re: #831 reason0911

I don’t know about that. I’ve heard it said, but for my part, I’m black and I know for certain that slavery persisted after the emancipation and lincoln said many times that while he opposed slavery and thought Africans should be sent back to Africa or other places, he said that he would not oppose slavery politically if it would keep the country together. The war was about a secession and tariffs and not slavery.

Well, it’s not like it was sent out by email…it took weeks for information to travel across the country back then…longer still in Texas.

All wars are, at some level, about economics. I’ll give you that. But the session was over the expansion of slavery into northern states, which Lincoln was against (i.e. he was against expanded slavery).

From wikipedia:

In the presidential election of 1860, the Republican Party, led by Abraham Lincoln, had campaigned against the expansion of slavery beyond the states in which it already existed. In response to the Republican victory in that election, seven states declared their secession from the Union before Lincoln took office on March 4, 1861. Both the outgoing administration of President James Buchanan and Lincoln’s incoming administration rejected the legality of secession, considering it rebellion. Several other slave states rejected calls for secession at this point.

Hostilities began on April 12, 1861, when Confederate forces attacked a U.S. military installation at Fort Sumter in South Carolina. Lincoln responded by calling for a volunteer army from each state to recapture federal property. This led to declarations of secession by four more slave states. Both sides raised armies as the Union assumed control of the border states early in the war and established a naval blockade. In September 1862, Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation made ending slavery in the South a war goal,[1] and dissuaded the British from intervening.[2]

The South started it. Lincoln said, “Fine, fuckers. Game on.” and that led to the end of slavery. So yes, he did free the slaves. It’s okay to let your kids learn that in school.