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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: KonKilo who wrote (347902)	1/25/2003 9:30:42 PM
From: Steve Dietrich	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769670

Here you are wrong. The South didn't secede until the anti-slavery Republicans took the Federal government. They were fine while the pro-slavery southern Democrats were in power. For Lincoln ending slavery may have not been "paramount" but for the South its preservation was. And the abolitionist Republicans meant the end was on its way. They seceded, they fired the first shots at Fort Sumpter. And state's rights is just spin. The South wasn't for state's rights when the Federal government was forcing free states to return escaped slaves, or when President Buchanan legitimized slavery in Kansas. No, the South only found state's rights as an issue once they lost control of the federal government. I pulled up the Civil War on my Mircrosoft Encarta Encyclopedia for the hell of it and to refresh my memory a little, and here are a few quotes (i was surprised how unequivocal it is): "The chief and immediate cause of the war was slavery." "The slavery question overshadowed all others in the presidential election year of 1860." "During the campaign many Southerners had threatened that their states would secede from the Union if Lincoln was elected because they feared that a Lincoln administration would threaten slavery." Steve

To: KonKilo who wrote (347902)	1/25/2003 10:11:16 PM
From: Lazarus_Long	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume V, "Letter to Horace Greeley" (August 22, 1862), p. 388. home.att.net

To: KonKilo who wrote (347902)	1/25/2003 11:40:21 PM
From: Steve Dietrich	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

<<"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy slavery.">> You and L. Long have left out the last line of this letter: "I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free." This letter was written during the heart of the Civil War and after a draft of the Emancipation Proclamation had already been written. Steve

To: KonKilo who wrote (347902)	1/26/2003 1:13:10 PM
From: bearshark	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

>>>He thought it was about preservation of the Union, until about halfway through the hostilities when he decided to use abolition as a way to gain new recruits.<<< The Emancipation Proclamation served more than one purpose. How did England and France figure into it?

To: KonKilo who wrote (347902)	1/26/2003 2:53:48 PM
From: Johannes Pilch	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Lincoln himself admitted that 'this war is somehow about slavery.' But he himself was not willing to fight a war for slavery. As president, his aim was to protect the Union-- slavery or not. We cannot logically refer to the Union to discover why the Confederacy fought the war. Both parties had different reasons for fighting it. The North wished to preserve a Union that the South aimed to break. The South aimed to break the Union chiefly (but not only) because of slavery. So then the war was indeed caused, in essence, by slavery - just as steve says.