The “Civil War” was about power, not slavery, which the northern court historians merely latched onto to justify Lincoln’s aggression and war crimes.
When I read Professor Thomas DiLorenzo’s article “The Lincoln Myth: Ideological Cornerstone of the American Empire”, the question that leapt to mind was, “How come the South is said to have fought for slavery when the North wasn’t fighting against slavery?”
Two days before Lincoln’s inauguration as the 16th President, Congress, consisting only of the Northern states, passed overwhelmingly on March 2, 1861, the Corwin Amendment that gave constitutional protection to slavery. Lincoln endorsed the amendment in his inaugural address, saying “I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable.”
Quite clearly, the North was not prepared to go to war in order to end slavery when on the very eve of war the US Congress and incoming president were in the process of making it unconstitutional to abolish slavery.
Here we have absolute total proof that the North wanted the South kept in the Union far more than the North wanted to abolish slavery.
If the South’s real concern was maintaining slavery, the South would not have turned down the constitutional protection of slavery offered them on a silver platter by Congress and the President. Clearly, also for the South the issue was not slavery.
The real issue between North and South could not be reconciled on the basis of accommodating slavery. The real issue was economic, as DiLorenzo, Charles Beard, and other historians have documented. The North offered to preserve slavery irrevocably, but the North did not offer to give up the high tariffs and economic policies that the South saw as inimical to its interests.
Blaming the war on slavery was the way the northern court historians used morality to cover up Lincoln’s naked aggression and the war crimes of his generals. Demonizing the enemy with moral language works for the victor. And it is still ongoing. We see in the destruction of statues the determination to shove remaining symbols of the Confederacy down the Memory Hole.
Today the ignorant morons, thoroughly brainwashed by Identity Politics, are demanding removal of memorials to Robert E. Lee, an alleged racist toward whom they express violent hatred. This presents a massive paradox. Robert E. Lee was the first person offered command of the Union armies. How can it be that a “Southern racist” was offered command of the Union Army if the union was going to war to free black slaves?
Virginia did not secede until April 17, 1861, two days after Lincoln called up troops for the invasion of the South.
Surely there must be some hook somewhere that the dishonest court historians can use on which to hang an explanation that the war was about slavery. It is not an easy task. Only a small minority of southerners owned slaves. Slaves were brought to the New World by Europeans as a labor force long prior to the existence of the US and the Southern states in order that the abundant land could be exploited. For the South, slavery was an inherited institution that pre-dated the South. Diaries and letters of soldiers fighting for the Confederacy and those fighting for the Union provide no evidence that the soldiers were fighting for or against slavery.
Princeton historian, Pulitzer Prize winner, Lincoln Prize winner, president of the American Historical Association, and member of the editorial board of Encyclopedia Britannica, James M. McPherson, in his book based on the correspondence of one thousand soldiers from both sides, What They Fought For, 1861-1865, reports that they fought for two different understandings of the Constitution.
As for the Emancipation Proclamation, on the Union side, military officers were concerned that the Union troops would desert if the Emancipation Proclamation gave them the impression that they were being killed and maimed for the sake of blacks. That is why Lincoln stressed that the proclamation was a “war measure” to provoke an internal slave rebellion that would draw Southern troops off the front lines.
If we look carefully we can find a phony hook in the South Carolina Declaration of Causes of Secession (December 20, 1860) as long as we ignore the reasoning of the document. Lincoln’s election caused South Carolina to secede. During his campaign for president Lincoln used rhetoric aimed at the abolitionist vote. (Abolitionists did want slavery abolished for moral reasons, though it is sometimes hard to see their morality through their hate, but they never controlled the government.)
South Carolina saw in Lincoln’s election rhetoric intent to violate the US Constitution, which was a voluntary agreement, and which recognized each state as a free and independent state. After providing a history that supported South Carolina’s position, the document says that to remove all doubt about the sovereignty of states “an amendment was added, which declared that the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people.”
South Carolina saw slavery as the issue being used by the North to violate the sovereignty of states and to further centralize power in Washington. The secession document makes the case that the North, which controlled the US government, had broken the compact on which the Union rested and, therefore, had made the Union null and void. For example, South Carolina pointed to Article 4 of the US Constitution, which reads: “No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.” Northern states had passed laws that nullified federal laws that upheld this article of the compact. Thus, the northern states had deliberately broken the compact on which the union was formed.
The obvious implication was that every aspect of states’ rights protected by the 10th Amendment could now be violated. And as time passed they were, so South Carolina’s reading of the situation was correct.
The secession document reads as a defense of the powers of states and not as a defense of slavery. Here is the document.
Read it and see what you decide.
A court historian, who is determined to focus attention away from the North’s destruction of the US Constitution and the war crimes that accompanied the Constitution’s destruction, will seize on South Carolina’s use of slavery as the example of the issue the North used to subvert the Constitution. The court historian’s reasoning is that as South Carolina makes a to-do about slavery, slavery must have been the cause of the war.
As South Carolina was the first to secede, its secession document probably was the model for other states. If so, this is the avenue by which court historians, that is, those who replace real history with fake history, turn the war into a war over slavery.
Once people become brainwashed, especially if it is by propaganda that serves power, they are more or less lost forever. It is extremely difficult to bring them to truth. Just look at the pain and suffering inflicted on historian David Irving for documenting the truth about the war crimes committed by the allies against the Germans. There is no doubt that he is correct, but the truth is unacceptable.
The same is the case with the War of Northern Aggression. Lies masquerading as history have been institutionalized for 150 years. An institutionalized lie is highly resistant to truth.
Education has so deteriorated in the US that many people can no longer tell the difference between an explanation and an excuse or justification. In the US denunciation of an orchestrated hate object is a safer path for a writer than explanation. Truth is the casualty.
That truth is so rare everywhere in the Western World is why the West is doomed. The United States, for example, has an entire population that is completely ignorant of its own history.
As George Orwell said, the best way to destroy a people is to destroy their history.
This article was originally published at PaulCraigRoberts.org.
Mr. Roberts, the South, in defending States’ rights, was defending the right of Southern States to continue the enslavement of African people. Do you agree that the enslavement and mass murder of African people was a crime against humanity? Of course Northern States were complicit in, and profited from, the enslavement of African people. However, it doesn’t matter whether or not the ‘civil war” or the “war of Northern aggression,” or however you want to describe the conflict was fought over slavery; what matters is that because of that war the enslavement of African people in America ended! And, America was forced, for a brief period during Reconstruction, to abandoned its horrific past and fulfil its democratic promise to African Americans. The likes of Robert E. Lee and those who supported the Corwin Amendment conspired to sabotage that promise, ushering in over a century of continual racist murder and oppression of Africans in America. All Confederate statues and monuments must be removed. They are symbols of racism, enslavement and mass murder, they are not symbols of America’s democratic promise to all of her citizens.
False. Your conclusion does not follow from your premise, and I know that Mr. Roberts does not recognize any such “right” of southerners to keep blacks enslaved. This is like arguing that by opposing the US war against Iraq, he was defending Saddam Hussein.
And as Mr. Roberts points out in the article, Lincoln did not wage war against the south to free the slaves.
As for the ending of slavery, we can recall the Biblical story of how Joseph saved his family and his people all because his brothers had thrown him into a pit in his youth. The ends do not justify the means. I’m also aware from his writings that Mr. Roberts holds the view that neither Lincoln’s authoritarianism and the federal government’s usurpation of power nor the horrendous bloodshed of the war were necessary in order for the slaves to become freed. This positive end could have been otherwise achieved.
Wrong Jeremy! The South did NOT respect States’ Rights. The Fugitive Slave Act, the Corwin Amendment etc. did not recognize the right of States to outlaw slavery. The South insisted their “right to own slaves” must be applicable throughout the Union regardless of State Laws and the desire of some States to outlaw slavery. That means “States’ Rights” was not respected by the Confederacy. The Civil War was about slavery. Without the issue of slavery there would have been no Civil War. IK Cush is absolutely right and I suggest you ask him for recommended reading material to educate yourself.
It isn’t clear to me what it is I said that you are claiming is false. So, once again, your initial argument was a non sequitur, Lincoln did not wage the war to free the slaves, and the ends do not justify the means.
You said the South seceded over the issue of States’ Rights. This is false because the South did not respect States Rights. Specifically the right of states to outlaw slavery within their own state and the right to provide refuge to runaway slaves. Your pious statement “..and the ends do not justify the means” is hilarious. What have you been smoking? You defend the Confederacy whose ends (the preservation of slavery) was certainly not justified by the means used (declaring and waging war).
If you haven’t read it I highly recommend Steven A. Channing’s: “Crisis of Fear: Secession in South Carolina”. This book won the Allan Nevins History Prize by the Society of American Historians. I also suggest you read South Carolina’s Declaration of Secession:
https://web.archive.org/web/20090201185344/http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_scarsec.asp
The fact that southern states were hypocritical in maintaining slavery does not belie the fact that the war was over states’ rights. Lincoln waged the war to prevent the southern states from exercising their right to secede from the Union. So, a states’ rights issue to the core. Your own source begins: “The people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, on the 26th day of April, A.D., 1852, declared that the frequent violations of the Constitution of the United States, by the Federal Government, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the States, fully justified this State in then withdrawing from the Federal Union….”
Also, are you disagreeing with my statement that the ends do not justify the means? Are you arguing that the ends do justify the means? Attempting to distort what I said into a defense of slavery is simply intellectual and moral cowardice.
Of course the ends do not justify the means for you and me but obviously they did for the Confederate States. The Confederate States did not secede from the Union just to exercise their right to do so. They seceded from the Union over the issue of slavery. Lincoln and the Federal Government did not declare war over the issue of secession or of slavery or of anything else. They went to war because war was declared against them.
South Carolina declared war against the U.S. and attacked Fort Sumter. Other slave states soon joined South Carolina in the war against the U.S. The South (above all else) wanted a war. This has to do with the strange southern hang-up on dueling and honor. The North said slavery was evil (which it is). The South said this was an insult to their honor (which as slave-drivers they had none) so the South demanded a duel to satisfy their honor. They organized militarily and began to prepare for war even before Lincoln took office. They got their “duel” and they lost.
The psychology of the South was very similar to the “Bushido” military spirit of Japan in the first half of the 20th century. In fact Jeff Davis refused to surrender and fled Richmond. The fighting continued until all Confederate units were defeated. If Davis had surrendered many southern lives would have been saved. So the Confederacy was like Imperial Japan, hung up on “saving face” and unable to admit ever being wrong.
To this day no court has ruled whether a state has the right to secede or not. The issue is still debatable. What is not at issue is the fact that no state has the right to militarily attack the Federal Government.
The Southern States did not believe in States’ Rights. They did not respect States’ Rights. They wanted a war and they got one.
Secession doesn’t require justification. It was the right of any state to secede for whatever reason it wanted.
Fort Sumter was in South Carolina. The northern government was militarily occupying South Carolina and refused to withdrawal.
What happened was Lincoln waged a war of aggression against the southern states for the end of preventing them from exercising their right to secede.
Lincoln did not wage the war to end slavery.
Ha Ha! Okay Jeremy, you win the title “King of the Trolls”. Obviously the war was about slavery. South Carolina’s declaration of secession makes this clear. They give one and only one reason for secession: slavery. No nation on earth gave recognition to the Confederate States. No nation on earth recognizes “t.he right to secession for whatever reason it wanted” otherwise counties, tribes, clans, families and individuals would also be entitled to the same right and the modern nation state could not exist. So go ahead, continue your trolling and whatever you do, don’t read the declarations of secession made by the various Confederate States because each and every one of them states they are seceding over the issue of slavery. Don’t let facts hinder your trolling. Peace Out!
The right of secession follows naturally from the right to self-determination.
Lincoln did not wage war against the south to free the salves.
Your own source, which you cite supposedly to prove states’ rights were not the reason for the war begins, “The people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, on the 26th day of April, A.D., 1852, declared that the frequent violations of the Constitution of the United States, by the Federal Government, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the States, fully justified this State in then withdrawing from the Federal Union…”
Begone, troll!
This writer is a goddamned ignorant fool. The central man power of the agricultrual economy was slavery, and nothing else.
Only a fool would make bogus claim about why the confederate conservatives initiated the American Civil War a heart beat after Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, that freed the slaves.
The American Civil War was so much about slavery to feed the plantation owners that the United States Congress had to pass the 13th 14th and 15th Amendments to the United States Constitution, to keep the racist confederate conservatives of the Southern States from having any legal legs to reenact that slave based society and economy.
What does this ignorant writer think the Reconstruction era was all about?
The1857 Dred Scott Supreme Court decision lit the fire of the racist confederate conservatives, then after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln by the confederate conservatives, over him freeing the slaves, the conservative Supreme Court ruled on the Plessey vs Ferguson separate but equal decision, which set up the Jim Crow society in America.
So the overwhelming theme of the American story has been about the psychotic inferiority complex of white racist men in America.
The American Civil War was only about slavery, which was the man power that has made America the so called richest Nation on Planet Earth.
Why, because the white racist confederate conservatives have not paid reparations for the 400 years of Free Labor that gave America her wealth.
Reparations are due, and the bill to African Americans is over 22,000,000,000,000 trillion dollars, The very size of the American economy.
Carl, you call the author an ignorant fool but them immediately profess your belief that the Emancipation Proclamation “freed the slaves”, which is false. Mr. Roberts can educate you about that here:
https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2015/07/23/the-civil-war-falsifying-history-in-behalf-of-agendas/
Only the north voted for the Corwin Amendment sir. Also, Robert E Lee was against slavery. Your hate and refusal to accept the truth is sad and is a large part of the racial tensions today.
The Civil War was about slavery. The states that seceded (starting with South Carolina) issued Declarations of Secession. In these declarations each and every one states they are seceding over the issue of slavery. There would have been no Civil War without slavery. So slavery was the issue plain and simple. Of course history is never simple. Three and a half slave states stayed loyal to the Union and did not secede (Missouri, Kentucky, Delaware, Maryland and the western part of Virginia). It was crucial to keep these states in the Union so Lincoln (early in the war) said the war was about preserving the union and not about slavery. In his inaugural speech Jefferson Davis did not mention slavery because he did not want to alienate potential European allies. However his vice-president made a speech in which he declared slavery was the issue. War is an ugly business. It is about breaking stuff and killing people. Lying is an important part of this. So early in the war Lincoln lied and said the war wasn’t about slavery. Once the tide began to turn in the Union’s favor in 1863 he said slavery WAS the issue. The biggest result of the war was the end of slavery. Slavery was the SOLE cause of the Civil War.
if the SC secession link has true information…i havent seen the original, its wording indiactes secession was due to constitutional issues with northern states and federal govt. i guess the southern states , if a constitutional amendment , to abolish slavery would have occurred first they would likely have been upset but not left the union. i dont know. the held to service part seems weak to me thought. i hold a gun or club to your head to enter service and to leave it….not much of a contract really. only one way this was to turn out…a million or so killed and papers saying no more slaves.
— The United States, for example, has an entire population that is completely ignorant of its own history.–
This Civil War of USA has enough propogation in the world BUT truth still needs to be worked out.
“The secession document reads as a defense of the powers of states and not as a defense of slavery. Here is the document.”
https://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/south-carolina-declaration-of-causes-of-secession/
If you read the actual document, it becomes blatantly clear that the “state’s rights” to which the State of South Carolina is specifically referring is the perceived right to own and enslave another human being. The only other “state’s right” that had been in question were in regards to tariffs, yet there is not one single reference or mention of tariffs in the entire document. Here is where it clarifies the actual claim of abuses and the perceived right and need to secede from the United States:
The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the Institution of Slavery has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the general government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution.
All the mumbo jumbo about self government and the right to secede leads up to the one issue, the institution of slavery. The declaration includes such specific points as “The right of property in slaves was recognized by giving to free persons distinct political rights …” and “This sectional combination for the subversion of the Constitution, has been aided in some of the States by elevating to citizenship, persons, who, by the Supreme Law of the land, are incapable of becoming citizens; and their votes have been used to inaugurate a new policy, hostile to the South, and destructive of its peace and safety.” Clearly, the issue and reason for secession is regarding the legal status of current and former slaves. I could go on, but there is no point.
In short, the author of this article is either patently dishonest in his assessments of the historical facts surrounding the cause of the Civil War, or he is grossly subpar and unsophisticated in his analytical skills and analysis. I will let the reader decide which is the most likely case.
Here is the context from which you have taken the quote from PCR:
Yeah ok bud. The war was over slavery even though South Carolina and many different Southern states have been open to the idea of secession for quite some time before 1860. All the times before when the South tried nullifying a tariff they failed and the reason they failed was because tariffs are Constitutional and they could not secede over something Constitutional. So are you going to tell me that in 1860 that just totally changed? All of that is thrown out the window? Especially with the Morril tariff on its way? Your crazy. The South had to mention slavery because I’m doing that they could properly Constitutionally secede. Slavery was mentioned and recognized in the Constitution and the Northern states made legislation that effected the South and its institution. That gave the South a Constitutional reason to secede. Also I find it very funny you totally didn’t mention or recognize the Corwin Amendment in your debate with the writer of the article. The amendment passed both houses of at the time Northern congress and the amendment was ratified by several Northern states. It was also supported by Abraham Lincoln and then later on Abe Lincoln says that his only reason of going to war is to preserve the Union. News flash buddy. Who funded the majority of the government at the time? Who brought in the most money for the federal government? The South agricultural money crops. Without the South the North would be left to rot. But back to the Corwin Amendment thing. Abe Lincoln did not care if slavery existed in the Southern states he just didn’t want it to go westward because if it did that would mean the South would gain more political control and if they got more political control then they could gain economic control. Abe Lincoln was a Northern attorney and politician of course he didn’t want that. To say that the majority of Southerners went to war over slavery is laughable and data would laugh in your face. Also to say that Northerner went on this crusade to free the slaves is as well laughable and a embarrassing statement itself. Also read The ordinances of secession and you will see that seven of the 11 states that fully seceded in 1860 did not mention slavery. They only mentioned states rights and the constitution. Prior to 1860 many southern politicians have supported the idea of secession and multiple southern states tried to secede in the years of 1828, 1832, 1838, and discussion in 1845 about secession occurred. Historians have all agreed that these secession movements were all started from the idea of nullifying tariffs. However each time failed because as I previously said tariffs were not unconstitutional. For many rich people in the South (a minority of people) slavery was a reason they wanted to secede like: The VP of the Confederacy. But I can pick bad apples out of any country. Stop judging a historical country over the actions and motivations of the minority it is foolish and embarrassing. Also your claim that Abe Lincoln said that his motivation to go to war was to preserve the Union just to draw in the border states is completely false. Tell me why he was in support of going to war over slavery when he supported a amendment that would preserve slavery forever under the constitution?
Do not cloud the issue he clearly pointed out Lincoln and the Union Congress offered the Corwin Amendment to keep slavery any where in the US!
I would be curious to know as to what “states’ rights” were expressly violated? The right to besiege, attack, and illegally confiscate United States property? The right to wage war against the United States of America in open rebellion?
The assertion that the Northern States had deliberately broken the compact of the Union is dubious at best. In fact, Northern States were asserting their own states’ rights. They did not obstruct federal officials from exercising their unchecked federal authority granted under the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, but specifically passed laws nullifying the unjust and unconstitutional clauses that forced those who might be opposed to slavery due to religious beliefs or personal conscience to participate in the retrieval of fugitive slaves. That is the equivalent of forcing doctors and health professionals to perform abortions against their conscience, even if U.S. statues dictate such procedures to be offered and performed. The states were claiming they had the right to exempt their citizens from being forced to participate in the unethical and despotic fugitive slave law.
Even accepting as an “obvious implication” your unsubstantiated assertion that “every aspect of states’ rights protected by the 10th Amendment could now be violated”, this argument was still formulated in regards to the institution of slavery. It was solely over the issue of slavery that South Carolina mapped out this possible course. So once again, the issue and reason for the Civil war was not accurately states’ rights, but the institution of slavery.
I refer you to South Carolina’s own paramount argument, here are some key excerpts from it:
“all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the Common Government, because he has declared that that “Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free,” and that the public mind must rest in the belief that Slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction.”
“On the 4th March next, this party will take possession of the Government. It has announced, that the South shall be excluded from the common Territory; that the Judicial Tribunals shall be made sectional, and that a war must be waged against slavery until it shall cease throughout the United States.”
It is clear that while the legal issue in question might technically be “states’ rights”, the economic, political, social, philosophical, moral, and ethical reasons for the Civil War were over the status and future of the institution of slavery.
I would be curious to know as to what “states’ rights” were expressly violated? The right to besiege, attack, and illegally confiscate United States property? The right to wage war against the United States of America in open rebellion?
The assertion that the Northern States had deliberately broken the compact of the Union is dubious at best. In fact, Northern States were asserting their own states’ rights. They did not obstruct federal officials from exercising their unchecked federal authority granted under the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, but specifically passed laws nullifying the unjust and unconstitutional clauses that forced those who might be opposed to slavery due to religious beliefs or personal conscience to participate in the retrieval of fugitive slaves. That is the equivalent of forcing doctors and health professionals to perform abortions against their conscience, even if U.S. statues authorize such procedures to be performed. The states were claiming they had the right to exempt their citizens from being forced to participate in the unethical and despotic fugitive slave law.
Even accepting as an “obvious implication” your unsubstantiated assertion that “every aspect of states’ rights protected by the 10th Amendment could now be violated”, this argument was still formulated in regards to the institution of slavery. It was solely over the issue of slavery that South Carolina mapped out this possible course. So once again, the issue and reason for the Civil war was not accurately states’ rights, but the institution of slavery.
I refer you to South Carolina’s own paramount argument, here are some key excerpts from it:
“all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the Common Government, because he has declared that that “Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free,” and that the public mind must rest in the belief that Slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction.”
“On the 4th March next, this party will take possession of the Government. It has announced, that the South shall be excluded from the common Territory; that the Judicial Tribunals shall be made sectional, and that a war must be waged against slavery until it shall cease throughout the United States.”
It is clear that while the legal issue in question might technically be “states’ rights”, the economic, political, social, philosophical, moral, and ethical reasons for the Civil War were over the status and future of the institution of slavery.
Lee owned slaves. He was not against it. Jefferson was against it, but ravaged slave Sally Hemings and had at least 4 children. He was not against it. Most of the Founders words were ant-slavery, but their behavior proved otherwise. Just as America’s verbiage says we are not racist, but our actions prove otherwise. The history is appalling.
Still pushing the Lost Cause narrative. Still impeding black voting rights in former Confederacy. I understand. If you let blacks vote unimpeded they’d end your white supremacist racially hostile system. You do not want equality. Want blacks perpetually under your dominion. The South is still litigating the Civil War.
No matter how much you, as a lifelong liberal Democrat, attempt to rewrite history, it was the Democrat southern states who all voted to secede from the US because of slavery.
If you don’t think the war was to allow the South to continue slavery, then you do not agree with the Vice President of the Confederacy, Alexander Stevens, who on March 21, 1861 said:
“Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and moral condition. [Applause.] This, our new Government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.”
https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/1861stephens.asp
The South seceded because when Lincoln was elected the balance in the Federal government had tipped to opposition to slavery. He was the first Northerner ever elected.
If you think Lincoln fought the war to end slavery, then you do not agree with Lincoln, who stated during his inaugural address that he had neither any intention nor any authority to do so. And Lincoln, too, believed that blacks were not equal to whites.
Following the Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, 500,000 persons remained as slaves in the non rebelling border states. The cause of Civil War was as all wars are… an economic war! The North the economy of which was based on manufacturing needed tariffs on imported goods to compete. The agrarian economy exported its goods, and wished to keep purchasing imported on the cheap, i.e., sans tariffs. This stuff was much too esoteric for deluded hoi polloi then, as it is today for the same demographic to comprehend so the issue had to be “emotionalized” then as it is today.
Southerners whine and wail about their “Hairtidge” and Northerners just as irrationally take the bait and just inanely accuse southerners of systemic racism.
Institutionalized propaganda is HIGHLY RESISTANT to TRUTH