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LadyEllen -> RE: Was the American Cival War worth fighting? (2/8/2007 4:54:04 AM)
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Well, the folks at the time must have thought so? I do doubt though that any disagreement is worth quite so much suffering as ensues from war, whatever the time and place.
Though I detect from your post that you feel the war was about slavery? It wasnt - it was about the secession of the southern states from the union, because in changing times the economy of the entire US was becoming out of step with the economy of the south. This threatened the way of life in the south, the solution to which was thought to be secession, whereby their economy would not be affected by the very different conditions in the north. The southern economy was unviable, unless self contained. As it turned out, the southern economy was also unviable for the waging of war against a more modern economy.
The emancipation which followed the war was not the goal of the north, though it could be held to be part of the post war action of the union in getting the southern economy moving forwards by breaking the old ways of doing things. The goal of the north was to preserve the union, particularly as the union as a whole had paid for the Louisiana purchase and didnt want that investment going west, or south in this case, and also because the security implications of a large and hostile nation to the south were not exactly welcome; with the British to the north in Canada, and the Confederacy to the south, the remaining union could have been easily threatened with a war on two fronts.
E
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