So when you say that the South had slavery forced upon them and that they were reluctant slave-holders throughout the existence of the U.S. then you were just joshing with us, is that it?
3. Those who opposed it often reluctantly maintained it (Jefferson, Lee, etc.) because they had no answer for the question "And then what?" with regards to the newly freed slaves (which the North DEFINITELY didn't answer).
Jefferson had an answer. He wanted them forcibly removed to Haiti. What do you think of that? Change your opinions of the man any?
Many were essentially "family" with their masters, helping raise and school children, attending church, etc. and all were provided for cradle-to-grave.
You make it sound so altruistic. You forget that slaves were property and not people. They had no rights and could be sold at a whim. And that the cradle ended young and the grave tended to arrive early. Is that the kind of existence that you would like?
Also, most Southerners understood first-hand that throwing them out to the wolves would be cruel, and they'd be turned into unskilled paupers and political pawns, but that was the North's answer.
So instead they planned on keeping them as property for generations to come. Pure altruism at its finest. </sarcasm>
Do you need me to give you page numbers and references for you to ignore again or is that enough for now?
No, I can dig up Durand's fairy tales on my own. Thanks for offering though.
The sad part of your logic is that you find it acceptable to judge past generations through modern glasses and treat your own unsubstantiated opinions as equivalent to documented evidence of that time. People who cast themselves on such a moral pedestal don’t have to travel far to portray heinous acts as a “duty” or “right” to justify themselves in spite of the law. History has too many examples to list.
So, was the economic and ideological agenda of “preserving the union” (Lincoln’s self-declared motivation for invading the South) then so morally superior as to justify 600,000 casualties? Since he stated AFTER starting the war that he’d re-accept the states WITH slavery intact so long as they’d return to the union, and in ‘65 was working to deport the slaves to Panama, you can’t genuinely weigh the half-million deaths against the abolition of slavery since that was never the motivation. Slavery = bad. Hundreds of thousands dead in the name of “union”=good.
In light of the atrocities in the name on “union”, the North had to come up with a palatable narrative, and slavery it was. Forget that northerners had zero first-hand knowledge of the social dynamic in the South. Forget that many abolitionists realized the horrors of war and begged to let the South secede peacefully. I guess in the world according to your morals, the two wrongs of slavery plus 600,000 deaths makes a right and that’s that.