As for the Confederate/Cinco de Mayo debate, I think the whole point was that it would be better for us to make a gesture to ANY troops our our country who fought in a war than to basically make a national holiday out of another country fighting a war.  And a war against the French, no less.  Who doesn't beat the French?

Those of you who condemn the Confederate soldiers and supporters, know this, they were not fighting for slavery.  That is a gross misrepresentation that alot of schools have started to teach.  Many fighting for the South were actually against slavery as much as the northerners.  FYI, there were actually slaves who fought for the South.  In fact, until the latter stages of the war, the South was the only side that even let blacks fight in the war.  For the Confederates it was an issue of being told what they were going to do.  Abolition was the straw that broke the camels back.  The North had been telling them what to do for years, and many southerners felt like colonial America in that they didn't really have a say.  The southern soldiers were just as noble and deserving of respect as the northerners were.

If Robert E. Lee was against slavery, why did he own them?  I want to say Jackson owned them, too, but I don't remember.

If not for slavery, the South would've never left the union.  It was THE states' rights issue.  Even non-slave holders didn't want to abolish the institution because they feared free blacks.  Their entire social structure was at stake, not to mention the economy.

I'm not saying the North was righteous or anything, though.  Racism was plenty bad up there in those days.  I won't gloss over that.

Well, that's fine, because I think you're wrong about a ton of what you said. Except I'm actually going SHOW you where you're wrong instead of just stating "you're wrong."

I want to be polite about that so that noone attacks me for being rude.

I don't think that you're rude. I do think that you tend to over-emphasize things that are in a sense irrelevant. And you tend to ignore what you stated before, but that's not rude.

I never said that there were a ton of blacks that fought for the South, simply that they were allowed to fight before the northerners were.

No, you did not say the first. However, you did not say the second, either.

You stated, I quote:

FYI, there were actually slaves who fought for the South.  In fact, until the latter stages of the war, the South was the only side that even let blacks fight in the war.

You actually said SLAVES fought for the South. In fact, the VAST majority of "black" people who fought for the South were from LOUISIANA WHERE THEY WERE FREE (since there's that sub-culture that both Brian Thomas and I cited). So, the first part of your statement was for the most part incorrect.

For the second part, the South was NOT the only side that even let blacks fight in the war. It's against ALL THE DOCUMENTATION to say that the "South was the only side that even let blacks fight in the war."

From what I have learned in History, which granted, comes mostly from high school, two college courses and the History Channel, some, maybe all, I don't remember, states offered freedom to slaves who fought for the Confederacy.

I'm sorry, where did you take these courses? Would they be... in the South? I'm sure they're not biased at all.... Also, the History Channel, while I enjoy it, often has a HUGE slant on their programs. If you think that the History Channel is a good source of unbiased information, I have some nice real estate to sell you in Southern Florida.

In addition, the documentation says that the Confederate states offered freedom to slaves who fought for the Confederacy, but this occurred in March of 1865, way too late to be of use.

Your numbers on Union troops is right, however, you dates are not.  Black Union troops were not even allowed until July 17, 1862.

Ok, I don't see how July 1862 is after October 1862....

The first accounts of black troops in combat was just before Gettysburg at Milliken's Bend, LA.

Wrong.

To quote:

On Wednesday, October 29, 1862, the 1st Kansas Colored Volunteers fought and repelled a superior force of rebel cavalry in Bates County, Missouri.  The action occurred before the enactment of the Emancipation Proclamation (January 1, 1863) and long before the men of the 54th Massachusetts stormed Fort Wagner.  Although the primacy of this engagement in the chronology of the African American fighting man's experience during the Civil War is acknowledged by the National Park Service, the State of Missouri, the State of Kansas, and scholars alike, no comprehensive study of the engagement has occurred - until now!

----------------

From what I have gathered in limited research, there is no account of black troops fighting in any of the major battles.

That may be. However, that was NOT what we were discussing.

It's interesting what that National Archive article has to say about the way the black Union troops were treated, and serves to remind us all that it wasn't just the South that should be condemned as to their racial relations. Just because the northern states wanted to end slavery does not mean that most of them wanted to see black have any rights or equalities.

I don't disagree that blacks were treated equally badly by Northerners and Southerners alike. That, however, is a side issue.

As for the South and slavery.  Saying that the Civil War was about slavery is like saying that Revolutionary War was about tea and stamps, or even taxes for that matter.

No, it's not anything alike with tea and stamps. You might be closer with the taxes analogy, but considering the "rallying cry" of the Revolutionary War was "No taxation without representation," I don't see how this really supports your point.

It was a forgone conclusion that Lincoln was going to abolish slavery, and that was the last straw for many southerners.

There was NO foregone conclusion that Lincoln was going to abolish slavery. That was the propagandists FROM THE SOUTH (yes, there were those. And considering that many of them survived,  there are often viewpoints about the Civil War which are ANTI-Northern). What was this the "last straw" for? What had the big, bad Northerners done prior to this to get the Southerners all frustrated about their states' rights?

Could it be related to slavery? Hmmmm....

For most soldiers and families it wasn't about whether their slaves were freed or not, especially since a fraction of them owned slaves, but rather who had the authority to set the slaves free.

I can agree with this somewhat. However, let's put it this way, if there's no slavery, then, there's no reason that the Southern states would have seceded, no?

From colonial days, the southern colonies and territories believed more in the rights of their states to make their own decisions.  They believed that the Tenth Amendment guaranteed their freedoms as a state.

I don't know if I agree with this, though, I really haven't done the research with regard to which states believed in a weaker central government. I DO like the idea of a weaker central government, but alas, that's not currently the state of affairs.

Req, if you look at the discussions that we have even from Confederate leaders, the issue talked about is states rights, not slavery.

While it's true that Confederates did talk about states' rights, it would be highly unlikely to say "Yeah, the reason why we're fighting this war is because we WANT to keep oppressing these people."

It's disingenuous to say that because the leaders didn't (on the whole) talk about slavery as being the primary reason for seceding, it was not necessarily the primary reason.

Why should we look at papers from the North to find out why the South suceeded?  Read what Jefferson Davis, R.E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson had to say about their reasons.

I don't know why we should look at the papers from the North OR from the South.  They're both filled with war propoganda.... Sort of like how the media kept on talking about the WMD a lot before the second Iraqi war.

Lee and Jackson were both quite adament about the fact that slavery was inherently wrong.  If they didn't believe in slavery, why would they fight for it?

Because to them, they were fighting for their HOMES AND FAMILIES. Lee often said as much.

In the end, my point is that the MAIN reason for the sucession of most southern states was the issue of states rights, not slavery.  Yes, there are some who's main reason was slavery, but that was by far a minority, though maybe a vocal one.

While states' rights might have been the rallying cry in the South, that does not necessarily mean that the MAIN reason for the secession was states' rights.

In the end, you have to ask yourself what actual evidence there is on either side of the argument. And, IMO, if you look at the facts, SLAVERY, NOT states' rights (what other states' rights problems did Southerners have?) was the primary cause of the Civil War.

In the end, the Civil War would almost certainly never had occurred if there had been no slavery in the South.

Req