Slavery was the sole cause of the Civil War—take it out of the picture and there is no war, period. But the motivation of the average Union soldier was not to end slavery; it was to salvage the Union, which they saw as a unique republic offering political voice and economic opportunity.

21:48newscasts in the United States who don't know anything about United States history- ... but know what they know. In terms of causation, if you take slavery out of the picture, there is no Civil War, period. That's not a long conversation you need. You ask the question. That's the answer. Let's go to the next question. The next question is, okay, so were most white people motivated to put on blue uniforms because they wanted to kill

22:12slavery? The answer to that is no, they were not. They were motivated to put on blue uniforms to salvage the Union, which they saw as a unique gift that the founding generation, based on the bloodshed in the American Revolution, had bequeathed the successive generations. And the two key parts of what the Union meant for them was, number one, you had a voice in your own government, and someone will always say now to me,

22:39"Well, but women couldn't vote." That's right. The people who could vote by our standards were limited in the 19th century, but within the context of the Western world in 1860, the United States had by far the broadest franchise, by far. And so they argued that's one thing the Union gives us, and it also gives us the chance to rise economically. Doesn't guarantee that you can succeed, but it means you're not doomed to be what your father was.

23:06And those are worth fighting for. And so I will put on a uniform so the slave-holding aristocrats and oligarchs, which is what they called them, of the South, they said they're not... They don't really believe in democracy. It's an oligarchy- ... in the South. It's a slavery-based oligarchy, and we know which way Europe's going, they said. The revolutions of the 1840s failed in Europe. Europe's going the wrong way. They're going toward

23:29more aristocracy, more oligarchy, more... And we are the last hope. When Lincoln spoke of the last best hope of Earth, which he did in one of his most memorable phrases, he's meaning that the United States is a beacon of small D democracy in a Western world that seems to be turning the other way. And those soldiers, it meant, it meant it was that important to them. They are citizens in a republic

23:57that people shed blood to establish, and we can't let it go. Part of the compact is I'm a citizen. I derive these benefits from this republic, from the Union. I can have a voice in government. I can rise economically or have the chance to. I owe my service to that republic. That's what most of them would've said if you'd pressed them on why they're doing it. Doesn't mean everybody was on fire with ideology

24:20that way. Some guys would say, "Well, you know what? I'm broke, and I'm gonna get fed and clothed in the army." But this sense of exceptionalism, exceptionalism's unpopular now in the United States, but Americans had a sense of themselves as a truly exceptionalist society within the context of the Western world. - And as a small aside terminology-wise, blue is the Union or what we think of as the United States,

24:48and red is the Confederacy. - Yes. On the maps, the Confederate units are red blocks. And the United States units are blue blocks. That's right. - And, uh - That is correct. - And the North and the South is another way we'll refer to it just to clarify. - And let me have a very brief rant on North and South. I prefer to see this as a war between two mid-19th-century republics,