The 600 Pound Gorilla

The other day I heard a history professor talking about what had caused the Civil War. At the start of the war, he said, the Southern orators spoke of nothing but the need to protect slavery (slaves were the most valuable property owned in the United States, worth more money than the railroads and manufacturing plants combined). Ten years after the war, the Southern orators began to claim that the war had been started because of many important factors, of which slavery was only one. The war had been fought over states' rights, for example (the right to own slaves) and Northern financial dominance and so on.

You see, the South is no longer quite as certain as it once was that slavery is humane and uplifting and sanctioned by Jesus Christ. So the claim is that the Civil War was fought for many reasons.

The historian drew an analogy. Suppose you went to see King Kong for the first time. Someone later asked you what the movie was about. "A gigantic ape," you replied. Ten years later someone else asks you the same question. "King Kong?" you reply. "It's about many things. The movie is filled with interesting characters."