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To: Sherman Logan
The historical truth is that about 210,000 black men fought in the Union Army. About half were escaped or ex-slaves. Apparently these 100,000+ men weren't aware they were still considered slaves or that they weren't allowed to fight.

The historical truth is that the union didn't allow for the enlistment of blacks until the war was well under way and Lincoln was in a panic because things weren't going very well for the union.

The historical truth is that it took union congressional legislation to allow blacks to enlist.

11 posted on 07/27/2008 2:06:49 PM PDT by cowboyway ("The beauty of the Second Amendment is you won't need it until they try to take it away"--Jefferson)
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To: cowboyway
The historical truth is that the union didn't allow for the enlistment of blacks until the war was well under way...

And the confederacy didn't allow for the enlistment of blacks as combat troops until March 1865. Talk about too littl, too late.

The historical truth is that it took union congressional legislation to allow blacks to enlist.

No sh*t, Sherlock. All legislation is congressional legislation.

14 posted on 07/27/2008 2:34:32 PM PDT by Non-Sequitur
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To: cowboyway
The historical truth is that it took union congressional legislation to allow blacks to enlist.

As it did in the Confederacy.

Union legislation to this effect - July 1862.

Confederate legislation - February 1865.

At which point things weren't going very well for the confederacy. There is very thorough documentation that Confederate enlistment of black soldiers was proposed and finally accepted only as the utter last gasp of desperation.

You seem to be suffering from the common delusion that anyone who thinks the Union cause was on balance the better must also believe that cause to be one of utter and complete goodness, with no racism or other unpleasant factors mixed in. Au contraire, I am fully aware that most whites of the time, north and south, were highly racist by today's standards.

I do not demonize the South. As Lincoln himself said, if I had been in their shoes, I would have not known how to get rid of slavery either. But I wouldn't have started proclaiming a great evil to be a positive good.

The Union was simply less racist than the Confederacy because it fought a great war, one of the causes of which was slavery and one of the consequences of which was the freeing of those slaves. One of, not THE cause.

16 posted on 07/27/2008 2:44:54 PM PDT by Sherman Logan (Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves. - A. Lincoln)
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To: cowboyway

57 posted on 07/28/2008 2:27:25 PM PDT by Bubba Ho-Tep ("More weight!"--Giles Corey)
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