[jdege]

now I'm ducking as I don my flameproof jammies.

If South Carolina had not attacked Fort Sumter, there would have been no war. Lincoln may have been bound and determined to "preserve the Union", but Congress had no such determination.

Of course, if it hadn't been for South Carolina's attack on Fort Sumter, Virginia and North Carolina would not have seceded. The Confederacy would have been an economic wreck - an impoverished third-world country, rather than the slavery-spreading empire the secessionists were dreaming of.

[central_va]

The Confederacy would have been an economic wreck - an impoverished third-world country, rather than the slavery-spreading empire the secessionists were dreaming of.

You're sick. Lincoln was a butcher and destroyed states rights. We are all slaves now thanks to your corrupt hero.

[central_va]

My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.

     --Abe Lincoln

[central_va]

"I am not now, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social or political equality of the white and black races. I am not now nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor of intermarriages with white people. There is a physical difference between the white and the black races which will forever forbid the two races living together on social or political equality. There must be a position of superior and inferior, and I am in favor of assigning the superior position to the white man."

      --Abe

[cowboyway]

If South Carolina had not attacked Fort Sumter, there would have been no war. Lincoln may have been bound and determined to "preserve the Union", but Congress had no such determination.

Have another glass.