So who are some of the more famous Chicagoans?

[hank0604]

Neo-confederate? There is nothing "neo" about it. The effects of the Civil War and the discrimination afterwards are still being felt in the South.

I'm not defending slavery. But the issue was that northern states wanted to take advantage of low prices of crops (due to slavery) while at the same time preaching against slavery and making it more difficult for southern farmers to find oversees markets for their goods. It was a states' rights issue. The original concept of this country was a "union" of equal, almost individual countries, each with a lot of control of their own laws and governments. It sets a dangerous precedent if a few more populated (thus more politically powerful) states are able to control the other states. In a modern context, it would be like this hypothetical:

Michigan has tax legislation that makes it favorable for automobile manufacturers to build cars in Michigan, making Michigan a wealthy state. New York, as a major port city through which Michigan's cars are exported, wants to take advantage of this, so they charge shippers a premium for shipping American cars through New York. But California gets upset because it is missing out on the action. So what does Cal do? Cal uses it's considerable political power to enact legislation forcing all states to adopt the same tax code, thus ending Michigan's advantage.

But going back to slavery. It was on its way out. The educated people in the southern states knew the immorality of slavery, and would have phased it out over the course of a few decades. And in that case, there would not have existed the retaliatory hatred that led to the Jim Crow laws and the racism/hate that still exists today. Those were mainly the results of southerners being upset with the manner in which the Union Army fought the war and the reconstruction period afterwards (which Lincoln was not a part of).

[Irishtom29]

Originally Posted by hank0604

I'm not defending slavery. But the issue was that northern states wanted to take advantage of low prices of crops (due to slavery) while at the same time preaching against slavery and making it more difficult for southern farmers to find oversees markets for their goods.

But going back to slavery. It was on its way out. The educated people in the southern states knew the immorality of slavery, and would have phased it out over the course of a few decades. And in that case, there would not have existed the retaliatory hatred that led to the Jim Crow laws and the racism/hate that still exists today. Those were mainly the results of southerners being upset with the manner in which the Union Army fought the war and the reconstruction period afterwards (which Lincoln was not a part of).

Well yeah, you are in effect defending slavery when you defend a rebellion formented for the expressed purpose of defending slavery.

As for crops, to follow your reasoning agricultural states of the Old Northwest would have been as interested in rebellion as the slave states were. Yet there was no rebellion in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota etc. You know why? Because it was about SLAVERY, not agriculture vs. industry. EVERY state that rebelled was a slave state, every one. Had the issues been broader than slavery one would think some non slave states would've had the same problems as the rebellious states. But they didn't.

There was nothing contemporary to indicate slavery was on it's way out; looking back we might see trends and forces at work people back then didn't see but that means little: the fact is that the Slavocracy that controlled the rebellion had absolutly no intention of ending the institution, indeed, their act of rebellion to defend the institution should make that obvious. As for educated people, well the big planters, the Slavocracy, were an educated class of people and a great deal of southern intellectual effort went to rationalizing slavery.

Your assertion that several more decades of slavery would've been preferable to Jim Crow is rather odd and in effect defends Jim Crow as being the only alternative to slavery; that the only choice is which way the slaves were to be screwed. But the southern elites had another choice---giving the Freedmen a fair shake. Which they chose not to do.

I must repeat that in a nation with representative government and free elections simply because political issues are not going your way is no justification for rebellion. The rebels were like silly, selfish children who want to take their ball and go home because they're losing the game.

[highdesertmutz]

Originally Posted by sukwoo

Some people on this forum will claim that you're not a REAL Chicagoan unless you were born here. It seems only fair by that criteria (which I don't subscribe to, incidentally), that you're also not a REAL Chicagoan if you became famous while living elsewhere or became famous then picked up and moved away.

I was born at columbus hospital in 1952, and raised in chicago, stayed in chicago except for 14 years government service, but now make T or C new mexico my home, so, I guess that makes me a bastard.