Originally Posted By: Wonder Boy
But you just made my point, that the Union was not moved by a pure and principled motivation to abolish slavery, and was perfectly open to continuing slavery if it would restore the Union.

So the argument that Union= principled liberators, and Confederacy= evil racist preservers of slavery just doesn't wash. As I said above, Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation only freed the slaves in Confederate states, not the ones in the Union who belonged to Lincoln's political benefactors.
And far from a principled hard line to abolish slavery, Lincoln was perfectly willing to continue slavery to end the war, and let Lincoln's allies keep their slaves.

I'm not sure why you think the Union's motives were principled, while you condemn only the South as motivated by slavery, when both had slaves (though far less in the North) and the North was perfectly willing to abide slavery as a bargaining chip to end the war their way.


No matter how many times I've said here that that isn't my argument, you guys keep coming back as though it is what I'm saying. I keep proving time and time again that I know that the North wasn't the great white saviors and emancipators. I've never said that they were. Instead, I've pointed out that the use of the Southern Cross in the 20th Century on was done by people who were using it to harken back to a time of slavery as 'the good ole days'. Therefore, I can understand why people might take offense to it.


whomod said: I generally don't like it when people decide to play by the rules against people who don't play by the rules.
It tends to put you immediately at a disadvantage and IMO is a sign of true weakness.
This is true both in politics and on the internet."

Our Friendly Neighborhood Ray-man said: "no, the doctor's right. besides, he has seniority."