Were many confederacy civilians not aware of the Confederacy's aims to leave the union over the issue of slavery?

[Messianic_Monk]

I have heard it said that a lot of people who fought in the civil war for the confederacy fought the war believing they were preserving state's rights... not slavery. They were unaware of the fact that most of the states that succeeded cited slavery as the primary issue.

I have heard it said repeatedly that Jefferson Davis lamented the fact that he didn't have a stronger federal government to get some of his states to obey his orders. Apparently some state senators refused to obey his orders during the war.

NOTE: I know what the lost cause is. I am NOT a lost causer. I just wanted to know if there was a sizable chunk of the confederacy that was unaware of the main reason that the confederacy cited and if they were tricked into fighting this war.

[zagor]

Only about 20% of white families had slaves, so a lot of the guys fighting for the South didn't have a financial interest in it, but many of those felt threatened by the potential freeing of the slaves and the possible competition for "white" jobs.

[ChefPapiChulo]

everyone in school learned that it wasn't 100% about slavery but slavery was the driving factor. much of the western world had already given up slavery and america was lacking behind.

america either had to move forward or fall behind and lose power in the world.

[BeMuse]

No one even fought over if slavery would be acceptable or not. The debate in Congress was if slavery would be allowed to expand into the western territories or if it would be confined to the current boundaries. The northern states were fine with slavery carrying on as is, they just didn't want to compete with slave owners in the new economy during westward expansion. Northerners thought southerners would have an unfair economic advantage. Northern sates had previously been slave states as well, but with a massive influx of immigrants from Europe there was endless supply of dirt cheap labor in the north already. Thus there was no reason for northers to buy slaves anymore when people were volunteering to be slaves due to mass famine in Europe. With the north having too many immigrants, they wanted to solve their over population problem and send White settlers west to colonize the land. They wanted to guarantee those new settlers wouldn't have to compete with slave owners in the new economy in territories acquired in the Mexican-American War. The south didn't like being excluded from new opportunity so this this lead to disputes over statehood in the western territories between congressmen from the north and the south. They wrestled over which states would be admitted to the union and tried to maintain a balance of slave states and free states to keep the peace. Compromises were initially made which changed the Fugitive Slave Act which required northerners to capture runaway slaves which was a direct violation of their state's laws and state's rights in order for the north to acquire and agreement that popular sovereignty would decide the question of slavery. The north sending their settlers west in huge numbers figured they would win the votes in new states to gain more free states being that they had boat loads of people arriving all the time. Apparently residents of Missouri didn't like the north's strategy so they moved to Kansas in order to vote and make the territory a slave state. Their plan worked and they won the vote. Rather than respecting popular sovereignty as was agreed in the compromise, the north said the Democrats in the south were dirty cheats and they started the war in bleeding Kansas which violated their state's rights... Violence by the north against the south lead to failing negotiations which escalated to all out war.

[BeMuse]

Learn from history... Many people will die when elections are rigged... 2020 was an echo of history...

[NaultD]

The only states right issue was slavery itself.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/bYaYCltLsdk

[AngryCarl2]

The war wasn't 100% about slavery. The Yankees painted it that way because it made them look morally superior. What? You didn't know the Confederates were the baddies?

[Messianic_Monk]

I am aware that it wasn't 100% about slavery. Was it mostly, though? Yeah. I was just curious if the civilians living in the south were aware that their government was seceding because of slavery or if their government lied to them in order to get them to fight a war.

[AngryCarl2]

All I know is history is written by the winners.

[Anonymous]

They were fighting for their individual states. You think the states on the federal side gave a crap about slavery

[gorydetails]

It seems plausible.