Vic, if you think the civil war was about slavery then your as dumb as you think everyone here is.

The civil war was about slavery. I'm also tired of people trying to rebrand it as something else. Sure there were other disagreements between the state's but if it was important enough that they felt the need to identify it front and center in the individual states declarations of war then it was abou t slavery. That's the excuse they were using for going to war. That's the idea they were rallying their troops and population around... don't try to sugar coat it and try to make it about something else.

It's f÷cking amazing that the same people who claim the other side is trying to rewrite history are trying to obfuscate history.

Yes victor slavery was the main focal point to an even larger issue which was whether or not the federal government had the authority to create blanket mandates.

Grant it, I have no ties to civil war America but I still say that the federal government needs to have limited power and the states should be able to choose what ia right for them individually.

I don't agree. In high school, I took a class in Old South and Civil War. We were taught that the war was about economic means and diminution of the southern states' declining economic infrastructure (agriculture vs. industry economies, etc.) and political power relative to the north's. Lincoln didn't free the slaves until well into the war with the hope they'd fight for the north. That's not a criticism of Lincoln.

And at that it was only the Southern slaves that he freed. Those slaves in territories within the Union still remained slaves.

"My policy sought only to collect the Revenue (a 40 percent federal sales tax on imports to Southern States under the Morrill Tariff Act of 1861)." reads paragraph 5 of Lincoln's First Message to the U.S. Congress, penned July 4, 1861.

"I have no purpose, directly or in-directly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so," Lincoln said it his first inaugural on March 4 of the same year.

When in the Course of Human Events: Arguing the Case for Southern Secession

The Real Lincoln

Some reading for you buddy.

As did I Robert...your spot on.

So glad I spent the weekend fishing and didn't learn anything about this until this morning. Seems the news outlets have all gone way out of their way looking for outrage...and, in effect probably causing a lot of it.

Maybe I missed something by being unplugged...but from what I gather, a bunch of hate-filled white supremacists (who seem to be given zero validation by anyone outside their membership) had a planned gathering for no real reason other than to gather and see if they could gain more followers. (I really doubt that many of them cared much about any statues...but so what if they did. I think its ok for that to be a separate converstation.) A large contingent of people opposed to the group also gathered. Despite the reports that there were a LOT of weapons on hand, there was little more than shouting and scuffling between VERY different groups with a lot of hate to go around. Later, a likely mentally disturbed individual drove a car into a crowd. I can't seem to imagine that most of the worst of the supremacists thought very highly of that. The president condemned hatred, bigotry, violence.

All things considered...and with respects to the killed young woman and her family, I don't see what all the post-event noise is about. Yes...I read the comments above...and agree with a lot of it...but...really, all things considered, I don't think it was an event that I'm going to lose sleep over. Sure, the president could have said a lot of different things differently...and told people what they thought they wanted to hear...but Trump is who we're talking about here. I also agree that IN MY OPINION, he should have denounced the racists way back in the campaign when it was clear that they thought they were tacitly endorsed by him. He didn't....but I'm still a ways from blaming him for the idiots with the torches.

The one thing that I have learned...is that I should fish more and watch 'news' less...in fact maybe everyone should....but not where I'm fishing, please. Its crowded enough already.

South Carolina declaration of secession has about 5 paragraphs complaining that the northern states are violating the 4th amendment by not returning their slaves.

Georgia... sentence #2: "For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery. They have endeavored to weaken our security, to disturb our domestic peace and tranquility, and persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property, and by the use of their power in the Federal Government have striven to deprive us of an equal enjoyment of the common Territories of the Republic"

Mississippi ... sentence #2: "Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. "

Texas at least had the decency to bury the text a couple paragraphs down: "She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery-- the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits-- a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time. Her institutions and geographical position established the strongest ties between her and other slave-holding States of the confederacy. "

Virginia is the only one smart enough not to have mentioned it explicitly in their secession declaration.

This isn't rocket science guys. We're talking about slavery. There isn't a grey area. If they were fighting for their state right to kill jews whenever they wanted, and wrote that in to their secession declaration would you really be like "oh.. there were economic factors that really drove it"... the economic factor was they wanted free labor!!a Jesus

Here's a quote from a delegate at the Virginia secession convention... guy named Henry Benning.
I'm not sure what I'm most disturbed by... the fact that people are trying to justify the generals who fought to support people like this sh1tstain, or the fact that I hear a lot of these same phrases from people today...

"What was the reason that induced Georgia to take the step of secession? This reason may be summed up in one single proposition. It was a conviction, a deep conviction on the part of Georgia, that a separation from the North-was the only thing that could prevent the abolition of her slavery. ... If things are allowed to go on as they are, it is certain that slavery is to be abolished. By the time the north shall have attained the power, the black race will be in a large majority, and then we will have black governors, black legislatures, black juries, black everything. Is it to be supposed that the white race will stand for that? It is not a supposable case ... war will break out everywhere like hidden fire from the earth, and it is probable that the white race, being superior in every respect, may push the other back. ... we will be overpowered and our men will be compelled to wander like vagabonds all over the earth; and as for our women, the horrors of their state we cannot contemplate in imagination. That is the fate which abolition will bring upon the white race. ... We will be completely exterminated, and the land will be left in the possession of the blacks, and then it will go back to a wilderness and become another Africa... Suppose they elevated Charles Sumner to the presidency? Suppose they elevated Fred Douglass, your escaped slave, to the presidency? What would be your position in such an event? I say give me pestilence and famine sooner than that."

Seriously... I've heard the same sh1t in this forum from people... whether it's Muslims in Detroit "they're creating a caliphate!!" Or people afraid whites will become the minority....

Disgusting fear and short sightedness....

way too many "...." in the paragraph above... and that's coming from me...

I do like the lack of shame that guy had while basically saying "listen, I've been treating black people like sh*t for a long time and if they suddenly get free they're gonna come looking for me, so we gotta make sure they don't get freed as long as I'm alive cuz seriously, they're gonna r*pe my wife and daughters and possibly me cuz, like I said, I've been treating black people like sh*t for a really long time."

They're very interesting quotes. I find them fascinating given the claim everyone likes to make to pretend slavery had nothing to do with it or was just a tiny part of it.

Those are the documents they drafted for posterity. That's what they wanted people to read and say "yeah you made the right decision"... how good could the reasons they didn't want us to know about be if they were leading with "I like slavery"

The civil war was not completely about slavery and was about states rights and economics that is true. However Slavery was a big part of the states rights and economics arguments. The flash point for the war grew out of the Missouri Compromise and the subsequent Kansas/Nebraska act. Sprinkle in the Jay Hawkers, Cantrail and the dual governments in Kansas (the false one was recognized by the feds) and you can pretty easily understand the run up to the war. And while freeing the slaves was not the primary reason for the war, slavery was an integral component in nearly every part of the conflict.

The war was not to "free the slaves". That came later. But when you talk states rights, it was primarily for states to be able to determine to be free states or slave states (vs the previous no new slave states) on their own without fed oppression in the decision, followed by shenanigans from slave states trying to illegally influence new states decisions. Saying the war was not to free the slaves is very different than saying the war was not about slavery.

and yes there were other complicating factors.

Way ahead of you. I bass fish and hike all of the time and refuse to pay for cable. The media are the worlds best trolls, and they love to get everyone riled up...aint happening in my house. F'em.

Teedubya I'd agree with you.

🤔
So, the civil war was caused by shenanigans..?? 😕

Yes. As a matter of fact Lincoln wanted to call it the shenanigans war but when he consulted with Ben Franklin, Ben told him that wouldn't be civil.





I get amused at the fake press claims as if it's something new. I mentioned William Randolph Hurst as an example of this crap happening a long time ago and someone argued with me about it. Want another example? The press manipulated the hell out of the "sacking of Lawrence" contemporary press had it as a nasty siege and burning to the ground sort of thing. The more I read it sounds like it is somewhere between a shouting match and blitzkrieg. Control the narrative is nothing new.

Bleeding Kansas is a good book to start with if you want to understand the lead up to the war.

There was a pretty cool show on AHC this morning called Titans. This one was about Hurst and Pulitzer. I never realized Pulitzers involvement in the time. The show was somewhat disappointing because it finished short of Hurst leveraging his papers etc for political gain. It did hit on the cuban stuff and creating news rather than reporting it though. That stuff fascinates me.

Ben was smart... I heard he invented peanut butter... I wonder if he knew it would kill peoples... 😟

Ben was smart. Too bad he was dead before Columbus discovered aluminum foil.