CW Legends and Fantasies

diane

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Good joke but I take my classes very seriously and I don't get much girl attention. But It takes more than a few classes to debate and discuss things at this level and who do you think controls education, the government and there are many with the agenda of only giving info in history class that I don't sleep through that they want us to know. I've read more books than I can recall on this war. Overall Lincoln gets too much credit for the end of slavery which wasn't even a goal when the war broke out. Observe this here quote.
My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. Abraham Lincoln
This should be in context and the date, August 22, 1862, should be noted:

 

General Lee

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This should be in context and the date, August 22, 1862, should be noted:

Yes 1862, also the Proclomation was signed that year but wouldn't be effective until January of 1863 if I recall correctly.
 

jgoodguy

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Good joke but I take my classes very seriously and I don't get much girl attention. But It takes more than a few classes to debate and discuss things at this level and who do you think controls education, the government and there are many with the agenda of only giving info in history class that I don't sleep through that they want us to know. I've read more books than I can recall on this war. Overall Lincoln gets too much credit for the end of slavery which wasn't even a goal when the war broke out. Observe this here quote.
My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. Abraham Lincoln
You are entitled to your opinion.

To proceed along these lines, please provide quotes and sources that support your debatable proposition 'Overall Lincoln gets too much credit for the end of slavery ' .

Regarding 'slave which wasn't even a goal when the war broke out.' The goal of the Civil War for the Union was to defeat the rebels. The Emancipation Proclamation was a means to that goal. Taking Richmond was an early goal that did not work out, instead, new goals in the West like Fort Donalson did. Goals change in wartime.
 

jgoodguy

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Yes 1862, also the Proclomation was signed that year but wouldn't be effective until January of 1863 if I recall correctly.
The Emancipation Proclamation was signed in January of 1863.
 

byron ed

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GM, Lincoln by law couldn't free slaves from the Union states in which it was legal.

Are you only now taking measure of the man, that despite his personal feeling that slavery was wrong he would never break the trust of the people who elected him. He would not exceed his constitutional duty to uphold the law.

Amazing restraint yes, but also to notice that he himself was born a Southerner and had married a Southerner. More on that to follow, but for now notice that although his sworn duty included defending the Constitution, it was more basically to first keep the Nation intact, so to quell insurrection was a proper and lawful response, and the war strategy of Emancipation worked.

So, per basic high school history, the first Emancipation was a strategic war move by Commander-In-Chief that undercut an enemy of resources -- as it only applied to slaves in rebel territory. Smart move.

But beyond high school history, do you actually not see how Lincoln at every stage of the war worked on behalf of even white Southerners, totally evident in his allowing such incredible terms of surrender, such as had never before been seen over the history of world conflicts.

And bottom line, did you really think the Confederacy should win? Do you really want lawn care for free today that bad?
 
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jgoodguy

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GM, Lincoln by law couldn't free slaves from the Union states in which it was legal.

Are you only now taking measure of the man, that despite his personal feeling that slavery was wrong he would never break the trust of the people who elected him. He would not exceed his constitutional duty to uphold the law.

Amazing restraint yes, but also to notice that he himself was born a Southerner and had married a Southerner. More on that to follow, but for now notice that although his sworn duty included defending the Constitution, it was more basically to first keep the Nation intact, so to quell insurrection was a proper and lawful response, and the war strategy of Emancipation worked.

So, per basic high school history, the first Emancipation was a strategic war move by Commander-In-Chief that undercut an enemy of resources -- as it only applied to slaves in rebel territory. Smart move.

But beyond high school history, do you actually not see how Lincoln at every stage of the war worked on behalf of even white Southerners, totally evident in his allowing such incredible terms of surrender, such as had never before been seen over the history of world conflicts.

And bottom line, did you really think the Confederacy should win? Do you really want lawn care for free today that bad?
Good stuff.

I'd add that in this timeline, without Lincoln, slavery would not have ended. He was the major factor in its demise.
 

rittmeister

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Good stuff.

I'd add that in this timeline, without Lincoln, slavery would not have ended. He was the major factor in its demise.
don't forget ben butler. if i were to write an alternate reality book (with chattel slavery in the 21st century) i'd take him out early
 

diane

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There are lots of things about Lincoln that makes him the right man at the right time. He was a true progressive for one. He had lots of plans for the future of the country and there was one part that did not want any change at all. Jefferson Davis, another man with a lot of ideas, tried to make progress while secretary of state - highways, railroads, ports and shipyards in the South, etc - and he was popular in the North. However, he was steeped in the culture created by slavery. To change his basic way of thinking would be to totally uproot himself from all he held close. Lincoln was not invested in that - he was invested in the entire country. While he inherited all the backward racial views very common of his time and society, he had an extraordinary mind. As new information came in and invalidated his old facts, he accepted the new and worked with it. Lincoln was a true genius. He changed, grew and developed as a human being during the war in extraordinary ways. He was definitely not the same man in 1865 as he was in 1860.
 

diane

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Contraband was an interesting idea - and it was a two-fer. It carefully skirted the thorny problem of whether or not these slaves were now free.
 

jgoodguy

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Contraband was an interesting idea - and it was a two-fer. It carefully skirted the thorny problem of whether or not these slaves were now free.
Exactly. We are not freeing slaves, god forbid, we are merely disposing of enemy contraband.
 

rittmeister

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Exactly. We are not freeing slaves, god forbid, we are merely disposing of enemy contraband.
take butler out and replace him with someone thinking more along traditional lines and hands them back ... you got a precedent

just let his feud with judge ebenezer r hoar escalate into a duel and kill him off there
 

General Lee

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Good stuff.

I'd add that in this timeline, without Lincoln, slavery would not have ended. He was the major factor in its demise.
This gets more into opinion but slavery in general was becoming obsolete, it's easy for the North to turn around and say slavery is bad when it was them who didn't need it anymore.
 

rittmeister

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This gets more into opinion but slavery in general was becoming obsolete, it's easy for the North to turn around and say slavery is bad when it was them who didn't need it anymore.
did they ever need it?

there were not that many plantations up north or any other areas of industry where you could use a large untrained workforce. there's no sense in let's say the colt's patent fire-arms manufacturing company using slave labour, is it? (especially with the product they were manufacturing)
 

Wehrkraftzersetzer

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did they ever need it?

there were not that many plantations up north or any other areas of industry where you could use a large untrained workforce. there's no sense in let's say the colt's patent fire-arms manufacturing company using slave labour, is it? (especially with the product they were manufacturing)
well brooming the yard?
 

byron ed

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,,,Jefferson Davis, another man with a lot of ideas, tried to make progress while secretary of state - highways, railroads, ports and shipyards in the South, etc - and he was popular in the North.,,,
Rather, J. Davis did that stuff as a member of U.S. Congress. He was never U.S. Secretary of State.

He was U.S. Secretary of War at one point however, and a good one, making good contributions to the U.S. armed forces at the time.
 

jgoodguy

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This gets more into opinion but slavery in general was becoming obsolete, it's easy for the North to turn around and say slavery is bad when it was them who didn't need it anymore.
Politics and war killed slavery here and elsewhere, never economics.
 

jgoodguy

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did they ever need it?

there were not that many plantations up north or any other areas of industry where you could use a large untrained workforce. there's no sense in let's say the colt's patent fire-arms manufacturing company using slave labour, is it? (especially with the product they were manufacturing)
Plantations be they cotton, rubber or tea, depended on slavery and other coerced forms of labor. Slavery is compatible with industry. Industry though has challenges for slavery. The rise of an intellectual class opposed to slavery, the rise of a surplus white population needing jobs competing with slavery, and high risk for slave owners that they might lose their assets due to industrial accidents.
 
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