To: KonKilo who wrote (436 ) 8/2/2006 2:18:03 PM From: Brumar89 Read Replies (1) | Respond to The Northern states outlawed only NEW slavery, and allowed folks to keep their existing slaves as a sort of grandfather clause, Grant had a slave that he elected to free when hostilities commenced, and his wife had several slaves, including a female that she kept throughout the war. The rationale for the Civil War changed midway through the conflict. It was not originally a fight to free the slaves, but instead to preserve the Union. And as you know, the Emancipation Proclamation pertained only to the Deep South Confederate States, and not the border states. It was more a military decision than a liberation, since Lincoln hoped that the "freed" slaves would revolt and cause insurrections that the Confederate military would have to put down. The myth of the pure and virtuous North forcing the evil South to abandon slavery loses some of its luster when you know the rest of the story. One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether." bartleby.com
