Most of those who actually fought in the Civil War weren't fighting for or against "freedom" or "slavery." They were drafted and did as they were told and weren't educated enough to have a coherent opinion about the politics of the era. Especially in the South, where public schools (and hospitals) weren't built until it was forced at bayonet point during Reconstruction. The people in the south actually benefited in many ways from losing to the Union army. I'd almost support a Neo-Confederate uprising, but only because it might be the best way to see to it that infrastructure and public health and schooling is improved after it inevitably would fail. In any case, I'll leave the romanticism for the Antebellum Era to the toothless Grand Dragons and Wizards.
People have trouble separating two very distinctive issues. The South parted from the North for states rights, primarily due to slavery. If slavery wasn't the issue, then no, they would have never parted. The economics of slavery was very important to the south. 150 years later, we still have this very same economical issue; It has to deal with illegal immigration and the very cheap farm labor. It wasn't about a bunch of racist rich white assholes who wanted to keep the brotha down. It was about cheap labor. Months later after the South had formed an official government and had a legit army, the North invaded. They did NOT invade to free the slaves. The South had the option to surrender and come back under control of the North and keep their slaves. So to say the Civil War was fought over slavery is not an accurate statement. Now whether or not the South had a right to secede and whether it was right for the North to attack the South is open for debate.
If southern states want illegal immigrants and cheap labor, why is it states like Texas and Arizona want to secure the border, but Obama and democrats want to do nothing and let homeless children and others wander across? The answer is simply that the blue states want these poor prisoners dependent on government aid for welfare assistance. They create a base dependent on a big government that will vote to give them power and redistribute wealth away from working families. Now I am actually in favor of aiding poor people who need help, but we simply do not have the resources to take care of all. And often the people who will illegally come here are criminals, drug dealers or terrorists which is why we need to secure the borders first. And then talk immigration reform. The flood gates need to be closed before you can discuss a path to citizenship.
The southern states formed a union. They had every right to secede or dissolve that union. More of a right than the colonies had to dissolve the union with England. I suppose all those who think the South did not have a right to independence must think that divorce is also illegal and all unions should be indivisible. They must think Scotland should be a prisoner of England and that the Ukraine and Poland should submit to rule from Moscow.
Such insults are totally uncalled for. Slavery was wrong. That doesn't justify a Northern army invasion which resulted in the deaths of 600,000 to 800,000 people. There is a lot of injustice in the world. Does that mean a US army needs to invade every Muslim country that mistreats women, minorities, gays, religious freedom,....? As has been pointed out, the North did not want to end slavery, slavery existed, Grant's wife owned slaves so he was not fighting to end slavery. The war was about state's rights vs Northern power and Lincoln's ego about not wanting to be the one who lost his power over states. After the northern armies defeated the South, they moved on to killing Indians and moving west. It was about power and control and wealth accumulation as most wars are. It was about subjecting people to federal control instead of following the constitution or principles of liberty and freedom.
It's not quite that simple. Most white Southerners didn't own slaves but did feel that they were fighting against Northern aggression. That said they were aware of that most Northerners wanted to do away with slavery and they felt that was an imposition on their culture from outside. So yes there was an economic argument but there was a cultural element. As I said states right was an issue but slavery was the ultimate cause. Yes Lincoln offered to the South that if they stayed in the Union they could keep slavery but the Southerners knew that this was an untenable position and by 1863 that angle had been dropped and with the Emancipation Proclamation Lincoln had made it clear that this was a fight over slavery. Granted the Proclamation was nuanced to allow the Union border states to keep slaves but it was obvious to the country by then that a Union victory meant that slavery would come to an end. That is a matter of historical Constitutional debate but slavery as the ultimate cause of the war cannot be denied.
Slavery was a proximate cause, but the ultimate cause was states rights and independence. It's like if you are 30 years old and living in your mom's basement and she tells you to be home by midnight. And you say, "I'm 30 years old, I can stay out all night if I want." And she says, "Not under my roof." And so you say, "Fine, I seceede, I'm not living under your roof anymore." And you move out. Then a few days later, you are at a club having a drink after midnight, and your mom shows up and drags you by your ear back to your apartment and says "I told you to be home by midnight." You would say the cause of the fight was staying out too late. I would say freedom and independence. The North was right about it's more healthy to be early to bed early to rise. On that, they were right about slavery. However, they were wrong about northern states enforcing their morality and values on southern states. That was not the role of a federal government. Federal government exists for national security and not much else. Other governing should be left to the states. It's like free speech. What you say may be wrong. But I still defend your right to say them. I don't want the government dictating what I can and can not say. And the federal government doesn't have the right to dictate on matters reserved to the states by the constitution. Even though the Southern States were wrong, they were still independent grown men not to be treated as though they were living in mom's basement.
I'm not sure where you are getting your supposed information from, but if it's something you paid for, demand a refund. You've been ripped off. Obama has deported more illegal immigrants than his predecessor, has requested and budgeted increases to border security, and hasn't allowed anyone to just walk across. Some may have crossed, but not because Obama and the Democrats just let them walk across.
And it's clear you get your misinformation from the Obama team who cooks the books. More people are not being deported, they just report people who try to get in as being "deported". Prior to Obama cooking the books, people who were turned away at the border were never counted as being deported. The fact is once they get here, they don't get deported which encourages more people to try to get here. And Obama encouraged all those children to come, saying children would not be deported. So he has made the problem much, much worse. I won't quote fox, because I know you won't believe the truth from them, how about the liberal la times: See? Actual deportations are down 40%. Fake deportations of people stopped at the border are up only because they were not counted as true deportations in the past. Cooked books. http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-obama-deportations-20140402-story.html#page=1 You people are so misinformed. Even the la times has a better view of reality, and that's not saying much.
Man, I can't wait for even preseason games. You people can't even challenge me by knowing the facts. It's like arguing with a grade schooler. I think if anyone should demand a refund from their source of information it is you. Go Rockets!!! Please start playing games soon so I don't have to waste my time here talking to uninformed voters who put incompetent "leaders" like Obama in office.
Yeah, it's just like that. haha The conservative fascination with replaying the civil war is just bizarre. Always crediting Lincoln for freeing the slaves (Republicans are the party of Linicoln!) and then blaming him for starting the war (It's Lincoln fault hundreds of thousands died!) is just the icing on the cake. I think you fellas are just downright confused. The immigration stuff is even more bizarre. It was Reagan that gave amnesty to THREE MILLION illegals and never protected the border like he planned to do. Thirty years later there are eleven million illegals and that's Obama's fault? WHA?
The idea that the Confederacy was a bunch of rich white assholes who tricked the poor white southern man is a historical myth - in fact, it was arguably the other way around. Remember that Lincoln did NOT campaign in 1860 on a platform of abolishing slavery. His plan was to limit slavery to where it already was and hope that it eventually died out. But the thing about that is...what did rich planters actually have to lose? They already had slaves and land, and only crazy people would propose actually forcing abolition on the South itself. But for poor whites, the situation was different. The way that you got rich in the South was that you farmed and got more land, and eventually some slaves and you kept adding more slaves and land until you get rich. That was the proper way in contrast to those money-grubbing Northerners - but obviously that system doesn't work if you don't have any more land to expand to. So for poor whites, who dreamed of possibly moving out and gaining more land and slaves, they had a lot to lose by what Lincoln proposed.
The lead up to the Civil War and the causes are very complicated and it is difficult to fully understand the thought process from 150 years ago. I will just say people that betray the positions as strictly good and bad are very much off base. There is a lot of gray, and the motivations of the parties were very much self interests.
I would agree. To me, a bigger part of the lead up to the Civil War was just ugly politics, there may have been some that wanted to ban slavery for moral reasons, but mostly it was done just to dick over the South who was dependent on it. Also, that wasn't the only thing they did to screw over the South, it was just what they did to cross "the red line". Had they instead decided to phase out slavery making it possible to implement without completely destroying the economy of the South, there probably wouldn't have been a Civil War at all. It was just one political faction seizing enough of a majority to bully the other and doing so recklessly. They did so to the point that it tore the country in two, then used the moral issue of slavery in order to sell a war against the South to the masses. The North won thus that's the propaganda that gets taught as history.
Which begs the question, would the US be better off if we never had the civil war? Skip the notion that w/out the civil war, we would still have slavery. Slavery was already unpopular through out the world in the 1860's and it would have ended before the 1900's. Would the South still be the cesspool that it still is or did Sherman laying waste set the South back for several decades? Keep in mind that the south east is still largely looked upon as backwards and redneck. If slavery did end in a couple decades peacefully, would the blacks have integrated better? Personally I do not think we would have a distinctive dividing line that we still have to this day. I dont mean racism as much as I mean generational poverty.
Not looking good for Scottish independence so far: http://www.theguardian.com/politics...pendence-referendum-results-in-full?CMP=fb_gu
I think we'd have bene a lot better off if we could have avoided the Civil War with more moderate politics winning the day. I think race relations would be better and the South would have more easily adapted to industrialism. Also, a lot of Southern wealth was destroyed in the war putting the entire region in a hole economically that took forever to dig out of.
