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JerseyGirl415, did your many classes (taught where, one might ask, and by whom, as experience has taught that that can be critical) include this letter from Abraham Lincoln to Horace Greeley?
]Executive Mansion,
Washington, August 22, 1862.[/SIZE] Hon. Horace Greeley:[/SIZE]
Dear Sir.[/SIZE]
I have just read yours of the 19th. addressed to myself through the New-York Tribune. If there be in it any statements, or assumptions of fact, which I may know to be erroneous, I do not, now and here, controvert them. If there be in it any inferences which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not now and here, argue against them. If there be perceptable in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend, whose heart I have always supposed to be right.
As to the policy I "seem to be pursuing" as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt.[/SIZE]
I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. 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. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.[/SIZE]
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 every where could be free.[/SIZE]
Yours,
A. Lincoln.
Taught at a private New York City college within the last 5 years by doctors of history who attended schools such as Princeton and UCLA. If you must know.
Yes, Lincoln's primary goal was to save the Union. Everybody probably knows this as he was rather open about it. The letter doesn't negate anything I said. Given he wanted to save the Union, he would have let slavery stay or he would have let it go, whichever would have worked best. It doesn't mean he liked slavery and wanted new states admitted into the Union to be slave states, so I don't know why this is relevant to anything I said. Look at the end: "I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every where could be free." "My oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free." Hmm.
You see the War as a battle for Slavery but that's not how most in the South view that War. Virtually no one is proud of the history of Slavery (maybe 10K KKK members is about it). Southerners are proud of their culture and have had to stick together through a prolonged period of discrimination against the South and Southerners that has lasted for well over 100 years.
There would be less discrimination against them if their leaders stopped acting like the "South will rise again!" and stopped the bigotry, ignorance, hatred, love of violence, etc.
Let's be realistic: nobody in this day and age holds people in the south in contempt for bigotry and ignorance based upon the actions of 150 years ago any more than people today fear all Irish or Italians as "mobsters controlled by the Pope" or all Germans as supporters of the Axis, and so on. No - the reason people still see the south that way is because of the CURRENT ACTIONS of their leaders; leaders who are more obsessed with hating people (the poor and various minorities), hating the government, hating living wages, hating affordable health-care... hate, hate, hate.... but they love their guns, their religion - and nobody else's - and so on.
I know many southerners do NOT fall into the above categories, but to pretend that the only reason the south is "discriminated against" is because of events that happened 150 years ago is simply untrue. It is their CURRENT ACTIONS and attitudes being forced on us by evil leaders that are earning them criticism and disgust, nothing more.
There were hundreds of thousands of slaves. That aside, the Confederate motivation for leaving (slavery) would be important if the union went to war to free the slaves, and not simply to win a political dispute.
Actually in 1860 there were almost four million slaves in the United States.
The culture is one thing, but I must point out a few pertinent facts:
1. The entire culture of the South--the plantations and the beautiful houses, the supposedly gracious manners, the prosperity--all of them were made possibly by enslaving human beings.
2. The claim of discrimination against the South for over a century is absurd. After defeating Reconstruction the South was able to maintain freed blacks and their descendants in oppression and virtual slavery for almost a century, and the so-called discrimination you are complaining about consists of things like the end of Jim Crow, federal enforcement of voting rights, abolition of school segregation, and other measures designed to overcome the South's culture of slavery and racial oppression.
3. There are vastly more apologists for slavery than you claim. Every time a discussion of slavery and the cause (I don't say "causes" because slavery was the only cause) arises here there is no shortage of people who argue that we should have just allowed slavery to disappear on its own. This is nothing but a prescription to continue the practice of slavery throughout the South for the then-unlimited future.
4. I'll just say one thing about "states' rights". Those clamoring the loudest for states' rights, whether in terms of the institution of slavery or in the institution of racial oppression that followed it, were remarkably quiet when Northern states took action to prevent the enforcement of the fugitive slave laws in their territory. Apparently states' rights only go one way.
The culture is one thing, but I must point out a few pertinent facts:
1. The entire culture of the South--the plantations and the beautiful houses, the supposedly gracious manners, the prosperity--all of them were made possibly by enslaving human beings.
2. The claim of discrimination against the South for over a century is absurd. After defeating Reconstruction the South was able to maintain freed blacks and their descendants in oppression and virtual slavery for almost a century, and the so-called discrimination you are complaining about consists of things like the end of Jim Crow, federal enforcement of voting rights, abolition of school segregation, and other measures designed to overcome the South's culture of slavery and racial oppression.
3. There are vastly more apologists for slavery than you claim. Every time a discussion of slavery and the cause (I don't say "causes" because slavery was the only cause) arises here there is no shortage of people who argue that we should have just allowed slavery to disappear on its own. This is nothing but a prescription to continue the practice of slavery throughout the South for the then-unlimited future.
4. I'll just say one thing about "states' rights". Those clamoring the loudest for states' rights, whether in terms of the institution of slavery or in the institution of racial oppression that followed it, were remarkably quiet when Northern states took action to prevent the enforcement of the fugitive slave laws in their territory. Apparently states' rights only go one way.
All of this needs to be said. I've posted similar stuff. I do not find it interesting that many people try to downplay this, make justifications, or call it revisionist literature when confronted with documentation of proof. I just see this as a normal response to people disagreeing but not being able to refute.
I have found documents that show slavery being a big part of the desire for secession. We both know about why secession was desired. And there is something important. When you know better, you do better. However, some people don't want to do better. Some people don't want to know better. I understandwhat I'm dealing with. Irrational behavior. A desire to cling to something like the Confederate cause, that many deny that slavery was an issue.
I personally know that this was an economic war. The people who benefited from slavery were not going to let it go. The ones who were doing the fighting had little to gain. They had no stake in it. Many fought for their land. Many were being convinced by the elites that the government would do bad things to them, forget the fact that the feudal way of doing things in the South was not helping at all.
Everything you said is why I smile when anything related to the Confederate cause is taken down. Granted, it's freedomof speech. Said persons have that right to fly the Confederate flag on private property. That said, I am happy to see Confederate monuments taken away. I do not get upset or scream "pc" what a place named for General Lee is renamed something else (such as for Kennedy ). If we know slavery was a major reason the Confederate states wanted to secede, why celebrate or honor anyone who sided with the Confederacy?
Thanks. It's about knowing better and then doing better. We know now that the Confederate cause was based on something bad. That reason, we should do better.
A good question is this. In terms of Confederate stuff, is that the kind of image one wants to use to represent Southern heritage?
Removing historical monuments is wrong. They should be left up with the historical lessons behind the person and events behind the monuments. These men were not evil. The US Civil War had no purely good nor evil sides. Though modern history lessons tend to paint the Union as good and Confederates as evil, there were plenty of both on each side. What's next, blowing up the monuments of US Presidents who owned slaves? It's wrong to judge people of history by modern morals and culture. They must be judged based upon the morals and culture of the time in which they lived.
Removing historical monuments is wrong. They should be left up with the historical lessons behind the person and events behind the monuments. These men were not evil. The US Civil War had no purely good nor evil sides. Though modern history lessons tend to paint the Union as good and Confederates as evil, there were plenty of both on each side. What's next, blowing up the monuments of US Presidents who owned slaves? It's wrong to judge people of history by modern morals and culture. They must be judged based upon the morals and culture of the time in which they lived.
And the dedication of a historical monument to a traitor is wrong. Lee was a traitor.
There were hundreds of thousands of slaves. That aside, the Confederate motivation for leaving (slavery) would be important if the union went to war to free the slaves, and not simply to win a political dispute.
Well, if there were hundreds of thousands, there were also tens of thousands.
"a political dispute" does not quite seem to address what the South wanted -- the dissolution of a nation.
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Look at the end: "I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every where could be free." "My oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free." Hmm. 
I wish I could give this more than one rep!