The Gettysburg Address

[Kirk Freeman]

Why could states not leave the CSA? Why were the states in the CSA not allowed to do certain things?

Why could counties of states not leave the states? Tell us all about the Free State of Jones and how Mississippi responded was consistent with any of the "freedom" claims.

 

[Dead Duck]

It is worth noting that the assassination of Lincoln by Booth was one of the worst things that could happen for Liberty. At that point, the tyrant became a martyr and his death was used as cove for ushering in significant encroachments upon Liberty.

To this day, progressives and statists of all stripes and parties invoke his martyrdom on behalf of their efforts to continue the expansion of the central state.

Ingenious -Now Lincoln was a Martyr. Hilarious....

 

[Henry]

Seceding States were not forced to join the CSA. Those that did accepted the terms.
The constitution of the United States had no such prohibition. In fact, it was a power reserved to the States.

 

[Henry]

Fun fact: A portion of Indiana seceded during the war of northern aggression.

Boggstown, Indiana - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Luckily, Lincoln and his agents were too busy killing elsewhere to get around to the folks of Boggstown.

 

[Dead Duck]

Fun fact: A portion of Indiana seceded during the war of northern aggression.

Boggstown, Indiana - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Luckily, Lincoln and his agents were too busy killing elsewhere to get around to the folks of Boggstown.

Dude, you need help.

 

[Henry]

Ingenious -Now Lincoln was a Martyr. Hilarious....

I'm not the one that made the claim.

Is President Lincoln a Martyr? - NYTimes.com

https://archive.org/details/inmemoriamofabr3263banc

 

[Dead Duck]

I'm not the one that made the claim.

Is President Lincoln a Martyr? - NYTimes.com

But you are the one sucking it up.

 

[Henry]

Wait until the next election cycle and watch for who is sucking it up.

Do you recall all the allusions to the Lincoln inauguration employed by bathhouse Barry?

Statists in the Republican branch of the party will also invoke the name of Lincoln often throughout their propaganda as well...generally while advocating for an expanded state.

 

[rambone]

....but....only Lincoln's a statist....not all those states in the south....who were so committed to freedom that they fought tooth and nail to enshrine....the lack of freedom in STATIST laws.

Both sides (read: policy makers) were hopelessly statist. There is no getting around it. Individual rights were ruthlessly violated on both sides.

Nothing says "I'm not a slaver" like enslaving a generation of boys to military service and forcing them to kill their brethren.

 

[Dead Duck]

Spin - Spin - Spin

I'm getting dizzy from all your Spinning here.

 

[RockofStrength]

Both sides (read: policy makers) were hopelessly statist. There is no getting around it. Individual rights were ruthlessly violated on both sides.

Nothing says "I'm not a slaver" like enslaving a generation of boys to military service and forcing them to kill their brethren.

This, IMO, is the point that is most important. Anti-slavery or Pro-states rights, both sides were perfectly content to send their young men forward to die for causes that had very little to do with those young men. That the North would win was inevitable short of a miraculous victory owing to the sheer manufacturing power of the North, and it was certainly nice for those same manufacturers to have a totally debased South to buy up on the cheap...

Trying to isolate any war down to a single issue is historical blindness at best. In every war you have people of power in all places, religious, political or economic who will try to manipulate tensions to their advantage. Southern plantation owners sent men who owned no slaves and cared little for them to die to defend their ability to make money on the backs of other men. Northern politicians and factory owners sent their constituents and employees into meat grinders to break the more agrarian South and leave it open for rapid industrialization. Having a bunch of uneducated, un-landed, poor freed slaves who owed their freedom exclusively to the North certainly was a nice bonus too.

Thrown into this mix is Lincoln who honestly cared little for black people and cared a great deal about preserving the Union regardless of the cost to life or liberty. He was a great statesman and politician and his death should be regretted if only because he could have greatly curbed the "Reconstruction" and healed the wounds of a divided Union after the war was over. He was also a great statist, and did indeed start us down a dark road which we have been reaping the fruits of for many decades now.

Throw off the black and white glasses for a sec and stop trying to anoint people as saints of the Holy Union or devils of the foul Confederacy and the war makes a lot more sense.