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First, most of the attacks against Mr. Holland and the ideas he espoused have been baseless namecalling. A few people have actually tried to rebut him. It is to those to whom I adress this reply. One person complained about the comparison of Lincoln to Mao, Lenin, and Hitler because Lincoln was duly elected. In response to that, I say, so was Hitler. Whether or not a person enjoys popular support doesnt determine whether his actions were right or wrong, even though it might determine if his actions are presented as right or wrong in the history books. Most of the other people posting have focussed on slavery in the South as justification for the war. To them my response is two fold. First, the war was not about slavery. At the outset of the war, there were more slave States in the union than in the Confederacy. Slave States remained in the union throughout the war. Lincoln and Grant both stated that the war was not to end slavery. In fact, Grant kept his slaves until after the passage of the 13th ammendment, citing as his reason, "Its so hard to find good help these days." The war was about economics. The main issue on this front was the protective tariff advocated by the republican party. South Carolina had threatened to secede about a dozen years earlier over what came to be called, 'the tariff of abomination.' The republicans had as their stated aim to bring back a high protectionist tariff for the benefit of the mercantilist north against the agrarian South. At the time of the outbreak of the war, the South with about 30% of the population paid over 70% of the federal taxes. This was before the higher tariff was implemented. Furthermore, this money was largely spent in the north for the benefits of their industry. Certainly the threat of taking the slaves from their owners without compensation was an economic threat as well. More importantly, the so called 'abolitionist'(read radical unitarians, humanists, and atheists) wanted to destroy slavery in the South and foment the slaves to massacre the whites in the land much the way Dessalines had done in Haiti. Men like John Brown were in closer to fitting the definition of terrorist than those we supposedly fight today. Second, slavery is not in and of itself wrong. While this is undoubtedly an enraging statement to most of you, it is true. In fact, the U.S. Constitution still does not outlaw slavery, though it does outlaw slavery as practiced in the antebellum South, chattel slavery. "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as punishment of a crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." Some cited that the secession of the South was not legitimate because all people were not allowed to vote. All people are not meant to be allowed to vote in a republic. In both the north and the South at that time, women were not allowed to vote. Most States required property ownership for suffrage. The secession of the South was still a move for self determination of government, the same principle as the American Revolution was fought over. Someone else stated that slaves in the South had no civil rights. This statement is patently untrue and shows the effectiveness of the brainwashing campaign of government schools in the past 130 years. Many slaves were paid. Quiet a few bought their freedom with money they saved from their pay. The Georgia Constitution of 1861, the secession constitution, contains what to my knowledge is the first statement of equal protection under the law for blacks.