther Agression" because the states just wanted to be free and have their own rights. Slavery had nothing to do with it.
When you ask them what they wanted the freedom to do the answer was always own slaves. Even the state constitutions stated it as a right.
War of northern aggression. Started by the South shooting at an American fort.
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Loved grandmother calling it the War of Northern Aggression.
Mother shut that shit down right quick though.
The war of southern aggression. Only started because the south wouldn't let us free the enslaved people who entered northern states.
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Texas still won't admit the Alamo was about slavery. It explicitly was entirely about slavery. Texas went so far as to - twice - enshrine slavery into their constitution, and, even prohibit slave owners from emancipating their slaves.
That's dedication. And when you look at Texas today, it's after effects are everywhere.
I grew up in Texas in the middle of the countryside and we still learned about the civil war being southern states rights for slavery. Like, I have no clue what places are teaching what these morons are learning, but middle of nowhere Texas still taught it properly so 🤷
Also a matter of how up-to-date your textbooks are, and when you grew up. It was definitely common in the Deep South as recently as the 90s.
Even my community college American history class in 2002 (just an hour south of Atlanta) was chock full of Lost Cause nonsense.
I didn't even recognize it at the time since it was the same stuff my dad taught me. He was a really smart guy who read a lot of history and was particularly interested in the Civil War, so I didn't have a lot of reason to question things until later when I learned what the Lost Cause actually was.
It was always tied up in so many family stories too, and the idea of those 'damn yankees and carpet baggers", it was a part of my identity and history. It was just all around me, like the air, and so it was weird and kinda hard to unlearn that stuff, but not unwelcome.
I think maybe folks raised outside the south don't see all that stuff, how that culture permeates everything. Or maybe they think it's just a bunch of stupid rednecks who've never picked up a book, I'm never quite sure 😅
At least the more modern textbooks I've seen do a much better job at telling the proper story!
At least the more modern textbooks I’ve seen do a much better job at telling the proper story!
Not for long
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I also grew up in Texas in the 90s and during our Texas History courses, they liked to sweep under the rug that that Texas independence was basically because the Mexican govt outlawed slavery on 1829 and didn't want anyone owning slaves or bringing more over anymore.
Re: the Civil War, there was LOTS of "lost cause" and "states rights" apologist language in our text books. The teachers didn't really dwell on that but the books did.
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If you actually look at the reconstruction period it never really happened at all. Which is largely because Lincoln's successor didn't believe in it.
Johnson sabotaged everything he could, but Grant was a good Union boy and put in 8 years of effort in Reconstruction.
Shame about Grant's choice of 'friends'.
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Went through school in the Deep South, the state actually had us take a course focusing specifically on the civil war, think it replaced a semester of social studies and was separate from the standard curriculum. I forgot about it until now, but yeah, it was a pretty dry overview of that time period, a lot of battle dates and very specific details that I can't recall now. Very point blank, "eeyup, we fucked up here, here, here, and here" kind of stuff. A bit surprising looking back at it now, considering how young and where I was at the time.
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Germany did an amazing job teaching it's people that Nazism was bad/regrettable. I really hope the US could teach some level of reflection to their population.
Ugh, no they didn't. Or at least they don't now.
20% of votes for the Nazis party itself, and a good 30% for the party saying we should "move past our history".
Everything in this shitty country tries to play the "it was a long time ago" card.
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I remember my friend from Alabama telling me he was taught the Civil War was about States rights, not slavery.
My response, "Yeah. It was about the States rights to own people as slaves."
The whole narrative he was taught crumbled.
If you really want to slam the lid on that dumb argument, start pulling up the Civil War era state constitutions of those Southern states. Nearly all of them START by talking about how Slavery is integral to their state.
They can try to claim it wasn't about slavery now, but back then, it was clearly the primary reason - in their own state constitutions.
It's also here in The Declaration of Causes of Seceding States, which is essentially the Confederate Declaration of Independence. They make it VERY clear that the problem is the North trying to abolish slavery. At one point they whine that the North gets help from the Federal government, while they get no help at all, Waaaah!
Sherman didn't burn enough of the South, and we NEVER should have let them choose their own educational curriculum. In the non-MAGA future, education will be Federal, and states won't have a choice. We gave them over a 100 years to introduce a responsible curriculum for our children, and many states used that opportunity to undermine our Nation's security. That must end. 2+2=4, and CAT spells cat in every state in the Union. We don't need 50 separate school curriculums. The money saved with that alone, could provide every public schoolkid with free breakfast and lunch every day.
I get the feeling the actual revisionist history texts are in Indiana and Ohio, the deep red Midwest.
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If I remember correctly the British have a different name for the War for Independence, and downplay it like it's no big deal.
we didn't really learn about it in high school. from memory we did the Tudors, the Stewarts, the Romans, Boudica, the Egyptians, Great Fire of London, Norman invasion, the black Plague, WW1, WW2, Iron Age, Bronze Age, Renaissance, The Enlightenment.
They call it American Revolutionary War, because that is what it was to them. And from their point of view it was part of bigger conflict.
They were still in mids of the aftermath of 9 year campaing in India and at europes end France joined to the war at 1778 and Spain 1779 and Netherlands 1780.
During those times they were fighting on the Caribian, Gibraltar and the open sea.
Understantably for the Americans the independence war was the big thing, but from the British side it was part of bigger conflict.
tbf that's much more reasonable.
And what do US students learn about the Alamo?
Funny enough, I was taught next-to-nothing about the Alamo growing up. I think it was mentioned maybe once in all 12 years of grade school. I don't know that it has the same cultural currency it once did, at least outside of Texas.
We were taught largely that the Mexican-American War was started because of illegal immigrants from the USA going to then-Mexico and throwing a fit, including many Southerners who brought their slaves with them, and Mexico was cracking down on enforcement of anti-slavery laws.
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