Of course, there were slave states that fought for the North. Many other Northerners supported slavery and anti-war feelings.
So what? Slavery was wrong and a good many Northerners died to stop it.
Reconstruction all the way to abolishing Jim Crow laws had many failures, but gradually the South matured to generally allow freedom to live in peace and pursue prosperity.
Yes, there still is hypocracy and bigotry and discrimination. But that does not justify ignoring basic human decency and shame over some of our public symbols.
What individual rights by Southern fighters caused 258,000 of them to die in a losing cause?
What encroachment by Northerners happened before the Civil War?
What property, other than slaves, and land was at risk of being lost to Northeners?
All of that is beside the point. What this statue thing is really about is the political left lashing out at the South because we’re deplorable conservatives who do things like elect Donald Trump. They can’t beat us at the polls but they can stick their finger in our eye by tearing down our statues in their blue enclaves. The historical debate is interesting but misses what the left is really up to here. The left needs to be resisted on all fronts until they’re beaten; then we can have the debate. In the meantime, let’s not naively play into their tantrums.
Thank your for your thoughtful reply. I’m not trying to be difficult. I taught U.S. History for 10 years. I was born nin Jefferson Ohio, the birthplace of Wade and Giddings. Abolition runs strong in my veins as I toured the Underground RR hiding places. I live in the South now and have listened to all the arguments. Of course slavery was an abominable institution that all mankind should be ashamed of. I’m just pointing out that the Black man had few friends anywhere, North or South. Reconstruction with its promises of “40 acres and a mule” was a farce. But a lot of poor Tn, NC, and other poor farmers who couldn’t spell the word slave fought for ideals other than human slavery. Lincolns original idea of compensated emancipation would have been the best solution other than 700,000 lives.
“...but gradually the South matured to generally allow freedom to live in peace and pursue prosperity...”
Yes, that’s the point. It would happened naturally within the next 10-20 years without the loss of half million plus lives. Industrial revolution.
What was the civil war fought over?
The north lost reconstruction btw just saying
You try living in a majority black jurisdiction and handing over power to them instantly
Do you think the Radicals did that for noble causes?
Hardly
Pure power just like their leftists Democrat cousins today
But the lost when the public up north tired of their excess
Now we’re still fighting it but parties have switched
Kind of
The GOPe is still not trustworthy
This will not end well
Two Americas still
The catalyst in these upheavals has always been immigration legal or illegal
I don’t have an answer
Oregon is controlled by basically 3-5 urban or academic counties
It’s a mirror of the nation
The south is like eastern Oregon
And non whites are streaming in to finish us
That’s the facts
I’ve been preaching it here forever
Look at South Africa
What should Southerners have done in 1866
Look at angry urban blacks or Latinos today
You want them running you?
So...do you condemn Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe et alia for their slaveholding? Or did it become evil in 1860? I’m always curious why New England deigned to unite with the slaveholders only to slaughter them as moral reprobates 90 years later.