reply to post by poet1b
You make excellent points, but please do not take offense that I must now refute them. I must do this in two parts due to the scope of your rebuttal.
First of all, on the civil war, most people in the U.S. were illiterate, and had no concept of international banking. I am not going to try and
explain why southerners fought the civil war, they had many reason, and the wealthy people in the South probably fought for the reasons you explained.
People today have little concept of the Federal Reserve system even though thay can read. Illiteracy and the lack of conceptualizing international
banking only made it easier for the fraud to be perpetrated.
The Southern soldier was not fighting "for" slavery, if that is what you are trying to dodge here. Most southern soldiers did not own slaves. Only
the wealthy owned slaves generally. You could say that the southerners were the first Republican really. They were fighting for conservative values
and
less government. They fought to preserve their rights, and states' rights against the expansion of the Federal system. Again, morality was
not part of the equation. Right or wrong, the southern economy was dependant on slaves the same way the American economy today has become dependant on
illegal immigrants. Slavery did not have the stigma attached to it that we see today either. It was simply the natural state of things, much like
illegal immigration of today. An issue yes, but not the evil portrayal that we have today.
In the North, however, most people fought for two reasons, which were essentially the same in many ways. The number one reason people fought in the
North was to preserve the Union, which was in fact a very legitimate reason, and the second main reason was to end slavery. If the civil war had not
been fought after the election of Lincoln, then it would have been fought eventually, as hostilities between the North and South had already began in
the Kansas territories as slavers and family farmers were in economic competition of and for the new territories. Competition over western expansion
gauranteed that there would be a war between the slave owners in the South, and family farmers in the North.
You are buying into the propoganda that was sold in the North to whip up support at the time. Since the Union was victorious, this propoganda has been
perpetuated and expanded. Did you know that there are soldiers in Iraq who actually believe that Saddam Hussein was behind the 9/11 attacks?
The "very legitimate reason" you speak of is really a matter of opinion, not fact. The preservation of the Union would never have been in doubt were
it not for the reforms implemented and intended by the Federal government. The Confederacy were not the agitators. They sought to preserve the status
quo.
There was no guarantee of war. The issue of slavery should have been decided on a state by state basis. The southern states supported this notion,
while the federal government imposed their will on the western territories, exacerbating the issue.
If you really believe that slavery was the core issue, then ask yourself the following. Why wasn't the Emancipation Proclomation issued until
after the war had already begun? Why couldn't the issue of slavery have been worked out over time through legislation? What was it that
suddenly made slavery an issue worth fighting to the death over? Did good Christians in the North suddenly come to understand a deeper meaning
in Scripture, while their Southern counterpart did not? I don't think so. I am not saying that slavery was not evil, but at the time it was not
considered to be the evil we see it as today.
Furthermore, as I have already stated, slavery was not exclusive to the south. New Jersey practiced slavery until 1865! (Two years after the
Emancipation Proclomation) Lincoln's anti-slavery secretary owned slaves right across the river from where I am sitting at this moment, north of New
York City. I will use the Emancipation Proclomation itself to defend my assertion. The following quote is an excerpt from the Emancipation
Proclamation which I have underlined at two key points:
Now, therefore I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-in-Chief, of the Army and
Navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority and government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary
war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three,
and in accordance with my purpose so to do publicly proclaimed for the full period of one hundred days, from the day first above mentioned, order and
designate as the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof respectively, are this day in rebellion against the United States, the
following, to wit:
Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, (except the Parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James Ascension, Assumption,
Terrebonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the City of New Orleans) Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina,
North Carolina, and Virginia, (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkley, Accomac, Northampton,
Elizabeth City, York, Princess Ann, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth[)], and which excepted parts, are for the present,
left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.
I will reply further now to:
Family farmers did not want to have to compete with slave labor. They knew that slave labor, which is wrong, put them at an unfair advantage
economically, and they were not about to let themselves be dominated by slave owners. For this reason I say Thank God that the civil war was fought
when it was fought.
You may be right that small farmers did not want to compete with slave-owning plantationers, but this has nothing to do with why the war was fought.
The American working class is being undermined today by illegal immigrant workers, but there is nothing being done about it. The only thing that made
slavery an issue during the Civil War, was economic warfare. As I think I have proven now. In fact, I dare say that the Civil Rights movement probably
would have come about sooner and with greater success if it had not been for the Civil War.
More to come...
[edit on 1/14/0808 by jackinthebox]