[dwd1]

Though I do not believe that some of my employers and clients behave as though this 13th amendment truly exists(or perhaps they believe that it does not apply to computer nerds like myself), I think you make an excellent point. I think that if I can get my clients and employers to better understand the 13th and society, in general to understand the equal protection part of the 14th, we are going to be all right...

[wardaddy]

I'm ambivalent about Lincoln.

Some here loathe him. Some love him.

The war did eventually lead to freeing slaves but that was not in my opinion Lincoln's first reason for waging it. I was taught as a boy (in the South) that he fought to preserve the Union and to keep the Cotton states in and I still believe that.

Unfortunately, in doing so, he led to Federal power which has reached proportions that I don't think anyone ever imagined. Call it the "incorporation of the Union" as much as the fight to preserve it. Granted, some before him were also advocates of Federal expansion over local soverignty.

I do wish he had lived. I As a Southerner think he would have offered better terms and his popularity would have kept the RRs in check to a degree.

The incorporation that has taken place from Washington was inevitable given our expansion and industrialization and concentration of populace in the NE at the time. I think many here simply wish the brakes had been applied at some point and Lincoln takes a bit of heat for that.