The South and the Civil War - I don't understand?

I am a 12 year old who lives down south in dixie. This summer, my family and I went to numerous plantations and Fort Sumpter. Last year in history we also studied the Civil War. I realize that the South was terribly wrong; slavery is and was a horrible, horrible trade - all men WERE created equally, but here is the thing I do not understand - Why couldn't a compromise have been made? Southern plantation owners were obviously wealthy(or at least most slave-owning ones) so why couldn't they have paid the servants to stay on? And after all, they DID at least provide food, shelter, clothing, medical and dental care in turn for work. Also, why do all books and movies emphasise the cruel slave-owners? If ALL of them were so bad, why did some of the freed slaves stay on, and not leave? And what were the other rights besides ownership, states rights, etc did the confederacy fight for? Why did the North get so angry with the South for owning slaves when they themselves were not help responsible(until many years later)for child labor in their factories? The children were paid a salary but from literature I have read it seems like a VERY meager amount - And the factory managers did not even provide medical care or any other necessities! I just have so many questions and not enough answers.The South and the Civil War - I don't understand?
Just a heads up on the Civil War, or as southerners like myself call it, the War of the Northern Aggression. The War was not started over slavery, it was started over states rights. Basically The South separated because they believed that states should have the right to decide if slavery should be allowed or not. After the secession, The North attacked the south to preserved the union, not to end slavery. A War against slavery would have been entirely unpopular, and many more people would have fought against the north.

It wasn't until after Gettysburg, the first major union victory, that Lincoln changed the objective of the war from preserving the union, to abolishing slavery.



For your question about a lack of compromise, the southerners believed that they had the right to own slaves, plain and simple. And most plantation owners did not treat their slaves to the degree of harshness that we are taught. Yes they whipped them and beat them and so on and so forth, but most did not do it to the extreme. Slaves were viewed as expensive machines. If you owned a factory and a machine wasn't working, you usually don't beat it to a pulp so that it can never work again.



Child labor and such wasn't viewed as being anywhere near as bad as slavery because you are free, and you have rights. No one was making you work, except for your parents.



And before anyone says something about my defense of the south, I am against slavery.
There was incredible fear of the idea of freeing slaves, especially in the South where so many of them lived and where the non-slave population was much smaller than in the North. Free Southerners feared that freed slaves would drive wages way, way down and nobody wanted them voting because they could seize power by block voting.The South and the Civil War - I don't understand?
Here is an article I found on the confederacy and what it means. It should help you understand it a little better.

http://socyberty.com/history/meaning-of-the-confederate-battle-flag/
later on you'll learn that lots of slaves stayed after they were freed cause it was all they new and some (or most) slave owners keep them as share croppers, which is where they rented their land to former slaves and sold them all their goods at high prices to keep them in debt, which was pretty much legal slavery. but you might want to do some research cause theirs alot more to the answers to the questions you asked and i cant answer them all
Slavery was definitely wrong. A compromise couldn't be made because both the North and the South refused to compromise. Farms were destroyed. Cattle, pigs, and chickens were stolen by both armies and deserters. Cotton crops were burned, and being the main source of income for the wealthy land owners of the Old South they were screwed, metaphorically speaking. And having lost all their money they couldn't pay freed slaves.



Some slaves stayed because they were afraid of not having any work, food, or shelter, some stayed because they felt loyalty toward their former lave owners. Some other reasons for the Civil War were sectional differences, presidential turmoil (South didn't like Lincoln), and the increase of abolitionists in the North. The North thought that using child labor was okay because most of the children were immigrants and because technically they were paying them. Also a lot of people didn't know their horrible working conditions, long hours, and little pay because everything seemed so nice on the outside. Thus called the Gilded Age. (read the Gilded Age: A Tale of Today by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner) You should also read Gone With the Wind, which I'm sure you already have =]