Southern plantation owners were the people who wanted to keep slavery. They are the ones who had a vested interest in keeping them, not the every day farmer. A vast majority of farmers in the south at the time did not have slaves anyway. They were pushed to fight because they felt their way of life was being attacked. They felt the North was indeed invading their home land and going to take it from them, so they fought.

The four slave states that stayed with the Union did so because they had more to gain by staying. West Virginia split from Virginia for the same reason. It was all about the money!

How did West Virginia gain economically by leaving Virginia? In fact, the western counties that later formed West Va had considered succession from Virginia years before the Civil War. Their local economny and way of life had little in common with the large planter-class-dominated state government.

If the reason to preserve slavery was to maintain extra power in the US Congress, then why secede from the Union and make this advantage irrelevant? And why did four slave states not end up seceding from the Union? And if slavery were so necessary for the cotton farming system to survive, how did it manage to do so after slavery was gone after the Civil War? There were plenty of people in the slave era who maintained that slavery put the South at an economic disadvantage because slavery was more expensive than using hired workers. So my idea that slavery would have perished anyway still holds, simply because it would have become obsolete.

Why would slavery become obsolete? Presumably because as the population of immigrants to the United States became large enough, the supply of labor reached the point where it was economically viable to use hired workers instead of expensive and troublesome slaves.

What do you think is the biggest/most common myth or stereotype in history? Ya I know, kinda weird question, but humor me

BTW I personally think its the bad rep that the Italian army has. Almost every history book I've read portrays the Italians as spinless, disloyal cowards (which is only partly true )

Sure, the rich were able to get the state legislators to vote to secede, but after that .....the war was FOUGHT....to reunite the country by the North and to defend their land and homes by the southerners. This point has been documented a hundred or more times over by writings and letters from the time period.

Slavery would have died out because of economics...as so well put MONEY..

1. It cost a lot of money just to purchase one
2. You had to feed, house, and take care of this property because it was expensive and due to no more coming in you had to rely on regeneration.

Slavery would have died out because of economics...as so well put MONEY..
3. The cotton gin, improved farming and harvesting techniques and the key issue that it would become more viable to hire someone whom you did not have to house , feed or take care of would have eventually won out.

The Red Baron, contrary to popular depiction, was actually blond and clean-shaven.

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The Red Baron, contrary to popular depiction, was actually blond and clean-shaven.

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But he really did hate beagles.

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The Red Baron, contrary to popular depiction, was actually blond and clean-shaven.

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But he really did hate beagles.

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Additionally, and also contrary to popular belief, he was not actually red, but more of a fleshy light-skinned color.

And it is not believed that he owned slaves. Generally.

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What do you think is the biggest/most common myth or stereotype in history? Ya I know, kinda weird question, but humor me

BTW I personally think its the bad rep that the Italian army has. Almost every history book I've read portrays the Italians as spinless, disloyal cowards (which is only partly true )

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My Late Uncle who served in the Italian Navy in WW2 did not like to hear that neither.
Their was a song back in the 60's that was a spoof of the Ballard of the Green Berets
Needless to say he did not like it to much even from a young kid

He said, however, that their officers and vehicles were the weak link; not the men.

Yes I've read several accounts of Brits & Germans in the Foreign Legion immediately after WW2 and they all rated the Italian legionnaires quite highly.

Hitler always rated his fanatically raised troops over the 'soft-bred' capitalist Americans but was ultimately proved wrong.

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Hitler always rated his fanatically raised troops over the 'soft-bred' capitalist Americans but was ultimately proved wrong.

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Er... I wouldn't hang onto that one too much either. The average German and Russian soldier was far tougher than the average western Allied soldier. It was Allied numbers and productivity that beat the German soldier.

My Other Favorite myth is that ALL german soldiers were Nazi's

Oh, very far from the truth.

Hitler always rated his fanatically raised troops over the 'soft-bred' capitalist Americans but was ultimately proved wrong.

Er... I wouldn't hang onto that one too much either. The average German and Russian soldier was far tougher than the average western Allied soldier. It was Allied numbers and productivity that beat the German soldier.

The biggest myth is the left-wing fairy tale that the CIA overthrew Iran's short-lived democratic government and put the Shah back in, and that it was responsible for overthrowing Allende's government in 1973.

The CIA is a freaking bureaucracy, folks, not a group of sorcerers. The USA simply doesn't have that kind of power. These goverments were overthrown by their own people, not American forces. The Iranians themselves grew disillusioned with the government that replaced the Shah, and presumably decided the Shah wasn't so bad after all. Allende was only elected with one-third of the vote, and was a crazed Marxist whom the Chileans were happy to get rid of, whatever they thought of Pinochet.

Yes, the USA has forcibly replaced foreign governments, but invariably it by simply using our own troops.