主题：【原创】即使没有文革,中国经济也不会提前进入第二世界 -- 葡萄

Southern states believed that it was their natural right to choose to stay or leave the union.

Northern states believed that the union was nonrevocable.

When 13 states formed the Union, the slavery provision in the Constitution was a compromise to accommodate the Southerners.This issue became the explosive when Abraham Lincoln was elected. Competiting point: new states should be non-slavery or not.

Of course, one can argue that it is a battle between Northern capitalists and Southern plantation owners. That's the Chinese textbook version, because everything was interpretted there as a class struggle.

But my questions:

1.The line was drawn between slave states vs. non-slave states (38 degree latitude line) not industrialized vs. non-industrialized. Virginia was more industrialized, but joined the south. Maryland was also industrialized, but a slave state and was occupied by the federal troops to thwart the secession attempt.

2. After the war, Southern states were still the poorest non-industrialized part of America, as the largest cotton exporter to the British empire and the world. US South still accounted for 1/3 of global cotton consumption (mainly to the British textile manufacturers). It was not industrialized by North until 1960s, when labor union pushed the big companies to move south for non-unionized workers.

3.Black Americans actually were never a major source of Northern industry labor forces until World War II, when for the first time, women and black minorities were attracted to the Northern industry plants.

4.(by me) 北方解決勞動力短缺是靠歐洲移民. 內戰之前主來源地是愛爾蘭與德國. 當時有不少北方士兵來自于剛下船的愛＼德人，后者往往違英文命令都聽不懂.小時候中國歷史課本一直把南北戰爭歸因于資本家需要南方的黑人labor--及南方的工業品市場, 是資本主義與南方種植園農業主義的斗爭.

但這一中式理論很難解釋為什么戰爭結束后北方工業界并不喜歡用南方黑人, 雖然后者有了人身自由.而且內戰后南方是赤貧, 一直到１８７７年才緩過勁來. 也沒多少需求.美國ヱ業化成功的市場需求來自于貴通東西二岸后的大需求.

From Wiki, "In the presidential election of 1860, the Republican Party, led by Abraham Lincoln, had campaigned against the expansion of slavery beyond the states in which it already existed. The Republican victory in that election resulted in seven Southern states declaring their secession from the Union even before Lincoln took office on March 4, 1861. Both the outgoing and incoming U.S. administrations rejected secession, considering it rebellion."