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It was in the 3rd year of Civil War, the Union losing, that Lincoln needed more enlistments and cash infusion, and decided upon the Emancipation Proclamtion, freeing the slaves. The Civil War was NOT fought to free the slaves. The shots fired at Ft Sumnter were upon ships carrying cotton to Europe wiithout paying export tarrifs. The issue was a States Rights vs Centralized Federal Control the very case upon which the Second Amendment was enacted. Lincoln had refused the abolitionist stance until he waqs banckrupt of money and soldiers. Upon the Emancipation, 300,000 freed slaves joined the Union forces and money poured in from Northeastern abolitionists. Lincoln was conflicted about the will of God for good reason.

I agree---

"Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, --a most sacred right--a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government, may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can, may revolutionize, and make their own, of so much of the territory as they inhabit. More than this, a majority of any portion of such people may revolutionize, putting down a minority, intermingled with , or neat about them, who may oppose their movement. Such minority, was precisely the case, of the Tories of our own revolution." --Abraham Lincoln, from the Congressional Record, Jan. 12, 1847.

Help me out here. I recall reading, probably in The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Civil War, that the shots fired at Ft. Sumter had to do with the fact that Union troops had ensconced themselves there and refused to evacuate, defying Confederate insistence that they were occupying the sovereign soil of the newly declared secessionists.

Your statement about ships and export tariffs has me nonplussed.

I agree.

In a response to a New York Tribune editorial Lincolnwrote a letter to Editor Andrew Greeley explaining why slaves were being freed. He stated:

“My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union”

Step away from the crack pipe.

It was in the 3rd year of Civil War, the Union losing, that Lincoln needed more enlistments and cash infusion, and decided upon the Emancipation Proclamtion, freeing the slaves.

The EP was first announced on September 22, 1862, 17 months after the war started.

The shots fired at Ft Sumnter were upon ships carrying cotton to Europe wiithout paying export tarrifs.

Wait, so were these ships carrying cotton inside Ft. Sumter? Why would the confederates shoot at ships carrying their cotton? And what the hell is an export tariff?

The issue was a States Rights vs Centralized Federal Control the very case upon which the Second Amendment was enacted.

Oh, please go on. This should be good.

It was in the 3rd year of Civil War, the Union losing, that Lincoln needed more enlistments and cash infusion, and decided upon the Emancipation Proclamtion, freeing the slaves.

Your comment is riddled with errors.

First off, it wasn't "the 3rd year of the war." Lincoln had begun discussing it as early as July, 1862. The Emancipation Proclamation was issued in two phases; the first on 22 September, 1862, and the second on 1 January, 1863. The timing of the preliminary proclamation was governed by the political need for a significant battlefield victory, which occurred at Antietam on 17 September. The war had been going on for quite a bit less than two years.

Moreover, the rationale for the proclamation was not economic as you imply. It was political, and also strategic. There was a significan foreign policy component to it -- in particular, it was aimed at the British and French, who realized that could not recognize the Confederacy without seeming to support slavery (which both had banned).

Third, although the initial Union war aims in the Civil War were not to "fight to free the slaves," the war was nevertheless about slavery. It is nearly impossible to conceive of a Civil War in which slavery was not a factor. The congressional Republicans in the North were always pro-abolition, and pushed hard to gain abolition as a war aim ... and they finally succeeded. The South always saw the Civil War precisely in terms of trying to avoid the abolition of slavery.

Fourth, your comment about Fr. Sumter is simply ridiculous. The issue for Fr. Sumter was resupply: the fort had supplies for perhaps 6 weeks; the South wanted the fort abandoned; Lincoln wanted to resupply it and thereby control the harbor.