...the southern slave plantation bourgeoisie kicking and screaming into industrial capitalism.
The slave economy was a drag on the more developed form of capitalism that was about to revolutionise the world. Everything else is just window dressing and fancy speeches.
I mean yeah, the civil war was an intrabourgeois conflict but I wouldn't call the abolition of slavery "window dressing"
USA is gonna get around to that any day now
(I know, I know, chattel slavery. just being a pill :amerikkka:)
Obviously abolition is a beautiful achievement, I hope it doesn’t seem like I’m saying it isn’t. I just mean in terms of the reasons the war happened. The northern industrialists (most of them at least) didn’t want to end slavery out of the goodness of their hearts, anymore than the confederacy was fighting for “states rights”. It was simply in their material interests to end it at that point in time.
Lincoln only abolished slavery because they were getting their asses kicked by a bunch of farmers and wanted to cripple their economy and "work" force