Re: The American Civil War

james dolan (jdolan@math.ucr.edu)
22 Apr 1995 05:46:12 -0700

john hendrock writes:

>In article <3n7t0j$it1@ucrmath.ucr.edu>,
>james dolan <jdolan@ucrmath.ucr.edu> wrote:
>>jeffrey turner writes:
>>
>>-The war
>>-wasn't fought over slavery.
>>nonsense. who do you think you're fooling? you didn't really believe
>>those elementary school textbooks, did you?
>>
>I don't understand the last reference. "nonsense", Do you agree with the
>statement or not? I agree completely that the War was not originally fought
>for the freedom of slaves. That came later. As proven by the date of the
>quote from President Lincoln.

the south seceded because an abolitionist (in their as it turned out
correct view) was elected president. the north refused to let them
secede, not because the north as a whole was of a unified abolitionist
mind (of course they weren't), but because they were not about to
accept the great loss of economic and military and political power
that losing the south would have caused them.

of course the war was all about slavery, from long before day one.
the _south_ was all about slavery; there was nothing else special
about the region to even come close to explaining why it would form
such a cohesive political unit, in comparison to any other region of
the country.

certain people have obvious reasons for trying to pretend that the war
was not about slavery. their position is completely untenable.

(ahh for the good old days when the lunatic white supremacists used to
live in the _south_.)