[Slade]

Fun Lincoln fact: The Emancipation Proclimation only freed the slaves in the already seceeded south, so that it really did anything at the time is rather questionable. If you refuse to accept a government and form your own, the only way it can have authority is through force, aye?

[Slade's Girlfriend]

Lincoln knew exactly what he was doing. The Emancipation Proclamation gained him more enthusiastic support from the abolitionists, and made him a legend...

Whether or not Lincoln was a great person or wanted to free the slaves or cared or not, what really matters to me is the outcome of the whole thing.

[J m HofMarN]

Patrick: The peopl fight to support a new leader against the old tyranical regime. If the new leader has the support of his people he will win the war. If not he will die. It may be a bare bones way of going about it, but it's still an election.

Jordan- No. A revolution happens because people are in their right mind. Because they finally get pissed off enough with all the evils of the government that someone stands up and yells something and everyone picks up guns and before you know it the former leader is hangin from a fuckin lamp post. I'd very much like it if people would get into their right minds, and soon.

Renegade- But the Islamic republic in Iran didn't come through with the things a revolution aught to offer. It failed to fulfill its election promises. This is not the truth in Cuba.

And I still say that if Lincoln's agenda had been to help African Americans, there would have been more help for them after slavery ended. His real agenda was to federalize the South. It is no coincidence that directly after the civil war the age of imperialism began.

Whether or not Lincoln was a great person or wanted to free the slaves or cared or not, what really matters to me is the outcome of the whole thing.

The outcome was that Slaves, rather than working for their food and housing on a reliable basis, were now forced to work (if they could find it) for a meager amount of moeny that MIGHT pay for their food and housing. The outcome was that most African Americans continued to be as illilterate as they had been during slavery. The outcome was that African Americans were still routinely attacked and that the law did nothing but aid their attackers. In fact, after the civil war, racism turned from a docile looking down on blacks to a malevolent hatred of them, as many ignorant fools continue to blame the civil war on them, which is another reason why that presumption is useful. Blacks werent freed by the civil war, they were made into scapegoats and their chains were given a quick spitshine.

[Slade's Girlfriend]

that's not what I meant, really... I guess I should have been clearer, but I was tired and stressed so I didn't develop my thought clearly with my typage...

I know that was the outcome, and that's what matters. I meant Lincoln's intentions is not what I care about, but the result of his actions...

sorry

This post has been edited by Slade's Girlfriend: 18 October 2005 - 02:22 PM

[Spoon Poetic]

It almost sounds as if you'd rather they stayed slaves.

[Slade]

I think what he's trying to say is that it didn't really help, and that more actions were needed than what occured to properly de-subjugate the African American population, and the fact that it wasn't until the 1960s that any of this really began happening shows that they were really only free in name. And I guess that because they weren't really freed, that Lincoln's goal was never to free them, and the outcome really wasn't much of a social change at all...

And I know that Lincoln did it to rally support, I just thought it was cute that he made this short, yet grandious speech which had absolutely no technical legal credibility at the time.

[civilian_number_two]

There is something to what JM says. Lincoln's agenda re:slavery was to supplant the slave economy of the South, which was stagnant. Capitalism required an educated workign class and an Industrial economy rather than the lazy gentility of the plantation owners. It's hard to say how he felt about the slaves themselves, godless savages that they were.

That said, slavery was an awful thing, and if the ends justify the means, we're better rid of it than not. Too bad as you say the South immediately turned to lynching, bus-segregating, theatre-roping and general black bashing. Too bad too Lincoln was murdered immediately after the Civil War, so accusations he had no long-term plans regarding the slaves deliver a resounding "huhn?"

[Spoon Poetic]

Don't even start blaming all the horrible treatment of blacks all on the South. It was prevalent in the North, as well--worse, sometimes, because they resented all the jobs being taken up there. KKK? A northern thing.

[J m HofMarN]

My point isn't that they might as well have remained as slaves, it's that they DID remain as slaves. The emancipation proclamation was done as an act of war, not of charity. A good half of the southern economy was based on slavery. Slaves themselves depended on their masters to survive.

Lincoln would have served the interests of the African Americans and the southern economy better if he had put some kind of program in place to manage the transition and aid former slaves, or if he had opted to create some manner of transition. The emancipation of all slaves, at once, without any reparations to land owners and without any payments to slaves, completely fucked the southern economy. It wasn't merely the land owners who suffered, it was the people who had worked for them as well.

If Lincoln had thought about it, he might have instituted some manner of gradual agrarian reform, to monitor former slave owners. African Americans should have been encouraged to work with their former masters and continue in their employ in return for ownership of some of the land which they worked. This would have delayed the impact of emancipation and at the same time prevented a great deal of unemployment and suffering among poor blacks and whites alike.

Simply put, the South was in favor of an Agrarian economy and maintaining states rights. They stood up for this idea and when they lost they were severely punished. The claim that Northern politicians cared so much about blacks is outlandish, as is the claim that slaves were the reason for the civil war. As I said, it's just scapegoating them and conveniently shifting the issue away from state's rights and the direction the federalists took America in.

[Spoon Poetic]

Hindsight is 20-20.

[Slade]

JM: I'd like to reiterate Civ's point that Lincoln was kinda dead after the Civil War and couldn't enact any programs.

This post has been edited by Slade: 19 October 2005 - 01:20 AM

[Spoon Poetic]

Didn't really seem like he had any in mind, though.

[Slade]

I think that's more than a little hard to tell, isn't it?

[J m HofMarN]

He had years after the emancipation proclamation to figure out programs for former slaves. He could have begun implementing these programs in areas the Union forces controlled. He had more than enough time to do something to benefit freed slaves if he'd wanted to. Instead his forces in the South seemed more interested in pillaging and burning whatever they could find than they were in freeing any slaves.

[Renegade]

People who don't understand context or for that matter history or intentions are pointless to argue with... specially when they think Lincoln was an ass and Castro is gods gift to mankind.