Posted on 02/02/2015 7:36:34 PM PST by rockrr
Some 150 years since Abraham Lincoln outlawed slavery in the U.S., a collection of rare Civil War-era photographs have been brought to life through painstaking colorization.
February 1 marks National Freedom Day, honoring the signing by President Lincoln of a resolution which became the 13th Amendment to the Constitution and abolished slavery.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Yeah, I’m not a fan of Lincoln at times, there are times I think he was too much of a dictator. Heck, I think the Confederates were right on many issues, but ti play Devil’s Advocate, he did what he had to do to win the war which was his objective. If I had to play the role of Lincoln in a computer simulation, I’d do the same things he did. Combine that with the industrial might of the North and lackluster international support of the South, well this is a case where force “solved” the problem. The quotes are there where it really did not but I have to say the North got it’s way for better or worse. Like you, I think there are division now that originate from that time along with the current politics we have now. Glenn Beck, no matter if you like or hate him, he is right on one thing here, we are at a point where there are Americans so far apart in ideology where we cannot sit at the same table anymore, families split up and so on. That sounds familiar.
But what percentage of those were military-age males? For comparison, during WW2, the US fielded 12 million soldiers out of a population of 140 million, about 8.5%, and that was damn near everyone, and even with several adjustments to make more men eligible for the draft (raising the age, lowering the physical standards, etc.) they were facing a real crisis going into 1945 with a shortage of men.
Don’t forget West Virginia. They also abolished slavery in early 1865, ahead of the 13th.
Thanks, Forgot WV was admitted with slaver still legal, but there was legislation for a limited emancipation of those slaves in 1863
There's a great quote from one of the abolition advocates in the West Virginia legislature, "I discovered on that occasion as I never had before, the mysterious and over-powering influence 'the peculiar institution' had on men otherwise sane and reliable. Why, when Mr. Battelle submitted his resolutions, a kind of tremor—a holy horror, was visible throughout the house."
Thanks.
I don’t know if you saw my post from a few days back. If not, here is a link as I think you will enjoy it.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3251996/posts
But of that per centage in WW2, only about one in five Americans were actual combat troops. Others were medics or in transport and supply. Conversely in the German Army the ratio was one in three. But towards the end of the war any and every German male old enough to field a weapon was sent to fight.
That would be my family alright. My two younger brothers, one of my younger sisters and my dad are all liberals. In fact my dad has always proudly identified himself as a socialist. I’m a former liberal cum conservative. Only my two older brothers are conservatives and of one of them I’m beginning to suspect he’s a RINO. Believe me, I know what it means to keep ones trap shut when it come to not discussing politics at family gatherings. However it always works out that the liberal side gets to mouth off and I’m told ‘’don’t start’’.
You’d need to have a more detailed breakdown of the 1860 census to be able to calculate how that 5% compares with the total military age cohort. There may be one available with enough digging.
And large numbers of runaway slaves, contrabands, were used by the US army in support and labor roles without being enlisted in the USCT.
The stats are out there, but I don’t feel like doing that digging right right now. I’ll just end by saying that a rebellion by 179,000 slaves would be considered a pretty big deal, given that Nat Turner’s Rebellion, which spread horror throughout the south, involved less than a hundred.
To me a slave rebellion is something like what occurred in Haiti, an uprising that involves the murder of civilians. There were only a few such incidents in America but the possibility of something like it was a regular worry after the events in Haiti.
By contrast the USCT were fighting as part of the Union Army and that’s not comparable in my opinion, it didn’t involve murder.
I did not. Thank you for the link! That was very moving.
Such was the tenor of the times. It’s my understanding that a runaway slave was called a ‘’contraband’’ in the sense that rather then being seen as a human being who was owned by a plantation master, an African was seen merely as property, an object.
Well, my oldest brother isn’t a moon bat but he sure likes to bark. He learned to do that as a lieutenant in The Marine Corps.
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