Beowulf,
Quote:
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Sighted sub... sank same!
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No, pulled trigger and heard "click" and no shot. In other words, a dud.
Why is it that examples as provided by Battalion, accurate sources by-the-way, are somehow, in someway, always viewed as some sort of excuse for the South over the issue of slavery?
NO ONE has denied that the North did NOT go to war with the seceding states over slavery. NO ONE has denied that freeing the slaves was Lincoln's, the Republican party's, the Union army's or the majority of citizens residing in the North that the war was their objective when the war started. The primary goal was to preserve the Union. We get it. We understand. We have no argument with you on this proven, long-standing, historical fact.
But these are not presented for that purpose. Whenever Battalion, Beowulf, OIJ and others set fire to this pile of wet leaves, it is simply to project a smoke screen over why the SOUTH LEFT THE UNION (and I am shouting as it appears it is the only way I can be heard through all the smoke).
Beowulf asks in another thread if the North did anything wrong during the war. YES, they did. They were just as racist as any other white man in the country, the vast majority cared one jot about the black slaves condition and didn't want them near them, feared for their jobs, the social status, etc.
But why, WHY, can no one who supports a southern viewpoint of the war simply acknowledge that those who led the South to secede and bloody revolution did it for one reason and one reason only, a reason they proclaimed in their speeches, their newspaper, their declarations of secession, etc., etc., ETC!
The men of that time had no problem claiming why they were leaving, why they were willing to break up a nation and bring on a slaughter that cost hundreds of thousands their lives. Why are those in this century who choose to defend the South so desperate to use any other theory, project any other item or incident to point discussion away from this other established, recorded, undeniable, historical fact?
Why do we get these arguments these side-line threads that state "New England benefited from the slave trade" of that the "Northern Use Of Slave Labor During The War" and such? I acknowledge these facts, as I know Battalion does not create such accounts out of thin air. I know he uses historical documents when he presents such.
But it is the context in which these subjects are presented that I find not only disturbing, but ultimately, dishonest, although this may not be his intent.
It is, in my view, that such presentations, either here or other boards, is a shout of "FIRE!" meant to distract or to delay the real causes of the war, the real reasons the clash came about. I don't know if this is done out of a sense of obligation to ones region or ancestors, intentionally or unintentionally, but the results are basically the same.
Smoke and mirrors.
A technique meant to distract and confuse. I have used it many times when I did presentations for senior military officers on the preparedness of my unit for inspections and the like. To distract from our weaknesses and play up another area to get a desired result.
Again, I concede, the North did terrible things, was involved in the slave trade, were great carriers of slaves right up and during the Civil War.
But those slave traders were in the business of supplying slaves to those who wanted them, in the South and the rest of South America. ALL connected with the slave trade were wrong, to include the mill owners who didn't care who picked the cotton that gave them their profits. I get it. I am certain others here get it and have for a very long time.
But none of this historical facts excuse, cover-up, deny or in any way reduce the historical fact that the South seceded over the issue of slavery, to defend it, protect it, and EXPAND it at the expense of State's rights, to the point the South was willing to go to war with South America to get more land to
expand the institution. To the point it was working very hard through the Supreme Court and the legal system to get slavery permitted in EVERY state, north and south, no matter what the citizens of that state wished on the slavery issue. That the largest expansion of federal power was proposed NOT by Lincoln or the federal government, but by the SOUTH to protect slavery with a federal slave code.
Distraction does not permit the South to escape it's responsibility for bringing on the war to defend slavery. It simply points out that neither side was perfect and there was great wrong on both sides. But the South was willing to risk untold thousands to keep its peculiar institution at all costs.
In my minds eye, no amount of historically documented distractions will ever justify the South's actions over leaving the Union over slavery.
IMO,
Unionblue
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