Replies

Is it not true that slavery is the focus of the page and that anything else is excluded? Of course it is. Slavery as the reason for the war is the point you are trying to make.

Again, you are free to post quotes showing that slavery was not the single most important reason for the rebellion. Why won't you?

You may have noticed that I haven't cited many sources in the 7 or 4 eight years I've been enjoying this place That's my right. Prove me wrong with something that doesn't have an agenda or that isn't just your opinion. If that doesn't work for you, just ignore me. You won't lose a thing and I know I won't, apart from some entertainment.

Actually I don't recall reading any of you past posts. So for my benefit please cite some of those sources again. The unbiased ones, of course.

While you are being industrious, look up when and where the slaves were emancipated. Just so you know what to look for, in 1862 slaves in states controlled by the Confederacy were freed. The slaves in Maryland, Kentucky and other areas that allowed slavery but were generally under the control of the Federals did not get to be free yet.

Not entirely true. Slavery was ended in the District of Columbia in April 1862 because constitutionally Congress had the power to do so. Slavery could not legally be ended in those states not in rebellion because the President and the Congress lacked the authority to do so. In a strict legal sense, the Emancipation Proclamation did not end slavery in the southern states as well, it merely freed all slaves held there on the grounds that they were used to support the rebellion. It took an amendment to end slavery, North and south, and Lincoln pushed hard to have it adopted.

Are you sure you are not a DemocRAT? Just give in to us and everything will be fine. That sounds much like the RATs and the antiwar movement.

Aren't you parroting the Democrat line then? All Anderson had to do was surrender. Just give in, and everything would be fine and dandy. Nice and peaceful and, by your definition, very Democrat. But there was no reason why Anderson should have left Sumter. It was his post, he was an officer in the U.S. Army defending a U.S. fort in a U.S. city. He had every right to be there, and Lincoln was well within his authority to send him supplies and prevent him from being starved into submission.

Good morning.

We are stalled in building our house until more materials come in so I'll continue.

You gave me permission to post quotes, no, you implied that my position wasn't valid without them, so here are a few.

This has been an interesting thread, hasn't it.

"I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the United States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so..."
Abraham Lincoln in his inaugural address, 3/4/1861

"My paramount objective in this struggle is to save the Union and it is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave 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 save the Union."
Abraham Lincoln in a letter to Horace Greeley in 1862

"The Southern Confederacy will not employ our ships or buy our goods. What is our shipping without it? Literally nothing... It is clear that the South gains by this process and we lose. No --- we must NOT let the South go."
from the Union Democrat, Manchester, New Hampshire, 2/19/1861

"That either revenue from duties must be collected in the ports of the rebel states, or the ports must be closed to importation from abroad....If neither of these things be done, our revenue laws will be substantially repealed, the sources of our treasury will be dried up..."
from the New York Evening Post, 3/12/1861

"I pity them greatly, but I must be mum, for how could we do without sugar and rum."
British poet William Cowper(1731-1800) in a poem about slaves

"Our situation illustrates the American idea that governments rest upon the consent of the governed and it is the right of the people to alter or abolish them whenever they become destructive of the ends for which they were established."
Jefferson Davis

"All we ask is to be left alone."
Jefferson Davis in his first speech to the Confederate Congress

"Surrender means that the history of this heroic struggle will be written by the enemy..."
Confederate General Patrick Cleburne

At the beginning of the war, four states VA, NC, SC and GA provided somewhere around 75% of the revenue to the federal government under the Morrill tariff.

Regarding the beginning of the war, the first act of the new Confederate President was to send peace delegates to meet with the United States. Lincoln refused see them.

As to those opening shots at Fort Sumter, Lincoln had already dispatched Gustavus Fox with a fleet and some 1500 troops to set up what was essentially a blockade of Charleston harbor. When the South fired on the fort, they gave Abe the pretext he wanted to call up 75,00 troops and begin the war. Since the Union troops at the fort lowered their colors within two days and were allowed to be returned safely to the Union, despite the presence of a large force to help them, I have to assume that was the plan in the first place. Trying to turn my snide comment to you back on me was slick, but not applicable to this situation.

Slavery is morally reprehensible, as it has been when practiced by every race that has ever lived on earth, but it was only a part of the reason our ancestors killed each other, and it wasn't ended by Lincoln for reasons of morality.

As I said, this has been an interesting thread. One of the things I have learned is that there are virtually no unbiased sources.

Michael Frazier