Time to leave the country!

    It´s interesting how every country has people who want to get away. I guess people think that things are better in another place, but maybe thats only because they are not aware of what the country they want to go to is really like, they only see the image the country want to project. I know for a fact many S Africans are moving to the UK, because they think it will be better there...but ok, chances are that it is much better there than here. A while ago they released a lot of criminals...to give them another chance...most of these people are back in jail...its where they want to be... Anyways, thats besides the point. If you´re a white male in SA, it is almost impossible to find a job, which is why most people are going to the US, UK, Oz or Canada...is it better there? Who knows IN some senses maybe...others not. Oh well -make ´em bleed-

    &quot;&quot;States´ rights.&quot;&quot; not that old chestnut. this keeps popping up in the US ever few decades or so, always by <i>revanchist </i> Southerners. ok. I know full well the Civil War wasn´t about slavery, not directly anyway. it was an inevitable clash between two economic blocs that had radically different modus operandi, and were developing along divergent paths - the North, industrialised and ruthlessy capitalistic, the South rural and agrarian and paternalistic, and subsidised by slavery. The Union didn´t embark on the War to end slavery, but to preserve the Union and a sa war aim destroy the economic base of the Confederate states. Lincolm was personally an abolitionist but he initially favoured a gradual process of emancipation and only issued the Declaration as a political <i>legerdemain </i> when it appeared that Britain might join with the Confederacy against the Union. Indeed, had he not had a *victory* of sorts (a draw really) he would not have had the political clout to declare Emancipation at all! Imagine what consequences that might have had! without slavery there couldn´t have been a Confederacy, it underpinned society and industry in every way. States Rights, in principle perfectly laudable, was a mask for slavery, an excuse. States Rights <i>de facto </i> meant the right to keep slaves, regardless of whatever pretext of autonomy was being justified. The South seceded precisely because they wanted to keep their slaves, because without slavery their economy would have been destroyed (as effectively as it was after the war anyway) however I will accept that over the years the myth of the War Against Slavery has overtaken much historical fact. The Union dressed itself up as the Great Emancipating Army and has enshrined the freeing of the slaves as a signal moment in US history - which of course it is, but let´s just take away some of the rosy tint. The Union freed the slaves because it was expedient to do so - it did the Union no real harm as most Northern industry was free labour, but dealt a death-blow to the South - internal revolts, desertions, no foreign intervention, supplies from Britain cut off because Britain could not be seen to be supporting a slave nation against a non-slave nation (even though the non-slave nation had slave-keeping states throughout the entire war) interestingly Robert E. Lee was also an abolitionist but chose his state as his loyalty.

    "for once, i`ll actually tell you what i was thinking; but maybe i won`t have anything to say.."

    Slavery was not the direct and politically precipitating issue of the Civil War. But the fact of slavery, and the right of States to choose to keep it and the right of for it to be expanded beyond the confines of the States that ultimately constituted the Confederacy, was the cause of the Civil War. In the decades leading up to the Civil War, one of the main struggles in Congress was whether to curtail the expansion of slavery into new territories. The Mason Dixon line was defined by slavery. The Missouri Red Legs and the Kansas Jayhawks were all about slavery. When California was to be made a State in the Union, the key issue raised against it by States Rights spokesmen like Sen. John C. Calhoun, probably the best known, opposed admission of California because it was to join the union as a Free state. Arguments over Oregon, Missouri and other states basically were centered on the same issue. Should it be a Free State or a Slave State. So my apologies everyone but I disagree. Slavery was a central theme before and during the Civil War. Perhaps it was not the legal or political issue as defined but it had everything to do with what ended up happening. To say that slavery was a minor issue is more of a rhetorical device than a frank statement about why this country ended up in a Civil War. It is true that the two economies of North and South differed very greatly but, again, the profitability of a plantation economy of ths South relied upon slavery to keep American cotton competitive in the world market place. It is true that Britan was swayed by Lincoln´s decision to emancipate the slaves but why? Because Britain opposed slavery. It is true that the emancipation itself was motivated by &quot;political&quot; strategems as much as if not more so than by some sense of altruism. But why would emancipation prove to be a political weapon at all if slavery were a minor issue? If the statement is that, in fact, racism in America was such that the idea of having African slaves was not, of itself, repugnant to the majority of American voters of that day, this may be true. But if the statement is that the majority of Americans did not care whether slavery existed or not so that it had nothing to do with the Civil War, then it is completely false. Politically, economically and socially, slavery was a condition that caused a lot of argument, especially in Congress, throughout the 19th Century in America, leading up to the Civil War. (And the chief proponents against slavery were the activist Christian religious groups). Edited by - Indy11 on 10/5/2005 11:09:29 AM