Quote:
Originally Posted by Bill O'Rights
True.
The war was all about States Rights. The fuse that blew the whole powder keg was what the South viewed as unfair taxes and tariffs imposed upon them by the northern states.
In fact, slavery really wasn't much of an issue until Lincoln made in an issue via the Emancipation Proclomation. Which, by the way, only freed slaves in states that were in open rebellion, and threfore, technically, not under his jurisdiction. He left the slaves in the border states alone, preventing the shift of more states (and their resources) into the fledgling CSA. Politically, the Emancipatiion Proclomation prevented official recognition of the CSA by Great Britain and France, who were sympathetic to the Southern Cause. More for their cotton than anything else...but still. Without that European support, the South was doomed to lose the war. It was a tactic, and a successful one at that, employed by Lincoln.
Do some serious research into the 16th President. You'll find him an ass of major proportions. He really makes George W. Bush look like an Eagle Scout by comparison. While he is revered today, he was reviled, both North and South, in his own time. Only his untimely death, and subsequent press induced martyrdom, has elevated him to his current demi-god status.
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It's interesting. The first thing everyone learns about the Civil War is how the South just wanted to keep their slaves while Abraham Lincoln fought to end slavery.
Then, you dig down to the next level of history, and you see that the South felt that their rights were being trampled by the North, and that Lincoln's actions during the war bear that out. Plus, how he really didn't care about slavery but saving the Union and used things like the Emancipation Proclaimation as the means to that end.
Then, however, you dig down to the next level and you get to how all decisions and arguments and questions about states-rights in the South came back to slavery, and more specifically the South losing political power to an anti-slave North. Also, you get to Lincoln's desire more than anything to simply end the fighting and bring the South back into the fold as friendly states, which would have happened if that stain on the page of humanity with the name of Booth hadn't killed him and unleashed the vengeful Radical Republicans and Reconstruction.
The thing to remember in all history is that it is naturally biased and flawed, just like the people who are involved. Lincoln set America on the course to free the slaves, but did it as a way to undermine the South instead of for real moral reasons. He suspended constitutional rights in many (probably far too many) cases, but with the goal of ending the bloodshed as soon as possible with the best chance of victory. You can do the same thing with just about any figure in American history (with the exception of the aforementioned stain, of course).