Jetstorm, I will just have to disagree with you. I can never see Lincoln as anything but a murderer. The point you make about Lincoln perserving the Union is moot. The common view of the union at the time was that each state was a nation. The Federal government was at best an an equal to the states. Governors were as powerful as the President. The very language of the our great constitution points to this. Each Nation state delegated certain powers to the federal govt. upon entry to the union. How can a weaker body delegate powers to a stronger? Of the delegated powers is perserving the union one of them? Lincolns idea of the perpetual union was an outdated remnent from the Articles of Confederation. The war happened because Lincoln didn't want to go down as the guy that let the USA break up. I am yet to read anything that justifies Lincoln's actions in invading the Southern nation from a legal stand point. Many have pointed me to Webster's arguments against nullification, and while he makes a good point as to why a state should not secede, he never says the cant. Let's not forget it was the Northern States the first threatened secessiona t the Mass. Convention in 1812 because they did not want to go to war with the invading English. I also want to briefly address the slavery issue. The Constitution of the Confederacy had the first anti-slavery law in American hostory. It banned the importation and sale of slaves. The War of Southern Indedpendence (this country never fought a civil war) would never have happened if not for Abe Lincoln.
The War of the Rebellion was fought over slavery, pure and simple. The South caused it by seceding. The immediate issue that caused it, other than Lincoln's election, was whether slavery would be extended into the western states. The main debate in the decade before the war was over extending or not extending slavery into the western states. Until the Mexican War there were an equal number of slave to free states, or a slight majority of slave states in the Union at any time, which meant that in the Senate, the South could not be outvoted. The debate was not over whether slavery should be done away with in the South, although the Southern fire-eaters were always making dire predictions that the North would do that. In Louisiana, there was one black for every white. Mississippi and South Carolina had heavy black majorities, and in Alabama it was close to a one-to-one ratio black to white. Virtually all whites in the South opposed ending slavery, not just the slaveholders. In the North before the war, radical abolitionists never had more than about 10% of the population in support, but their rhetoric scared the bejesus out of many southerners. If slavery had been abolished and blacks allowed to vote, it could have literally been a case of blacks going from being slaves one month to running the entire state the next. In the two or three years before the War, it is generally assumed that almost every member of Congress went to the floor armed with either a pistol, a knife, or a sword cane. The rhetoric had gotten completely out of hand, and fist fights were common. One Senator was almost beaten to death in the Senate floor, and at least one Senator pulled a pistol and pointed it at another Senator on the Senate floor during a debate.
It's easy to talk about historical issues now but one thing to remember is the slaves were assests at the time and part of the plan was basically telling the south to burn money and let the slaves go. Much to large an issue to write in snipet's so I willl sit back and continue to read with enjoyment
Just to make it more clear, the war was NOT caused by tariffs (the South had "won" every tariff vote before the war), customs, incompatible speech patterns (although Southern accents and New England accents did clash), how much mint to put in a mint julep, or anything else but slavery. Without slavery there would have been no Civil War, end of story. It is part of right wing dogma today to try and re-write history and claim that the South was not fighting for slavery or that that was NOT the cause of the war. They want to say the South fought for their treasured "states rights." The South was fighting for ONE states right--the right of the state to have slavery and to bring slavery into the western states. It is just one of many lies right wingers spread today to try and re-write history to what they WANT it to be. The Civil War was caused by slavery.
Wrong. There was nowhere near any political majority in the North to interfere with slavery in the South in 1860 and Lincoln said repeatedly that he would not interfere with slavery where it then existed. The Southern radicals made people think that they were going to though. It cannot be overemphasized that in at least four southern states there were either black majorities or equal numbers of blacks and whites. The Southern fire-eaters who wanted secession finally got enough people scared that the North would try and free all the slaves, which was something that scared all southern whites--whether they owned slaves or not. If the southern moderates could have held off the fire-eaters for a few months after Lincoln's election the war would not have broken out in 1860. Actually the secession votes in many states were fairly close--and anti secession sentiment was probably much stonger than those votes make it appear in others. The Southern radicals got enough southerners worked up over Lincoln's election to get secession majorities for a long enough time to get secession going.
OK, everybody got that? CottonBowl is the final authority on what was and what wasn't the cause of the Civil War. And don't you dare question his/her/it's authority on the matter.
If the war was over slavery why was the Confederate constitution the first bill to ban the slave trade. No this war was about the uppity Yankees looking down there noses at us and our ideals. And to tarrifs what about the Morril Tarriff. That should shut you up. It is clear you know NOTHING.
