Posted on 05/20/2014 8:57:04 AM PDT by Sioux-san
I think you have a very idealistic, but inaccurate, view of the matter. Abolitionists were a despised, very small minority, and rightly so. They were genocidal fanatics. “Union” and trumped outrage of Sumter were the themes that were used to sell Lincoln’s war. The “revisionism” in the history of the war is mainly Northern, an attempt to whitewash an unlawful war, the dictatorship of Lincoln, and Northern war crimes.
Obviously, no one wants slavery, but that was not “the cause” of the war.
If the South had had the sense to abolish slavery early in the war, it would likely have swayed public opinion overwhelmingly to the South’s favor both at home and abroad. Had the South succeeded in splitting off from the US, however, one wonders what the future would have held for the new Confederate States of America.
And it was.
If the South were to secede again I would immediately get the hell out of Ohio and head South. In fact, the South has a better reason to secede NOW than it even did before.
To remind the reparations pimps of all the lives, blood and treasure spent to free the slaves would take all the wind out of their sails and so is therefore politically incorrect.
Think what you want.
And, at the time, the Confederacy did indeed want slavery, so I don’t know what you mean.
I also don’t know why you want to align your view of history with the left.
Executive Mansion,
Washington, August 22, 1862.
Hon. Horace Greeley:
Dear Sir.
I have just read yours of the 19th. addressed to myself through the New-York Tribune. If there be in it any statements, or assumptions of fact, which I may know to be erroneous, I do not, now and here, controvert them. If there be in it any inferences which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not now and here, argue against them. If there be perceptable in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend, whose heart I have always supposed to be right.
As to the policy I “seem to be pursuing” as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt.
I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be “the Union as it was.” If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.
I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every where could be free.
Yours,
A. Lincoln.
I think that the mechanization of cotton picking and processing was making the need for human labor obsolete. Very few of the Southerners owned slaves. To your question about what would have happened if the Southern states had successfully split off, I think it depends on how long it took to recover from the devastation and not suffering at the hands of the Reconstruction carpetbaggers who made matters even worse?
Here is an excellent summary of the issues from someone who was living through it:
http://freenorthcarolina.blogspot.com/2014/05/if-i-were-southerner-as-i-am-northerner.html
Golden Circle bump to your super accurate post.
I, and everyone else, is aware of that letter.
The letter in fact reiterated it was about slavery.
That’s the odd thing about citing it, but it’s the only straw to grasp and it is easily misunderstood.
Down here in Dixie we have always referred to it that way. :-)
Thanks. Image at the end of the post has been dropped.
Here’s a link to similar images:
https://www.google.com/search?q=confederate+money+art&client=firefox-a&hs=x5p&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=sJh7U7CUApCRyAS0soH4CQ&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ&biw=1920&bih=838
“I, and everyone else, is aware of that letter.
The letter in fact reiterated it was about slavery.
That’s the odd thing about citing it, but it’s the only straw to grasp and it is easily misunderstood.”
I read the letter as giving absolute primacy to saving the Union, over the issue of slavery or anything else. A decision theorist would say that Lincoln’s preferences were lexicographic in: (preservation of the union and all else).
I did not offer any opinion. I only tried to let everyone draw their own conclusion. It certainly gives deeper insight to Abraham Lincoln’s conviction on the subject.
I don’t see how you could disagree with that.
It seems you were disagreeing with something I didn’t say. Or, at least it seems that way. If not I apologize.
Regards.
Ok.
Destroying slavery is clearly delineated as the means.
My family very definitely fought on both sides. I have yet to establish if they actually ever shot at one another. Presumably, since I'm sitting here, some of them got missed.
“Destroying slavery is clearly delineated as the means.”
But not the end or, as Lincoln said, the “object.”: “My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery.”
When people argue whether the Civil War was “about” slavery, the argument is centered around a discussion of ends, not means. Otherwise, one could say that the CW was “about” conscription, naval blockades, or myriad other “means” or methods by which the North achieved its object or “end.”
If you include as tyranny the owning of a human being as if they were a horse or a cow then the tyranny went on a lot longer prior to the Civil War than after.
If people were taught an honest view of that part in our nations history several things would come out. But historians are more interested in protecting the divinity of Lincoln and maintaining the southern image of being filled with ignorant white banjo picking racists.
Instead, it is condensed in to a one line reason. “Lincoln wanted to free the slaves.”
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