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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elf Witch" data-source="post: 5823643" data-attributes="member: 9037">i tend to avoid these discussions because they become emotional and words like good and evil start getting thrown around. If you are going to discuss it you have to be able to divorce your modern perspective on the subject and look at it dispassionately.The south's entire economy was based on slave labor the north economy was not. As more states joined the union and it looked like the abolitionist were going to control the federal government and pass laws outlawing slavery. The south felt that they and their needs would not be fairly represented in Washington and that people who had no ties to to the southern economy would be in a position to tell them what to do even if it destroyed their economy. So they did what the colonies did in 1776 they rebelled.So yes the issue of slavery was the root cause but it was more than just that a lot had to do with just how much power the states would have and how much the federal government would have.  Lincoln did not go to war to free the slaves he went to war to keep the country together.As a Southerner who had family who fought in that war my dad's grandfather fought in it for the south and someone who has studied and read a lot of books on this subject my opinion is this I don't blame the south for going to war they were fighting for their way of life and it was becoming increasingly obvious that it would be a fight. That the abolitionists did not want slavery phased out but wanted it ended right away. Something that south's economy could not have handled. The north should have backed off on abolishing slavery and worked with the south to phase slavery out like was done in the Caribbean islands. Read about how they did it and you see that it worked with far less loss of life without destroying the economy and with less repercussions for the former slaves. As a modern American I feel that Lincoln did the right thing in fighting to preserve the union and I feel that in some cases the federal government should step all over states rights. I don't believe that the majority has the right to pass laws that effect the minority. For example issues like gay marriage imo belongs at the federal level not the state level. One thing that does bother me is the idea that if you had family who fought in the war on the south's side that you believe slavery was right and that you are wrong to admire them for taking up arms to preserve their way of life. I can admire Robert E Lee as military man and still think slavery was a dark chapter in our history. I can admire men like my great grandfather who fought a war with little resources in the end fighting in their bare feet with not enough ammunition for a dying cause. I also admire Lincoln for having to try and deal with one of the worse chapters in American history and I find it a shame he was assassinated because he didn't want to punish the south and the south would have been better off if had lived.</blockquote>

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