Guess again. It was passed AFTER the war.
It fugures that a narrow mind like yours would enlist in the "abortion is murder" army.
Narrow? Thank you. But with state sovereignty intact - each state could decide for itself to be rid of this reprehensible practice, now they have no choice.
I'm not familiar with Randolph, Tennessee. Was it a "city" during the Civil War or just a hamlet? (Dittos re New Manchester, GA.)
If you were a resident of those towns, would you still maintain that the size of the city mattered?
More later.
Actually, it was proposed by Lincoln in January 1863 when he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, and it was passed by the House in April 1864 and the Senate in January 1865. It was ratified by 18 states before the end of February 1865 and by 2 more before Lee's surrendered at Appomattax, so that before the war was over more than 3/4 of the non-Confederate states had ratified it. Ratification by the Confederate states had of course to wait for reconstruction.
The Confederates had an evil agenda but they weren't stupid. They realized following the 1860 election that it was only a matter of time before the admission of new free Western states would result in the abolition of slavery. As the Mississippi secessionists put it:
"There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union..."
But with state sovereignty intact - each state could decide for itself to be rid of this reprehensible practice, now they have no choice.
So you want the states to be able to both control women's wombs and preserve the institution of slavery. Anytime now I'm sure you'll be breaking into a chorus of "Big Brother, Big Brother, long live Big Brother!"
If you were a resident of those towns, would you still maintain that the size of the city mattered?
A "town" is not a "city", and you claimed that Sherman "destroyed cities".
Well, if things were so bad down here - why did ANY [emancipated negroes] stay?
As I stated, they didn't have the money to move right after emancipation -- though they and their descendants certainly moved north later in great numbers.
Regarding the Underground Railroad - it ended in CANADA. The blacks certainly weren't in a rush to settle in Illinois and other northern states. No welcome mat waiting for them...
The Underground Railroad ended in Canada because that was the only place that negroes could escape from the grip of the long arm of the fugitive slave law. As I stated, northerners (particularly immigrant laborers cultivated by the Democrats) were understandibly nervous about a mass migration of refugees north. Nevertheless, and thanks in large part to Abraham Lincoln's leadership and the firming up of Republican control, the northern states had repealed most of the "black codes" by the end of the war.
I thought that ALL southerners were slaveholders.
No, but as I've stated, 1/3 of Southern white families were slaveholders and most of the rest were convinced by the slaveholders that dominated antebellum society that the perpetuation of slavery was in their best interests -- socially and economically.
My gggrandfather didn't own a single slave, he VOLUNTEERED.
I can understand why you wouldn't want to admit that he was fighting for an unworthy cause, but he was. I'm not saying there was anything wrong with him. The Confederate slaveholderocracy had a powerful propaganda machine behind them and as James McPherson argues, most Confederates on the front lines were probably thoroughly convinced that they were fighting for "freedom" and "self-determination" against "them damned yankees".
And there were many slaveowners that volunteered, ofter accompanied willingly by their slaves.
Slaves didn't "willingly" do anything. Being a slave necessarily means that you're subject to coercion, brain washing, whips, slave patrols, etc.
If most blacks understood that the union for fighting for their freedom, why didn't they join them en masse, or revolt?
They did when they got the chance, and they were begging to get in the war for the Union, even though they knew they may be executed by the Confederates if they were captured.
The draft riots occurred when Lincoln instituted the draft, white northerners revolted and sacked the city, killing blacks.
You are obviously relying on the half truths spread far and wide by the Confederate glorifiers. 2/3 of the NYC draft rioters were Irish immigrants and the rest were other poor ignorant laborers. In addition to attacking blacks, the mobs attacked Republican newspapers, Protestant churches and missions, the homes of Republicans and abolitionists, and any well off people they saw. NYC was run by a Democratic machine, even though the state as a whole went for Lincoln in '60 (but note that New Jersey went to Douglas). Democratic newspapers incited the riots. (See Battle Cry, pp 607-608.)
BTW, did the south ever revolt over conscription and kill blacks?
Opposition to the Confederate draft (which was instituted much earlier and relied on much heavier than in the Union) was suppressed in the South by declarations of martial law (which inlcuded a ban on the sale of liquor in Richmond), suspension of habeas corpus, theatening to shut down newspapers who didn't tow the party line, etc. Well connected people weaseled out of the draft using special exemptions for government officials, teachers, plantation overseers, etc. (See Battle Cry, pp. 429-447.)
Nathan Bedford Forrest's method of "recruiting" consisted of taking any able bodied young men between 18 and 45 he ran across in the South without even giving them time to tell their families where they were going. (See Foote, Vol. Three, page 112.)
Allow foreign terrorists, criminals and such egress - no.
Escaped slaves were considered criminals, so you are saying you would have opposed their immigration into a northern state had you been living there -- yet you criticize northerners for being concerned about mass migration of freed negroes north.