Posted on 01/18/2019 2:50:51 PM PST by tjd1454
The bloodiest war that the United States ever fought did not take place on a foreign battlefield, but raged on American soil, as brother took up arms against brother over the issue of slavery. The war began with the bombardment of Fort Sumter, South Carolina on April 12, 1861, and ended in the Spring of 1865, when Robert E. Lee surrendered the Confederate army to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse. The modest brick structure standing forlornly in a field in central Virginia belies the magnitude of the human tragedy, with an estimated 620,000 killed – almost as many as in all foreign wars combined.
The war led to the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment (Amendment XIII) to the United States Constitution, which abolished slavery and involuntary servitude. But while the facts of this violent conflict are familiar to students of American history, what is less-known is that the practice of slavery continues unabated. According to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), every year millions of men, women, and children are the victims of trafficking, which involves the use of force, fraud, or coercion to compel an individual against their will to perform some type of labor or commercial sex act. The DHS estimates that many billions of dollars per year are generated by human trafficking, which is second only to drug trafficking as the most profitable transnational crime.
Traffickers seek those who are susceptible because of psychological or emotional vulnerability, economic hardship, or in many cases children who are unable to protect themselves against predators. Doctors Without Borders reports that two-thirds of migrants traveling through Mexico to the United States experience violence, including theft, torture, and rape. As the DHS notes, “The trauma caused by the traffickers can be so great that many may not identify themselves as victims or ask for help.”
Responding to the crisis, President Donald Trump has proclaimed January as “National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month.” Referring to human trafficking as “a modern form of slavery,” the President pledged to “actively work to prevent and end this barbaric exploitation of innocent victims.”
The President noted that the lack of an impregnable barrier has enabled traffickers to transport their victims into the United States with virtual impunity. Accordingly, “I have made it a top priority to fully secure our Nation’s Southwest border, including through the continued construction of a physical wall, so that we can stop human trafficking and stem the flow of deadly drugs and criminals into our country.”
Trump refuses to sign a spending bill that does not contain funding for a border wall. Seemingly oblivious to the dangers of an unsecured border, speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) calls a wall “an immorality between countries; it’s an old way of thinking.” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) agreed, stating: “This president just used the backdrop of the Oval Office to manufacture a crisis (and) stoke fear.” Meanwhile, in 2018 almost 400,000 people were apprehended after illegally crossing the border.
The battle is also raging in cyberspace, as human traffickers recruit their victims through websites. In April 2018, the FBI shut down the nation’s largest child-sex trafficking website, Backpage.com. The FBI alleged that Backpage.com encouraged the posting of ads for prostitution and the human trafficking of minors. As a result, Backpage.com CEO Carl Ferrer was convicted on charges of facilitating prostitution and money laundering.
While the bill signed in April led to the closing of an estimated 87 percent of human trafficking sites, the demand is such that other players in the lucrative online sex-for-hire market have since moved in to fill the void. The software company Marinus Analytics reports that in a one-month period after Backpage.com was shut down, an average of 146,000 online sex ads were posted every day.
The horrors of human trafficking in our day rivals the slavery of a bygone era. One can only hope that sufficient numbers of those who possess the determination of an Abraham Lincoln will arise to at long last bring it to an end at a modern-day Appomattox.
Amazing article something has to be done to put an end to this modern-day slavery. Let’s hope Trump means what he says and is devoting the necessary law enforcement resources to finish the job.
“The bloodiest war that the United States ever fought did not take place on a foreign battlefield, but raged on American soil, as brother took up arms against brother over the issue of slavery.”
The opening sentence caught my attention.
If the South was fighting for slavery, who was fighting against slavery?
"Donald J. Trump Verified account
@realDonaldTrump 3m3 minutes ago
I will be making a major announcement concerning the Humanitarian Crisis on our Southern Border, and the Shutdown, tomorrow afternoon at 3 P.M., live from the @WhiteHouse.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1086395559504764930
The trafficking described above is a small price to pay for getting to stick our thumb in Trump’s eye and denying him a win. - Democrats
And here is this bullsh*t again. No, the war wasn't fought to stop slavery, the war was fought to stop states from getting away from the oppressive taxation and rule by Washington DC and their capitalist crony corruptocrats in New York.
Same thing going on today. Yes, the Washington/New York corruptocrats are still running things.
The first thing the North did in an attempt to stop the Southern states from leaving the control of Washington was to pass the Corwin Amendment, protecting slavery forever!
So stop feeding people the bullsh*t that anyone started a war to destroy slavery. They didn't.
Consider that there are women who would prefer to come to the US as a sex worker, than remain in places like Venezuela.
Had never heard of the Corwin Amendment.
Now I have.
Thanks.
The Texans who fought the Yankees--and won--at the Battle of Palmito Ranch on May 13, 1865 and the sailors aboard the Yankee whalers who were captured by the CSS Shenandoah that summer would have been amused to know that the war had already ended with Lee's surrender.
Trick question?
The North, Republicans,etc
The main problem with our current immigration policy isn’t the trafficking. It’s the effect on the people who are already here — the welfare expense, the loss of common language, the spread of dangerous and backward-looking religions, wage level depression, and environmental degredation. These problems would exist even if the illegals were not trafficked.
I wish these folks would simply STFU
Not really, but it sounds good. Of the several dates available, that one has the least claim to the end of the war.
April 9, 1865 - Lee only surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia. General St. John Liddell, perhaps the leading Confederate abolitionist, surrendered the same day.
Mosby disbanded April 21
Joseph Johnson surrendered April 26
the President was captured May 10
Last battle was fought May 13-14.
Kirby Smith surrendered May 26
The last Confederate General, Stand Watie, surrendered on June 23.
The last of the naval forces, the CSS Shenandoah, surrendered November 6.
The war was declared over on August 20, 1866
And, of course, on December 24, 1865, a small group of Confederate officers got together in Pulaski, Tennessee.
“The North, Republicans,etc”
That is an interesting comment.
If President Lincoln, Republicans, and the North were fighting to end slavery then we should be able to read Lincoln’s first inaugural address to the nation and see where he says he and the nation will fight to end slavery.
I just read that address the other day and didn’t see where President Lincoln made that reference. In fact, what I read indicated the exact opposite.
Can you help me find where Lincoln said “we are fighting to free the slaves?”
Pundits like to say that generals always want to fight the last war. But anti-slavery crusaders are always crusading against people owning people when the trend for 21st Century slavery is that governments own people. Communists, Socialists, Fascists, World Government elites, and other totalitarians want slaves instead of citizens.
Speech codes, political correctness, and media control enslave minds. Disarming people empowers government authority. A free people must stand in opposition to these trends.
“Same thing going on today. Yes, the Washington/New York corruptocrats are still running things. “
It was a land grab by Northern industrialists and bankers (coastal elites) and they got the rubes to fight it claiming it was about slavery.
the civil war was not fought based upon specific statement made or not made by Lincoln. Even your tagline is overly simplistic and so what. The history of the years prior to the civil war was specifically slave or no slave states and entry into the union. much was stated on the states rights issue but the underlying issue was slavery. Bonners Ferry.
Lincoln wanted to preserve the union but the south wanted to leave for a number of reasons but most especially over the issue of slavery.
It wasn’t about slavery.
Human trafficking, aka slavery, is a very lucrative business for those profiting from it. Humans are delivered into all kinds of forced labor situations across our porous border. During Obama’s reign, thousands of “unaccompanied minors” poured across the border; the Obama administration held them in detention centers until they could call a relative in the US to come and get them. The “relatives” were rarely vetted; as a result, the phone numbers the children were told to use were to traffickers, who pretended to be relatives to gain possession of them.
I am certain that the Democrats know full well the extent of human trafficking, every time they blather on about how those poor illegals are just looking for a better life. If they were serious about wanting people in the third world to have better lives, they would be looking into ways to improve third world dungholes. But, somehow, they never do that.
I am not familiar with that.
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