444
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] banneryear1868@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

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.

this post was submitted on 28 Dec 2023
444 points (96.6% liked)

politics

19239 readers
2322 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. 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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS