OH LAWWD Why???

Yes, "Gone with the Wind" was a movie that dealt with the burning of Atlanta. It was one scene, in one movie. A movie that is more about antebellum southern conditions and a far-fetched love story. And if I remember the movie, they left out the mass rapes of southern women by union soldiers drunk off of pilfered booze in Columbia and Atlanta. Especially Columbia, because the union soldiers all believed that South Carolina was the reason for the long bloody five year war (it did start in Charleston, SC with the bombing of Ft. Sumpter). Here is a tip- learn your history from personal research, books, and lectures from doctors who have been studying the facts for their entire scholastc career, not from movies.

I don't know how much education about the true causes of the Civil War, reasons, and political backdrops that forced the bloodiest, most tragic events in our young countries history so I will hold back for now-

Here is one fact you may not have ever considered- Abraham Lincoln was a slave owner. There was slavery and slaves in EVERY SINGLE Northern State until the Emmancipation Proclamation was declared in 1862- and even then, Lincoln refused to free the slaves in the border states like Maryland for fear of Maryland leaving the Union to join the Confederacy. Lincoln ALLOWED slavery until the end of the war, when he was forced to finally end slavery in the Northern states as well.

There were just as many slaves in the Northern states as in the Southern states before, and during the Civil War.

So to make the claim that this war was started because of slavery is ignorant and wrong. To say this war was fought over slavery is tolerable because halfway through the war Lincoln realized that it would be a huge publicity boost for his army and nation to appear in the worlds eyes as "Fighting to free the negro". This is the reason the British did not ally itself with the South. President Lincoln himself held racist views toward blacks, and he believed freed slaves should be colonized in foreign nations- yet this truth is swept under the disgusting rug of lies and half truths. "The historian David M. Potter drew a nice distinction in Lincoln's position between 'what he would do for the slave' and 'what he would do for the Negro.' 'All men are created equal,' he would say, on the authority of the Declaration of Independence, only to add: 'I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races.' He opposed allowing blacks to vote, to sit on juries, to marry whites, even to be citizens." (Garraty and McCaughey, The American Nation, p. 413)

"Lincoln spelled out his position with clarity: 'I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, (applause)--that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the races which I believe will for ever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality.'" (McPherson, The Battle Cry of Freedom, p. 186)

"The problem with this lofty rhetoric of dying to make men free was that in 1861 the North was fighting for the restoration of a slaveholding Union. In his July 4 message to Congress, Lincoln reiterated the inaugural pledge that he had 'no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with slavery in the States where it exists.'" (McPherson, Ordeal By Fire, p. 265)

Neither the North, or the South were fighting to free or keep any slaves. The north fought to preserve the union for if the union were split into two countries on one continent we would be half as strong. The south was fighting for their right to govern their own land and not have to answer to a president thousands of miles away. Most men in the south never thought they would see a day when an American president raised an army to invade his own coutry. It was truly, utterly sad.

Slavery was wrong, and its a shame so may had to die for it to finally end in this country but the slaves would have been freed in the south regardless of the war, General Longstreet had been quoted many times saying, "We should have freed the slaves, then fired on Ft. Sumpter.