Comment States Rights my behind! (Score 1) 139
2 things, lets head off the 'Not about Slavery' crowd at the pass.
1: Lincoln, and the North fought the Civil War to preserve the Union. But lets not forget the South fired the first shot and seized Federal property. The war to preserve the Union turned into a war against Slavery out of necessity. You can see Lincoln evolve, to the point that when he thought he would lose the 1864 election, he had a meeting with Frederick Douglass to try and urge him to get as many slaves out of the South via the Underground Railway before the elections.
Lincoln was assasinated by John Wilkes Booth, who spoke the following words a few days before assasinating Lincoln.
"I had never seen Mr. Lincoln up close and I knew he was a tall man, however nothing could have prepared me for the sight of him. A long shadow did he have. And his arms, when at his sides, touched near his knees. Very professionally he said that there would never be any suffrage based on differences in the way people look. Upon this, Booth turned to the two of us and said, “That means nigger citizenship. Now by God I’ll put him through!”
Lincoln was killed, Reconstruction collapsed, and for the next 100 years, African Americans in the South were subjected to the same deprivations of Slavery just without the term. Up until the 1964 CRA (things weren't rosy in the North, but they were a hell of a lot better than the South for African Americans, read "The Warmth of Other Suns" by Isabel Wilkerson
For the Civil War years, read "Battle Cry of Freedom" by James McPherson, read "Grant's Memoirs" or watch the 27 part lecture (1 hour each) by Yale Historian David Blight.
2: For those claiming the Civil War wasn't about Slavery, get real. It was very much about slavery for the South. They were fighting for States Rights, the right to keep slaves. The South knew they had to expand Slavery to survive, the North wanted to contain slavery. The South knew it was all about slavery at the time, a fact they proclaimed in speeches and also clearly documented in the Articles of Secession (I've included relevant passages below).
'Declaration of Causes of Seceding States' http://sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war/reasons.html
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Georgia
For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery.
Mississippi
Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.
South Carolina
The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery,
Texas
We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable.
That in this free government *all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights* [emphasis in the original]; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding states.
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OK, back to the discussion, but please, don't pollute the thread with stupidity about 'States Rights' and how Slavery had nothing to do with the Civil War.
1: Lincoln, and the North fought the Civil War to preserve the Union. But lets not forget the South fired the first shot and seized Federal property. The war to preserve the Union turned into a war against Slavery out of necessity. You can see Lincoln evolve, to the point that when he thought he would lose the 1864 election, he had a meeting with Frederick Douglass to try and urge him to get as many slaves out of the South via the Underground Railway before the elections.
Lincoln was assasinated by John Wilkes Booth, who spoke the following words a few days before assasinating Lincoln.
"I had never seen Mr. Lincoln up close and I knew he was a tall man, however nothing could have prepared me for the sight of him. A long shadow did he have. And his arms, when at his sides, touched near his knees. Very professionally he said that there would never be any suffrage based on differences in the way people look. Upon this, Booth turned to the two of us and said, “That means nigger citizenship. Now by God I’ll put him through!”
Lincoln was killed, Reconstruction collapsed, and for the next 100 years, African Americans in the South were subjected to the same deprivations of Slavery just without the term. Up until the 1964 CRA (things weren't rosy in the North, but they were a hell of a lot better than the South for African Americans, read "The Warmth of Other Suns" by Isabel Wilkerson
For the Civil War years, read "Battle Cry of Freedom" by James McPherson, read "Grant's Memoirs" or watch the 27 part lecture (1 hour each) by Yale Historian David Blight.
2: For those claiming the Civil War wasn't about Slavery, get real. It was very much about slavery for the South. They were fighting for States Rights, the right to keep slaves. The South knew they had to expand Slavery to survive, the North wanted to contain slavery. The South knew it was all about slavery at the time, a fact they proclaimed in speeches and also clearly documented in the Articles of Secession (I've included relevant passages below).
'Declaration of Causes of Seceding States' http://sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war/reasons.html
--------
Georgia
For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery.
Mississippi
Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.
South Carolina
The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery,
Texas
We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable.
That in this free government *all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights* [emphasis in the original]; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding states.
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OK, back to the discussion, but please, don't pollute the thread with stupidity about 'States Rights' and how Slavery had nothing to do with the Civil War.
