Welcome to the Eric Erickson Show podcast, Our 2.

Hello, America. Welcome, it's Eric Erickson here, and I sure am glad you're with me.

The phone number is 8779773-7-745. Should you wish to be on the program,

I am delighted to have you with me today before I pivot to anything else. Keith has been

waiting very patiently. I would like to take his phone call. Keith, welcome to the Eric Erickson

Show. How are you? Hi, Eric. I've been a long-time listener, first-time caller. And I agree with a lot that you say.

But I also, I just feel like I have to, I don't know if you're factually incorrect by choice or that you just, you know, you're not sure maybe.

I don't know, but with your comments about the Civil War, I think that you create a whitewashed

narrative or a mythological narrative when you say that slavery was what the war was fought for,

when actually slavery was a byproduct of what the war was fought for.

The South, their economy was so dependent and so flourished over slavery that they felt that they could succeed from the country.

And the North used getting rid of slavery as a strategy to get the South on board with where the country was going.

It was not some noble gesture or some moral thing that everyone got

together and said, hey, let's end slavery. And when you say that it was fought like that, and in fact,

Abraham Lincoln is recorded, you can look this up. He said that if he could

keep the country together without getting rid of slavery, he would do that. And this is the guy that

the country gives all the credit for getting rid of slavery. But he did not even want to do that.

They did that to directly get the South

to get on board with where the country was going. And I think we create a, that's where the

disconnect comes from when there are narratives saying that, oh, one day the country just decided to get rid of slavery, when that is just not factually correct.

So, Keith, I would say my view is that it is more complicated than the war was about slavery.

I've got friends who are, I would call them, sympathizers to the lost cause of the South, who would echo what you're saying.

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