Was it a good thing that Lincoln won the Civil War?

[BurtWorm]

Poll question: Was it a good thing that Lincoln won the Civil War?

Inspired by the following quote from a review of Gore Vidal's book by Edmund S. Morgan in the New York Review of books:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/16833


Vidal is an unreconstructed son of the South. "I am literally," he has written,

"a grandchild of the American Civil War, and I belonged to the losing side. Had the issue of that war been the abolition of slavery, I could not have faulted our defeat—morally at least. But Mr. Lincoln—the first of the modern tyrants—chose to fight the war not on the issue of slavery but on the holiness and indivisibility of a union that he alone had any understanding of. With his centralizing of all power at Washington this "reborn" (sic) union was ready for a world empire that has done us as little good as it has done the world we have made so many messes in."


In essays and speeches over the past twenty or thirty years Vidal has rung the changes on the little good the despotic government Lincoln made possible has done at home and the messes it has made abroad. His view, reiterated continually, is that our government, however popularly elected, represents only the large corporations that control it, as they control the media, through which they persuade the voters to support only two parties, conservative and reactionary.

[Ishoutandscream]

1. I'm beginning to think this will become a South bashing thread

I think I'll take cover.

[BurtWorm]

2. I honestly don't intend it to be one.

I intend to raise questions an article I read about Vidal this morning have going through my head about the implications of Lincoln's victory.

[Walt Starr]

3. I promise I will not use the name I give the Civil War

I voted, won't even reveal how.

[BurtWorm]

4. I have my suspicions, Reb.

;)

[Walt Starr]

5. You are way out of sync.

I've been a proud Yankee my entire life. Beleive me, I think I coined my name and I've seen it get horrible reactions in some of the threads in the past.

;)

If ya PM me, I'll let you know what it is.

[DoNotRefill]

7. WNA?

Just curious...that's what we call it hereabouts...

[Walt Starr]

10. I'm a Yankee

That is not a name I would ever use to refer to that conflict.

[sweetheart]

6. Lincoln was a mass murderer

he killed 2% of his people

Link to more on that topic:
http://engforum.pravda.ru/showthread.php3?threadid=43166

[Muddleoftheroad]

19. Lincoln was our greatest president

And this attempt at historical revisionism is absurd and disgusting.

Lincoln was a great man, but great times make great men. They either rise to the occasion or are destroyed by it. FDR is another example of rising to the occasion. Churchill a third.

But Lincoln did so in another time -- one most of us can barely contemplate now. The union was an amorphous concept and many Americans had barely left their towns, villages and farms. They were Virginians, New Yorkers, Marylanders and Texans. They were not truly united in their own minds.

Lincoln took over a country already falling apart. Between his election and taking office, the Southern states seceded, armed and organized while the North did almost nothing.

When he took over, the concept of a true Cabinet was still forming. The federal bureaucracy that we all take for granted was in its infancy and the public could just walk into the White House and meet with him. He had to do much on his own because the nation had never faced a crisis like this.

He accomplished the greatest feat of American leadership with a divided nation, a divided Congress, little support and poor military leadership.

Yet he held us together. He freed my people not because he grew up anabolitionist like John Brown or Cassius Clay, but because he did so initially to fight the war and preserve the union. But as the war went on, he grew into the idea that we were just as much as part of this nation as anyone. That America was not a land for white men only, but for all men. For if former slaves could find a home and fight for their country, then this land would be open to all. He learned this and, in so doing, taught all Americans.

He understood that we had to both keep the union together and still remember that the enemy had to be welcomed back into America with open arms. He was the founding spirit for the Marshall Plan 80 years later. He knew that rebuilding the union was the right thing for both North and South. And he would have led America through a fair Reconstruction had Booth not killed him.

Lincoln embodied not only the American spirit that any of us can rise from ordinary roots to lead the nation, but he showed how goodness can triumph.

[sweetheart]

41. you wouldn't say that if he killed you

He killed 2% of america with the mistaken perception that war will end slavery in the hearts of men.... and here 143 years later, we still have more slavery on this western civilization than ever before.... so the war was a perverted failure.

It united an inappropriately large union that today perverts the world... where you get your fantasy revisionism i don't know.... but the facts are in front of you in the face of GWB and his minions... the south has arisen again to haunt the north... and what is called "the government" is merely the reincarnation of the confederate south out to enslave the world this time, with the power of a "united" union.

Lincoln was no hero, he was a war criminal.

[Muddleoftheroad]

57. You are so wrong it is scary

But thank you for giving me the opportunity to set the record straight.

You are first wrong because I would have gladly died for the freedom I now enjoy. How can I say that? Because hundreds of thousands of African-Americans made that choice and thousands died. Thousands more were maimed fighting for this freedom.

Lincoln didn't kill 2% of anything. The South started the war to keep their sick societal structure in one piece. They didn't flee union because of tariffs or taxes. They fled because they feared the end of slavery and they feared that Lincoln was a man who would stop the growth of that evil institution.

You speak of perverted failure of the war and know nothing about what it ended. I know the stories. They have been passed generation to generation in my family. The stories of horrors and indignities that knew no boundaries. Rape, whippings and murder. Family members sold without a single thought to the fact that we might never see them again.

Lincoln ended that. Not Jefferson. Not Washington. Not JFK and not FDR. One man stopped it all. Abraham Lincoln.

Was he perfect? Never. Was the effort perfect? Just as clearly, the answer is no.

But what happened still was the foundation for a glorious freedom.

If you don't appreciate it, perhaps that is because you don't wake up every day and know that your ancestors were enslaved and that a relatively simple man named Abe won you the rights entitled to every man and woman on Earth.

If you hate *, join the fucking crowd. But how you can blame Abrahma Lincoln for that defies imagination. The only thing they have in common is the party and that is in name only.

So, take your issues out on * and leave our greatest president alone.

The only thing criminal in this discussion is your attempt to blame Lincoln for the stupidity of another.

"Once let the black man get upon his person the brass letters, U.S., let him get an eagle on his button, and a musket on his shoulder and bullets in his pockets, and there is no power on earth which can deny that he has earned the right to citizenship in the United States." -

- Frederick Douglass

[sweetheart]

68. No, it is my honour to thank you.

I've always believed in what you say, yet i've been fogged by an increasinly difficult to penetrate revisionism that says the war was fought for states rights... the GOP revisionists are winning... in their rewriting... and i'm a fool.

I don't agree with taking up arms to war unless it is necessary... and you show me it was necessary.

I'm sorry i've mistaken this historical 14th and its great liberation for the people enslaved...

Taking the emotion from the issue, is there not a similarity between the wage slaves of today and the moderate slaves of yesteryear? Is the end of slavery to be replaced by gross poverty and disenfranchised (nonvoting) non-existance of the masses as they are hearded between factories.

respectfully, as you rightfully oppose, as I DO, slavery as an institution, do you not see its re-emergence in the bushishta's? To argue that there is a total disconnect between * and abe's time seems outside reality... are you sooo sure there is nooo connection.

In any case, i wholly agree that slavery was evil and would give my life today to end it... period.

I only argue the revisionist view that we have more human slavery today than ever before in history, so clearly the civil war did not end it except for your family... are you fighting to liberate the new enslaved masses today... ?

[DrWeird]

70. Comparing low wage jobs to slavery is ridiculous.

I'd recommend spending some time learning what the antebellum slave life was like.

[sweetheart]

74. and i recommend

contemplating what 600,000 people would have done with the rest of their lives if they had been allowed to die naturally.

You propose one thing at the cost of another... without demonstrating the awareness that muddle has....

given your prejudices, would you give your live to free wrongly imprisoned drugs users from american prison-life-3-strikes-death camps?.... historical hipocrasy is easier in the rear view.... Methinks slavery was wrong, but war was more wrong, and we pay today with every white house war killing thousands.

[Muddleoftheroad]

73. Thank you for your comments

I still see no "enslaved masses" in America. There are slaves -- real, tangible slaves still in Africa. In much of the third world, their lot in life is not a far cry from that.

I can't even mentally fast forward to a time in the U.S. when I could fairly use the term "wage slavery" in good conscience.

Are things good for the poor in our society? Of course not. I lived in Southeast D.C. where the only product more popular than drugs in hopelessness. But I and my family have, by and large, gotten out.

America still holds hope and promise and I stand by that.

If you want to explore true poverty, try the third world or maybe even Appalachia, though I doubt it. But as pathetic as our safety net is in America, it vastly better than manner elsewhere have it.

Find some starving farmer in Africa and ask him how many TVs he has. How many phones? Or even whether he has ever eaten in a restaurant or seen a movie.

Yes, poverty is a rotten situation. But our definition of poverty would equate to grand wealth in many corners of this Earth. So it is best to keep things in perspective.

[rasputin1952]

I find youor post to be factual and straight forward...

there will always be those that question the CW, it's motives, and the outcome. But one thing was ensured by the CW, we became melded as a nation, not a group of city states that would squabble at the drop of a hat. Our strencgth is in our commonality and our diversity.

We have faults, but we are Americans, before all else. We will learn to tolerate, but first, we must learn to communicate.

O8)

[JoePizz]

8. Study your history a little more, and you will see...

The civil war was fought over the right of the south to export cotton directly to Europe, rather than through the shipping ports in the north.

Slavery was a simple excuse to unite the people of the north behind a common cause unrelated to the realities of the situation. Sort of like the "Lets Defeat Terrorism" thing Bush is pulling.

It is worth noting that Robert E. Lee did not own slaves, but William Sherman and Grant did at the time the civil war started.

Whether the south's losing the war to the north was right or wrong is irrelevant. Slavery as an institution would probably have died anyway, and rightly so. Had the war truly been fought over slavery, it would have been one of the easiest wars in history to justify.

[BurtWorm]

11. The question is not right or wrong, but good or bad.

You can do a cost-benefit analysis in your head to decide that. Was it a good thing that the northern industrialists beat the southern agrarians, if you want to look at it that way?

[madrchsod]

13. when did grant own slaves?

i must have missed that.

[NoPasaran]

15. Grant's wife

Julia Dent had a slave at the time of their marriage.

[MadHound]

18. Oh please, go study your history yourself

In each and every one of the Southern states declaration of secession and subsequent state constitutions, the preamble clearly states that the major reason that the state is seceeding is slavery. Every single one.

And the issue of slavery was not a uniting factor in the North at all nor was it designed to be, or are you forgetting that the Emancipation Proclamation wasn't issued until late 1862? Further testament to this lack of unity behind slavery opposition is evidenced by the New York Draft Riots, among other such protests.

No matter what revisionist spin you try to put on the matter, the Southern states turned traitor and fired upon the union, all to preserve their "particular institution"

As far as the original question goes, I think it is a good thing that the Union won. Otherwise I feel we would have wound up as a balkanized continent, broken up into six or seven different countries, with none of them prosperous, much less becoming a super power.

And you are being a bit disingenous about Grant's owning slaves. Grant was brought up in a strict abolitionist family, and didn't encouter slavery until he was a young man in Kentucky. When he married into his wife's family(the Dents of St. Louis), four of his in-laws slaves were offered to the couple, though, much to his wife's chagrin, he for the most part refused, forcing his wife to have paid servants. The one direct exception to this is the case of a mulatto man, offered to him by the Dent family. He had suspicions that this man was an unacknowledged brother in law, and took him on to provide him training and skills. He freed this man after two years of service, though apparently the gentleman was by now so skilled that his wife bemoaned the money that Grant was "throwing away".

[sweetheart]

50. Oh! Please explain your statement

Otherwise I feel we would have wound up as a balkanized continent, broken up into six or seven different countries, with none of them prosperous, much less becoming a super power.

What exactly are those 7 countries and how did their history evolve when lincoln signed a treaty granting Jefferson Davis independence? The more you can frame round your straw man on this indicates your historical revisionism and knowledge to say what you have.... i think its brilliant and want your ideas. please.

As a separate question... is becoming a super power beneficial to its citizens? .. it appears not... why is that a goal.

? in expectation...
-s

ps.
-good stuff :-)

[MadHound]

96. OK

I think that California would have remained a seperate country, rather than join a distant and weak Union. NY, OH, and PA perhaps would have formed their own seperate country(New York was actually talking seccession during the Civil War, and PA and OH were following their lead). New England, being the staunch upright abolitionist area that it is would have probably broken away without an Emancipation Proclimation, and if the Union had lost and left slavery in place(New England was really the driving force behind abolition, they had threatened seccession in the 1850s over it, and were the group that was really being pacified by Lincoln when he drew up the Emancipation Proclimation). In the South, the coastal states(which were softer on slavery), would have been left behind by the Deep Southern States(GA, MS, AL, LA). And the reason would have been once again slavery. Many of your intellectual southerners were seeing the economic drawbacks of continuing slavery, and would have probably emancipated once the war was won. The Deep South states would have been economically hurt by the loss of such a labor pool and very well have split off from the CSA to preserve their "peculiar institution". All of this would have left the Western and Mountain states up for grabs, with some of them perhaps reverting to Mexican territory. I'm not alone in this prediction of continental balkanization. Lincoln himself feared this very result should the Union have lost, and this fear was a major driving force in his goal to preserve the Union. He didn't want to see the North American continent go the way of Europe, divided into many small seperate states that were constantly warring with each other. He wished to see a united, continental power, from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

And yes, being a super power can be beneficial, both to yourself and to other nations. But you have to make decisions wisely when you are top of the heap, and unfortunately the US seems to be doing rather poorly in that department the last few decades.

[7th_Sephiroth]

9. one thing to remember

is that the civil war was the fedral goverment Vs. Local goverment, and the fedral goverment won, the slaves were an afterthought

[BurtWorm]

12. Then why did the Southern states confederate?

Weren't they a federal government of their own?

I've read a convincing argument (not in the article linked to above) that the South had more interest in the federal government's towing the line than the North did. It was the federal government that protected the institution of slavery. Democracy is, as Vidal has pointed out, never mentioned in the Constitution, but slavery is all over it.

[ArkDem]

14. Was the Confederate States of America a local

government?

[democratreformed]

25. Hello ArkDem

I'm assuming you are an Arkie. So am I!

[bhunt70]

63. exactly.

...

[The Magistrate]

16. The War Of Southern Treason

Was well fought, and well won, by the Federal Union.

The only flaw was the gentleness of the regime instituted by Johnson.

Mr. Vidal, in many respects, assays out to a very high proportion of pissant to sensible commentator. This is one of them.

"I will fight the secesh till Hell freezes over, then fight on the ice!"

[BurtWorm]

17. Hey. This is not to respark the Civil War.

I don't mean this to provoke anything but thought about the question. Is it possible, for instance, that Lincoln's loss might have meant the birth of two nations on the continent, or the downsizing of one and the creation of a new one, the USA and CSA? Would these two nations have been able to be at peace, or would there have been an inevitable reunion at some point down the road? Or would the USA have merged with Canada? Would California and Texas have become their own Republics? There are all sorts of implications entailed in imagining a loss for Lincoln.

[Muddleoftheroad]

20. One implication

In such a loss is that my people would not have been freed. Perhaps Lee would have held sway in a post-war South and convinced them to free us, but who knows how long that would have taken and where we would be now.

Know this, Lincoln DID free us. In every other scenario, that is an open question.

[tritsofme]

23. Lincoln only freed slaves in the states

that were rebelling.

The slave states that stayed in the Union and I believe the area in which the Union was occupying was not subject to the Emancipation Proclamation.

[Muddleoftheroad]

26. I am sure you have a point with this

Lincoln was trying to hold a nation together. If I don't begrude him political expediency in so doing, why do you?

[tritsofme]

36. Lincoln was never an abolitionist,

before the war he always said it would be unconstitutional to ban slavery.

[Muddleoftheroad]

37. Before the war that is true

However, Lincoln came to the topic over time and came to see the need not only to abolish slavery, but to embrace us as citizens, which was very radical at the time.

[tritsofme]

38. I think you give him too much credit in that regard,

he favored a much more moderate version of reconstruction than the so called "radical Republicans" who eventually won out after his death. Before Lincoln was assasinated his relations with Congress were at all time lows because he did not want to go along with many of the key issues proposed.

[Muddleoftheroad]

39. No, you don't give him enough

You still forget that Lincoln was president of a divided nation where half had seceded, anti-immigrant feelings were strong and draft riots had rocked the largest city in the nation. It was not an easy time.

However, Lincoln was the first president to receive a delegation of black men to discuss issues. He became friends with Frederick Douglass and consulted with him several times.

During that process and as the war progressed, he came to the realization that we were needed not only as soldiers but as Americans. Think about that, he armed hundreds of thousands of black men to free other black men. That was the same place John Brown had aspired to a few scant years before and that had gotten him hanged.

Did Lincoln announce his feelings to everyone loudly proclaiming it? Hell no. To do so would have been foolish and detrimental to the union.

Nevertheless, he set these things in motion. I also daresay that race relations would be 100% better this day if Lincoln had lived.

[tritsofme]

40. I dont believe that at all

>>I also daresay that race relations would be 100% better this day if Lincoln had lived.

In Lincoln's plan all a state had to do in order to readmitted to Union was have a tenth of its citizens give a loyalty oath, and obey federal laws regarding slavery.

The radical Republicans got tough with the South and that was needed, it was just the Democratic resurgence in the South and growing complacency in the North that caused radical reconstruction to fail.

[The Magistrate]

27. Before The End Of the War, Sir

Those states ratified constitutional amendments against slavery, and the practice ended there. This was done with a active support by President Lincoln, and a good deal of arm-twisting by him, in some cases.

[tritsofme]

32. Lincoln was killed in the middle of the ratification process iirc

nt

[tritsofme]

22. I think the North and Canada would merged

one way or the other, in 1865 the Union had the largest standing army in the world.

And the Southern states probably would have gone further south and spread slavery along with it, as it had tried to do in the years preceeding the war.

[Muddleoftheroad]

29. Not likely

As you may recall, Canada was still an English colony and, as such, nearly went to war with the union as the result of the Trent Affair.

However, if you find the concept intriguing, I suggest you look for an author by the name of Harry Turtledove and read his series beginning with "How Few Remain."

[knight_of_the_star]

51. That is a good series

And lays out a VERY possible path that history could have taken.

[Yupster]

77. Start with

Turtledove's "The Guns of the South."

I think it's his best work

I liked "How Few Remain", but feel the series deteriorated after that. It became Turtledove trying out his social ideas rather than his alternative history.

I like his World War series better. Avtar the Fleetlord is one of the best characters I've ever read. Maybe after Andre the Giants character in "The Princess Bride."

I rarely disagree with you Muddle, but I don't share the same respect for Lincoln that you do. I think he could have done much more to hold the country together during his campaign, in his 3 month "president-elect" period, and I think his call for troops from the border states was an absolute disaster.

PS - I had a talk with our local Justice of the Peace not too long ago and asked him the following question (he's an elected A-A official, a client of mine and a friend). Anyway, I asked him if somehow Lincoln knew that if he fought the Civil War, the slaves would be freed, but 600,000 men would be killed, would he recommend that Lincoln fight the war, or woulf he recommend Lincoln let the south go and wait for slavery to die a natural death. He thought for a while, and then told me he'd have to think some more. He called me the next day and said he'd tell Lincoln to fight. Therer comes a time when you've waited long enough and you shouldn't have to wait any longer.

[Muddleoftheroad]

82. There's your problem

You rarely disagree with me. :)

I love all of Turtledove's work (damn, he writes a lot), but find the Civil War series more plausible than "Guns of The South," so I enjoy it far more.

I think these days a president-elect would do more. Then, the concept was a new one. Hell, there wasn't even a Secret Service escort or a military one for the new president. Nor was there any particular provision to get him to Washington ASAP.

In fact, looking back on it, much of the way the government did things was incredibly naive, but that is not Lincoln's fault. He inherited it.

I think I like your friend the JOP. I agree with him. No sane leader ever wishes such death and destruction, but sometimes it is called for.

[The Magistrate]

24. That Is All Right, Sir

My views on the matter are near the heart.

There would not have been peace between two nations thus formed: the slave power would have maintained itself even further into the present day, and would have further expanded into conquest of Mexico at a minimum. It is possible the west coast states might have detached from either remnant of the United States.

None of this could be conceived of as good: the continuation of a nation based on chattel slavery further into the modern era is about as unmitigated an evil as it is possible to conceive.

[Walt Starr]

43. There's that name I promised I wouldn't bring up

Last time I mentioned that name for the Civil War, the flamefest that ensued was reminiscent of some scenes from North and South.

[BlackFrancis]

21. I don't have any high minded reason to wish they had won

I just wish they would have had their chance to implement all their insane ideas on their own and watch them implode so that when they came crying back from their bankrupt, no infrastructre, disease ridden, theocracy they would shut up.

[cmf]

28. Well, as a descendent of slaves

I'm pretty happy that Lincoln won and the slaves were freed. Would slavery in the hypothetical Confederate States of America have died on it's own naturally? Most likely, but probably not that quickly (considering that there are places in the world where slavery still exists). It would have been a slow death. For my ancestors, living in the post-war South was bad enough, living in the CSA would have been worse.

[Yupster]

78. Just my rank speculation of course, but

I have no doubt that RE Lee would have been elected the CSA's second president had the south won its independence. They had a one term six-year limit.

I think he would have set up a gradual manumission, probably financed by European and US money. I think it would have been based on the Jamaican model.

[Selwynn]

30. The Industrial Revolution marked the end of the Republic...

I chose option 2, change would have come without war, but the South Chose war and it was a good thing that the war was won.

[burning bush]

31. Excellent Questions BW!

Ultimately, what we experienced from the civil war was a higher level of civil rights in one area of society (freedom from slavery) and reduced civil rights in another (the right to secede from the union).

Lincoln was never the civil rights president that he has been given credit for. In 1858 Lincoln had wrote: "I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races. I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people. There is a physical difference between the white and black races, which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality."

Would Slavery have ended eventually? Perhaps so, perhaps we would still have slaves to this date. But would the imposition of the Federal government over the sovereignity of the States have gained any traction?

I think it would have taken a war for that to happen, and it did.

[Muddleoftheroad]

33. You are unfair to Mr. Lincoln

Yes, he wrote much before office and spent his early career and even his early days in office envisioning a Back ot Africa movement.

But that changed. As the war went on, he saw not only the need for Black soldiers, but saw that we would be Black citizens as well.

For a man of his time to grow into such a position is an epic accomplishment.

[chaska]

34. There's a really interesting book called "A Pattern Language"...

which is very wide ranging but is mostly about architecture. But it also addresses this issue (though not directly, the specific case of the Civil War is not addressed). It says that there is a natural size for countries. A country is or should be defined by such things as geographical boundaries and culture. If you accept that argument (I think I do) then the South should have been allowed to break away.

The USA is really several different countries combined into one often poorly functioning country. The South is clearly unlike the rest of the country. It should be its own separate country. (I am Southern, though no apologist, in case anyone feels the need to know that). If the South had been allowed to go in the 1860's it would have continued with slavery, yes, but that would probably have ended soon anyway.

Actually, and quite ironically, I think, left to its own devices, the South, having nothing to rebel against, would likely have been a much more moderate culture where such things as race relations are concerned. There is no doubt in my mind that, just as Edwards indicated when he said that line about (paraprase)"We don't need no yankee coming down here to tell us what to do," that the South is the way it is in no small part in reaction to the rest of the country. The South, in effect, has a big ol' chip on its shoulder. We were beat down and humiliated after the Civil War and its affected the culture ever since. It's a shame, but we're stuck with it now. At this point I've completely forgotten what the topic of this thread is so I'll stop.

[damnraddem]

35. It was a battle of civilizations:

urban corporate capitalism vs. rural aristocratic capitalism. The latter depended on an even-more corrupt form of exploitation (slavery) than did the former (wage slavery). Those who took power after 1868 were nasty, a few years later making their accommodations to new methods of exploitation in the South. Still, the end of slavery, although not the major intent of the War, made it worthwhile -- and the preservation of the Union was likewise worthwhile, despite who it was that came to dominate it.

[leanings]

42. How would slavery have ended

had it not been for the War Between the States? Would it have gone on for much longer? Would the Industrial Rev have put an end to the economic impetus behind it? Can anyone envision a worse way for slavery to end than 600,000 dead and the backlash of Reconstruction?

[sweetheart]

44. slavery ended?

Human slavery is on a greater scale today than ever before in human history. The war accomplished nothing... except the creation of an overly large uber-federal that is beyond democratic choice.

Slavery is a condition of unfettered capitalism, and the south resurgent has created corporate personhood and proceeded in a century and a half to enslave all who come before their corporate plantations... that you yourself are a slave and must change your opinions if your boss comes down on you.. or you risk failing to feed your family.

Given that lincoln did nothing to really end slavery, the war was fought entirely for federalism... that very federal that is beyond democracy today.... there is a worse end to slavery that i can envision... WW4 which kills 50 million americans and destroys all corporatism as it is known today.

Don't wish for a worse way... there is one. ;-)

[Muddleoftheroad]

48. It sure as shit ended

The mere fact that I can type that shows that slavery ended. My ancestors were prevented from reading or writing under penalty of death. Even to teach them was a crime.

It cracks me up when people talk about wage slavery. Wage slavery is what the rest of us call work. If you don't work, you don't eat. If people in your life have given you enough wealth (the equivalent for food) that you don't have to work, that is their business. If you don't want to work for the Man, then start your own business and stop whining. If you don't have the money, then scrimp and save until you do.

You talk about slavery but know nothing about it or so it seems. Slavery is living in a shack on massa's plantation. You don't own the shack and you don't own anything in it. You might live with a wife or children, but there are not yours. Massa or his overseers can come along at any point day or night and sell them, or rape them or whip them or any damn thing they please.

You are made to work till you drop and if you say anything back or challenge you are whipped or killed. Slaves attempting to escape are hobbled (they chop off part of your foot) so they can't do so again. After that, few have the courage to try again, much less the physical ability.

Your daily life is misery and your only solace is death.

That is slavery.

In capitalism, I a black man, earn a good living. I went to schools and learned how to read and write. I can vote. I can run for office. I can express an opinion and I have the power to change things.

THAT is freedom.

Hell, even THIS is freedom. Our debating this silly ass point.

Work sucks. It's not even great for bosses who often go unappreciated even when a company succeeds. Bill Gates, who has made more millionaires than possibly anyone in history, is reviled though I have never met a Microsoft employee who complained about salary or benefits.

And you save the best for last, some stupid historical revision claiming that, "Lincoln did nothing to really end slavery."

The war was indeed INITIALLY fought by many for federalism. But that ignores the strong movement for freedom thriving in the North at the time. That movement voted for Lincoln, not Bell or Breckinridge or Douglas. The South's view of how Lincoln would handle the slavery question caused them to revolt, not the South's view of federalism.

Lincoln freed my people. He not only did, he laid the groundwork for our being full members of this society. Yes, it has taken us 140 years and that journey isn't over, but the road was paved in blood and a tall, gawky nobody Springfield lawyer led the way.

God bless him.

[sweetheart]

53. i am wrong. respect.

Please help me fix the mess i've started discussing this very topic on pravda... it seems many americans are unaware that slavery existed, and that racism exists.

http://engforum.pravda.ru/showthread.php3?threadid=43166

God bless you and your family... my ancestors did not die for nothing... yet increasingly i wonder...

regards,
-sweetheart

PS. If you could set me right on my revisionism, i would appreciate it...

[Terwilliger]

45. yes

it might not have ended...do you think that might be worse?

[Yupster]

79. Brazil was the last

Western country to end slavery in the 1880's. I don't think the CSA would have still been going on after them.

[wuushew]

46. Most wars are unjustifyable due to the loss of life

I argue that the American revolution was not needed, surely we would have transitioned to a Canadian or Austrailian form of democracy eventually.

the ultimate question is if you are willing to die for freedom, even though life is the ultimate freedom.

[sweetheart]

47. agreed 100%

nonviolence amhisa.... the right to life is sacred for freedom fighters too.

[Muddleoftheroad]

49. The Civil War certainly WAS justifiable

Some of us would rather die fighting for freedom than live as the slaves we were.

From "The Wind and The Lion:"

Sherif of Wazan: Great Raisuli, we have lost everything. All is drifting on the wind as you said. We have lost everything.

Raisuli: Sherif, is there not one thing in your life that is worth losing everything for?

[wuushew]

54. Muddle I agree with most of your posts on this topic

Once we were engaged in the conflict the triumph of the North was clearly the desirable outcome.

However I don't think that lives should be sacrificed for liberty. Lives should be only sacrificed to guarantee a greater number of lives, such as WW2(the perfect war since it saved the remaining Jews and increased freedom in Europe and Asia) Isn't that the revisionist argument for Iraq. We killed several thousand Iraqis in order to free them from tyranny?

[Muddleoftheroad]

61. Life is liberty

And I DO think liberty is one of those things worth living for and, when called upon worth dying for. For me to think any differently is to turn my back on the 200,000 African-Americans who took up arms in the Civil War fighting for freedom.

I can't even vaguely compare all this to Iraq, so I won't try.

But I will compare the Civil War with WWII. It is rare in history that mankind is called upon to do battle with true evil. At those times, we find out where we are as a species. We are defined not by our worst selves, but our best. It is easy for men to choose a bad path, an easy path to riches or power. It is the hard path to choose to fight evil.

[Lover of Liberty]

52. I voted for the South shall rise again...

even though I'm not sure that isn't a joke. I wasn't too sure whether to vote for that one or the Gore Vidal option because I think they go hand in hand. Lincoln was an imperialist who tried to do to the South what Hitler did to France and Poland and what Bush is doing to Iraq. And when you consider the massive casualties that only makes Lincoln more disgusting.

[DrWeird]

55. Well that's one opinion.

My opinion is that what Hitler did to the jews is basically what the south did to blacks and when Lincoln attacked is was analogous to Roosevelt at war with Germany. The only people to blame for the Civil War are white southerners.

[tritsofme]

56. Only a very small % of white southerners owned slaves.

Everyone in the South got screwed by the plantation owners.

[DrWeird]

58. An awful lot of poor white southerners

fought for the right for those plantation owners to own slaves.

[tritsofme]

62. An awful lot of young Germans fought for Hitler,

but do would you consider that 18 year old conscript evil?

[DrWeird]

65. Fighting for Hitler? Yes, I'd call that evil.

I have no problem with the fact that we allies kicked the Germans' asses. Hitler did get to power by stealing votes in Florida.

[tritsofme]

69. Neither do I,

but I cant call a kid who either fought in the army or got shot in the head evil, under any circumstance.

I dont think our soldiers were evil in Vietnam either, even though we killed something like 2 million Vietnamese, most had no choice.

[DrWeird]

72. I don't like the word "evil" and typically never use it.

But when asked to WWII Germany is the first thing that pops into my mind. Followed closely by the Confederacy.

[Muddleoftheroad]

66. Evil

What they both fought for was evil. I don't consider either the soldiers of the South or mostly the soldiers of Nazi Germany truly evil.

Many did evil things and they have or will have to face judgment for that one day. But perhaps even the fighting of either war was sufficient penance.

[Yupster]

83. A lot of southerners

voted against secession, but once their state was invaded, they joined the Confederate Army and fought until there was nothing left to fight with under worse odds and worse conditions that any Americans ever fought under.

Before the war, there were approx. 1 million adult white men physically and mentally able to serve in the armed forces. A full 750,000 of them were eventually in the Confederate Army. One quarter of them 250,000 were dead by the end of the war, and another 1/4 of them wounded. No American war has ever seen that kind of losses. They fought until they were ground to dust.

The slaveholders, the slavery supporters, and the anti-secessionists all fought and died defending their states.

The two most famous probably were Alexander Stevens who led the anti-secessionist forces in Georgia and then got elected VP of the CSA. Jubal Early was a Virginia lawyer who was a delegate to the secession convention and voted "No". Then as a Leiutenant General in the Army of Northern Virginia he fought till his command was ground to bits and then left the country as the last unreconstructed rebel.

[Muddleoftheroad]

59. A whole hell of a lot of them took up arms however

Like Lincoln, I am glad the South is back in the union, but to blame a few Southerners is to ignore history.

[DrWeird]

60. Let me clarify.

All of the people to blame for the Civil War are white southerners. Not all white southerners are to blame for the Civil War. Some fought for the union.

[Muddleoftheroad]

64. To be fair

Slavery is scar on our history, but it is a scar for both North and South. While the South enslaved, the North had its hands in both transporting slaves and buying products from the slave plantations.

Personally, I think the debt for both groups has been paid. Six hundred thousand Americans were killed in that war and the South was devastated in a way that took over 100 years to truly begin to repair.

[DrWeird]

67. Yes, that's true.

I doubt most who fought for the North did so for the noble sake of freeing slaves. Plenty of good prohibitionists excepted.

And there's one group left to whom the debt was never paid.

[jpgray]

71. Slavery would still be an institution if he had not

For those slow folks, my answer is yes.

:)

The Confederate constitution spelled out that slavery as an instituion would remain permanent. Whatever you believe about Lincoln's prosecution of the war, I personally am glad that a nation founded to maintain slavery is gone.

[Kitsune]

75. Lincoln didn't win the Civil War

so much as the South completely fumbled the ball. If the Confederacy had hunkered down and fought a defensive, guerilla war against the North instead of venturing off into Union territory (Gettysburg, anyone?), they might very well have won. It was a very near thing as it was.

[Muddleoftheroad]

80. Hindsight

Is always easier. But you might also be wrong. A concerted guerilla campaign might have devastated the South far more than Sherman.

Can you envision an ongoing insurrection lasting decades and turning ever state in the South into Bloody Kansas? I sure can. I can see every city burned, every farm destroyed, every man of fighting age jailed. Imagine men like Sherman and Butler forced to fight such a war. They would have spared nothing and no one to win.

In fact, I think it was a close run thing even at the very end that prevented this. Though many abuse Robert E. Lee for his choice in allegiance, none can criticize him for his actions at the end. He could easily have dispersed his army and led a campaign such as you describe.

He did not. He chose honorable defeat over dishonorable war.

[Kitsune]

86. Not really

I mean, it was the same tactics used in the Revolutionary War, especially in the South. It's not like they didn't know they could do it.

It's true that Sherman's particular brand of burn-as-you-go warfare probably would have done even more damage in a long and drawn out campaign, don't forget that a lot of people in the North were getting sick of the war, too. Also, I probably shouldn't have said guerilla war; guerilla tactics should have played a role, but so should the big massed battle thing too (I'm not in use-the-right-word mode tonight, as you can probably tell). I'm not talking about an Iraq-style resistance where the entire South is occupied and small groups of farmers run around with muskets picking off one or three Yankees at a time. It probably would have been a lot deadlier on both sides, you're right, but I think that people who are fighting for their homes and their way of life (however immoral that way of life may be) would be a tad more likely to stick it out than people who are fighting for the abstract goal of preserving the Union.

I'm trying to think of a historical equivalent to what I'm envisioning and I'm coming up blank, which is annoying to say the least, but a combination of standard warfare and suppy-line interdiction/attrition would have been far more effective than Lee driving up into Pennsylvania and attacking the center of an entrenched Union line. As far as his military priorities were concerned, there was absolutely nothing to be gained by trying to invade Pennsylvania.

I could be wrong, though. ;) I know I sound like an authoritative bastard when I say stuff, but I'm perfectly willing to accept a different interpretation of events. It just seems to me that the South really could have won if they'd just been a bit smarter about it, and giving Lincoln the credit for Southerners making military blunders just doesn't sit right, especially because I support the right of a state or states to give the Federal government the "Talk to the hand!" treatment (which conflicts with my absolute hatred of slavery, which means I get confused about the Civil War a lot and just tend to follow the "Both sides suck" school of thought).



Blah, this post took too long to write (goes to get a coke). ^^;;

[Muddleoftheroad]

88. Personally, I think the South had only one real tactic

The North had all the cards but one. The North had manpower, industrial capacity, railroads and some sense of legality on the world stage. The South was the rebelling power and governments tend to take a dim view of that.

But the South had one real ace, lots of folks in the North didn't want to fight a war. Sure, the further North you went, the more radical the anti-slavery sentiment (thank God), but that didn't include all of the border states, the West, etc.

As 1861 and 1862 went on, the war included many reverses for the North, but a victory was inevitible once the North had a general willing and able to grind the South into dust through pure use of manpower and industrial capacity. Grant was that man.

That leaves the South a window before 1864, but since Gettysburg was a major defeat, I would say even before that point -- July 1863.

Stonewall Jackson had advocated a bold move North, not to Antietam, but to conquer Washington. Though the South was ill-equipped for siege, even a major assault on D.C. following one of the North's many losses could have caused panic and forced Lincoln to flee and possibly surrender. Since Jackson was killed at Chancellorsville in May 1863, I mark that as their last chance.

Though Lee was an excellent leader, he lacked the field generals to truly execute his plans, except Jackson. With Jackson, he could have pressed Washington and forced a possible end to the war. Thankfully, that did not happen.

[apsuman]

93. I was taught...

I was taught that the one advantage that the South had was Generals, well an officer class in general.

The revolutionary tactics would not have worked because the Brits had a 3000 mile resupply line across the Atlantic. The North was closer to the South than Long Island is to New York. The North could have had a scorched earth campaign going South if they had to.

[Yupster]

94. I'd say true early in the war asupman

but the Confederate generals had an appalling attrition rate. They were expected to lead from the front.

For example, at Gettysburg, Lee had used four corps commanders (lieutenant generals). Stonewall Jackson was killed at C-ville, Longstreet would be seriously wounded at the Wilderness, Richard Ewell lost a leg before Gettysburg, and AP Hill was killed at Five Forks. Maybe the biggest loss was Albert Sidney Johnston who Davis expected to be the Lee of the west. He was killed at Shiloh before it could be seen how good he would be and Davis never was able to solve the command problems of the Army of Tennessee even though he personally went out to see them at least three times.

[Yupster]

95. The draft riots in NYC

started just a few days after Gettysburg.

It brings up the what if of what if Lee had won a major victory at Gettysburg? Would the news of the defeat maybe with the fall of Harrisburg have caused the riots to spread out of conroll throughout all the big cities of the north? Maybe there was a real chance there.

I view Lincoln's reelection as the last chance gone.

[Yupster]

85. Maybe, but at such a cost

that the south wasn't willing to pay it.

First, the CSA had a real disadvantage say comparing their plight with the colonials in the Revolution.

The colonials had a steady stream of supplies from Europe even before Europe entered the war. Therefore, there was no territory that Washington had to defend.

The CSA had little supply of munitions from Europe especially once the blockade was tightened. Therefore it had to make its own cannons and ammunition. That meant it had to defend its principal arms manufacturing areas, which was mostly Richmond.

The alternative was a guerrilla war of low intensity which would have required no cannons and little ammunition, but what carnage that would have wrought. If the southern men took to the hills, the federals could have just armed the slaves and given them the land. Then rather than a guerrilla war against an occupying northern army, we would have had a race war.

It would be like if we pulled out of Iraq and just armed the Shi-as and told them to take power and hold it.

The south wanted to preserve their society and a guerrilla war would ahve destroyed it.

[Kitsune]

87. see my other post

'Guerilla' really wasn't the right word to use ^^;;

But you're right, a more defensive war would have been a lot bloodier and far more destructive to the South, even if they'd just entrenched rather than gone all-out guerilla-style harassment. I'm not saying that it wouldn't have been. I'm just saying that the South could have won if they'd just been a bit smarter about their strategy.

[Yupster]

89. Disagree with you Kitsune

but that's what makes these what ifs so much fun.

Lee knew that once Grant pinned him to Richmond and Petersburg, it was just a matter of time. I think Lee was at his absolute best fighting AGrant trying everything he could to not be pinned to Richmond. Once he pinned Lee, Grant could use his greater numbers to keep extending the lines until Lee's lines snapped, or his railroads were cut. There wasn't any way to stop it.

The only times Richmond was safe was when Lee was maneuvering far away from it.

Atlanta was safest when Bragg was besieging Chatanooga. Once Johnston let Sherman through the mountains of northern Georgia to the trenches of Atlanta, the city's fall was a given. It would only be a matter of time before Sheran reached around Johnston's flank and cut the railroad at Jonesboro. At that point, the army could starve or give up the city.

If you're smaller, you can't get pinned down defending something. Cities can't be defended from their gates by smaller armies. They will get surrounded and then they fall ala Vicksburg.

I think the Gettysburg campaign was well thought out and well executed until Day 2 of the Battle. It brought the ANV to fertile ground where they ate and fattened their horses better than ever before. They allowed the Virginia harvest to be brought in with
no Yankee hindrance which was a huge deal for a starving army.
Newt Gingrich just wrote a "What if" book called "Gettysburg" where he what if's a Confederate victory in the campaign. It's a fun read but shows just how bad the odds were. Check it out from your library.

[Karmadillo]

76. William Appleman Williams would have agreed with Vidal

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=appleman+the+cause+of+the+Civil+War+was+the+refusal+of+Lincoln&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&selm=y1ZvOGPGxPVbAQjDbLZ3BrlZufTn%404ax.com&rnum=1

Here's an interesting observation by William Appleman Williams:

"Put simply, the cause of the Civil War was the refusal of Lincoln and other northerners to honor the revolutionary right of self-determination--thetouchstone of the American Revolution. It is important to assert and reassertthe evil of slavery, a truth with which I agree, but that will not enable one to wriggle off the hook. The act of imposing one people's morality upon another people is an imperial denial of self-determination. Once begin the process of denying it to others in its own name and there is no end of empire
except war and more war." (America Confronts a Revolutionary World: 1776-1976)

More on Williams:

http://www.antiwar.com/stromberg/s111699.html

William Appleman Williams:
Premier New Left Revisionist
A PROGRESSIVE HISTORIAN

<edit>

The central focus of Williams' work, beginning with the essays which foreshadowed his Tragedy of American Diplomacy, was how some Americans' understanding of the role of the frontier in US history contributed to a foreign policy of overseas empire. Here, the emphasis is so much on ideas and interpretations of history that "economic determinism" recedes to rather un-Marxist dimensions. Of course, the ideas of the individuals and elites in question aimed at dealing with felt economic crises. Like the men of 1898, whom he was criticizing, Williams believed that the crisis was built into the market economy. They chose the path of domestic corporatism and overseas expansion (Open Door empire). Charles Beard, who shared the same critique of capitalism, sought to square the circle with a program of non-aggressive "continentalist" corporatism. Williams chose to reject the empire in the name of "decentralized socialism."

Williams believed that the men who brought America into the Spanish-American War had a well-developed Weltanschauung, or "world-outlook," based on a particular reading of American frontier history. This reading owed much to Frederick Jackson Turner's famous "frontier thesis." The existence of a moving frontier of contiguous land for over two centuries had accustomed Americans to a certain level of prosperity and individual freedom. With the "closing" of the frontier in the 1890s, some new means must be found to prevent the economy from running down – a fear underlined by the Panic of 1893. To members of the northeastern elite it seemed obvious that a neo-mercantilist foreign policy in pursuit of ever-new foreign markets answered the case.

This "solution" to the perceived problem was soon repackaged as the Open Door – unlimited access of US companies to markets everywhere, to be achieved, where necessary, by political and military pressure on foreign states, peoples, and revolutionary movements (where they existed). The frontier-expansionist theory of history and the Open Door underlay US foreign policy from 1898 on. Disagreements – within policy-making circles, at least – took place within that framework and dealt with such details as tactics, timing, cost, and so on. Thus, from 1898 to Vietnam and beyond, there had never been a real debate on the purposes and bases of US foreign policy. And, of course, the "problem" the elites claimed to be solving was itself misconceived at several steps in the argument. And, here, we need to go beyond Williams' analysis and integrate his historical materials with the insights of Austrian economic theory.

Williams' critics liked to say that he misused his sources and stretched his evidence. It seems to me that when an historian can find the same rhetoric, the same analysis, and the same theme recurring constantly across the decades, he has made a case that this theme mattered to the policy makers and, in fact, formed their outlook, or at least a key part of that outlook . It is true that one can find other themes – international philanthropy and scrupulous US devotion to the letter and spirit of International Law – running parallel with Open Doors and foreign markets down through the same decades. One might equally well find kindness to small children and better working conditions for farm animals as persistent sub-themes in American policy. Experience – "the great teacher of mankind" – suggests just how much these spiritually uplifting bouts of rhetoric are worth, by themselves, to the analysis of US foreign policy.

more...

[Muddleoftheroad]

84. William Appleman Williams would have been a fool

It is easy to sit in the comfort of your study over 100 years later and say a war should not have been fought. It entails great hubris, but it is easy.

Perhaps if he sat in the households of African-Americans and saw the photos of generations freed by that war, he might develop a more progressive attitude.

I especially love, "The act of imposing one people's morality upon another people is an imperial denial of self-determination."

Slavery is wrong. It was legal but incredibly immoral. I am more than happy to impose my morality on any who try to promote slavery.

[BurtWorm]

91. Cheers, muddle! Well said!

I especially love, "The act of imposing one people's morality upon another people is an imperial denial of self-determination."

That one hit me in the gut, too. I guess the act of imposing slaveholders' morality upon African people must not qualify as an imperial denial of self-determination. :eyes:

[Karmadillo]

92. So start picking your wars. There's lots of slavery out there.

Some might argue there are better ways than war to stop slavery (for examples one and two below, one could argue it would be better to end our sins of omission with regard to Africa's economic misery), but I'll defer to your embrace of violence as the only solution. Here's a possible agenda for the exercise of your morality.

1. Child slaves are used in the cocoa industry. I would say American companies that use this chocolate are equally guilty, so when you declare war on the Ivory Coast, you might as well gear up to take on the United States, too.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/0629-01.htm

<edit>

The vote came in response to an investigation by Knight Ridder that found that African boys as young as 11 are sold or tricked into slavery to harvest beans on some of the more than 600,000 cocoa farms in Ivory Coast, the world's leading cocoa producer. The findings were reported in a three-part series that appeared in The Inquirer this week.

It is not known how many children are enslaved, but the State Department human-rights report for 2000 estimated that 15,000 child slaves toil on cocoa, cotton and coffee farms in Ivory Coast.

"Slavery is continuing to rear its ugly head in the year 2001," said Rep. Eliot L. Engel (D., N.Y.), who sponsored the amendment. "I don't think the American people would want to knowingly eat chocolate or cocoa that was harvested by children who were tricked into slavery."

It is impossible to know whether specific chocolate products are made from cocoa beans picked by slaves, because slave-picked beans are jumbled together with others harvested by free field hands in warehouses, ships, trucks and rail cars.

more...

2. And then there's that other slavery in Central and West Africa. Tell the troops there will be no rest after they finish up with the Chocolate War in the Ivory Coast.

http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/s278326.htm

<edit>

Slavery is still very much a part of life for too many. According to Anti-Slavery International, over 20 million people are in bondage. Even children are subject to the horrors described by the President - UNICEF estimates that 200,000 children from West and Central Africa are sold into slavery each year.

more...

3. And India.

http://www.hrw.org/press/2003/01/india012303.htm

Child Slaves Abandoned to India's Silk Industry
Burns, Beatings and 12-Hour Days for Bonded Children

(London, January 23, 2003) The Indian government is failing to protect the rights of hundreds of thousands of children who toil as virtual slaves in the country's silk industry, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today.

The 85-page report, "Small Change: Bonded Child Labor in India's Silk Industry,"calls on the Indian government to implement its national laws to free and rehabilitate these "bonded children." Bound to their employers in exchange for a loan to their families, they are unable to leave while in debt and earn so little they may never be free. A majority of them are Dalits, so-called untouchables at the bottom of India's caste system.

"The Indian government claims there are no bonded children in India," said Zama Coursen-Neff, counsel to Human Rights Watch's children's rights division. "In fact, they're everywhere. They are easy to find."

Human Rights Watch interviewed children, employers, government officials and members of nongovernmental organizations in three states that form the core of India's sari and silk industries: Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.

At every stage of the silk industry, bonded children as young as five years old work 12 or more hours a day, six and a half or seven days a week. Children making silk thread dip their hands in boiling water that burns and blisters them. They breathe smoke and fumes from machinery, handle dead worms that cause infections, and guide twisting threads that cut their fingers. As they assist weavers, children sit at cramped looms in damp, dim rooms. They do not go to school and are often beaten by their employers. By the time they reach adulthood, they are impoverished, illiterate, and often crippled by the work, the report said.

more...

4. Not to mention sex slavery. Immoral as immoral can be and all over the place in all sorts of countries (some with fairly impressive armies, so be careful). I'll just cite one example, but there are more if you're interested.

http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/front/RTGAM/20021208/wisra1208/Front/homeBN/breakingnews

Report slams Israel on sex slavery

Jerusalem — About 3,000 women, mainly from the former Soviet Union, are sold each year into Israel's sex industry, which takes in about $1-billion (U.S.) annually, a parliamentary report said Sunday, slamming the country's justice system for being lax on punishments.

The women, seeking to escape poverty at home, are usually smuggled in by traffickers who promise them legitimate jobs. Once in Israel, they are sold to pimps for between $3,000 and $6,000 each, the preliminary report said.

The women receive between $25-$30 per customer, of which the pimp takes between 80 and 90 per cent, the report said. The women work about 12 hours a day, six or seven days a week and receive an average of 10 to 15 clients daily, it added. Often, the women live in dismal conditions and sometimes they are physically abused or live in fear of their pimps.

Israeli courts generally reach a plea bargain with the pimps and sentence them to either a few months of community service or up to an average of two years in prison, punishments which the committee said are too weak to serve as deterrents.

more...

5. The list could go on and on, but it's late. Anyway, four wars are more than enough for any highly moral person to undertake at one time.

[mmonk]

81. I like Vidal but disagree

Even though I'm from the south, I recognise the importance of the union and having seen states abuse states rights, it was very important that the union be made strong from a civil rights perspective. So I praise Lincoln in the war that was supposed to help settle the states rights issue. If we are divided, we cannot stand.

[jobycom]

90. The war, like the Iraqi invasion, was wrong, but it's a bit late to worry

I've always felt a little creeped out by the way even liberals worship warmongers who have already become history. Lincoln, like both Bushes in Iraq, forced a war that had no reason to be fought, that could have been settled by real leadership to the betterment of all, including the slaves who wound up free afterwards. The idea that the Civil War was fought to end slavery is much like the Repub claims that we liberated Iraq and Afghanistan-- it may turn out to be the final result, but there were other ways to get there. War is only inevitable if you decide it is an option.

He also jailed journalists for dissent, and rigged his re-election. A lot of DUers who defend him now would have opposed him at the time.

War is bad. All wars are bad. Anyone in a position to prevent one who lets it happen anyway has done something wrong. Wars are failures.

But, Lincoln accomplished great good, as well. He did abolish slavery, and despite some claims to the contrary, that does seem to have been a goal he desired from before the war. He was a true egalitarian. He did plan a more gentle reconstruction era. He did prevent the South from being treated as conquered territory. He was pro-labor, he was anti-corporate. He had a genuine compassion about him.