Re: Civil War arguments
 

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Technically yes, but that doesn't dissuade me from my point. Not to mention that the South drew first blood.

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The north *invaded* the south. Fort Sumter is in *south carolina*.

Re: Civil War arguments
 

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But it is also clear that there was a moral imperative to end slavery in which the North had also been complicit to some degree.

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OK, let's assume the only reason for the war was slavery. Is it worth 600,000 lives? Slavery ended peacefully everywhere else in the world, why was the US different?

Re: Civil War arguments
 

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Technically yes, but that doesn't dissuade me from my point. Not to mention that the South drew first blood.

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The north *invaded* the south. Fort Sumter is in *south carolina*.

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Federal troops were already garrisoned in the harbor area when South Carolina seceded. But it is true that the federal commander of another installation then moved his unit to Fort Sumter which killed negotions in progress with Washington and precipiated the southern attack.

Re: Civil War arguments
 

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OK, let's assume the only reason for the war was slavery. Is it worth 600,000 lives? Slavery ended peacefully everywhere else in the world, why was the US different?

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Obviously it was not the only reason, but it was sufficient. And yes it was worth it to end the practice of men enslaving other men and the children of those slaves.

From Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address:

"Yet, if God wills that [the war] continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, still it must be said 'the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether."

Re: Civil War arguments
 

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Technically yes, but that doesn't dissuade me from my point. Not to mention that the South drew first blood.

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The north *invaded* the south. Fort Sumter is in *south carolina*.

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I don't buy this trespassing argument regarding Fort Sumter. Like I said in the other thread, it's like declaring some spot you don't own yours and then calling the people who were on that spot trespassers.

Re: Civil War arguments
 

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Obviously it was not the only reason, but it was sufficient. And yes it was worth it to end the practice of men enslaving other men and the children of those slaves.

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Was it *required*? Was there *no other way*? You're ignoring the question - why was the US different? Why would it not have ended peacefully, as it did everywhere else?

Would it be worth 600,000 lives (and the 12 years of economic savagery that followed) if slavery would have ended peacefully in, say, 5 years? 10? Do you think there would still be slavery in the south today if Lincoln had not acted?

Re: Civil War arguments
 

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I don't buy this trespassing argument regarding Fort Sumter. Like I said in the other thread, it's like declaring some spot you don't own yours and then calling the people who were on that spot trespassers.

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If the south had the right to leave the union, the Union forces clearly should have evacuated the fort, and their refusal was an act of aggression.

If the south didn't have the right to leave the union, it doesn't really matter, does it? BTW, if this were the case, why would Lincoln wait for shots to be fired before acting?

Re: Civil War arguments
 

The North had no reasonable expectation to believe that slavery would end in the next decade or so. And they had already waited and compromised since the birth of the republic over 75 years previously and the only change was in 1808 after the consitutional time limit had passed, to end importation of slaves into the US.

Selling persons and then separating their offspring from them by selling them in turn was too great an evil to wait longer to end. Google for one of those pictures of a slave's back with scars all over from the whip and then transport yourself back in time and tell him to wait patiently a little while longer.

Re: Civil War arguments
 

Why wait until secession then?

Re: Civil War arguments
 

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Why wait until secession then?

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And why did the Emancipation Proclaimation only apply to the areas of the South that were still in rebellion?