March 15

Blog #118 – Two different takes on the causes of the Civil War

There has been a lot of time and money and energy spent talking about the causes of the Civil War ever since the guns stopped firing in April 1865.  And judging by the historiography, American historians have viewed the causes in a different light depending upon the time period in which they lived in.  One of the main reasons why there has been such interest in this topic is because the war set Americans vs. Americans and was, in one way, a fight over the future of the country.  Were we going to remain an agriculture-based economy (think Jefferson) or were we going to keep up with the times and become more industrial?  Another issue at stake was the status of African Americans in this country – would they stay or be sent back to Africa?  Would slavery and second-class citizenship be their continued status or would they share in the bounty of American freedom?

Historians writing about the conflict soon after the war tended to be Northerners who blamed an aggressive slave conspiracy that wanted to spread the institution all across America.  Southern historians saw the conflict as a moral one in which the North instituted an unconstitutional strategy of making the South economically subservient to the North.   A third group tended to blame the politicians of the antebellum era who could not reach compromises like had been done in the past.  President James Buchanan and Senator Stephen Douglas are their usual targets.

By the 1890s, a Nationalist school of history arose, sparked by America’s emergence as a world power economically and politically.  One particular historian, James Ford Rhodes, wrote that slavery was the primary cause, where the South fought the war to extend slavery and that the war was an “irrepressible conlfict”.  However, he didn’t see Southern slave owners as hideous monsters and in some ways blamed the cotton gin for making slavery become more entrenched in the South.  Slavery, in essence, became a burden that 1860 slaveowners had inherited and some thing that they couldn’t completely control.  Nationalist historians tended to focus also more on the outcomes of the war – American industry exploded after the war, a more powerful federal government emerged, and we became an imperialist nation starting in 1893.

The next group of historians, writing in the 1920s and 30s, was called the Progressive School and was influenced by the ill social effects of run-amuck industrialism and uneven distribution of wealth in the country.  Charles and Mary Beard were two of the most influential of this school, and they saw the war as a “social cataclysm” in which “the capitalists, laborers, and farmers of the North and West drove from power in the national government the planting aristocracy in the South.”   This school tended to focus more on the economic causes of the war instead of slavery, which fit well with some very racist historians writing at the time who portrayed the South as a land of chivalrous planters with their pathetically helpless and loyal slaves – by contrast the North were nasty, profit-driven capitalists trying to destroy the honor and tradition of the South.

Revisionist historians, writing in the 1930s and 40s, saw the war as an insufferable evil, regardless of causes.  The political leaders were to blame for not taking advantage of alternatives that could have saved the nation.  They thought that the war could have been avoided, and that the politicians had deliberately set apart the North and South during 1840 – 1860 as people who were both trying to preserve their culture and way of life.  James G. Randall called these politicians the “blundering generation”.

http://raymondpronk.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/civil-war-cause.png

Starting in the 1960s, newer historians started reevaluating all of these previous approaches and started to synthesize them together and not focusing on just one cause.  Prominent historians like Michael Holt, Eric Foner (the author of a competing APUSH textbook), James McPherson, Manisha Sinha all mashed these causes together and reformulated the causes of the war together.  Some focused on an ideological conflict – whether slavery or economics – that primarily caused the war.  During this time, we also see more women and African American historians with their own takes on the war as the academic world becomes more diversified.

So, when you think about what primarily caused the Civil War, there is a lot to choose from.  Slavery?  Economics?  States’ rights?  Clash of cultures?  Terrible politicians?  Westward expansion?

I think this Venn diagram kinda shows how that maybe all of them interlock together.  However, that’s not our job today.  What I am asking you to do today is to compare two videos.  One takes the strong stance that slavery was the main cause, while the other dissects that argument.

 

 

 

 

The following short film discusses unequivocally that slavery was the main / primary cause of the war.  It is presented by the lead history teacher at the West Point Academy, Colonel Ty Seidule, and is produced by Prager U.

 

This video, produced by social studies teacher, Tom Richey, who is from South Carolina.  His film is a direct rebuttal of the Prager U film.

After watching both videos, answer the following questions:

  1. Who do you think has the better argument about the Civil War?  Why?  Provide examples from the films.
  2. Do you think either man has something motivating them to take their position?  If so, what?  How do you think this motivation shaped their opinions?

400 words minimum for both answers.  Due Thursday, March 21 by class.  

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Posted March 15, 2019 by geoffwickersham in category Blogs

59 thoughts on “Blog #118 – Two different takes on the causes of the Civil War

  1. Aaliyah Winston

    1. Personally, I think the Prager University argued better about the Civil War. This is because they gave good evidence, despite Richey opposing them, that supported their point that the Civil War was primarily caused by slavery. For example, bringing up that the main cause could also be states’ rights and disclosing it by asking which rights exactly were the states fighting for was very persuasive, in my opinion. Additionally, bringing up Lincoln’s words, “I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free…. It will become all one thing, or all the other,” provided a new way of thinking, considering the president at the time of the war said this himself. This, in a way, brought that point more together and developed a very good structure to further indicate what the War was really about. Richey, although he tried to seem as if he was not, blatantly opposed everything in the video. He states he was not intending to do so; yet, that’s exactly what happened, “My point is not to fundamentally disagree with the premise of the video.” He didn’t really give a rebuttal by inputting different quotes that demonstrate another cause of the Civil War.

    2. Prager University’s video did not really have any form of motivation or bias if you do not include the solider, Col. Ty Seidule, speaking, “As a soldier, I am proud that the United States army, my army, defeated the Confederates.” Even along with that, it is not displayed on whether the Seidule is from/has ancestors that fought in the North or in the South; he continued to affirm the change in African-American’s new free lives, “…Freed 4,000,000 men, women and children from human bondage.” Resulting in their video more trustworthy and not have a curve on opinion, just facts. Nonetheless, I think Richey used his confederate fighting ancestors to motivate him to deny that the Civil War was mainly over slavery. Furthermore, In Richey’s video, he did not incorporate any other reason of the War, instead, he directly disagreed with most of the information in Prager’s video and simply mushed multiple reasons together. In order to present his view of the Prager video being dishonest, I would like to hear facts that show WHY he feels that way. Tom Richey even states that he can come off as biased due to his home and ancestry, making him tremendously less reliable for information, in my opinion.

  2. Joshua Wallington

    Who do you think has the better argument about the Civil War? Why? Provide examples from the films.

    Although I didn’t like both of the videos, I think that PragerU had a better argument about the Civil War than Tom Richey’s video. I didn’t like both videos because I thought they could have done a better job explaining things and being more transparent. I also agree with Tom’s sentiment that five minutes wasn’t enough time to go fully in depth when talking about the causes of a complex issue like the Civil War. I think that PragerU had a better argument about the Civil War because they provided better evidence like excerpts from official documents. I think I also agreed with the PragerU video because I think that slavery was the main cause of the Civil War. I didn’t pick Tom Richey’s because, although he made some good points about certain other causes of the war and detailed possible misconstrued evidence in the PragerU video, he didn’t really provide any evidence like dates like the PragerU video did. I like that the PragerU video tried to explain what others thought and why it might be incorrect. For example, PragerU provided documents like from the newspaper Charleston Mercury. Even though Tom said that the Charleston Mercury was very radical he didn’t provide any evidence to back that claim up. PragerU’s video also gave viewers insight by describing how the states voted when it came to succession. I also like how the video connected voting of succession to why the states were trying to leave in the first place. The video also refuted the claim that only very few people owned slaved so it wasn’t about slavery by showing why even poor people supported slavery. They showed this by explaining that if there were no slaves, the poorer whites would be the lowest on the social ladder among African Americans.

    Do you think either man has something motivating them to take their position? If so, what? How do you think this motivation shaped their opinions?

    I think that both men have something that motivated their positions. They even said it in their respective videos. Toward the end of Tom Richey’s video, he talked about how his ancestors were Confederate soldiers and how he was from South Carolina, which is a southern state. I think he would have a different opinion if he was from a northern state with Union soldiers and ancestors. Col. Ty Serdule also did this in his video for PragerU. He started to talk about how he was proud that his Army defeated chattel slavery. I didn’t really see where that had anything to do with the subject of the video. He was also proud that he was wearing the same color uniform that the union soldiers were wearing.

  3. Evan Willey

    I think the first video, by Tom Richey, had the better argument about the Civil War. While I do believe slavery was a large factor, even a strong majority of the cause of the Civil War, I still think he had the better argument within his video. First, I think he brings in a lot of great outside knowledge and facts about some of the arguments presented in the Prager University video. For example, when the Prager video uses a quote from the Charleston Mercury, Richey is able to shed some very important light on that evidence. Richey tells about how this source is from a very radical newspaper, so much so that it even criticised the Confederate government for not bringing back the slave trade. It’s important that Richey does this because the average person wouldn’t know this, and when the article is shown in the Prager video, it would likely persuade them in to agreeing with their argument. Richey also has the better argument because of his point that the Prager video is oversimplified. Oversimplification of this time in history is dangerous because it hides other important factors that led to the Civil War. Prager tends to hide all factors or try to completely discredit them which isn’t true how it panned out in real life. For example, in the video Richey points out that, The Emancipation Proclamation was oversimplified and partly falsified in how it was presented in the video. Richey points out that a few words are picked from the document and put together to prove the point. The sentence pulled from the document in the video isn’t actually a sentence in the Proclamation but rather separate phrases that they put together to prove their argument.

    I do think the man in the first video, Colonel Seidule, had a motivation to take the position. Being that he is a high ranking individual at West Point, a college for the military, I think him making the argument that the war is about slavery is a defense of the army. The Civil War was the most gruesome in all of American history, with Americans being killed on both sides. When the Colonel argues that the war was fought over something morally wrong, like slavery, it gives the army justification over fighting such a gruesome war. This motivation to shed a positive light on the army forced his argument to block out all other possibilities of factors that could’ve started the war.

  4. Annika Paluda

    1) While I do agree with Tom Richey that the Civil War had several causes, I believe that Colonel Ty Seidule from Prager University has a better argument about the Civil War. In Seidule’s video, he acknowledges the fact that slavery was not the only cause; he simply claims it was the biggest one. Seidule counters the argument that the conflict over states rights was the main cause by explaining that states rights is something that all states wanted to preserve, not just the confederate ones. He adds that Mississippi even thought that New York was too invested in preserving their rights. In addition, the only reason why the confederate states fought so hard to preserve their rights was because they thought the federal government would abolish slavery in all states. He responds to the claim that the economic differences of the United States was the main cause by showing us viewers that the North also produced food crops, not just the South. The issue over the economy resided in the ethics of how each side earned their money. The North paid their laborers, who were free to come and go, while the South’s main labor force was slave-based. These slaves were unpaid, treated terribly, and forced to live under their master’s orders. Therefore, the issue over economy was actually a conflict over slavery. I don’t believe Seidule’s video was perfect, but I think Richey was too harsh on it. At certain points in Richey’s video, it seemed as if he was searching for any little piece of evidence to disagree with Seidule. For example, Richey comments one of Seidule’s graphics of Abraham Lincoln with a beard, even though he didn’t have a beard at the time of the speech that the graphic related to. This mistake was insignificant to the accuracy of the video and I thought it made Richey look childish. Thus, Seidule had the better argument.
    2) For all people, where we come from and our personal experiences contribute to our beliefs. Richey even makes a point of bringing this up in the end of his video. The outcome of the Civil War deeply burdened antebellum-Southern culture. Due to this, southerners usually like to remember the positive things about their heritage and neglect the cruel institution of slavery. Since Richey is from South Carolina, a once-confederate state, his heritage probably factors into his belief that the main cause of the Civil War was not slavery. Instead, Richey says, it was much more complex. In a similar matter, Seidule’s background in the U.S. military and teaching job at Westpoint (which is located in New York) also probably contribute to his opinion that slavery was indeed the main cause of the Civil War. Ever since the years leading up to the Civil War, the North is thought to be completely against slavery. This is probably why Seidule took such a strong position attacking the institution of slavery in the South. At the end of his video, he also mentions that he is proud to be a part of the same army that defeated slavery. This shows us that his personal experiences factor into his ideology, like most people’s do.

  5. Ryan Goodman

    1) I think the guy from the second video has the more accurate opinion on the civil war. Although many of the points made in the first video are accurate, I think that there are other reasons for the civil war. I agree that slavery is the main factor in the war, but other factors like state’s rights did play a role. In the second video, the speaker makes a few points that contradict the first video. He starts by stating that many of the elements used in the first video are just stylistic techniques to influence the viewer into believing the speaker. Then he points out some factual issues in the video. He first points out that the Charleston Mercury was misused in the video, because it was the most radical of views in the South. This evidence was used as the primary viewpoint when in reality it was truly radical. He also says that when the first video points out that every Southern states wanted to secede for slavery, it’s actually only seven, and some states initially rejected secession and didn’t accept until Lincoln called on troops. Next, he points out the flaws in the voting point brought up in the first video. He states that the first video doesn’t show Georgia, an example of a much closer debate, and Virginia, which was a much closer debate especially in relation to the other Southern States.
    2) I think both men probably have some motivation. The man in the first video seems to be motivated by a moral opposition to slavery, which is obviously fair but creates a bias within the evidence he provides. He’s also very selective with his evidence so that nothing contradicts his point. The man in the second video, on the other hand, seems to be motivated specifically by a wish to provide factual information that is without bias. He attempts to provide information so that the listener learns everything they can about the topic, not just the facts from one viewpoint. He tries to use the video as a platform to add on to the original video, point out flows, and inform to the fullest extent possible. I think it’s a better viewpoint to take, as it’s better to know all the information or as much information as possible instead of having a limited view based on facts that are twisted or misused for a specific purpose.

  6. Kyle

    I think it’s easier for that guy too debunk what the other was saying without the first guy there to defend himself. But I also think the first person in the original video had the better video because the second guy debunked his own argument unintentionally. The second guy, while trying to debunk the first guy on something that wouldn’t have helped his argument that much anyway let it slip that even Lincoln believed slavery to be the cause of the Civil War. In his attempt to hurt the credibility of the first man he screwed himself. He claimed that Lincoln, once inaugurated said “fervently” that he would not threaten slavery in the south. This was because the south began voting on secession once he was inaugurated. And so, through what the second guy said President Lincoln himself believed slavery would be the cause of the nation going to war. And his jabs at the University in the beginning hold no merit if you look up the name of the “school” and find out what it is.
    I think both men have motivation to keep their position and to persuade people on why there position is right. I also think both reasons for these men wanting to believe what they are saying are mentioned in the first video. The second guy had it rough from the beginning because the first set up his argument by saying that southerners wanted to believe the Civil war was about something other than slavery because they didn’t want to believe that their ancestors would die over enslaving others. And the second guy played right into his argument and there was nothing he could do and his accent made it worse. Although he did appear knowledgeable on the Civil War he dropped a lot of petty facts throughout the video, although they were right they hurt his argument because it made him appear less professional as oppose to the first. Really he was doomed from the start because he played the stereotype the first guy had set up perfectly. The first guy on the other hand has a very clear reason to believe the Civil War is about slavery because he appears to resent racism. This means that slavery would hurt his sense of justice and pride in his career. And the fact that men wearing the same uniform as him ended slavery bolsters his pride.

  7. Roni Blank

    1. I think that Colonel Ty Seidule is more persuasive but Tom Richey has better evidence. Seidule’s main aim is to convince his viewers of his belief, which is that slavery was the single cause of the Ameican Civil War. To achieve this, he uses specific visual animations and techniques such as enlarging and bolding keywords in conspicuous colors, particularly the word “slavery”, and even by modifying minor details which help prove his message, such as the intimidating portrayal of Alexander Stephens, the Vice President of the Confederate State, as a faceless figure wearing a red tie. Seidule also uses verbal techniques such as repetition and rebuttal, which help him prove his point. Most importantly, Seidule demonstrates the use of selective evidence and half-truth. This is shown throughout the video, for example, in the Southern Secession map, Seidule claims that in no Southern state the vote was close. However, Richey later points out that Seidule failed to mention that both Virginia and Georgia had a prolonged debate and that Arkansas initially rejected succession. Another example is when Seidule presented the Emancipation Proclamation as a document that freed all slaves. This is dishonest because the Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves only in Confederate territories. Using such methods effectively, but unfairly, prove his point.
    Richey’s aim is not to fundamentally disagree with Seidule’s video but to point out the lack of nuance and the dishonest use of selective evidence. It’s difficult to have a successful argument for this since it’s merely a rebuttal video to Seidule’s claims. However, Richey does a great job at portraying evidence. He backs all of his claims up with hard facts and he recounts much background detail about each person and event. For example, when Seidule uses a racist quote said in the Charleston Mercury newspaper. Richey later reveals that the Charleston Mercury was the most radical paper in the South at the time.
    2. I believe that morality and good intentions motivated both men. Morality motivated Colonel Ty Seidule to take his firm position of blaming slavery for the Civil War because he understood that slavery is wrong and blamed it for the bad lives of many. I think that because Seidule ends by saying that he is proud that the United States army defeated the Confederates, destroyed chattel slavery, and freed 4,000,000 men, women, and children. Nevertheless, I think Seidule’s argument could have been much better if he would have used factual evidence instead of half-truths. I think Richey was also motivated by morality because he didn’t want people to get incorrect information. He felt that it’s his duty to point out the dishonest use of selective evidence.

  8. Jake Chernow

    I think That the head history teacher at the West Point Academy, Colonel Ty Seidule, produced by Prager U, had the better overall argument for the cause of the Civil War. The primary reason for my thinking is that Tom Richey, the creator of the second video, made attempts to derail or criticize Colonel Seidule’s argument, but each time it seemed as though he contradicted his own criticisms. The first time I noticed this came when Tom Richey critiqued Colonel Seidule for saying that every southern state threatened secession over the “peculiar institution” of slavery. Immediately after, Richey claimed that not all the southern states threatened to secede due to slavery. But after he shared this, he contradicted himself when he stated the fact that Mississippi’s declaration of secession literally stated that they’re seceding because of slavery. Another example of this came in Colonel Seidule’s video. He had a map of the votes for secession in each southern state, and in every state, the votes were nowhere near close; every state voting yes for secession. Richey comments on this, saying that he didn’t show some of the other southern states, for example, Georgia. He then goes on to say that Georgia still had a majority 2/3 vote to secede. A 2/3 majority vote is not relatively close at all. Richey’s unintentional contradictions led me to trust and support colonel Ty Seidule argument for the cause of the Civil War more.

    I think that both the men in the videos had something to motivate them to take their positions on the matter. In the first video, Colonel Ty Seidule explains that he is honored to wear and represent the dark blue colors of the Union army. He then went on to explain that he was proud of his fellow United States soldiers that defeated the Confederate army in the Civil War. I feel like because Seidule commands and serves in the United States Army, and that he teaches at West Point Academy in the north leads his belief of slavery causing the Civil War to be very strong. In the second video, It’s obvious that Tom Richey is from the south due to his accent and he also says he is from South Carolina. I also think the fact that he claims he is a direct descendant of Confederate veterans, plays a substantial role in what idea he sides with when it comes to what caused the Civil war.

  9. Elle Layman

    1) Although I agree with Tom Richey that the Civil War had many causes, Colonel Ty Seidule from Prager University has a better argument. In Seidule’s video, he notices the fact that slavery was not the only cause; he just says it was the biggest one. Seidule counters the argument that the conflict over states rights was the main cause by claiming that states rights is something that all states wanted to preserve, not only the confederate ones. He goes on to say how Mississippi began to believe that New York was too invested in preserving their rights. Moreover, the only reason why the confederate states fought so hard to preserve their rights was because they thought the federal government would abolish slavery in all states. He responds to the claim that the economic differences of the United States was the main cause by showing and explaining to the viewers how the North also produced food crops, not just the South. The issue over the economy resided in the ethics of how each side earned their money. The North paid their laborers, who were free to come and go, while the South’s main labor force was slave-based. These slaves were unpaid, treated terribly, and forced to live under their master’s orders. Therefore, the issue over economy was actually a conflict over slavery. I don’t believe Seidule’s video was perfect, but I think Richey was too harsh on it. At certain points in Richey’s video, it seemed as if he was searching for the small things that kind of end up being nothing as he said any little piece of evidence to disagree with Seidule. For example, Richey comments one of Seidule’s graphics of Abraham Lincoln with a beard, even though he didn’t have a beard at the time of the speech that the graphic related to. This mistake was insignificant and stupid to make a deal out of because it didn’t affect the true accuracy of the video. Richey seemed like a whiny child when picking out every little thing wrong with Seidule’s video.

    2) Every person in America has views and opinions shaped by what we have been through. Richey does talk about this point near the end of the video. The outcomes of the Civil War was a deep burden to the antebellum-Southern culture. As a result of this, southerners normally choose to remember the “sunny” things about their heritage and neglect the “stormy” reality of slavery. Since Richey is from South Carolina, a once confederate state, his heritage of his homeland factors into his belief that the main cause of the Civil War was not slavery, while many people think it was. Instead, Richey says it was much more complex with many other things. On the other side of this coin, Seidule’s background in the U.S. military and teaching job at Westpoint contribute to his opinion that slavery was indeed the main cause of the Civil War. Starting many years leading up to the Civil War, the North has been completely against slavery, explaining why Seidule took such a strong position attacking the institution of slavery in the South. At the end of his video, he also mentions that he is proud to be a part of the same army that defeated slavery. This shows us that his personal experiences factor into his ideas and opinions on things, like most people’s do.

  10. Sophi Whitman

    Although I understand Tom Richey’s argument that the Civil War had numerous causes, I believe the Prager U film had a better argument. The first video mostly focused on slavery, it does claim that there were other issues causing the war, however, slavery was the main factor. To begin with, Ty Seidule had much better credibility than the man filming the second video. His video was much more intriguing and interesting to watch. It consisted of images, charts, and visuals. The second video, however, had little visuals and was mostly focused upon Tom Richey speaking the entire video. The Prager U video also incorporated outside evidence such as quotes from Charleston Mercury. Although Richey picked out many of the flaws from the first video, I believe that his arguments weren’t supported with enough evidence. Tom made very good points about the many other causes of the war, however, to me, his claims seemed to be mostly opinion based with no facts to back it up. The Prager U video also consisted of evidence from the time period. For example, he used a quote from Abraham Lincoln, “I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free…. It will become all one thing or all the other”. This gave the viewers great context and understanding of the time period and also showed people’s views at the time. Seidule also integrated visuals to enable viewers to fully understand how slavery received so much support. He shot down the typical counter-claim that slavery wasn’t the main cause because not that many people owned slaves. By showing “The Southern Southern Ladder”, he was able to help me and others learn that many poor whites supported slavery so they wouldn’t be the lowest in society. Overall, the first video encompassed a variety of persuasive techniques, credible sources, and strong claims, ultimately making it the better argument.

    I believe both men had motivations that affected their claims and views on the causes of the war. Your ideas come mostly from the way you were raised, the things you were taught, and where you were born. I believe in the first video, Ty Seidule was motivated by his role as a colonel and soldier. Some of his ancestors or others that he knows and respects could have fought in the war. Towards the end of the video, Seidule shared that he was very proud of the country for defeating slavery and destroying the brutal custom. Tom Richey, on the other hand, shared that he is from South Carolina and has Confederate soldiers as ancestors. I believe his claim would be very different if he lived or grew up in the North and was affected by slavery from a different perspective. Overall, I strongly think that the reason the two men have opposing ideas is because they most likely grew up in different regions of the world and were taught different things about American history. However, they both make great points and ideas about the Civil War.

  11. Kaitlin Capinjola

    Although I agree with Tom Richey that the causes of the Civil War were complex and there was a multitude of them, I believe that Colonel Ty Seidule has a better argument about the Civil War. Seidule’s video wasn’t bias or one-sided, he acknowledges that slavery wasn’t the only cause of the Civil war, it was just the biggest factor. In his video, he counters many arguments, such as the argument that the conflict over states’ rights was the leading cause of the war. He explains that states’ rights were something the whole Union wanted to preserve, not just the Sothern states. To further back up his argument, Colonel even adds that Missouri thought New York was too invested in states’ rights. I think Seidule has a better argument because he provides a plethora of evidence including quotes from Lincoln and the Charleston Mercury. He incorporated multiple viewpoints on the causes of the Civil War, making sure the video wasn’t one-sided. Even though he thought slavery was the leading cause, he made sure to include other viewpoints on the causes of the war as well. He responds to the claim that the economic differences of the United States were the main cause by showing the viewers that the North also produced food crops, not just the South. Although Seidule’s video wasn’t the greatest, I believe he built a better argument because of the plethora of evidence he presented, as well as a non-bias video. As for Richey’s video, I thought he was too harsh on Seidule and made comments that weren’t necessary to the overall video. For example, he commented on the colors of the Colonel’s uniform, saying that dark colors are more believable than lighter ones.

    Both men have something that motivates their positions of the causes of the Civil War and was even stated in each of their videos. Towards the end of Tom Richey’s video, he discussed the background of his ancestors and how they were Confederate soldiers. Richey added that he was from South Carolina, which is a Southern state. Richey grew up in a Southern state, making his heritage a factor in his belief that the Civil War was not caused by slavery. Richey’s argument was that the causes of the Civil War were much more complex than just slavery. As for Seidule, his background is in the U.S military and a teaching job at WestPoint, located in New York, a Northern state. His background in the military most likely contributed to his opinions that slavery was the biggest cause of the Civil War. Personal experience also factors into people’s opinion making. At the end of the video, Seidule mentioned how he was proud to be a part of the army that defeated slavery; this is most likely why he has such a strong position on slavery being the leading cause of the war.

  12. Kenny Pepper

    First video= lead history teacher at West Point academy Second video= Teacher
    As many good points as the guy in the second video makes, I think the Civil war was still about slavery. After only watching the first video, the voting numbers for secession struck me as crucial evidence that the war was about slavery. The guy from the second video made great points about how Arkansas voted no for secession the first time, and that the video didn’t show all of the southern states while claiming the vote wasn’t close in all of them. Even after taking away a few state’s votes, the first video’s argument about how the South wanted to protect state’s rights was a solid one. They wanted state’s rights, but the “rights” that they wanted were undoubtedly mainly slavery focused. The guy in the second video argued that they wanted the right to secession, but secession was most likely fueled by slavery as stated in the first video. The final point that the first video makes using Lincoln’s senate speech to support their claim about slavery needing to be totally abolished or practiced everywhere is a good one. The guy in the second video states the fact that this what he said trying to become elected to the senate and no the president, and that as the president, Lincoln stated that he had no intention on taking on slavery in already established areas. Even if his remarks came before his presidential campaign, he is still the same person. Even if he didn’t state his all or nothing idea about slavery as president, he is the same person, and most likely still believes in his ideals that he ran a campaign on.

    I think the guy from the second video might be motivated a little by where he is from. The blog says that he is from South Carolina, which was indeed, one of the secession leaders where slavery was a staple. He might want to defend the honor of his ancestors by trying to show that the civil war wasn’t strictly about his southern people keeping the immoral slavery. Why would he make the video in the first place? He says he doesn’t disagree that slavery was the cause, but he makes a video challenging the claim that it was. The first guy also may have been swayed to one side of the opinion by his being in the army. He says in the video how his army did this and his army did that, showing how he shows support for the north’s abolition of slavery.

  13. Dilan

    1. I believe that Tom Richey’s video has a better standing of the argument over the cause of slavery than the argument of PragerU. Tom Richey’s video, as a result of being an analytical video in response to PragerU, does have a bit of an advantage as they did not have to go first, meaning that Richey could check most, if not all of the sources of the video beforehand to start his video off with an advantage. Since the Prager University video is condensed to roughly 6 minutes, in comparison to the roughly 25 minutes that richey had, Prager University does not go too far in depth of each of their sources, instead opting for a quick summary of a counterargument, then quickly referencing a source to gain some sort of credibility. An example would be when every Confederate state is shown to have a nearly unanimous and undisputed decision of leaving the Union, which Richey follows up with explaining the Arkansas’ original decision was to stay in the Union.Aside from the quality of checking sources and refuting arguments, Richey at least attempts to show a more complex side of the cause of the civil war as well as behaviours of certain political leaders during the war. Richey shows some examples of this, including disputes over states rights and what the Union really was, or the difference of Lincoln’s decision on keeping slavery in territories where it already existed while he was in office versus his campaign speech on a House Divided in 1858. Richey’s video in my opinion does present a better argument than what Prager University had to offer.

    2. Ty Seidule, the man who was in the Prager University video, does seem to have a motivation for appearing in this video as he is a colonel and is the head of the department of history at Westpoint academy. He, by appearing in the video donning his military fashioned coat, has a bit of an ethos appeal to the audience, because the topic of the video was the Civil War a high ranking personnel of the armed forces does seem to be very credible to whoever is watching the video. Richey also appears to have a motivation for making this video. He is a social studies teacher and by him analyzing the video, he seeks to show the listener not to be so convinced by how Prager University set up their video, specifically generalizations of some of the sources. He exemplifies this when he says to be careful of what some animations in the video lead you to believe in reference to an agriculture only north, or how he responds to the sudden bolding of fonts to grab the watcher’s attention.

  14. Faith Reeves

    I think Tom Richey has the stronger argument about the civil war. He had less of an opinion on one specific cause of the war, and more just made the video to tear apart the Prager U video. He explained that not only did the first video have limited evidence, but the evidence that they did have was questionable and in itself a radical form to choose. Next, he explained that the first video had selectively chosen the evidence when showing the Southern secession votes. They didn’t show the votes that were slightly closer and the fact that Arkansas had actually rejected the secession originally. He explained that this wasn’t fair to do since it overly simplified the topic and causes of the Civil War. Because the Prager U presenter is a West Point professor and a soldier, he is going to be trusted and people are likely to believe what he says no matter the actual validity. Also, Richey was able to admit when the Prager U video was correct. Even though he didn’t agree with the overall message of the video, or how the evidence was presented, he showed a more reliable point by talking about the highs and lows of the argument. In the Prager U video, they showed selective evidence again when talking about the industry, or lack there of throughout America. The video made it seem as though there were absolutely no factory industries in the north, which influences the viewer and gives them, frankly, incorrect information. Because of these pieces of evidence and the fact that the first video is significantly more biased, the second video proves the point, and gives a lot more information on the subject.

    think the man in the fist video is motivated more so than in the second video. The second video gave a more objective, less bias view point. Also, I think he provided a lot more evidence and examples that showed his position better. The first video was presented by a West Point professor. I think the reason why he might take the side that he did is because it shows the United States Army in a better light. He talked at the end of the video about the fact that he was proud that his Army has fought for the good side. It seems unlikely that somebody with high ranking and probably a strong sense of patriotism and pride in his country would ever take a position that would negatively represent the people he fought for. This, in my opinion, is likely what led him to do the video in this way, and with the facts and evidence that he chose.

  15. Dominick Stoops

    1. I believe that Tom Richey had the better argument, by far. The Prager U. arguments weren’t all invalide, like Richey stated. He stated that slavery wasn’t just the sole cause of the civil war. It too was about economics, state rights, and cultural differences. Prger U. just pointed at slavery as the sole issue in all of the civil war. When in fact it was an issue, but it wasn’t the only issue to make the war happened. Richey also looked at Prager U.’s evidence, most of the evidence was picked to just support their argument, and most of them were very radical pieces of the confederacy. Prager U. read the newspaper document from Charleston Mercury, this piece of evidence was very radical for that time. Richey stated how Charleston Mercury was so radical that it criticized the confederacy because they wouldn’t reopen the slave trade. Also, Richey just made a far better argument on his side. He knocked down most of their statements with proper evidence of his own. He criticized the way that the video was also portraying the economic parts, by adding a bunch of corn icons to the North. I didn’t notice this until I watched Richey’s video, and it made sense to me once I noticed it. Richey had the better argument, and had exact points to defat Prager U.’s argument.
    2. I think both men had something to motivate them in these videos. Colonel Ty Seidule said in the end of his video that he was proud to be apart of the military, the same military that defeated the most tragic war in American history. That this war the Union took a risk to bring their nation back together and abolish slavery. I think this will ultimately always dictate his opinion on the topic of the civil war. He is too close to the topic of civil war to have an unbiased opinion on its actual causes. I think he also expressed very closely how this affects him and his line of work, this made me shy away from his video in the end. He telling how being in the military gives him specific pride about the civil war. Richey also had a motivation. One, he said that his family had confederate veterans in their bloodline. This will too, make him close to the civil war in a sense. But unlike Colonel Ty Seidule, he doesn’t let this get in the way of the cold hard facts. He is a social studies teacher, meaning that he is always looking at new adaptations of evidence and documents that come up. Being a teacher makes it so he wants to teach his students the best and most accurate information, so he will always bring all 4 corners of evidence to the problem at hand. He just wants to get the most accurate analysis of the causations of the war as possible. I think that Richey and Colonel Ty Seidule, both had motivated backgrounds when it comes to the civil war, and what caused it.

  16. Gillian Waitzman

    1. In my opinion, Colonel Ty Seidule from Pager University has the better argument of the causes of the Civil War. Seidule’s video, although being a lot shorter, provided much more evidence such as excerpts from official documents. This is a great way to persuade the audience because it gives us real proof that we can use to back up. Seidule also showed a Southern secession map, providing us with real examples that in no Southern state, the vote was close. He also used other techniques, such as repetition, bolded words, and animations to keep the audience interested and make them agree with him. I also feel like the fact that he had his uniform on and that he kept a very serious expression on his face the whole time, made the audience believe that he was right, that slavery was the biggest, if not, the only cause of the Civil War. On the other hand, Tom Richey, took a leap when arguing against Colonel Ty Seidules video. Although, I think Seidule has the better argument, there are many points that Richey makes that I do agree with. Richey brings in much outside and prior knowledge, when disagreeing with Seidule. An example of this is when Richey went on to say that the Charleston Mercury was the most radical paper in the South at the time and that it criticized the Confederate Government because it wouldn’t reopen the slave trade. While Richey makes some impressive comebacks, I feel that most of his video was just him trying to find any piece of evidence to prove Seidule wrong.

    2. I think that both men have have something motivating them to take their position. For Colonel Ty Seidule, it was clear that he was taking this position for him army. It was obvious that he wasn’t hiding it because spoke about it and was wearing his uniform. He is proud to say that the United States army defeated the Confederates. He was pleased to state what he had accomplished; destroying chattel slavery, freeing 4,000,000 men, women, and children, and saving the United States of America. I also think Tom Richey had something motivating him to take his position on the causes of the Civil War. Rickey had mentioned towards the end of the video that he was from South Carolina, a Southern state. He also talked about how his ancestors were Confederate soldiers. I think his belief in the main cause of the Civil War not being slavery is mainly because of his heritage.

  17. halle

    Although both videos bring up good points, I think Prager U has a cleaner argument. I agree with Toms video when he said that slavery was not the only cause for the civil war, but I do think it was the main cause like Prager U’s argument. His arguments were easier to comprehend. It is unfair the Pragur U was not there to defend himself, and I think that if he were there the argument would have been understood by both points of views better. I liked how Prager U said the reasons why the other ideas were not apart of the civil war. Though he could have used more evidence a checked his work. In a quote it said how the country was built on slavery, which holds a lot of truth. Many of even the founding fathers owned slaves. Also many of the first presidents were Southerners. An example was, that the main cause could also be states’ rights and reveal it by asking which rights exactly were the states fighting for was very persuasive. Though Tom debunked many of Pragers argument I think Prager U had a better argument and would have held stronger if he were their to defend himself. Though I like Prager U’s argument better, I think Tom made a good point not to just look at one view point. Tom mentions how he knows slavery was a main factor in the Civil War, but he also looks at it threw a different perspective. He tells the audience more of the facts that go into Prager U’s statements.

    I think both men had something motivating their decision. The man from Prager U was a military man, which caused his bias to be more toward the North, since he also graduated from Westpoint, which is located in the North. The Civil War was a very, very bloody fight. Saying the war was fought over something as morally wrong as slavery, gives him justification that the war was for the better. The war being caused by slavery gives the army a more positive view instead of the war being over something like politics,or economics, which most people won’t care as much about. Toms was a man who grew up in the South which already gives him a bias. He mentions at the end of the video how he does have a bias and everyone does as well.

  18. Lily Abraam

    I believe that Colonel Ty Seidule had the better argument about who started the Civil War because of the way he supported his reasoning with evidence. At the beginning of the video, Seidule said, “the evidence is clear and overwhelming, slavery was by a wide margin, the single most important cause of the Civil War.” Seidule then continued on the talk about an excerpt from a South Carolina newspaper in 1860 saying that the biggest issue in the country at the moment was the extinction of slavery. The use of official documents and speeches made the video more reliable so you’re able to know you are getting 100% true information. Even though Seidule put different causes for the war, he stayed focused on the idea of slavery and built his reasoning off of that. I did not think the video with Richey was bad, but it was not as put together. In Seidules video, it was more professional because he talks about official documents. With Richey, he did not have as much reasoning as Seidule since all he was doing was reviewing Seidules video. Something Richey could have done better was to be more professional because throughout the video he seemed like he was being too harsh on what Seidule could have done better. I believe that Seidule, overall, had a better argument because of how he deeply explained his reasoning in such a short amount of time.

    I think that Ty Seidule is strongly motivated by his experience as a colonel in the U.S. Army. At the end of the video, after stating all the evidence, Seidule talks about how he was involved in the Army and how proud he is of his own army for defeating the Confederates. He is proud to show that people, who also wear his color of blue in the army have now included 200,000 slaves, destroyed chattel, and freed 4,000,000 men, women, and children from slavery. I believe that Seidule was most motivated to make this video to show how proud he was of his army for eliminating slavery. I think since Seidule supports the army that took down slavery in the war, that his opinion is shaped around that slavery was the main cause of the Civil War. Richey was motivated to share his opinion on the video because, near the end, he talks about how some of his ancestors were Confederates. With his ancestors being Confederates, it allows him to get closer to information that happened during the Civil War, and what could have caused it.

  19. Vinny Pardo

    1. The first video by Colonel Ty Seidule was the more influential video. Even though his information was somewhat inaccurate, or not the entire truth, it still struck out more. Also, the actual person telling the story has a greater influence than most would think. Because he’s a Colonel and the lead history teacher at West Pointe, his word is above the common man or in this case, History teacher. Even how the video is presented, makes the viewer just want to believe the Colonel. The second video is somewhat annoying and not as clear and precise as the first. Even though the purpose of the second’s video is supposed to be a reaction, it is just not pleasant to watch in my opinion. The specific evidence that was presented in the first video was more compelling and tied in really well to his main points. The quote from the newspaper company Charleston Mercury, for example, directly backed up his claim and sounds credible to the viewer. The video didn’t just use excerpts from newspaper articles, but also historical documents as well. The usage of the geographical voting graph was also a good touch. Above all pieces of evidence or reasoning, the best one was the actual explanation for slavery. He claimed that all whites supported slaves in the south, and especially the poor whites. This was due to their need for slavery because without it they would be on the bottom of the food chain just like the blacks.

    2. I think the second man doesn’t really want a bad reputation to be associated with the south. I can tell this because of his thick southern accent. Many southerners even in todays time have a deep connection and sense of patriotism for where they come from. With that being said, they don’t really like to talk about slavery because it casts a negative view of their home and origins. I think this is why the second man tried to quickly brush off slavery and quickly talk about the other reasons for the spark of the civil war. As for the other man, I don’t know for sure what might be influencing him. He doesn’t have a specific accent that I could detect and hails from a military background. The only thing I could think of is that he’s from the north or just might have a bad experience with the south,

  20. Sarah Luchenbill

    1. I think that Tom Richey had the better argument about the Civil War. He gave more information about certain events and quotes that Prager University used to justify their view. However, as Tom Richey showed that Prager used many of those out of context and without background. One of the points that Ty Seidule used was the Southern states seceded because of slavery. However, as Richey brought up that many of the southern states that seceded had not seceded right away but rather seceded after President Lincoln had called for troops to invade the Confederacy. This shows that not all the South specifically seceded because of slavery. Another thing that Richey brought up and explained was states’ rights. The South was concerned about the ability for a state to be able to secede from the union legally if they chose to do so. The idea that Seidule brought up of the country simply being divided by slavery is not entirely true. I agree with Richey as he explains that slavery was not the only issue as seen in earlier arguments. All Seidule’s arguments compared to Richey’s show to need more proof and evidence. Therefore, I side with Richey’s view that the cause of the Civil War was complicated and complex.

    2. I think that somethings could be motivating both to side with the positions that they take. For Seidule, he is for the Union and wants to get as many people to see his view on the Civil war being caused by slavery as he can so he makes the video that will be persuasive. However, it was not just him involved with the video but also Prager University, which may have influenced what he said and how he made the video. At the end of the video he tells how he is proud to be on the union side because they fought against slavery. This idea may have shaped his way of thinking about the war in a very simple minded way. Likewise, Richey made his video to show the error in what Seidule had said. He wanted people to see that that was not the only view to be accounted and hoped to get people to do more research. He may have also been motivated to defend the South in a way, as he said he was a descendent of a confederate leading him to see other causes for the war other than slavery. There can be lots of different things to motivate people for their opinion on a subject and these men have a motivation for the way they side.

  21. Liam O'Gorman

    Blog #118
    1.I believe that the second video has a better argument about the Civil war. Although the second video is dedicated to finding all of the problems in the prager u video, he uses a lot of factual evidence when countering some of the claims made in the first video. One thing that stood out was near the end colonel Seidule lists all of the successes of the union army, and Tom Richey retaliates with stating the horrible things that he left out such as the pillaging and destruction in sherman’s march. Watching Richey’s video surprised me to see how much Seidule twisted to get his point across about the civil war, and how the main cause of the Civil war was slavery. Using bold words and other manipulative strategies was surprising to me because I personally believed in his argument for a while. But Richey has the better argument because he brought of more evidence, which is credible, and countered most of the statements in the previous video. Another example is how Colonel Seidule uses an extremely radical southern paper to get his point about how stout the south was on the issue of slavery.
    2.The Colonel was obviously motivated by his honor to the military and he states that at the end, which is why I think he is so determined to hold his position of honor. He goes out of his way at the end to talk about how proud he is to wear the uniform they wore many years ago, and he has a right to be, but this doesn’t really relate to the topic and the point he is trying to make. Richey on the other hand, only talks about his ancestors once by saying that you can tell by his accent that he has confederate ancestors. He might not be as proud of his history which is why he only states it once, but he may also realize that it isn’t vital to the topic to say that his ancestors were confederates. Richey seems like his motivation is to debunk some of the manipulative strategies of the Colonel. It is obvious that Seidule’s motivation was his honor of being a colonel, and his patriotic morals. He brings it up near the end, and also wears his uniform to show his devoutness to his country, and he lets this sway his opinion. Richey seems to care more about factual evidence more and doesn’t let his past decide and change his own opinions.

  22. Ethan Lulkin

    1. I think Colonel Ty Seidule had a better argument because he presented facts and gave his opinion, where Tom Richey mostly just attacked the video and Colonel Ty Seidule instead of giving an argument. Tom Richey starts his video with ad hominem attacks, saying that Colonel Ty Seidule is trying to prevent himself as more trustworthy by wearing a dark military uniform and constantly talking about how Prager U isn’t a real university, even though we all clearly understand that. Richey also said, “As far as this gentleman, he wants to feel good about himself, about his role, and about his army,” where I would completely disagree in the fact that he can be proud of an army that didn’t accept slavery and protects our country, but still look at history of the Civil War and see how their was things America did bad affected history. I think RIchey is trying to come off as funny or relatable, but it comes of as just being a bit of a jerk. Richey also commented about how in Colonel Ty Seidule claim, Seidule says his point of view was that slavery is the main cause of slavery without any evidence. Although this might not be the best claim, it is just a claim at the beginning of the video where he we’ll tell us the rest of his evidence. However, I did like the points that Richey said in that we shouldn’t just trust and take other people’s thoughts but think and discuss multiple viewpoints to make our own argument. Overall I would say Colonel Ty Seidule gives more evidence and facts, even though some are biased towards his arguments, than Richey, who seems to almost be defending the confederacy. He even does some of the same thing he pointed out in the Prager U video, using generalization in his video himself.

    2. I do think both men may have something motivating them in their positions. They both try to avoid using their influence as a member of the army and a South Carolina resident, but still show some of it. Throughout Richey’s video he seems to almost be defending the Confederacy, even though he says he’s not. It definitely had an influence and he mentions that his ancestors were confederate soldier. He says that it is much more complex than just slavery and his view might be different if he was from the north. Colonel Ty Seidule has influence from being a member of the Army and Westpoint. He would obviously want to say that the Union wanted to fight to abolish this awful condition of slavery, but there could be a different point if he was from South Carolina like Richey. Colonel Seidule even mentions his personal experiences factor into his reasoning when he says he is proud.

  23. Amelia Margolis

    When I was watching the Prager University video, I thought that it had very good pints and facts. But, when I watched Richey’s video, his opinions changed my mind. He brought up things I wouldn’t have thought of like how Prager University did not display all that states in the voting map. And also he described the emancipation proclamation. Everything the first video said was challenged in the second one. My perspective totally changed after watching the second one. Although Richey challenged the first video, I feel like citing his own evidence could have made it even stronger. The first one had better evidence, but the second one had better opinions and I think an overall argument. Adding thinks like how thing in the other video were portrayed downgraded Richeys argument, but even after that I still think his arguments were better. Being able to disagree with almost everything in the first video is very persuasive to me. The fact that he could go against facts with even more facts. I also really like Richeys point on how Charleston paper was super radical, that shows how it shows a bias. I also like the fact that Richey mentioned other ideas besides just slavery to better support his refutes.
    Overall, I think the PragerU guy was more bias, but had less motivation. I’m not sure if being kind of expressionless is part of being a part of the military, but it made him definitely seem less enthusiastic. I think he had a bias, especially because of his point at the end of how proud he was that his army saved America. This makes me think that he didn’t take much else into his opinion besides the fact that he and his men saved America. To me, this made me think he doesn’t really care what anyone else thinks about this topic, and that he is just starting what he thinks. He only looked into what he thought and not other perspectives. On the other hand, Richey had a lot of motivation. He obviously thought that the other video was very wrong. He took the time to watch the other video and pick it apart, and double check information. To me, this seems like a lot of motivation. I think he probably feels very strongly on the topic and wanted to respond to information he deemed false. Both had some sort of motivation, but Richey seemed more into it and involved. The PragerU video seemed like he was just saying it because he had to.

  24. Veronica Szuma

    1. I think Professor Seidule had the better argument over the cause of the Civil War. This is because he provided specific examples of the South defending slavery vigorously. Even if one of the newspapers was more radical, as Tom Richey points out, it is not as though they were the sole people with the opinion that slavery had to be fought for. It is obvious when you look at the fights had in Congress over the issue, that it was important to many. Also, in quoting a politician, who says the country was founded on slavery, he proves that it was very important to the ones in charge of the Confederacy. Tom Richey has a point when he points out the propaganda aspects of the film, such as the font choices, but that doesn’t mean there was still solid factual evidence used. Tom Richey also points out that not all states seceded right away. Although this is an interesting tidbit of information, it doesn’t mean that the secessions still had roots in slavery. Furthermore, even if specific statements of secession didn’t have slavery plainly written as a reason (even though multiple did, one being Mississippi), it could have still been an unsaid and underlying reason. I think Seidule also uses solid reasoning when discussing the South’s issue with states’ rights really being an issue with slavery. It makes sense because slavery was the thing being threatened, specifically when new territories or states were being added, and it shows that the South felt strongly about their right to slavery.

    2. Both men have obvious motivations for their argument. Professor Seidule is an officer in the military, which as he pointed out, defeated the Union to help end slavery. This pride in the history of his work most likely gives him a reason to defend it. By showing that the war was caused by something as awful as slavery, Seidule can prove that what his country fought for was even more important. Richey is from South Carolina, which was a state previously in the confederacy. He probably takes pride in his region and does not want its history to be strictly slavery. By refuting the argument that Seidule makes, he is showing the South’s complexity and, in some ways, defending its honor. Anyone who feels close to something or someone that it attacked wants to defend it and maybe prove the attacker wrong. I feel that everyone has a bias on the Civil War, even simply because you are from the North or South and were taught about it from a certain somewhat biased view. As much as we all would like to think we are unbiased, we all have motivators.

  25. Evan mondora

    1. Although I agree with the Prager University video that slavery was the certainly the main and biggest contributor to the cause of the American civil war, how ever I also think that there were some smaller causes that caused the south to leave the union. I believe that a Tom Riches video has better arguments and is more in depth with its arguments unlike the Prager University video that over simplifies the Causes to being only just slavery. This can be seen when Prager University says the vote was almost completely yes for leaving the union in the southern states, In Tom Riches video is says this is false because at first Arkansas voted no for leaving the union and only did leave the union after Abraham Lincoln gathered troops to invade the Confederate states. Prager University uses similar example of mostly selective evidence that is only partially true to make the majority of their arguments in the video that slavery Is the sole cause of the American civil war. While also using flashy imagery to make their points such as The word Slavery in full caps and bright colors as well as inaccurate imagery like the map showing the states that used agriculture in the e north as primary economic incomes in new England.
    2. I think both Tom Riches and Prager University have bias or things motivating them to take their opinions on the issue, I think Prager University has the most things motivating them to take their opinion. PragerU is short for Prager University which means they are a corporation and since they are a corporation they need a source of incoming money. The fact that they need money from outside sources motivates them to take the opinion that slavery caused the civil war because this opinion is the most common one on what caused the civil war. Meaning that it would appeal to more people and by saying it that might motivate more people to want to go to Prager University. Tom Riches also might have a motivator on his opinion but not the same as Prager Universities. In the Video it says that Tom Riches is from the state of South Carolina which was part of the Confederacy, By claiming that slavery wasnt as big of a cause in the civil war he could take some of the blame off of his state. But also since he is a youtuber he could also be saying this to get more attention by disagreeing with Prager to get more views.

  26. Van Borgquist

    I don’t think either argument was particularly amazing but I think the first video did a better job presenting an argument whereas the guy in the second video seemed more interested and preoccupied by the first videos intentions. The second video feels like it spends more time trying to convince you that the creators of the first video have malicious intent behind their video then trying to put together an argument against what the first video claims using evidence and logic. The first video gives you a claim and then provides you with evidence, and then showcases some counter arguments and attempts to debunk them, and while they don’t do a great job of this they attempted it. The response video opens up with the guy immediately acting as if every last detail of the first videos animations and set design are to dupe you into blindly trusting them. He also doesn’t really take into consideration that the first video is intended to be a short simple explanation of the most notable cause of the civil war, and that because of its intended simplicity they don’t bring up all the nuances he does in his response. Just looking at the length of the videos it took the second guy 26 minutes to bring up all the evidence he wanted to where the first video lasted only 5 minutes. And to paraphrase the second video, ‘they promise to provide a SIMPLE explanation of the causes of the civil war’. 26 minutes may not be a history class but when you’re not in a classroom most people aren’t going to spend 30 minutes to an hour studying an issue in depth. Also the guy in the second video makes some assumptions and weird logic. He says that when the guy in the first video makes his claim, “he’s not providing any evidence”, “you don’t need to question it”, “you can believe him”, while usually when one makes an argument or writes an essay you make your claim before you begin to provide evidence, letting your reader or audience know how you’re evidence supports your claim instead of dumping a parade of historical facts and information and saying this is important, I’ll tell you why later. Also in videos like these typically a person owns the channel and writes scripts of trivia or other information about any given topic, and then finds someone else who has credentials or fame to read the script and present the information using credibility or star power, (channels like did you know gaming/movies do well with this model) so when he says that the guy talking in the first video is responsible for cherry picking evidence or similar claims, he’s painting him as a bad guy who’s masterminding a plot to fool you when he’s probably just being paid to read off a teleprompter. So all In all I think the first videos argument about the civil war is a better argument because it focuses on the causes of the civil war, whereas the second video doesn’t focus on it as much.

    I think that the guy from the first video has two reasons to support the claims he makes in the video. As I said in the first question, he was probably paid to read a script written by someone else, so money could be an important motivation to him. Also he is a military officer and a professor of history at West Point, so he states that he takes pride in the fact that his army defeated the south and ended slavery in the United States. Because of this he probably wants to see the civil war as being an issue of slavery and only slavery, A moral dispute between his side, The right side, and the wrong side. He wants to see the northern army as a force of righteous men who marched through the south defeating the bad guys and freeing slaves as they went. He doesn’t want to think that there might be some other less savory cause such as the economy or debates over the power of states rights, if those are the causes then the union army isn’t this righteous band of do gooders, they’re just an army fighting another army over a petty argument. He doesn’t see some greater purpose behind that cause, the cause of the civil war being slavery leaves you to picture the north a superheroes and the south as the evil villains working to destroy the city, if the causes are economic or state rights based then it’s just to groups of people fighting each other, it’s not so easy to divide economic views and beliefs about state’s rights into camps of good or evil, those two are subjective. Where slavery was objectively wrong and evil. I’m not sure what could be motivating the guy in the second video. He seems to be from Arkansas as he at one point says shout out Arkansas high and all the wonderful people there, and seems to get defensive when the first video brings up Arkansas’ vote on leaving the USA. Maybe subconsciously he’s doing what the first video presents, where they say that people think that people just don’t want to believe that slavery was the only cause of the civil war but I don’t know, I can’t find any specific reason for why he has taken the position that he did judging from what I could glean of his background from this video.

  27. Tucker Budd

    Overall I think that Prager university had the better argument in to what caused the revolution. The reason I chose Prager University was because they used more evidence and were more serious unlike Richey. They used specific evidence that supported the fact that slavery was the major cause to the Civil War. They explain how other arguments don’t work such as the economy argument. Another thing Prager University brought up they showed this by explaining that if there were no slaves, the poorer whites would be the lowest on the social ladder among African Americans. They also brought up Lincoln’s words, “I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free…. It will become all one thing, or all the other,” provided the listener with a new perspective. The fact that they brought this quote up wraps up the whole argument. Richey on the other hand said he wasn’t going to disagree with everything, he ended up doing exactly that. “My point is not to fundamentally disagree with the premise of the video.” Richey ended up doing this exact thing. He disagreed with almost everything. He really didn’t give a rebuttal in a way. He really didn’t give any evidence to go against Prager University. Even though Tom said that the Charleston Mercury was very radical he didn’t provide any evidence to back the claim up.

    I think that each person had their own motivation for their own positions. In each of their videos Col. Ty Seidule started to talk about how he was proud that his Army defeated chattel slavery. In Tom Richey’s video, he talked about how his ancestors were Confederate soldiers and how he was from South Carolina, which is a southern state. This kind of shows me that if we was from a northern state he would have had a different point of view. Even though Richey was from the south maybe he could have been less one sided on the argumen. He could have given Seidule a bit more leeway. I feel like he was very one sided due to the fact that he was from the south. Seidule also explains how he was proud to being wearing the same colors as the army that won the war. He says that he is happy to be wearing blue, the color of the army that beat the Union. Overall I think he has a greater motivation than Richey just because he is in the army, built other than that they both have motivation.

  28. Asia White

    Tom Richey had a better perspective on the civil war making it broader than the other video gby Colonel Ty Seidule which specially said slavery caused the civil war. Richey brought up that Seidule was making it seem like the civil war was fought over just one thing when the civil war was fought for multiple reasons including slavery. Richey had a twenty minute long video discussing the civil while Seidule spent five minutes only limiting to one cause of the civil war, molding it seeming like it was the only cause of the civil war. Richey was criticizing Seidules video pointing out physiological things like how Seidule was wearing dark colors, which is a hint of honesty. Seidule lacked information, he specially excluded the fact that arkansas had once voted for being a free state and he also excluded other states trying to make his point very centered. Richey went into depth on the southern secession compared to Seidule who went into a brief description and left out key points of the seccion. Also with the agriculture and industrialized map sectioned in the both videos Seidule said both the north and south were agrarian societies eliminating all the factories, his animation of what the north and south where was very misleading because there were factories in the north which Richey explained in his video.
    Both men had their own motivators but Seidules motivation was indistinct, because he sped through the cause of the civil war briefly summarizing the cause but some of the information was invalid because other parts of the evidence was excluded making his argument appear stronger Seidule only wanted to state that slavery or the abolishment of slavery was the cause of the war degrading the other factors of the war. But his motivator could’ve been because he is a officer in the military the military defeated the union tii end slavery. And that the fight for slavery was greater than the other causes. Riches motivation was Seidule, because he said he had previously seen Seidules video and thought about how much nonsense it was. His motivation was to get the truth out debunking Seidules video because of the excluded content.For viewers to get the full extent of how the civil war started. Richey was giving good information about the civil war and went into detail about most of the causes, informing the audience and wanting them to think deeper into the civil war.

  29. Monica Inda

    I personally think that Tom Richey had the better argument, although I do think he was a bit too carefree about the topic-slavery. Besides him making a lot of, in my opinion, unnecessary jabs at the Prager University, history teacher and almost mitigating the role of slavery in the South, he does bring up a lot of valid points that respond to the PragerU video and defend his claim. I believe that the civil war was a complex topic, like Richey’s video stated, and it had many parts, even if the most prevalent and outlying section was slavery. I think that Richey did a much better job explaining his viewpoint instead of just giving a brief excerpt and source (that were sometimes pretty deceiving) to prove the point at hand, even though he came off pretty mean when referencing many of Col. Ty Seidule’s topics. For example, one of Richey’s biggest complaints with the PragerU video was the, in his view, lying about the voting on Arkansas secession. When I watched the PragerU video before Richey’s video, I never even thought that his data points could be misleading, as well as a number of other quotes said by various people. But, I learned something outside of just the slavery lense about the same issue, from a more complex look on the civil war, which occurs multiple times throughout the video. This swayed my view on which argument was better because I think that Richey used a lot of evidence to back up what he was trying to prove.

    I think both men were bais (Tom Richey even says so himself) to the topic of slavery because of their background and ancestry. The teacher, Col. Ty Seidule, is biased base on his background as a soldier. He wore his dark blue uniform which he states was the same as the union uniform. I believe that the fact that he served our country and teaches at West Point (in New York) motivates him to blame the Confederacy and not the union and place slavery as the cause of the war. On the flip side, Richey is from South Carolina, a leading state in succession. Because he was raised in a Southern state, learned from southern ancestors, and most like has confederate soldiers as ancestors so he is biased in the fact that he does not want to make his family or what they represent look bad or wrong.

  30. Matthew Inda

    I think the military person from the first video had a better argument, despite the fact that not all of his evidence was accurate during the time period. Tom Richey brought up the evidence in which was left out that was important to debate the Civil War wasn’t caused by slavery; however, his own argument lacked the needed evidence to blame the conflict on another issue, such as states rights. Firstly, Lincoln’s speech while campaigning to Congress included the quote “a house divided against itself cannot stand” backs up the colonial’s point of view, even though this evidence was taken out of context to support this. Lincoln also stating that the nation, at some point, would either end up all free or all pro slavery benefited the colonials argument as well. Additionally, the first video included the number of votes for secession of several states. Although the votes were inaccurate or additional states weren’t included, such as Georgia, which was stated by Richey that the vote to secede from the union was fairly close, the average listener wouldn’t realize this, enabling them to believe the “data” that the colonial pushed onto them. Another state, initially, didn’t even want to leave the union until northerners began to build an army in case of battle with the south, which he also “forgot” to include, but the average listener wouldn’t know otherwise. The man in the first video was also wearing a military uniform to prove his authenticity and to show that he was a reliable source of information and could be trusted, which was mentioned in the video.

    I believe both men have factors motivating their point of view on the cause of the Civil War. Tom Richey, stated that he was from a southern state, and had some bias about the subject to defend himself and the rest of his state. Although slavery was a major cause of the war, it seemed as if he tried to make it seem as less of a reason or amplifier of the conflict. He wanted his audience to believe that there were other major important reasons to it than only the south attempting to preserve their social ladder and their way of life with the legal right to slavery. The colonial also had motivation to his opinion, as he stated near the end of the video that he was part of the army that defeated the confederacy. His opinion shifted to hitting down slavery as hard as possible and not allowing any other argument of other causes to come to his mind, such as ones proposed by the man in the second video, Tom Richey.

  31. Nathalie Morgan

    1. I think that Tom Richey had a more convincing and overall better argument about the causes of the Civil War. Even though I more so agree with Prager U’s side, that slavery was the biggest and most likely main cause of the Civil War, the way that Richey presented his arguments made me listen and think more than just being spoon-fed information. It was more convincing to hear Richey speak about the origins of some of the evidence that the Colonel Ty Seidule had presented. His explanations helped to disprove most of the Colonel’s points. For example, when Richey explained that the Charleston Mercury was a very extreme perspective, even in the south, it made me realize that not all of the information that was presented in the original video was completely true in its context. Adding onto the fact that the Colonel had most likely chosen this specific source so that he could use the words of a small group’s views to represent the entire South’s views on secession and slavery made me skeptical on later information which was also proven to be put into the video in order to make the viewer think a certain way about the topic. Some examples of this would be the over-use of colors and text to make the point of “Slavery was the only cause” seem like the only viable option, as well as not giving the whole truth of the emancipation proclamation when quoting it.

    2. I believe that both of the men have something motivating them to talk about this subject, and the two are very different. I believe the Colonel Ty Seidule’s motivation for making his video is most likely that he wants the army as well as himself to be seen in a much more positive light than they would be if the video was taking into account the other side’s argument more. His motivation could make him side more with the army, which was fighting against the confederation. Tom Richey’s motivation for his video is to teach the true and honest history of the Civil War, as well as to try to disprove any “poisonous” false pieces of information that are being spread around in YouTube videos just like the Colonel’s. Richey’s motivations are more based in facts and evidence, so his opinion is that a mix of different factors going into the Civil War caused it, which can be supported by more evidence than just saying the only cause of the Civil War was slavery.

  32. Taylor Mahle

    1. Between the two videos, I think that Prager U had a better argument about slavery starting the Civil War. Although his video was short, it seemed to get the job done. Tom Richey’s video didn’t seem to do anything but argue against Prager U. He also didn’t seem to use any good evidence but saying his evidence was invalid or distrusting. On the other hand, Prager U used good visuals and evidence to support his claim. For example, he brought in evidence like the Charleston Mercury, Southern secession documents and Alexander Stephens quote. Another great point Seidule made was counter-arguments. He brought up how many people believe the economy started the Civil War. Then he shot it down, he explained that the North and South were agrarian societies. He then brought this counter-argument back to his point, explaining that the South used slaves as work labors while the North paid their free workers. Not only did Prager U use great evidence that persuades the audience, but his visuals were also great. He had maps of the North and South, cartoon characters that helped visualize the quotes and a social ladder that went with his point of the Southern social ladder. All these things helped the audience to side with slavery being the many causes of the Civil War.

    2. In the Prager U video, Colonel Ty Seidule is motivated to create this video because of being a part of the U.S. Army. You can tell he has a lot of pride to be a part of the army from the beginning of the video. The first clip is Colonel Ty in his uniform with a caption saying “head department of history, U.S. Military Academy, West Point.” Both of these things show the honor he has for his army and his country right away. Then at the end of the video, Colonel Ty makes a statement saying how proud he is that his army defeated the Confederates. This statement shows us that people need to be proud of our countries history because Ty definitely believes that the U.S. is the best. Overall Colonel Ty seemed to motivated to take his side with slavery due to being in the army. However, I don’t think Tom Richey’s video was motivated by much of anything, to choose which side. At least, if Tom was motivated it didn’t seem to have as much enthusiasm as Colonel Ty did.

  33. Hayden Miller

    1. Although both sides presented compelling arguments with plenty of facts about the point they were trying to prove, I think that Tom Richey had the better argument about the Civil War. For one point, while the Prager University video only presented facts from a Northern point of view, Richey provided facts from both sides of the spectrum. Secondly, Richeys video was nearly six times the length of the Prager U video, and he was able to fit in much more information and quality in his. The presenter of the Prager video, Ty Seidule tells a very one sided story, and has weak means of backing up his statements. In Richeys analysis of the video, he brings up the fact that Seidule only uses some of the information but not all of it, for example, when talking about Southern States voting for succession, he only showed the states that voted to succeed by a landslide, and not states like Georgia and Virginia that were close. Seidule also uses “straw man ethics” in his arguments meaning that they are weak and not very likely to stand up against evidence, while Richey does not. Overall, I think that Tom Richey is the better speaker of the two and has a more open and dual sided way of talking about the subject.

    2. I think that Ty Seidule is motivated to take his position by the fact that he is apart of the United States Military, which would make him feel compelled to reflect upon the Northern side of America during the Civil War with a good light. I think that this motivation shaped his opinion by making him think more critically about the South as a whole. Throughout his entire video, everything he says about the South is negative, listing from how they only fought a war for slavery, which he says is dishonorable, and should be an embarrassment. In Tom Richeys review of the Prager University video, he points out that the video is extremely biased and is written to best portray the Northern military as a good as Seidule left out some of the negative things the army did such as pilfer, rape and kill many innocent on their marches into the South. Richey seems to have no bias, and even addresses this in his video saying that he, being from the south is inherently going to want to defend their honor while Seidule would feel the same way, wanting to leave a good impression of the North on the viewers.

  34. Andrew Inda

    Personally, I think that the argument structured in Tom Richey’s video was stronger than the first. There were many reasons for this, mostly being based on the fact that the PragerU was just too oversimplified. Firstly, I liked that Tom Richey was able to provide additional information from what was given. Being a social studies teacher himself, he used information most viewers would not know to support his argument, such as the evidence from Charles Mercury. While Prageru used a small section to support their argument, Richey told how it was printed for an extremely radical newspaper, and used the document against PragerU. Additionally, the PragerU video often left out a lot of information. Tom Richey was able to point these out, challenging many arguments the PragerU video made. For example, he pointed out how they said the Northern economy was based on corn, not even mentioning the number of factories scattered everywhere else. This probably had most to do with time, as fitting the Civil War in 5:30 is near impossible without leaving a series of details out. On top of this, I also did not agree with the fact that the PragerU video only used evidence from select sources. They mostly focused on select sources that said exactly what they wanted, leaving out many other documents and opinions to make their argument seem the most valid. I feel this is not being truthful to the viewer, as only showing a couple sources showcasing your claim makes your claim less reputable and credible to be a valid source. While PragerU only using these select sources in their video may have strengthened their argument in the video alone, Richey did a good job challenging this, showing how many other sources that were not used had a variety of opinions.
    In my opinion, I think that the guy doing the PragerU video did have motivation for making this video, most likely trying to give sympathy to the U.S. army. For starters, he was wearing his blue army uniform, showing how he is a part of what won the Civil War, ending slavery in America overall. He also never really had anything bad to say about the Continental Army either, only listing the negatives of the southern confederate army. His constant remarks towards slavery allowed him to say how the army ended it once and for all, mostly helping him gain pride and sympathy for his career in the army today.

  35. Walter LaMar

    The second video has a better argument; The main problem with Ty’s explanation is that he oversimplified the civil war leaving out crucial information and he was biased towards the North making his argument less valid. An example of this would be when Colonel Ty Seidule shows a chart showing the number of votes to secede from the union of Ty didn’t even show Georgia nor Virginia because their votes were relatively close and they didn’t even show that Arkansas did two votes and that the first one was rejected but once the federal was threatening them with troops they voted to succeed. The Video oversimplified the Civil War making everyone look like a bad guy. Another example of this is the resources he used to prove his point by using a newspaper called the Charleston Mercury which was one of the most radical newspapers in the south and not that it wasn’t a credible source but using a radical newspaper isn’t good to prove a point when you should be fair and balance The whole problem with Ty’s argument is that either he got biased evidence or didn’t show all the evidence available even though that might be due because he said his claim without showing all the facts means that he won’t be showing anything else a positive to his argument is that he found contradicting evidence and disproved it with other evidence even though the evidence wasn’t that credible. A good example of evidence that Tom Richey did well was that he explained why things happened fully and clearly without leaving anything too important so people don’t get the wrong idea.

    Yes, both men did have a motivation for them to take their position; Ty was strongly felt that the south was for slavery because he lives in the north and is a Colonel in the U.S. Military; while Tom was more light on the south because he was from the south. The reason why their position matters are because the position of the speaker could change their argument entirely. If you were to describe your enemy you would try to point out every fault they have and any negatives they have ever done while if you were the enemy you would try to disprove the accusations and point out all the good in them.

  36. Sydney Green

    Personally, I think that the video from Prager University was better than the second one. Both videos had strong arguements but I believe that Prager U was more persuasive and had good evidence. I think that Seidule’s overall main point was a great base for his video. His main idea being that slavery was not the only cause of the Civil War, he really focuses on the fact that slavery was probably the biggest cause of the war. I also think that in comparisons of the two videos, Richey really tried his hardest to bash Seidule’s ideas, but then he would continue on to contradict his own criticisms. One time that stood out to me was when he mentions the Charleston Mercury as a piece of evidence, Richey firsts states that it was “one of the most radical papers of the south at the time” but then mentions that the piece of evidence isn’t strong enough to get his point across. The first video was also much more visually appealing, it contained many charts and graphs to further the understanding of the video. To add on to that, I also think that this video was not too bias, he merely just stated facts and did not go off on another mans video.

    Overall, I think that both men have a strong motivation to keep their position on this topic. As seen in the first video, Seidule takes pride in being a representative of the army and wearing his uniform during the video. He also mentions that he his happy to be a part of a good cause and proud that his fellow soldiers defeated the confederate army. I think his main motivation is that fact of where he teaches school, at West Point Academy as well as the fact that he is from the north can explain why he emphasizes slavery so much as the main cause. I think the guy in the second video might be a little more motivate based off where he’s from. He states that he’s from South Carolina, you can also hear his accent. He may possibly want to be in support of his ancestors since he was from the south and not think that slavery was not the main cause.

  37. Isaac Michaels

    I think that even though they both had very similar arguments about the Civil War, being either the only reason for the war, or being the main reason, I think that they both did an equally fine job. The first man provided all the facts and information that would describe the the cause for the Civil War very fast, in five or less minutes, and used only the select information that improved his argument. The second man called him out for this, but is it really that bad? The entire point of the video was to be a short, informative video that wouldn’t show you every detail, but instead show the main points. The second man also got to counter the first mans claims, so it was the other way then the other man would also have had a better chance at having the better argument. The first man used a lot of facts, which is very important, but the second man seemed to use only counters and no real points of his own. Overall, the first man should have made a longer, more informative video that covered every complex detail, but the second man should have had an actual argument, other than “the first video isn’t telling the truth”. I definitely think the second man had motivations, as he said he was a descendent from confederate veterans. This would have made him more likely to feel sympathy for them, and try to make it seem that they weren’t that bad. He seemed to be less interested about the actual topic of the video, and more on how it was presented to the viewer. I think that calling the first video out for this is important, as “fake news” or misleading articles or videos are very harmful to society, but I wonder why he didn’t do this to a video that was arguing something he disagreed with? He stated that he agreed with the man, or that he “wasn’t arguing against him”, but then continued to say that it was all lies. Obviously all the information should have been present, but if I say that Soviet soldiers were worse than American soldiers, am I lying? This man seems to argue that even though he agrees that Communism is bad, and that Americans are good, he thinks that me saying he simple statement “Soviet soldiers were worse than American soldiers” is a lie and misleading, even though it is correct (Sorry for the example). A quick thing I realized, the bullet points describing the 200,000 slaves who fought and “saved America” were also red, but he didn’t mention that. It was obvious that they were trying to make the word “SLAVERY” appear big, red, and frightening, but I would have to agree that is the right thing to do, as slavery was big and frightening. As for the second man, I am sure that he did have some motivations, everyone does, although I don’t know what they were. He was part of a University which may have influenced the way he presented the information, but I wouldn’t consider calling slavery the main cause of the Civil War to spread awareness that slavery was a big, evil issue something that needs outside motivation.

  38. Lily Koza

    After watching both videos, i believe this video had the better argument about the Civil War. I was persuaded, due to the evidence given. One of the evidence given was by the University of Prager. They backed up their claims with evidence, and proved their claim. Although they seemed to give good evidence, Tom Richey corrected a claim brought up by the University. One of the points brought up by Ty Seidule was the claim that the Southern states seceded was caused by slavery. Although a counter claim leads the listener to believe that the seceded didn’t occur right away but instead after President Lincoln came to office and sent the troops to an invasion of the Confederacy. Going on, another topic Richey talked about was the states rights. A major worry was the abilities to secede if the state were to choose to do so. A claim i don’t believe is, slavery is the reason the country was divided. Although I side with Richey, on the basis of slavery being not the only reason the country was divided. Overall i believe the causes of the Civil War Were more complicated than to just be summarized into slavery, which is why i side with Richey.

    The Colonel was motivated in holding his honor, this was due to his military skill. Towards the end of the film, the Colonel explains his honor through wearing his uniform during the war. Although this adds emotion to the topic, i believe it does not relate to the claim being proven. Throughout the video, i believe they are siding with the confederacy, even after he claims he is in fact not. He goes on to explain how his views were shifted through not being from the North, but then explains and connects with the claim that the Civil War was bigger than slavery. Due to his ancestors being from the Confederacy army, I can understand with this addition of detail how his viewpoint was shifted. He then explains why he holds such great honor, and gave an in depth understanding of his virtues. I believe that people have their viewpoints on the civil war and their own perspectives, depending on what side they are on.

  39. mostafe

    I believe that both videos had made some good points with a lot of very supportive evidence. I still think that the first video had made a better argument. The second video had some good points and gave you another way to look at the topic. But, the first video’s argument about how slavery had started the civil war was too strong. The evidence that the first video had was also very strong in supporting that slavery was the main issue. The first example of the South Carolinian newspaper saying the main issue of the country was slavery is true all around the country. Then when it showed the numbers in the vote for secession throughout the Confederate states, well it was nowhere near close. The south had made its decision because of slavery and almost everyone agreed with it. Then when the video had quoted the confederates vice presidents on how he said that the new government was founded for slavery and the right that the white man is better than the black. It also explains how state rights were for every state but the south was so focused because of slavery. He also argues and proves the counter-arguments to be wrong. Showing how the north was about to have a lot of farmers too but they did not have slavery and they wanted the south not to have it.
    I think both men have motivation behind their position. The first man is a soldier who said that he is proud that his army had defeated the Confederates and freed the slaves. His pride in the union and army make him want to believe that they had been the reason slavery was ended. It had shaped his argument to support the north and how the fight was off of the fact that slavery was bad and the north saw that but the south did not. The second man definitely had something motivating them to take the position he did. He was from the south which had a big factor in how he grew up and what point of view he has on the civil war. He wanted to show that war was not all on slavery and how it had many different factors to it. It had shaped his opinions on that the civil war was started based off of a lot of different things. He even talks about how his ancestors were Confederate soldiers and that must have a big role in how he looks at it.

  40. Hannah Deighan

    1) The first video had a much better argument for the cause of the Civil War. Col. Ty Seidule was very professional. He gave his credentials and showed he was well educated in the subject. On the other hand, the second guy (Tom Richey) was just a random teacher who was very bias against Ty for some reason from the very beginning. He kept knocking Ty for the smallest, most tedious reasons and expressed his views in a very childish manner. In Ty’s video, he defended his point with facts and information and displayed it in a manner that was easy to understand, like pictures and bold words. Tom would express his opinion on Ty’s video then just spew facts at you that you didn’t really know what to deal with. It made him seem less reliable and believable because he was not being professional and he was acting like he was trying to win a debate against Ty. I liked Ty’s use of pictures and graphs, but apparently Tom did not because they gave a “false representation”. For example, when Ty is showing the map of the country and how some people thought the cause of the North was Industrialized and the South was more agricultural, but actually the North was agricultural as well, so he takes away the pictures of factories and puts pictures of corn. Tom responds to this by yelling at Ty and saying the factories didn’t just disappear, even though that is not what Tom said. He was just being tedious about the picture. There was another instance where there was a picture of Lincoln with a beard, and Tom said this was inaccurate because Lincoln didn’t have a beard at the time period they were talking about. Tom is trying to find the smallest details to knock Ty on, but in the end he is just making himself look bad.

    2) I think both of the men had something motivating them to take their position. Col. Ty Seidule was looking at the situation from a military perspective. He wants to think the ONLY reason for the cause of the civil war was slavery. He was apart of the group of people that helped free the slaves. So he is talking about all of the good things the military did in order to free them. Tom’s motivation was the need to be right about everything. I will agree that slavery was not the ONLY reason for the civil war, but I would say it is a big contributing factor. Instead of finding the pointe he agreed with, and finding the good in the video, Tom found all of the tiny irrelevant details to correct like Abraham Lincoln’s beard and the colors of the ties just so that he could feel superior to Ty and show his “expertise”.

  41. Kate Potocsky

    1. I think that lead history teacher, Colonel Ty Seidule, from Prager U has the better argument about the Civil War. I think that while Tom Richey had some valid points, he did often did not argue his case well. For example, he discredited the Prager U video for silly things like the color of Ty Seidule’s clothing, font styles, and was very picky about the animations that did not affect Seidule’s argument. Also, Richey seemed only to refute Seidule’s points, and did not make any separate points of his own. Seidule addressed and provided evidence against the notions that state’s rights and economic difference caused the Civil War. Richey provided evidence as well, but I think he was missing the big picture. For example, when trying to prove that the South really did not want to secede over the issue of slavery, he talked about how many states initially rejected secession and picked out two states that did not have as close of a vote to secede. I think that it’s more important to focus on the fact the they did secede in the end. And, I definitely think that slavery was the main reason for secession. The South did not like the anti-slavery president Abraham Lincoln, and feared that their “peculiar institution” would be destroyed. They also did not want more free states to disrupt the balance of power between free and slave states. Richey also disregarded Seidule’s evidence from Lincoln’s “House Divided” speech. He thinks that because it was not a presidential speech, it was a senate speech, that it is invalid and selective evidence. I think the speech still is solid evidence because it shows that the union cannot stay together with half of it free and half of it slave. Whether the speech was from Lincoln running for senator or president, the points still provide evidence that the Civil War was in fact caused by slavery. In the end. Colonel Ty Seidule gave the better argument about the Civil War.

    2. I do think that both men have something motivating them to take their positions. I think the first man, Colonel Ty Seidule, felt like he had to take the position he did because he is in the army. Despite this, I think that these were his honest feelings. But, he probably felt some sort of obligation to praise the American Army. He mentioned that HIS army defeated the Confederate States. I think he feels that Northern soldiers were his people, and he has a duty to honor and respect them. I think that the second man, Tom Richey, had an even greater motivation than Seidule. He said that his ancestors were Confederate soldiers and that he was a proud Southern man. I think he also felt an obligation to respect and honor them. I think these differing motivations shaped their opinions greatly. Both men seemed to be a little bit biased, Seidule towards the North, and Richey towards the South. Their personal beliefs influenced what they perceive as facts and history. I think that they unconsciously formed their opinions based on their jobs, home states, and family pasts.

  42. Sarah Johns

    1. The first video has a better argument for the start of the civil war. In the first video, Col. Ty Seidule was more professional and stated his credentials to show that he was well educated in the subject. The second video, Tom Richey was just a teacher that went straight out and attacked Col. Ty Seidule from the beginning. Richey said that he was unreliable because of the place he was speaking for. Richey was very biased and expressed his views in a childish manner. Throughout the first video, Ty defended his points with facts and statistics and used a visual aid to help the viewer better understand the presented information. Richey on the other hand, just talked at you the entire time and had some very illogical points. Throughout the video, it felt like he was looking for every little thing wrong with the video. At one point he criticized one of the pictures of Lincoln because it had a beard and at this point in time he did not have a beard. He also criticized a cartoon for wearing a red tie. I found this distracting and it took away from the video. I felt like the first video was giving me real information the whole time, whereas the second video was just using invalid points to dis the other video.

    2. I believe that both guys had motivation. Ty was looking at the situation from a military perspective. He stated that he was proud to be representing the side that helped free slavery. He wants it to be about slavery because when the military got majorly involved, it had switched its focus to slavery. He wants people to view it from this perspective because he wants the government to be put in a good right. Some people say that the Civil War started because of the government denying the south’s rights, so this goes against Ty’s point of view. I believe that Tom’s motivation comes from a need to be right. Throughout the video, he was making arguments on the most nitpicky things. He criticized the cartoons because they did not aline with the time period. He criticized another cartoon for wearing too fancy clothes. I feel like he was grasping at straws for things to correct. He made some valid points but overall he did not have many points that made sense in the context of what we were talking about.

  43. Sam Mercer

    1. In my opinion, I think that the Prager U video has a better argument because it has more evidence backing up the arguments in the video. Also, I think there is a more reliable source of information in the Prager u video. Colonel Seidule provided specific examples of how many people think the Civil war started and debunked those and related those back to slavery. He took quotes from Abe Lincoln during his 1860 presidential campaign and used those to his advantage. Seidule also gave examples of how slavery impacted the southern states decided to secede from the union which was the main part of the Civil War. Seidule talks about the similarities in economies in the North and the South at the time and that people tried to argue it was a fight over the differences of economies when really the North was also an agrarian economy just not as much as the South and that the Northerners had to pay their workers while the southerners controlled their slaves. Tome Richey never really presents his own facts and kind of just analyzes and argues with the point s Seidule is trying to make. Richey also feels as if the topic can’t really be solved in such a short amount of time and that it needs to be analyzed much more. Richey doesn’t do a great job making his own arguments either and when he does he doesn’t give very good evidence about the topic. Richey seems to be insulted and mad at the fact that Prager u made this video so short and feels that there isn’t enough evidence
    2. I think that both men definitely have something motivating their argument. Colonel Seidule is a professor at the U.S. Military Academy at Westpoint and is also a soldier. Seidule talks about how he takes pride in the fact that his army, the U.S. army worked together to help and defeat the Confederacy. Tom Richey is a southerner from a state previously part of the Confederacy and one of the biggest problems that started the Civil War, South Carolina. as we know South Carolina was the first state that threatened secession and threatened it many times during the 18th and 19th centuries before it actually happened. Richey most likely doesn’t want SC to be known for its slavery and wants people to think of different reasons the Civil War started so that they don’t think of the south as just a place of slavery which was the only reason the Civil War started. Most Southerners feel this way because there is definitely a bias in the North and South about the ides and causes of the Civil War. We see this today with some southern states still flying the Confederate flag over their capital and some southern states leaving up confederate soldier statues. People from the North normally don’t like the fact that southern states do this and want them to take these symbols of slavery and racism down. A lot of Southerners want them kept up as part of the culture of the south even if it does have a confederate meaning to it.

  44. Peter Manion

    1. Tom Richey’s argument is that there are multiple causes to the civil war and that Slavery was not the only cause. His evidence is the lack of evidence that Prager U cannot provide. The evidence they use is incorrect, misused, or misrepresented.
    Tom Richey had the much stronger argument. The first mistake that Prager U would make is by simply saying that there is one thing that caused the Civil War. Really? It doesn’t matter what event and what cause, 95% of the time, any event will be caused by multiple things and not one thing. A very weak argument had already been created by Prager U. Tom Richey goes through the video step by step, which is a boring and lazy format for a video, however looking at simply the merit of the argument it is much better. He goes on to explain how Prager U does not have an argument because of the blatant glossing over of facts and oversimplification of things, misusing and misrepresenting historical documents, and not creating an honest dialogue. Prager U is not exactly honest in how they use facts and other documents, they are pushing an agenda.

    2. Both Tom Richey and Colonel Seidule are biased in there own ways. To begin, Tom Richey is proud of his background and doesn’t want it to be misrepresented. The way he feels it should be represented is most likely what his parents taught him. However, Seidule is extremely biased as he is creating a video for Prager U, which is known for heavily pushing their agenda and bending sources however they want. He is also being payed to push their agenda so he has a large amount of motivation to do what he is doing. I think Seidule is somewhat payed to say what he is saying, even if the argument he presented doesn’t exactly represent what he thinks. Like Tom Richey said in the video during the section about the Emancipation Proclamation, Seidule is a historian and smart enough to know that the sources he is using are being misused or misrepresented to form fit an opinion. I find this very interesting because Tom Richey has no agenda to push and no financial backing behind what he is saying. Seidule on the other hand wants to say what Prager U wants him to say, so what if he presents a document slightly misleading.
    While that may be some speculation, it’s important to note that Tom Richey brings up the animations used in the video as pushing things. Colonel Seidule did not create the animations for the video, and those are what are somewhat misleading. Seidule speaking is edited– what he is saying can be pulled out of context or misleading based on what they are animating it to look like or how they visually represent things. Just something to keep in mind when looking at how biased Seidule is, because it may be Prager U who are biased and not him.

    Prager U isn’t exactly known for being incredibly honest on what they do. For reference, I’m going to link a video I found a while ago about how they are dishonest. https://www youtube com/watch?v=HurC8aTsVCE

  45. Clare Birley

    Before it is decided which resource has the better argument for the civil war, it needs to be stated that these videos aren’t answering the same question. The first film is discussing how the cause of the civil war is slavery, even though other historians may describe other factors to influence the growing divide between the north and south. He builds up his argument after he states his opinion, debunking evidence such as how the capitalistic northern society was harshly different from the southern agrarian society by saying that northern society was supposedly also agrarian, as it produced more food crops than the south. The second film’s claim was that the cause of the civil war is either simple or complex, and is responding to the video produced by Prager University. He’s arguing against looking at the civil war through a simple lense, as much of the evidence isn’t as simple as the first film portrays it, which is why he’s scrutinizing it. The second video, by far, has a better , more nuanced argument, because he doesn’t look at the civil war as a black and white issue. He shows how the votes to secede in the south weren’t all complete majorities, as Kansas and Virginia had closer margins to stay in the union, which is why the first video doesn’t present that evidence.
    The Colonel, a teacher at West Point Military Academy, is more likely motivated to take that position on the civil war because it is the politically correct thing to do. As a teacher at one of the most prestigious military schools in the country, he has more pressure over what he can and cannot say. This makes his argument less nuanced, as he can’t express the the moral grays of the civil war, because it could make him appear as a sympathizer to slavery. Also, as a member of the U.S army, he has a bias for the people who fought against the confederates, as he is apart of that organization, even if it took place a long time ago. The social studies teacher is not only trained to think critically about causes of historical events, but also to teach kids how to think critically about the causes of historical events. His argument against the first video is more analytical, because he has the freedom to speak unrestricted, and he has the duty to use the first video as an example of a poor argument to his students.

  46. Samuel Sundberg

    In the two videos about the causes of the Civil war, I believe that the first video with the colonel has a better argument. The video has many examples and evidence from primary sources from that time period. The primary sources include Abraham lincoln’s speech and the Charleston Mercury. Even though the Charleston Mercury was the most radical of newspapers at the time, it was one of the most seen newspapers. In the PragerU video, the argument is focused around the idea that the civil war was caused by slavery and only slavery. I will have to disagree with them at that point, but compared to the second video, their argument is supported better than Richey’s argument. In Richey’s argument he provides little to no evidence about the issue he’s talking about, but he isn’t arguing whether or not the civil war was about slavery but if it was a simple or complex topic. He mythbusts the first video and explains why it is explained to the most simplified fashion. One part of the first video that I have to agree with Richey on is the part where they replaced all the factories in the north with corn. Although there was corn in most part of the midwest, the New England region did not have that kind of farmland to grow profitable corn. New England was best known for their politics and factories. The whole reason the protective tariffs of 1928 and 1932 were placed was to protect these New England factories and manufacturers.
    I think both men have some sort of motivation behind their evidence and point they’re making. First, the Colonel Seidle has great motivation because he is part of the army. As Richey said in the second video, the colonel probably wants -to make himself feel good by taking the side of the north and saying that the north was the right ones and that they saved the country. As Richey points out, the northern soldiers often raped many of the slave women they saved from the plantations. Richey also has a motivation to uphold strictly because he is a person who is obviously some sort of history major. They are trained to look at history and dissect it as much they can. Even though the Colonel was a History teacher at the West Point Academy, he was probably told to read a script written for him to make the video smaller and more simple so any age can see. Obviously sense the video is so short, there is no way Richey can’t find a single thing to go into on a further level.

  47. Ted Schwartz

    I think that Tom Richey has a better point than Prager University. While I would agree that slavery is the primary cause and that man of the other causes were based around slavery, I think there is still much more information left out of the first video of a slim 5 minutes that was more in favor of the thinking that slavery was not the only cause. For example, when showing the votes on secession in the South, Prager University left out Georgia because the vote was more close and Arkansas because they originally voted against secession. Another example of this is on a map that is showing that the North and South were both agrarian societies by replacing the factories scattered on the map with corn farms. The factories immediately disappear discounting the manufacturing industry that was still very present in the North. Particularly, the people in government from the North were more involved in this side of the economy, furthering the divide between northern and southern society. I think that when studying its better to use somebody like Tom Richey than a large company like Prager U. Richey’s first priority is to inform, while Prager is a corporation whose main goal is making something that’s easy to watch, find and, in turn, makes more money.
    I think that the two men’s geographic location could influence their opinions on the issue. Richey is from the South, so it’s possible that he wants the South to look the least bad possible. Meanwhile, Prager University is a northern based company and likely wants to make the North seem like their full reasoning was morally based. The two’s occupations could also affect their opinion. Colonel Ty Seidule is ex-military and likely holds a strong loyalty to the U.S. military. In turn, he would want to spread information that paints our military in a good light through history. This is shown at the end of the video, when he talks about how honored he is to serve in the same military that fought against the institution of slavery. He is also working for a corporate channel and was likely told to simplify the issue to make the video 5 minutes and easily accessible. On the other hand, Tom Richey is a history teacher. His students likely watch videos like this one from Prager University to study, thus, he wants to ensure that everything that they are observing is factual. Richey is also clearly has a love for history and it likely bother him when a company like Prager is spreading false or incomplete information.

  48. Chris Thorsen

    1. I believe that PragerU makes a better argument. While I do believe it may be more complex than this, and that Prager simplifies it a bit more then they should, they do have a better argument. I liked how Prager supported their arguments with evidence from famous people and documents, however, I do believe they could’ve been more transparent. His images also help his argument as they do help his points and they make the video more entertaining. Tom seems to poke fun of these in his video but I don’t agree. I also don’t necessarily like the format of Tom’s video, as I think that if they were both there to debate, it would be better if Col. Ty were able to defend himself. I like in Prager’s video that the Col. was in uniform as it was a good form of ethos. What really got me in Prager’s video was the secession voting data from the south. Even though It was slightly altered evidence it was still crazy how overwhelming the secession votes were in each state. Also, it seemed like in Tom’s video, a lot of his video was opinion based and even though the video more than five times as long there seemed to be less evidence. I liked when Prager showed the ladder of southern society as it countered the claim that the war wasn’t about slavery as most southerners didn’t own slaves.
    2. I believe that Col. Ty was motivated by his role as a United States government to be on their side of things. I believe this might’ve even encouraged him to oversimplify things a little more than they were. In this situation, he makes it out to be the good guys and the bad guys and I don’t think that that was necessarily how it was. I believe that there were people who shaped by the time and most were a mix of both. Anyways, by today’s standards, most of them were cruel and racist. Furthermore, Col. Ty was also motivated by money. PragerU most definitely paid him to do this speech and because of this, they were most likely able to get their views across in his speech. On the other hand, Tom is a descendant of Confederate soldiers. This doesn’t seem to affect his arguments to much, but he makes the confederates out to be a better group of people then col. Ty does.

  49. Adam Rhen

    1. I think that PragerU had the better argument about the civil war. Although the man in the second video had a good argument that the civil war was caused by several reasons, the soldier in the first video had a better argument. In the first video, after they claimed their position that the civil war was about only slavery, they used evidence to back it up with quotes and counterclaims like why the war was not caused by economics and state rights. The man in the second video was not really presenting evidence, but was just trying to nitpick everything the first video presented. The man in the second video stated many times that the first video was giving valid evidence, but would then continue to say it’s very wrong because how simplistic it was. This is not a valid argument because the first video was not making the facts simple to try and leave out the other side, but to make the evidence easier to follow. The first video also had someone with credentials, the man being a history professor, yet the second man never gave any reason for why he is creditable. Lastly, the second man was trying to attack the video o much, it made him look foolish and like he did not know what he was talking about. He contradicted himself many times, and when nothing was wrong with the information like the confederacy president quote, he would try and find just something to try and say it was wrong when it was just an animation problem he had.
    2. I think both men had something motivating them to take their positions on the civil war. The man in the first video was motivated by being in the military. This helped shape his opinion that the civil war was all about slavery and that only the south was at fault. Because he choose to join the forces, he would want to protect what them stand for and show them doing no wrong. The man in the second video had a motivation of being form the south, especially South Carolina, a confederate state. He would want to protect where he comes from and show that the only reason the war happened is not a super disgusting practice. He would want to try and show the history in a different way that shows more complexity like the economy or state rights, and would also want and show the north as not that amazing.

  50. Anders Povirk

    1: I think that Richey did not offer a concrete argument and encouraged the view to do their own research while the PragerU video attempted to sell you on a specific narrative. All throughout the video Richey emphasized that he did not disagree with the PragerU video but instead tried to point out half-truths and persuasive tactics and argued that the topic is more complex that a five minute video to explain thoroughly. For example he will spend time ponting out how the corn icons place across the North is misrepresentative but did not disagree with the idea that slavery was the most important factor in the start of the Civil War. He also pointed out that the PragerU video massively misrepresented the emancipation proclamation and only pulled a tiny quote from it yet did not address how that is important making him come off as less likeable. The PragerU video while it lacked nuance was much more persuasive through its more respectable presenter in a West Point Teacher in full military attire, persuasive animation, and cherry picking evidence to support their case. While Richey’s video nitpicked and lasted over five times as long the PragerU video gave an argument and supported it with evidence and animation tho keep the video entertaining, countered potential counterarguments, and capped the video off with a speech explaining how it is a pride of the United States army to have defeated the South and freed the slaves. While I agree with Richey more there is no doubt that the PragerU video gave a much more convincing video which makes sense as simple arguments are much easier to push especially when you cherry pick evidence.

    2: I think that both men have bias motivating them although only Richey brings this up showing that he is at the very least more self aware. However, in the PragerU video Seidule does not address his bias despite giving a long, uplifting message at the end about how his predecessors stopped the evil of Southern slavery and working at the Northern Univercity, West Point. Richey is also likely motivated by his bias as he lives in the deep South where the Confederacy is far more glorified and relatable. However despite this he never tries to claim that the primary cause of the Civil war was not slavery and addresses his potential biases which make him seem more trustworthy from my prospective.

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