African Americans and the Civil War

It seems intriguing to me that all throughout middle school and high school, my history teachers continuously taught that the root cause of the Civil War was the abolition of slavery. It wasn't until my senior year of high school and now that I was shown otherwise. Although the end result of the American Civil War was indeed the abolition of slavery, it was not its main cause. In the Short History of Reconstruction, Eric Fonner explains the root cause of the war was the "restoration of the Union" (3) rather than emancipation. Unlike the Southern views, the Union shared strong anti slavery ideals, and even set out a few provision eliminating its presence in the north. Although Black were "free" in the north, they were hardly treated as equals. Having served in the war efforts, blacks were segregated into their own units under the command of a white officer. They were also paid considerably less than whites were. It seems ironic that a nation that is trying uphold its values of equality and justice for its citizens cannot give fair treatment to a certain group of individuals because they are African American. One thing that Fonner writes in his text shocked me the most when he writes a quote from a rice planter of South Carolina of the Civil War. He stated that he believed the slaves were happy and content in the position that they were in. This seems surprising to me since I could not understand how anyone would be happy being the PROPERTY of someone else, being forced into hard labor, and being treated as an inferior. This just shows how oblivious Southern Plantation owners were to their slaves lives. Their concern was mainly that of economic gains with no respect towards their slaves rights as humans.