1 00:05:29,750 --> 00:05:34,630 I'm Colonel Ty Seidule, Professor and Head, Department of History at the United States 2 00:05:23,430 --> 00:05:29,750 and children from human bondage, and saved the United States of America. 3 00:05:17,740 --> 00:05:23,420 former slaves themselves -- destroyed chattel slavery, freed 4 million men, women, 4 00:05:11,490 --> 00:05:17,740 In its finest hour, soldiers wearing this blue uniform -- almost two hundred thousand of them 5 00:05:05,410 --> 00:05:11,490 As a soldier, I am proud that the United States Army, my army, defeated the Confederates. 6 00:05:02,720 --> 00:05:05,400 in order to abolish slavery. 7 00:04:57,160 --> 00:05:02,720 But it's to America's everlasting credit that it fought the most devastating war in its history 8 00:04:52,280 --> 00:04:57,160 Slavery is the great shame of America's history. No one denies that. 9 00:04:46,420 --> 00:04:52,280 His Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 turned that into law. 10 00:04:40,940 --> 00:04:46,420 the moral component, ending slavery, became more and more fixed in his mind. 11 00:04:34,240 --> 00:04:40,940 all one thing, or all the other." Lincoln's view never changed, and as the war progressed, 12 00:04:26,880 --> 00:04:34,240 "I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free... It will become 13 00:04:12,180 --> 00:04:20,200 In a famous campaign speech in 1858, Lincoln said, "A house divided against itself cannot stand." 14 00:04:20,200 --> 00:04:26,880 What was it that divided the country? It was slavery, and only slavery. He continued: 15 00:04:07,950 --> 00:04:12,180 -- an unacceptable solution -- or vanquishing it altogether. 16 00:04:02,870 --> 00:04:07,950 that keeping the Union together meant either spreading slavery to all the states 17 00:03:42,890 --> 00:03:50,080 -- that the Civil War couldn't have been about slavery because so few people owned slaves -- has little merit. 18 00:03:56,340 --> 00:04:02,860 not to end slavery. That was true at the outset of the war. But he did so with the clear knowledge 19 00:03:50,080 --> 00:03:56,340 Finally, many have argued that President Abraham Lincoln fought the war to keep the Union together, 20 00:03:37,590 --> 00:03:42,890 did not fall to the bottom rung of the social ladder. That's why another argument 21 00:03:31,630 --> 00:03:37,580 but so did the poor, non-slave holding whites. The "peculiar institution" ensured that they 22 00:03:25,310 --> 00:03:31,630 all classes in the South. The rich had multiple motivations for wanting to maintain slavery, 23 00:03:19,500 --> 00:03:25,300 And it wasn't just plantation owners who supported slavery. The slave society was embraced by 24 00:03:14,599 --> 00:03:19,499 owners exploited slaves over whom they had total control. 25 00:03:08,640 --> 00:03:14,599 pay their farmhands who were free to come and go as they pleased, while Southern plantation 26 00:03:03,920 --> 00:03:08,640 the North produced far more food crops than did the South. But Northern farmers had to 27 00:02:57,860 --> 00:03:03,920 In the middle of the 19th century, both North and South were agrarian societies. In fact, 28 00:02:49,420 --> 00:02:56,640 and so, the two lived in such economically different societies that they could no longer stay together. 29 00:02:56,640 --> 00:02:57,860 Not true. 30 00:02:42,580 --> 00:02:49,420 Some argue that the cause of the war was economic. The North was industrial and the South agrarian, 31 00:02:38,160 --> 00:02:42,580 first and foremost with retaining slavery. 32 00:02:33,620 --> 00:02:38,160 The South was preoccupied with states' rights because it was preoccupied 33 00:02:25,920 --> 00:02:33,620 concept of states' rights because it would not allow Delta planters to bring their slaves to Manhattan. 34 00:02:20,340 --> 00:02:25,920 they quarreled with each other. In fact, Mississippians complained that New York had too strong a 35 00:02:15,220 --> 00:02:20,340 sought to protect their rights -- sometimes they petitioned the federal government, sometimes 36 00:02:08,300 --> 00:02:15,220 Moreover, states' rights was not an exclusive Southern issue. All the states -- North and South -- 37 00:01:56,270 --> 00:02:02,900 Some argue that the South only wanted to protect states' rights. But this raises an obvious question: 38 00:02:02,900 --> 00:02:08,300 the states' rights to what? Wasn't it to maintain and spread slavery? 39 00:01:53,890 --> 00:01:56,270 as the cause of the Civil War. 40 00:01:47,680 --> 00:01:53,880 Yet, despite the evidence, many continue to argue that other factors superseded slavery 41 00:01:40,700 --> 00:01:47,680 that slavery, submission to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition." 42 00:01:34,620 --> 00:01:40,700 its cornerstone rests upon the great truth that the Negro is not equal to the white man; 43 00:01:19,980 --> 00:01:25,800 Alexander Stephens of Georgia, the Confederacy's Vice President clearly articulated the views 44 00:01:25,800 --> 00:01:34,620 of the South in March 1861. "Our new government," he said, was founded on slavery. "Its foundations are laid, 45 00:01:09,440 --> 00:01:19,980 in South Carolina, 166 to 7 in Texas, 84 to 15 in Mississippi. In no Southern state was the vote close. 46 00:00:55,380 --> 00:01:01,600 that they were leaving the Union in order to protect their "peculiar institution" of slavery 47 00:01:01,600 --> 00:01:09,440 -- a phrase that at the time meant "the thing special to them." The vote to secede was 169 to 0 48 00:00:50,980 --> 00:00:55,380 The secession documents of every Southern state made clear, crystal clear, 49 00:00:47,580 --> 00:00:50,980 Shortly after Abraham Lincoln's victory, they did. 50 00:00:41,129 --> 00:00:47,580 of slavery," and called on all who were not prepared to, "surrender the institution," to act. 51 00:00:36,019 --> 00:00:41,129 a South Carolina newspaper warned that the issue before the country was, "the extinction 52 00:00:30,160 --> 00:00:36,019 cause of the Civil War -- for both sides. Before the presidential election of 1860, 53 00:00:19,200 --> 00:00:23,600 There has to be another reason, we are told. Well, there isn't. 54 00:00:23,600 --> 00:00:30,160 The evidence is clear and overwhelming. Slavery was, by a wide margin, the single most important 55 00:00:08,400 --> 00:00:13,820 Why? Because many people don't want to believe that the citizens of the southern states 56 00:05:34,630 --> 00:05:39,270 Military Academy, West Point for Prager University. 57 00:00:13,820 --> 00:00:19,200 were willing to fight and die to preserve a morally repugnant institution. 58 00:00:00,380 --> 00:00:05,840 Was the American Civil War fought because of slavery? More than 150 years later 59 00:00:05,840 --> 00:00:08,400 this remains a controversial question.