Re: [DL] Freeing the Slaves

[Allan Seyberth <darious@darious.com>]

 >My take on it is the slave owners had to broaden the
 >scope of the North's abolishment of slavery.  Luckily
 >for them, they held most of the political power in the
 >south.  So they exagerated thier 'outrage' at the
 >North's attack on state's rights.  By doing so they
 >were able to get alot of people who really had little
 >to nothing to gain from upholding slavery buy into a
 >cause.

Somewhat.  Back then, people were often less "Americans" then they were 
"New Yorkers", "Georgians" etc.

An analogy would be if the United Nations, an organization of sovereign 
nations, out of the blue sat there and told England that it needed to pull 
out of Ireland.  Well, the UN has no right to meddle in the internal 
affairs of England would be told to shove off.

Well, the UN gets lippy back and amongst other nations in the UN, support 
for the IRA and Sein Fein grows, and everywhere you go there are 
publications about the brutal oppression the Irish live under. . .  And 
folks in England, who probably don't give a rats ass about Ireland, start 
going WTF?!?  Why are we under this attack?

And so England pulls out of the UN, seeing as how UN membership is no 
longer benificial to England.  Only England is told, No. . . you can't 
quit. . .  the will of the United Nations is more important than the will 
of it's member nations. . . so before long, the Irish are secondary to the 
issue of soveriegnity.

Which is why John Wilkes Booth knew in his heart that he was assassinating, 
not a president, but a tyrant.

Of course - this is simplistic, but it might get the mindset of the 
southerner across.  This is why this was the war of brother against 
brother.  Half of a family would consider themselves "Americans" first and 
the other half would consider themselves "Kentuckians".

It leaves out the fact that, as each new non-Slavery state was admitted, it 
weakened the very powerful voting block that the South had.  This voting 
block had already prevented the previous attempts to end slavery in a legal 
manner.

-------------------
Allan Seyberth
darious@darious.com

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
                 - Oscar Wilde