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To: Donald Meaker
I am saying that REL was a creature of his times.

Some of us know better now.

Others, not so sure.

What you're trying desperately not to admit is that there were and are differences in northerners and Southerners and geography plays a part.

The north was settled by the Puritans of mostly Welsh and English stock.

The South was settled by Cavaliers of Irish and Scottish blood.

That in itself is enough to start a war.

(BTW, I can trace my ancestors to Ireland and Scotland.)

613 posted on 07/15/2006 5:12:39 AM PDT by cowboyway (My heroes have always been Cowboys)
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To: cowboyway

The difference didn't seem to start a war when Jackson was President.

Only when the "rights" of the southern slave powers were threatened by the legal victory of a President belonging to a party that wanted to limit slavery to its current extent, as had the Northwest Ordinance, only then was it a cause for war.

The Slavers sought to continue their position, gained by oppression of both blacks (in the obvious way) and whites ( by drafting them into the militia, used for slave patrols), and open western lands for their expansion. Southern agricultural practices were not efficient, intending to get the maximum out of land in a few years, followed by selling out, dissolving the slave property, and starting again further west.

The Southern fire eaters had overinvested (speculated) in slave property, and closing territories to their property would have depressed the value of their investment.

That, dear gentlemen, is the reason for the war. They demanded that the Union be run to their advantage, or they would quit, and drag out as much as they could get away with out of spite. It cost about 900,000 lives to resolve their issue. They lost.

So did the poor whites drafted two and three times over into the southern slave patrol-militia, then into the "Confederate" army, then, after being wounded and sent home to recover, they were again often drafted into state militias. Meanwhile the wealthy slavers arranged that they didn't have to go if they owned a certain number of slaves.

Sure, there were injustices in the north too. No doubt. I don't buy the Lost Cause stuff, mostly invented (and i have read primary sources on that) after the war to justify their rebellion.

didn't seem to start a


620 posted on 07/15/2006 12:50:38 PM PDT by Donald Meaker (Brother, can you Paradigm?)
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