Hmmmmmmmm......... I didn't think that the civil war was fought soley on the subject of slavery.

Origins of the American Civil War - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Slavery was the overwhelming and indispensible issue. Without it there would never have been a war. Present day apologists like to pretend otherwise but those who initiated the war had no qualms about saying it out loud.

Alexander Stephens - VP of the confederacy wanted to:
“put to rest forever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institutions–African slavery as it exists among us–the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution.” According to him the confederacy was “founded upon......the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and moral condition.”

Confederate President Jefferson Davis blamed the war on “a persistent and organized system of hostile measures against the rights of the owners of slaves in the Southern States”

All the confederate state declarations of secession cited salvery. Mississippi's was the most direct.
"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."

Obviously the examples could go on and on. Whatever other arguments were proposed at the time or since, they were a sideshow to the main issue of the preservation of slavery. It always baffles me that people waste their time trying to hide facts that the rebels themselves had no scruple about stating in unequivocal terms.

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The most important political office is that of private citizen.
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In the nineteenth century "liberal" meant someone who favored small government, free markets, free trade, property rights, tax cuts, and individual liberty. In the United States, since the Roosevelt Administration, liberalism has come to be in opposition to all that, including individual liberty, nowadays liberals tend favor "collective rights" rather than individual ones.

The conservatives of the day would have been the Whigs in the U.S. and the Tories/Conservative Party in England.

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Confederates had the coolest uniforms.

Yep, and IMO, a nice flag.

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My GG Grandfather fought in almost every major engagement and a slew of minor ones in the 26th Georgia Infantry Regiment. I used to think it was all about states rights until I looked for states rights in the Constitution. No slavery, no war.

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"It Happens"
Forrest Gump

Exactly passfan. "States rights" is just a phrase used by conservatives so that they can undermine the federal governments efforts to make this a better nation. We all know that the this nation failed twice as a confederacy and conservatives still keep trying to turn this nation into a "state's rights" country.

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Is our children learning? -George W. Bush

"I think—tide turning—see, as I remember—I was raised in the desert, but tides kind of—it's easy to see a tide turn—did I say those words?"—Washington, D.C., June 14, 2006

"[T]he illiteracy level of our children are appalling."—Washington, D.C., Jan. 23, 2004

It was intended by our founding fathers that any issue not covered in the Constitution will be left up to the individual states to decide upon. Hence the term states rights.

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I can see you enjoy completely ignoring the history of our nation, as well as the Constitution. This nation was formed on the principle of states rights in all cases not covered by the Constitution.

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Success is measured in blood; yours or your enemy's.

I think you're forgetting that the nation was on the brink of being dissolved while operating under the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union. The Constitution was formed when it became readily apparent that a strong centralized government was necessary. 80 years after the Constitution was ratified State's Rights conservatives once again tried to destroy this nation.

During the Civil War(a.k.a. The War Of Souther Intransigence.) conservatives made the exact same mistakes that were made after the U.S. declared itself independent. They enacted a weak central government and left everything to "state's rights". As the war continued, the state governments became more insular and became ever more dedicated to the defense of their own borders. This silliness allowed the United States to crush the rebellion into dust.

And now we STILL have people talking about "state's rights". I wonder if these individuals who advocate insurrection have ever read a history book.

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Is our children learning? -George W. Bush

"I think—tide turning—see, as I remember—I was raised in the desert, but tides kind of—it's easy to see a tide turn—did I say those words?"—Washington, D.C., June 14, 2006

"[T]he illiteracy level of our children are appalling."—Washington, D.C., Jan. 23, 2004

IMO, to bring up the CSA as an example of the foolishness of 'states rights' is not only intellectually dishonest, but also ignorant. reason the South lost on the states rights argument was because the rights they were arguing they had as states were not, in fact, delegated to them by the US Constitution.

The concept of states rights is just as valid and vital today as it was when it was written in the Constitution of the United States to begin with. To argue that the US Constitution doesn't support states rights is idiotic.

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Success is measured in blood; yours or your enemy's.

Not being American myself, I however, support the intigrety of US-territory and oppose sepperation of any US-state.



Additionally, I would like to add that this war was far more then just set the slaves free.

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Although a native Californian myself, my parents have pictures of relatives up in their house who died at Chickamagua (spelling?) and Antietam wearing blue.

They also have many of the letters those poor kids sent home. Plain, simple and heartbreaking.

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All things serve The Beam

Actually, Lincoln Lied, People Died!

He sold the war to the northern population with the promise of returning the slaves to Africa.

Only partially fulfilled - hence Liberia.

Shame, too. Would have been nice to only have blacks [and their descendants] here in America who came [back] of their own free will. It'd be a different country.

Never met a black immigrant from Africa that didn't enjoy the shit out of my country and love every minute of being here. They usually speak better (or, well, more "proper") English than I do, too. No wonder elements among American black advocates are looking to have them excluded from Affirmative Action programs. "Yeah, they're 'black', but not the right kind of black," apparently.

NYT Article to that effect: Top Colleges Take More Blacks, but Which Ones?

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"Compassionate Conservatism"?!?! That is a stupid phrase. Conservatism is inherently compassionate. It is liberalism that is cruel for the sake of maintaining a constituency.

Oh, please.

In the first place, that's not true. The war was originally sold to the northern population on the basis of preserving the union, and freeing the slaves was only added as a war aim a year or so into it.

In the second place, while Lincoln did have a vague plan to ship the freedmen out of the country, either to Africa or to South America, he was in no position to try to implement it after the slaves had been freed, inasmuch as he was dead. So that failure hardly constitutes a lie.

And in the third place, it was a ridiculous idea from the get-go. There was no place on earth where that many people could have been shipped en masse and been able to support themselves. There was really no choice but to liberate and try to assimilate them where they were.

Well, I take it back. It was possible to semi-liberate them, changing their status as slaves to a kind of serfdom, where they were, and not try to assimilate them at all. That's what was actually done, but I hardly think Lincoln is to blame for it.

And I suppose there was another possibility, too. But Hitler had not been born yet to suggest it by example. To our credit, no Americans thought of it on our own or if they did, they weren't willing to implement it. The closest we came was lynching.

Henry Gates, Jr. has a point. The problems faced by African-Americans isn't due to their race, but to the fact that they come from a culture of liberated slaves, with all the baggage that entails, both internal and external to said culture. That all members of said culture are black is incidental. The majority of blacks in the world aren't from that culture. Immigrants (from Africa as much as anywhere) have their own problems, but not the same ones, and affirmative action (whether or not you support the concept itself) wasn't designed to help immigrants. At least I don't think so.