[the_cleric]

He sent a peace commission to Washington, D.C., after his inauguration, but Abraham Lincoln refused it.

It was Lincoln who put the "War" in "Civil".

Garbage. Lincoln specifically had only non-military supplies sent to Ft Sumter, but the rebels (Gen Beauregard? I forget who was in charge) decided to take it as a provocation anyway and opened fire.

I'm as conservative as the next guy around here, but good riddance to the Confederacy. Owning human beings, and the brutality necessary to enforce that ownership, distorted the souls of an entire culture. In my not-so-humble opinion, the nasty subculture we see in American inner cities is an echo of the nasty subculture that existed in the American South, even after their military defeat.

It's a pity we gave up on Reconstruction so quickly. The occupation of Germany and Japan after WWII was more effective at eradicating their evils.

[Nellie Wilkerson]

Keep telling yourself that. Then you'll never have to let yourself find out about the dirty little racist secrets of the North (i.e., manumission laws that were deliberately designed to rid the north of its black population, etc.) Hey, I can sort of understand why northerners hang onto the lies -- but just remember, they're lies all the same....