re: #254 DaddyG

Andersonville was abuse of Union soldiers by Confederate jailers. Just to clarify that.

The war was ugly no doubt and the Union did start it. The question is were they justified in entering Virginia to stop succession. Constitutionally that was dubius. But constitutionally slavery should have been illegal too. Categorizing blacks as property was legally dubious and morally bankrupt.

Morally I think Lincoln did the right thing. I would have hated to have been in Robert E Lee’s shoes having to choose between loyalty to State and Loyalty to Union.

Interestingly enough my own ancestry includes a bunch of abolitionists, a handful of Unions soldiers, some race-mixing Quakers and one northern slave holder (2 house slaves that were freed upon his death).

The union did not start the civil war.

(1) The south seceded. Secession includes taking over federal property, and as such it’s an act of war.

(2) The south fired the first shot.

Unless you want to call it an act of war to elect a president who favors the restriction of slavery to just those states where it’s already established, you can’t say that the north started the war.

A mindset that says we get to expand forever, and if you get in our way the war’s on you, is nuts. It’s doubly nuts when what you’re expanding is slavery.