‘some of our worst Amendments’
It is the 13th that really gets to you guys.
I have no problem with the 13th, nor do most of the people assumed to be on the side of the originator of this thread, but the snide assumption behind your comment points up your own bigotry against those who disagree with you.
The poorly defined word, “some,” was a poor choice on my part, but if we look at the mess that has flowed out of the 15th, I include that one, certainly. It was proposed - behind the cloak of human rights issues - for purely political reasons, to insure the continuation of the Republican power base in both the North and the South, just as the efforts to expand it have continued to be pushed in recent years by the Dems.
If we add to that amendment what can only be considered - by its original two page length, by its multiple sections, and by its multiple, often unrelated decrees - as several amendments rolled into one, the collection of crap that is the 14th certainly fulfills my statement no matter how you define “some.” The 14th was highly controversial even in its day; it was born of extra-Constitutional maneuvering, and it has been used since inception with enormous damage by those who would destroy this constitutional republic.
The motives behind, and the details of these amendments do not paint a very noble picture of the victors in our Civil War. Coupled with the cruelties inflicted unnecessarily by the North upon the soldiers and the non-combatants of the South - both during and after the war - it is not hard to understand why this war continues to resonate with a large part of our country. I have relatives that fought prominently on both sides, and I grew up in both Maryland and Virginia where that history is still kept alive on both sides. I am not upset, as you assume, with the official ending of slavery as a by-product of that conflict, but in the main I side with the South, and I have little affection for those from the North - either of that era, or of any generation since.