Civil War still divides Americans
So after 150 years, the majority of conservatives still believe the Civil War wasn't over slavery?
Why is this? Why do they believe the "States Rights" claim is sufficient enough to shield them from the fact that -- those states rights were those states preserving the right to maintain slavery -- so either way you slice it, the civil war was over slavery --
This is why whenever I see a conservative twisting themselves into pretzels to claim otherwise --- it makes their subsequent claims of not being racist look foolish.
Next time conservatives want to pretend that the Civil War wasn't over slavery -- they better travel back in time and tell all of those southern states to stop telling everyone it was over slavery
"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause."
The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume V, "Letter to Horace Greeley" (August 22, 1862), p. 388.
Little known historical fact is that after the 70 years was up due to what was known as John Jay's Treaty of 1794 (concerning compensation for pre-revolutionary debts, British seizures of American ships to be resolved by arbitration) Lincoln had the task of asking for an extension for the debt. England wanted the lands of the southern states created after the Revolutionary war to be put up as collateral. The Morrill tariff as well as the taxes placed on southern states for cotton placed southern states in a place where they couldn't negotiate their own trade deals. Only three percent of the farmers in the south owned slaves thus it is ludicrous to believe that the other 97 percent would fight a war in order that the richest 3 percent could keep slavery in place. The Jesuits and the Rothschilds played a huge part in the war. Here is another quote from Lincoln concerning the catholic church.
"This war would never have been possible without the sinister influence of the Jesuits. We owe it to popery that we now see our land reddened with the blood of her noblest sons. Though there were great differences of opinion between the South and the North on the question of slavery, neither Jeff Davis nor anyone of the leading men of the Confederacy would have dared to attack the North, had they not relied on the promises of the Jesuits, that, under the mask of Democracy, the money and the arms of the Roman Catholic, even the arms of France were at their disposal, if they would attack us. I pity the priests, the bishops and monks of Rome in the United States, when the people realize that they are, in great part, responsible for the tears and the blood shed in this war. I conceal what I know, on that subject, from the knowledge of the nation; for if the people knew the whole truth, this war would turn into a religious war, and it would at once, take a tenfold more savage and bloody character. It would become merciless as all religious wars are. It would become a war of extermination on both sides. The Protestants of both the North and the South would surely unite to exterminate the priests and the Jesuits, if they could hear what Professor Morse has said to me of the plots made in the very city of Rome to destroy this Republic, and if they could learn how the priests, the nuns, and the monks, which daily land on our shores, under the pretext of preaching their religion, instructing the people in their schools, taking care of the sick in the hospitals, are nothing else but the emissaries of the Pope, of Napoleon, and the other despots of Europe, to undermine our institutions, alienate the hearts of our people from our constitution, and our laws, destroy our schools, and prepare a reign of anarchy here as they have done in Ireland, in Mexico, in Spain, and wherever there are any people who want to be free.”
The Jesuits were behind the assassination of Lincoln and the reason that there were no diplomatic ties to the Roman catholic church in Rome until 1984.
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