Quote:Abraham Lincoln as well as most everybody said very similar things back then.  Again, what possible theory could there be for why the South would turn down two proposals that would allow them to keep slavery?  The truth is that the tariff was the sticking point.  The North was bleeding the South dry, the South was very upset for some 40 or 50 years about this until they decided to leave the Union.  Abraham Lincoln was forced into a rallying cry to unite the northern states and pressure the South from seceding.  Why else would free black men, Indians, and the 98% of the population who never owned a slave, fight for the Confederacy?  It's not that black and white.

 

Yes, people do have the right to protest.  It doesn't mean they aren't complete and total jerks for forcing their opinions onto others by mob rule.  People protested against allowing women and blacks the right to vote and that doesn't make them any less insufferable jerks just because they had the right.  I'm just glad that Americans didn't cave so easily back then as they do today. 

 

Oh, now it's the tariff? Keep looking for something other than slavery - someone may believe it.

 

Are you not reading the quote from A. Stephens provided by The Eleventh Doctor?

 

Am I going to have to send FBT over there so he can wag his finger in your face and chide you about how important knowledge of history is?

 

Truth is - it's always been about slavery! From the very beginning. Why did the founders try so hard to find a way around it? And pretty much fail. Why was representation based on counting slaves - as 3/5 a person? What do you think Congress was dealing with regarding the Missouri Compromise (1820) and the Kansas and Nebraska Act (1854)?

 

My god, why do you think the Republican Party was created and how do you think Lincoln became president?

 

There is lack of knowledge and there is willful lack of knowledge. There is a whole lot of the latter going on here.

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