People often try to associate the politics of the civil war with the politics of today. American left wingers just love to paint the Union as being the political left of the 1860s and the South as the political right of the 1860s. And as such, the present day American left likes to consider the civil war a “Left wing victory”. Likewise, present day republicans often like to consider the Union one of their own since they were republicans as well. But in reality, the social politics were so much different back then, that they cannot be associated with the social politics of today.
Both sides had similar values: Both sides considered themselves to be true Americans and as such they both had similar values
- Both respected the constitution(Confederacy had a modified version)
- Both respected religion
- Both supported a strong military
- Both employed ethnic diversity in their armies(The Union did it more)
- Both respected tradition
- Both had gender roles
- Both were patriotic
Both sides did some messed up things: While the North was the more moral of the two, there were still some hiccups as Lincoln suspended the Habeus Corpus, which infringed on the civil liberties of the people. While the South blatantly supported slavery. And both sides committed war crimes against each other.
A war of politics but not a war of the political spectrum: Many like to assume it was a left wing vs right wing war but it wasn’t. It was a war between regional military factions based on much different disagreements than the disagreements between the left and the right of today.
Civil war ≠ revolution: Some think the civil war was a revolution just because the confederacy is referred to as the “rebels”. But in reality it wasn’t a revolution. In a revolution there is a civilian population going up against their own government in a David vs Goliath struggle and if the civilians are successful they get a regime change. In a civil war it’s two or more factions of a country’s military duking it out over a disagreement. The confederates despite being called rebels did not want to push all the way to the Canadian border but instead wanted to secede. Likewise the North only wanted to end slavery and bring the South back into the Union. Hence it being a civil war rather than an all out revolution to install a new government. Neither side wanted to radically alter the status quo of American society.
Both the Union and confederacy would shun the modern day liberals and conservatives: If the Union and confederacy were around today, they would not be pleased by what has become of American politics. The Union would be horrified by the radicalization of the modern left who have been tainted by foreign communist and socialist ideals. While the confederates would consider the modern day conservatives to be “too soft” and “turncoats”.
The modern day American conservatives and liberals didn’t become a thing until the 1930s: What we like to call the liberals and conservatives today didn’t become a thing until the 1930s when the conservatives within the Democrat party broke away due to differences in opinion with FDR. And since then, both the conservatives and liberals would continue to gradually evolve and clash to this day in 2020.
The North’s battle song glorifies the Christian God: Anti theistic left wingers today would find that their attitude towards God and religion in general would be incompatible with the North’s attitude towards religion, considering that many of the Northerners were part of the Christendom. Even the non religious Northerners respected religion. As a matter of fact, the North’s “Battle hymn of the republic”(melody by William Steffe, lyrics by Julia Ward Howe) glorifies the Christian God with every phrase. The only reason why this song doesn’t get criticized as much by the American left wing is due to the fact it was used by the Union. If it were composed by a present day Christian then it’s almost guaranteed that the American left wing would be criticizing it for “dissing non Christians”.
Most German-Americans fought against Slavery: Over 500,000 German Americans fought for Union, while only about 100 fought for the Confederacy. German-Americans were known for being abolitionists. The reason I bring this up is because of how much unwarranted Germano-phobia is present amongst the radical American left wing who likes to unjustly attach negative labels to anything that is German. And to top it off, the Nueces Massacre was an incident involving Confederate soldiers massacring 34 German Texans who refused to fight for the Confederacy. Sadly, trying to praise anything that is German today is enough for the SJWs to incorrectly call you a “Nazi”.
Post civil war society: After the civil war, people could still own guns, freely practice their religion, listen to whatever music they want, say whatever they want, read whatever they want, buy property, wear what they want, eat whatever they want, choose whatever job they want, etc. The only difference was that slavery was abolished and regardless whether you are left or right wing, we can all agree that any type of slavery is an immoral practice.
Social politics today: Social politics of the 21st century are so much different that they cannot be associated with the social politics of the 1860s. Social politics back then revolved around territory expansion and slavery. While many of the social politics of today revolve around political correctness and gun laws.
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