view the rest of the comments
politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
Like I said, all of them mention slavery. Almost immediately. I'm not sure why you're pretending they don't.
I mean the Mississippi one, for example, says:
...I am agreeing they mention slavery, that's why the Confederate states seceded, they didn't want the federal government interfering with their right to own slaves and run their economies using them. For Lincoln however he was both being "smart" in not attacking slavery directly because he knew if he alienated his supporters in those states he would be making a strategic error, and also because he didn't think he could actually do anything about it as president. At the time when Lincoln gave the Emancipation Proclamation, the people who would sympathize with that message were far ahead of him in recognizing and adopting emancipation as a moral justification for the war. Lincoln basically said, if you are fighting this war for freedom and liberty, join and fight for it. The error we make looking back is emphasizing this speech as the turning point, it was actually reacting to what abolitionists, slaves, and former slaves had already done.
I shared an excellent hour and a half interview with civil war historian Barbara Fields in another comment expressing this sentiment, often reciting from books and historical letters throughout, that gets deep into this topic. Obviously people are downvoting it, but she explains it clearly:
I think what most people are trying to get at here was that Lincoln himself was not particularly a pro abolishinist. He was a lawyer who just wanted the Union to stay together and follow the current laws.
He was up against difficulty when he wanted new states to not allow slavery. This made the southern states mad, etc, etc, war. Even still at first, he did not free slaves. It wasn't until the war was underway and not going as well as hoped that freeing slaves became a thing. This was after a southern slave commandeered a southern ship and escaped to the north with it. A general then had to decide if they were required to "return property" or free the slave. He freed the slave, stating he had no obligation to "return property" to a force that was an enemy. This was a big decision at the time. I think that event set the ball rolling on freeing slaves.
So people are being pedantic. Yes it was about slavery. No, it was not (at first) about freeing slaves. That came later.
I think it's not pedantic because it's very important to recognize that Lincoln in the Emancipation Proclamation was reacting to what slaves and abolitionists had decided the war was going to be about. When people say "it was about slavery" and attribute that to Lincoln, who very clearly did not believe he had the power to end slavery even despite people telling him in times of rebellion he did, and this is incredibly well documented, this takes away credit from the slaves, former slaves, and abolitionists who decided they would fight for the war to be about abolition and succeeded in that.
In another comment I shared a letter written by a freed slave to the mistress who owned his child, a letter who's contents would have been punishable by death even from where he was writing it in the north, but it expresses perfectly the sentiment that caused the war to be about abolition. In the letter he says a thousand black soldiers and him are coming and that she will burn in hell etc.
So when we say "it's about slavery" from the very beginning we need to be clear that it was specifically the confederates going to war over the right to own slaves at the start, while the north was going to war to preserve the Union. It became "about slavery" in the sense of freeing slaves and abolition after slaves, freed slaves, and abolitionists fought for that. It could very well have been a senseless conflict if it weren't for abolitionists, and they fought despite the racism they faced in the north as well, because they had a higher purpose for fighting even above the generals who they fought under.