Our Oceans are Under Attack

I have to disagree. It seems there are plenty of misconceptions to go around on all sides. Sherman marched through Atlanta in order to speed the South's surrender mainly because the war had to end so the suffering would end on both sides. Read Lincoln's second inaugural address, reprinted from Wikipedia source:


Fellow-Countrymen:
At this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.
On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war—seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.
One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."
With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

 

I found this line to stand out in my mind: "It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes."

 

It's called justification, Hoyt. Declaring a noble cause after the fact. Grant, Sherman, Johnson, and Lincolns wife's family, were all slave owners.
Research Lincolns plans for the freed slaves after the war. He intended to ship them all back to Africa, because he was convinced the races couldn't exist together in peace.
The E proclamation was a military tactic. Lincoln expected a slave uprising to follow. didn't happen.

 

In the Lincoln Douglas Debate back in 1858 Lincoln argued against slavery because he was an abolitionist. He lost the election to Douglas but at least his views became clearly known. Some in my family owned slaves as well but that does not mean we all did or all approved. Some in my family fought in both sides of this great conflict that freed the slaves, at least until Socialism took hold so that others could "wring their bread from the sweat of other men's faces".

 

By the way, some slaves transported to the Western Hemisphere were not men of color, mostly Irish and Scots, some of whom can be counted amongst my ancestors.

 

I put down 50 dependents on my tax return. IRS wouldn't agree the states qualified.

 

The Emancipation Proclamation broadened the goals of the Civil War. While slavery had been a major issue that led to the war, Lincoln's only mission at the start of the war was to keep the Union together. The Proclamation made freeing the slaves an explicit goal of the Union war effort, and was a step towards outlawing slavery and conferring full citizenship upon ex-slaves.

 

you didn't read it.

 

Global Investors Call for Carbon Pricing

 

The good ole days...

 

The distinct possibility you may have to defend your words with your body, made for a more gracious mannered society then.
A bit more thinking and restraint before spouting off, would be a nice improvement in our present foulmouthed raucous culture, wouldn't you agree?
Less mud slinging in politics too.

 

By not eating meat it helps save the ocean from attack as well as our body

 

I'm pleased you and others are vegetarian. Less competition for pork chops.
Mama used to tie one around my neck so the dog would play with me.
I don't share pork chops!
So I learned to play with myself.
Ha Ha Yukety, yuk, yuk, yuk!

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornerstone_Speech

Just sayin'.

I realise the result of the war was a blow to Southern pride and that people wanted to invent all sorts of myths to make themselves feel better about it, but the words of Confederate leaders at the time, as well as words and actions preceding the outbreak of war, make it clear that slavery was one of the main causes. Your own state specifically mentioned slavery when it seceded, as did several others.*

If "the wrong side won", there are several points I would like you to consider. I assume you agree that slavery was an evil that needed to be ended. So, if the Confederacy had not lost, how long do you think slavery would have endured in the South? My guess is quite some time. Is the evil of that enough to offset the evil of the war?

Also, although I do not doubt you know many people who lament the Confederacy losing, how many of those people are black Southerners? My guess is that the number of black Southerners who lament the passing of the Confederacy would be very close to zero.

Every country, and indeed every person living in every country, has things in their past that they either are not proud of or should not be proud of. Life's like that.

*Sorry, for some reason I was thinking you were in Texas.

 

It also stifles free speech due to threats of violence. Is this a good thing?