Does anyone remember the American civil war? I actually enjoyed learning about this in history class. It has such a huge back story and is regarded as one of the bloodiest wars in American history.

For those that don't know what the war is(I don't know if they make people learn American history outside of America, but I don't think so), I'll try to summarize all of events the best I can so you can get at least some enjoyment out of this thread.

In the late 1700's, when America was still forming, they started to practice the idea of Slavery. To do that, they needed slaves. Where did they get them? From Africa. Of course, none of the people there volunteered. It's to my knowledge that they just took them away from wherever they were living on the continent. They got a boat full of them, and headed back to America and arrived in Virginia.

So the Africans were forced to do hard labor work. This eventually died out in the Northern countries, but it sort of continued in the Southern countries. The slaves in the South had to do a bunch of seemingly endless farm work. From what I've read, it was pretty bad. And even then, when the work was "finished" for the day, the slaves still had more work to do, as in keeping themselves in the best condition they could, along with their relatives and co workers. The North, on the other hand, had built factories to produce whatever they had wanted.

Then, sometime in the 1830's, people were asking why Slavery was still happening. America was the "land of the free" and there were people with basically no rights at all. These people were a sort of minority, but they managed to get the message through to many people. So, in the North slavery was banned(but racism was still high in the air all over America). Eventually, they wanted the South to do the same.

But at that point, it was basically impossible. The South's economy depended on Slavery so much that bad things would happen if it was just suddenly banned. So, a few arguments and compromises were passed, but in the end it was not enough. It had to be decided with war. The South seceded from America's Union and created a new legion called the "Confederacy." But it was all pointless in the end, because the North won that war, effectively banning Slavery.

So, yeah. That's the best I can give. At least you're not totally in the dark now.

Anyway, to discussion:
I'm just stunned at how racist white men were back in the day. Seriously, why and how did they get the idea that just because a person is black, they're bad and just a lesser person than them? That would never pass in today's standards!  And I'm moreover wondering if any of the slave owners felt remorse. For well, whipping their slaves and making them do all that work. They're human beings for christ sake, they have feelings, just like you do! It must have just really sucked for the slaves, there's just too much bad things that can happen to them, especially if they were sold away from their family. I can't even imagine what it would be like to be separated from my family for what seems to be the rest of my life.

And then, of course, there's that "other world." Have you ever heard of the Many Worlds Interpretation? If you haven't, here's a sort explanation: Every time you make a choice, it creates a new "world." For example, say you were hungry, and you wanted a snack. You have some apples and bananas. Let's say, you pick the apples. There, you just made a choice that created a new world. Which means, there's another world out there where you picked the bananas as the snack.

So this "other world" I referred to earlier is the world where the South wins the war, as opposed to the North. America would be an entirely different place, no doubt about it. This might be stretching it, but what if we still had slavery today? It'd be terrible, of course. I would feel really bad just for blacks in general, for the suffering people are putting them through just because of the color of their skin!

I don't even know if I would have even liked this place then. Or who knows, maybe I would have just thought of it as natural, because I didn't experience the world where the North won.

One kind of funny tidbit about this entire thing is that people living in the South today are still salty about the war. I've heard that there's some people who still hang up the Confederate flag, as if saying "screw you" to the American Union. I seriously hope this doesn't escalate into anything rash.

So what does everyone else think? Do you have some speculation about what America would be like if the South had won? Any opinions about Slavery, etc.?

First of all, I want to make something very, very clear: I am not, nor would I ever, defend the enslavement of anyone. That said, I have to point out that, while it's likely not your fault, your opening post is highly slanted.

The first point I'd like to make is that slavery obviously didn't start with white people against black people. It's actually theorized that the word "slave" comes from "Slav", referring to the "Slavic" eastern European peoples. Furthermore, slavery has been around for a great deal of time, stretching back into biblical times. The first slave owners in what would become the united states were in fact people of their own race or Dutch slave traders. Not that it excuses anything, we simply purchased them. Back in their homeland of Africa, they had certain tribes conquering and enslaving neighboring tribes of their own race, only to sell them to white people, ironically enough.

Next point. There were a great deal of people who whipped and beat their slaves without mercy, reason or provocation. However, there were also many people who treated them relatively decent. Some slave, even after they were emancipated, stayed with their former "masters" because it was the only real steady employment they could find.

Next point. Not long before the abolition of slavery was a popular subject, the north had actually been responsible for supplying the south with their workers because agriculture was an extremely important part of the economy. The union had a vested interest in plantations. It wasn't until the north had sold all their slaves to the south that they started telling them they couldn't keep them. Now, we are talking about human beings here, I realize that. But put yourself into the mindset for back then. How would you feel if the government sold you something for a lot of money and then told you that you can't keep it because they just made it illegal? The south never wanted war. What they wanted was to separate themselves from the union and have their own country and laws, which was their legal right to do. As stated above though, it would have been catastrophic to the U.S. Economy because of how much tax revenue came from southern farming. To be blunt, the government tried to strong-arm the south and completely bypass state's rights. This is why it was commonly referred to as "The War of Northern Aggression." It's also worth noting that slavery didn't actually become a political issue until the presidential election. Lincoln didn't even want to set them free. He wanted to send them all back to Africa and said that if they were ever set loose in our society, the country was doomed. Obviously, this many years later, that statement has proved to be at least mostly incorrect.

To sum it all up, the war was not about slavery. At it's core, it was about independence from the government and about fighting against overreach and oppression from a central authority. Because of this, the Battle Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia, commonly erroneously referred to as the Confederate Flag, is not a symbol of hate or racism, but a symbol of what American freedom is supposed to be, and the north was no less guilty of what everyone in this day and age ridicules the south for.

Also, what you were explaining at the end of you post is called Multiverse Theory.

There is a lot more history of what's going on now in the world of slavery and what happened in the United States in the 1860s.

Slavery certainly wasn't an American thing, nor did it start in the 1700s. African tribes would raid other tribes and sell those captives to Spanish, English, American, and other traders, who sold them around the world.

My argument is that slavery wasn't banned until Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, during the war, not before. The American Civil war was fought over states' rights compared to the federal government. The southerners preferred their states to have sovereign rule over any federal laws and the northern states were more apathetic about federal control.

Lastly, racism is alive and well today. The U.S. might not have slaves but we have racism, without a doubt. Look up modern-day racism and see the examples of what happens and what's going on. There's no war but there's a social discourse, including law enforcement vs. black lives, etc.

This isn't a bad start to the war but there is so much history. It's fascinating stuff.

m0ssb3rg935 : I see, thanks for the information. Even with that lesson I had in school, I still don't think I explained it well. Can I be excused because I'm a child?

Also, I think it can be called both. MWI and the Multiverse theory are pretty similar, but I used MWI to explain the concept.

Ghostbear1111 : I don't think I ever implied that slavery started because of the events I described above. The problem I have with the EP is that, well, the Confederacy basically ignored it as if nothing happened. And when the North won the war, slavery would've been banned anyway. I also never implied that racism ended after the war, of course it's still around today. Racism is just this big can of worms so I'm not going to open that, for now.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I was just throwing a few things out there that aren't commonly taught. Revisionist history seems to be the trend with virtually all of both media and education. Objective journalism is dead and it seems that higher learning is being forgone in favor of preprogramming.