A quote from the civil war, before it ended. You all should read this.

Yeah. Slavery was the reason for the civil war.

But not because of some moral quandry. No, that was for the philosophical crowd. And the philosophical crowd doesn't have money. But you know who HAS money, right?

Northern industrialists. They have money. Enough of it to sway political bodies. And since they weren't able to use slave labor in their factories, they thought it unfair that the farmers of the south COULD benefit from that atrocity.

While slavery ending may have been a positive thing, it was s sham. The only thing that really changed was the institution of slavery. It was still firmly in place via social distinction. And even though many men fought to free the slaves from the institutionalized slavery, their racist actions otherwise did nothing to truly free anyone.

reply to post by xstealth


This is a sadly worthless thread topic with a slant that is imho acting as an anchor holding back a nation trying to move onward.

So what this might tell us is that, minus slavery, we are nearing a second "civil" war for much of the same reasons. Actually, to many, the 2nd one could very well be about slavery also... just a variation of that which we are so familiar with from our history.

The winners write history. In turn, it's amusing that the south is labeled dumb and racist.

Thanks for the insight OP

It's pretty much the exact same statement as "history is written by the victors, not the losers".

A strong statement, none the less.

I love all of this speculation on history and who said he said she said.
Bottom line, history is written by the victors, and ALL of it is speculation unless you were actually there to witness it.
This is the FACT.
When sacking nations, the common thing to do is destroy museums and libraries.

reply to post by RealSpoke


Really now, aren't we all nothing more than slaves? He didnt really free anyone. Think about it for a second.

With slaves the master paid for health care, food, housing, clothes.......

Now with free men....the slave pays health care, food, housing, clothes, and makes a taxable wage that the master had to pay...which in turn came up to more than what they paid intially for the afore mentioned. Not to mention that as slaves they were cared for better i nthe sense of health.

Blacks didnt really become free of anything until MLK came along, and that was only because JFK was a decent human being. Up until that point blacks didn't really gain much ground on anything other than becoming a new pool for tax revenue that the Gov could leech off of.

Now that being said, if blacks were really free and equal at that time, why did it take another 80-90 years for them to gain actual civil rights in stone socially? And ole Abe free'd the slaves for 2 main points here and only after heavy consultation with Fredrick Douglas. They needed more fodder for the cannons, and a political move aimed at further garnering his support not only for the war effort, but for the slaves still trapped in the south.

It was a desperate move that paid off. many have said it here before, history IS written by the winner. And ole Abe wasn't as comfy with the slave folk as one would think he was. heck the North owned more slaves than the south did as it was more proportionate to the rich folk than anything. The only real people in the south that owned any slaves was the plantaion owners who were rich enough to afford them in the first place. That eluded to other business because said plantation owners were not just farmers.

And when we talk about blacks here, understand that most modern blacks are not full black, most are a quarter white from ole randy draggin em behind the wood pile. hence the lighter skin tone in some black genetics. Mrs. Obama is a fine example as one of her long lost relatives is white.

Your average joe did not generally own slaves.

And no, the war was not orginally about slavery, it was more about taxation. Both sides borrowed from England, and we're still paying the queen back to the day in taxes paid to the IRS because of the funding needed from that war.

I know I know......prove it right? Somethings are better left alone....like the war of northern aggression should be.

reply to post by xstealth


Interesting points. History is written by the "winners ". War is very profitable to the investors. Slavery was just a scape goat to rationalize the war. Even after slaves were "freed" they were kept in poverty which is just another form of slavery.

reply to post by xstealth


I don't understand why all you are trying to make this guy out as a "hero". Regardless of what other reasons the Civil War was fought for the bottom line is it lead to slavery being abolished which is well worth the loss of some petty state rights and 600k American lifes.

Originally posted by xstealth
“Every man should endeavor to understand the meaning of subjugation before it is too late… It means the history of this heroic struggle will be written by the enemy; that our youth will be trained by Northern schoolteachers; will learn from Northern school books their version of the war; will be impressed by the influences of history and education to regard our gallant dead as traitors, and our maimed veterans as fit objects for derision… It is said slavery is all we are fighting for, and if we give it up we give up all. Even if this were true, which we deny, slavery is not all our enemies are fighting for. It is merely the pretense to establish sectional superiority and a more centralized form of government, and to deprive us of our rights and liberties.”


Maj. General Patrick R. Cleburne, CSA, January 1864

History was correct as this CSA General, Patrick R. Cleburne told it. There was had an anti slavery component to it, but it really was about "Federalism" and a centralized government. But the North used the slave issue like the US government used 9/11 to foster a unified hatred of their enemy. Propaganda existed then as it does now today. And we today are heading for a second civil war, only this time it really will be about free states verses the "Federalists".

reply to post by Kastogere


True, most American blacks are not really blacks at all but mixed white/black races. Obama is half white and half black. The proper race name for the black race is "negroid", which btw is not an insulting slang. Brown people saying they are "black" is like chocolate milk saying it's chocolate.

Now, the difference between a slave of that day and today is that today's slave gets to come and go as he pleases and have a cell phone, a Tv, and an ipod. And live in a house he thinks he owns. But he is still a slave. When you go to work for money, what you are really doing is "selling yourself" to that employer "master" for a period of time. But you must do so all the time to keep your sense of freedom. But you are not free at all. Every day you go to work you sell yourself again and again. You, are a slave. We, are all slaves, to the federal government. They tax you and therefore you must pay that tax. And there are taxes for everything in your life.

Now, here is what freedom was in America, pre civil war. When you owned property, it was "your" property. It wasn't taxed, and it stayed in your family for generations. When you worked, you were paid and "all" of that money was yours to keep and prosper by. Those who worked had their eyes on the future to be land owners and business owners and to be free. There were no taxes except that which was lawful under the Constitution.

Believe it or not, the real free people are the very poor. They have nothing, so no one can take what they don't have. People feed them and house them so they don't have to sell their bodies in voluntary slavery to earn money to give to someone else just to exist in an illusion of freedom.

Today as we speak millions of people are moving from the unemployment lines to the disability lines. This is not because they are poor or disabled but because they are leeches. yet they too are slaves, because at some point they will be forced to work to earn what money the federal government gives them.

Slavery then, slavery now. The only difference is the year, nothing more.

reply to post by Fromabove


I think that's a bit insulting to the memory of all the slaves in the past. Are you forced to get up at the crack of dawn and go farm someone else's land, under penalty of beating and/or death? Do you work relentlessly for several hours a day, making exactly $0 for your hard labor? Are you forced to live in specified quarters with dozens of other people? Were you or your parents/grandparents captured against your will and sold as literal property in some foreign country you didn't even know existed?

I think I've made my point. People equating modern "slavery" to actual historical slavery are jokers. Yes, we live in a crappy society, but it's still 1000x better than being an African slave in America.

reply to post by xstealth


Too bad that's not what the southern states cited when they seceded.

They said it as 100% about slavery.

Originally posted by HunkaHunka
reply to post by xstealth

 

Too bad that's not what the southern states cited when they seceded.

They said it as 100% about slavery.

100%? No.

And, when people say it is about slavery, they don't necessarily mean it is about racism and keeping another man down, they mean it is about the economic impacts of changing an industry. If the Federal Government wanted to change minimum wage from $7 to $50 per hour, it would cause a huge concern in certain industries. If all those industries were in the same geographic location, they might want to opt out!

The North was already taxing the hell out of the Southern exports, and then taking that money and reinvesting it in Northern Industries, and then all of a sudden they wanted to also destroy the laborforce that was supporting those industries, and it was just the final straw in a complicated situation.

reply to post by xstealth

It is more in sorrow than anger that I post this reply. It has always been the empty canard of bigoted, die-hard, pro-confederacy rednecks like most of the readers of this website that the civil war was not really about slavery but was just the method which the North used to subjugate the fine, God-fearing people of the Southern States and deprive them of their rights and property. To that I reply thusly: Other than ending slavery, express succinctly one other manner in which winning the Civil War caused the Laws of the United States to change. You cannot think of any because there were no such changes. Excepting for the abolition of slavery, the North's victory in the civil war caused no changes whatever in the Laws of the Nation. Hence your argument is specious, disingenuous, and generally without the slightest foundation. Yes the War was about slavery, or to put it in simpler terms, the War was fought to answer the question, shall it be in accord with the laws of our nation that we shall permit the ownership of one human being by another in the same sense that we permit ownership by a man of a horse, a dog, a stack of wood, a parcel of land? In fact, the real issue here is not even slavery, it is rather the inability of a certain segment of the population to accept that those who were once slaves are in fact deserving of being considered full-fledged human beings. There is no way to convince those of you who hold these views to come out of your veils of ignorance. One can only hope that with the passage of time, when death has finally removed your sorry posterior portions from taking up space on the planet, that eventually, after many generations have come and gone, reason will penetrate the thick crania of your distant progeny

Originally posted by deerislander
reply to post by xstealth

 

It is more in sorrow than anger that I post this reply. It has always been the empty canard of bigoted, die-hard, pro-confederacy rednecks like most of the readers of this website that the civil war was not really about slavery but was just the method which the North used to subjugate the fine, God-fearing people of the Southern States and deprive them of their rights and property. To that I reply thusly: Other than ending slavery, express succinctly one other manner in which winning the Civil War caused the Laws of the United States to change. You cannot think of any because there were no such changes. Excepting for the abolition of slavery, the North's victory in the civil war caused no changes whatever in the Laws of the Nation. Hence your argument is specious, disingenuous, and generally without the slightest foundation. Yes the War was about slavery, or to put it in simpler terms, the War was fought to answer the question, shall it be in accord with the laws of our nation that we shall permit the ownership of one human being by another in the same sense that we permit ownership by a man of a horse, a dog, a stack of wood, a parcel of land? In fact, the real issue here is not even slavery, it is rather the inability of a certain segment of the population to accept that those who were once slaves are in fact deserving of being considered full-fledged human beings. There is no way to convince those of you who hold these views to come out of your veils of ignorance. One can only hope that with the passage of time, when death has finally removed your sorry posterior portions from taking up space on the planet, that eventually, after many generations have come and gone, reason will penetrate the thick crania of your distant progeny

Ok, heres one:

The Constitutional right of the sovereign states to secede from a willful union was obliterated. It turned our Constitutional Republic into a Federalized Bastard Child Of Corporatocracy.

LIke I said, tell me how slavery ended, other than it being on paper? Was the black man afforded social opportunities by those who sought (and fought) to free them? If so, then why did Abe Lincoln himself express doubts over the level of true humanity that non-white people have?

How do you ignore his stated feelings on the matter? Are there many pictures of Honest Abe standing and fraternizing with men of color?

It seems that there are a lot of actions that are focused on, but the words behind them are ignored. Yes, slavery was the issue of the war. But not from a human rights standpoint. It was all because the southern farmers were able to accumulate what the northern industrialists that was disproportionate wealth because they were able to employ free labor. Because of this, the southern states had a lot of pull politically, despite the northern states being more populous.

In politics, money = power. The industrialists didn't like this, and sought to capitalize on the sentiments of the more populous, and seemingly more morally reasonable northerners by waging a war against slavery. Like today, however, even though the general direction is the same, the real goals differ between the wealthy and the working class. We, the working class, wanted slavery to end because it was wrong. They, the wealthy, wanted it to end so they could reduce competition for power in political offices.

Originally posted by getreadyalready

Originally posted by HunkaHunka
reply to post by xstealth

 

Too bad that's not what the southern states cited when they seceded.

They said it as 100% about slavery.

100%? No.

And, when people say it is about slavery, they don't necessarily mean it is about racism and keeping another man down, they mean it is about the economic impacts of changing an industry. If the Federal Government wanted to change minimum wage from $7 to $50 per hour, it would cause a huge concern in certain industries. If all those industries were in the same geographic location, they might want to opt out!

The North was already taxing the hell out of the Southern exports, and then taking that money and reinvesting it in Northern Industries, and then all of a sudden they wanted to also destroy the laborforce that was supporting those industries, and it was just the final straw in a complicated situation.

Succinct and truthful.

Just like history SHOULD be.

Originally posted by xstealth

Originally posted by petrus4

I don't consider Lincoln a tyrant.

If arresting journalists, invading sovereign states, authorizing the burning of American properties and homes, disarming citizens, and killing 600,000 Americans isn't tyrannical, then what is?

I'm not going to argue with you, that he should have allowed the South to secede. I've been inclined to believe that pretty much all of America's foreign conflicts since, have been re-enactments of the Civil War, at least in some respects, in other people's countries. If Lincoln had allowed the secession, that would not have happened.

I'm also not going to necessarily claim that the man was a saint. I said that I thought he was one of the best of a relatively bad lot; as in, the line of Presidents.

I would suggest reading about the level of grief which accompanied his death, however. Tyrants don't customarily get that level of mourning. Although it obviously wasn't widespread, there was even some regret expressed in the South over the assassination.

Originally posted by xstealth

Originally posted by petrus4

I don't consider Lincoln a tyrant.

If arresting journalists, invading sovereign states, authorizing the burning of American properties and homes, disarming citizens, and killing 600,000 Americans isn't tyrannical, then what is?

It isn't tyrannical, it's war. When you decide to engage in war, you are inviting the ultimate in destruction because you are offering the ultimate in destruction.

Everyone loses in war, it's just that one side loses a bit more.

Those in the South referred to it a "The War of Northern Aggression". Many still do. Anyway, just thought I'd share that with those that may not know it.

reply to post by fenceSitter


The "enemy" is the banking cartels that have co-opted your system out from underneath you. That is who started the "Revolution," as well as every major war that you have taken part in since. Maybe you should give them the "thanks" they deserve. The enemy is not anyone who pertains to a certain religious, social or political dogma, the enemy is those who seek to pervert political systems and religions as an excuse to bring them down. Look up the Hegellian Dialectic (Thesis - Anthithesis - Synthesis or Problem - Reaction - Solution) They create a problem, then tailor the reaction, then they come out with a solution that sounds beneficial to us but is only beneficial for the power elite.