Fossil fuels made the steam engine possible. Steam engines made the transcontinental railroad possible. Steam engines made the end of slavery possible.
Thank you for the history lesson, Professor Don. I can only imagine the effort to research and write such an insightful essay. I gladly trade the daily Highlights for this blog.
I was born in Chile. My father had a picture of Lincoln in his home office. As a little boy, I remember asking him who that man was. I have had huge respect for President Lincoln since then.
We immigrated to the U.S. in 1964. We lived in the land of Lincoln the first two years and on our 8th grade trip we visited many Lincoln landmarks. We also met, as a class, with the Governor, Otto Kerner, a democrat. In 1973 he was jailed for some federal crime. A role model he was not. Lincoln remains a great role model.
His memory and the true story of America the Beautiful must be fought for and preserved! Thank you Don for being on the vanguard of these two worthy causes!
I was born in Atlanta and reared in Georgia & Alabama. To pass the teacher's tests, I memorized a few facts about the Civil War from the sparse paragraphs in my high school history books. Even then I knew a lot of glossing-over was going on.
You, Mr. Don, have proven conclusively right here and now that the hard facts of history don't have to be as boring as they are in those stupid high school history books. This column alone has been worth the price of my subscription to your list. Thank you for bringing a lot of hidden history to light. Long live the memory of Honest Abe!
Augustine: The truth is like a lion. You don’t have to defend it. Let it loose. It will defend itself.
There is a reason why Satan/Lucifer/the Devil is called “the father of lies.”
In NZ we have had the same revisionist approach to historical fact. The liberals here have changed the meaning of Treaty of Waitangi that gave sovereignty to the British Crown into a Partnership. This in turn has led to calls for co-governance.
Fortunately we have brave writers, lawyers and historians in NZ who are doing what Mr.Surber has done here, putting the truth before the people.
It has had a positive effect.
Jacinda Ardern has gone. The Labour Party, our equivalent to the Democrats, is busily back pedaling from their most contentious policies, and best of all, the Wellington consensus that has supported the revisionist lies for the past forty years is being challenged as never before.
Feb 11, 2023·edited Feb 11, 2023Liked by Don Surber
Donny Boy - "The first is it credits him — not FDR, LBJ and Obama — for the sprawling federal leviathan government we now suffer."
You forgot W, my veteran brother. Not criticizing your great work, but W expanded government exponentially via the national security apparatus that is now the 4th branch of government(unelected) weaponized against more than half of the country.
I have to mostly agree, Don, but slightly disagree on a couple of points. The vast majority of Confederate soldiers, something along the order of 98%, did not own slaves and had no real personal stake in keeping it legal. What motivated them to fight and die? I don't think we can totally discount the role states' rights played. I don't believe we can deny that federalism actually died during and shortly after the war.
Secondly, I don't believe it was necessary to slaughter 620,000 men to get rid of something that was going to inevitably die a richly deserved death anyway in a few years. Once agriculture was mechanized, which was not far off in an historic perspective, slaves were far too expensive to cultivate crops like cotton. Always follow the money. The rich plantation owners undoubtedly heavily influenced their state legislatures, but they were businessmen. Once they could cultivate 100 acres for the cost of keeping one or two slaves, slavery was dead. Competition from growers who mechanized would have killed it as surely as the sun rises in the east.
I agree blaming the growth of the federal gubmint on Lincoln is nonsense. Whereas Woodrow Wilson, a flaming liberal Democrat, signed the income tax into law that enabled the growth of the beast we are burdened with today.
Last, but not least, I don't think we can view the Civil War through a lens that is all black or all white. Most things are most realistically viewed in shades of grey.
Where is the 21st Century Lincoln to free us Americans living in our progressive slavery? As we hurdle at more rapid speed towards the inevitable second civil war, your beautiful history lesson echos George Santayana’s eloquent words from the Life of Reason in 1905 so well...”Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Check your history. South Carolina started the war at Fort Sumter. The North declared war after that. It was the South that wanted to splt the nation. Did you even read what Don wrote? I didn't know some of the details but I know he is going into more depth than I ever got in any American history class I ever had. Good job Mr. Surber. No, GREAT job. Thank you.
Feb 11, 2023·edited Feb 11, 2023Liked by Don Surber
It is pointless to argue against fact, and what you have presented, Mr. Surber, is fact. Facts don't care about anyone's feelings, is also a fact.
I would respectfully offer the following (I'm not sure it is a difference in point of view, or opinion):
In Ken Burns' documentary, "The Civil War," the late Shelby Foote relates that most Southerners resented the North because the Union Army, was there – they viewed the Union Army soldiers as invaders, and occupiers – I don't see that as not valid.
Where I might differ (most respectfully) with your view is in perhaps HOW the end of slavery was brought about. Wasn't mobilizing an entire army and declaring war on what was then half of the nation to preserve the union was more or less completely throwing off this nation's own grounds for independence from England as contained in the declaration of such?
"When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."
Additionally, to my way of thinking, the Nebraska-Kansas affair begs the question: if such a legal and legislative solution existed to prevent the spread of the practice of slavery, could not a similar legal and legislative solution be worked out to address the question in each of the slavery sympathetic states? If such could only be done by keeping them in the union through military force, then the question must be asked, "Was it worth it?" Perhaps it was, but sadly, the left has been remarkably successful in changing that answer to no.
In any event, this is an almost purely academic debate because whatever the downstream effects, it is the here and now in which we live. In the here and now, the left has been equally remarkably successful, with the cooperation of guilt-ridden white liberals to throw off as much of this nation's history as possible that cannot be re-written to suit the narrative of perpetual victimhood.
Feb 11, 2023·edited Feb 11, 2023Liked by Don Surber
Everything you say is, as far as I know, totally correct. The war was about the fundamental view that all people were created equal with unalienable rights and slavery. No one had the right to enslave another person. Yet., Jefferson enslaved his own children. It was inevitable that the vision and the reality would explode. "A House divided cannot stand. " Exactly.
One question. This was NOT a civil war for control of the central government but a war to secede from the United States. Why was secession illegitimate? The Confederate Slave States wanted a divorce because of "irreconcilable differences."
The North was industrial and the Confederate States were agricultural oligarchies. What was invalid about that? I have some speculation but I am not as informed as you, Don Surber, and I have lived in the north until the last few years.
There is a building in center city Philadelphia called The Union League built during the so-called Civil War. The war was to preserve the Union without slavery. Why was preserving the Union necessary to abolish slavery? As you say, initially, Lincoln’s policy was to contain slavery with the view it would eventually disappear as the country industrialized. So the war was about Slavery but NOT about abolition.
Fossil fuels made the steam engine possible. Steam engines made the transcontinental railroad possible. Steam engines made the end of slavery possible.
Thank you for the history lesson, Professor Don. I can only imagine the effort to research and write such an insightful essay. I gladly trade the daily Highlights for this blog.
I was born in Chile. My father had a picture of Lincoln in his home office. As a little boy, I remember asking him who that man was. I have had huge respect for President Lincoln since then.
We immigrated to the U.S. in 1964. We lived in the land of Lincoln the first two years and on our 8th grade trip we visited many Lincoln landmarks. We also met, as a class, with the Governor, Otto Kerner, a democrat. In 1973 he was jailed for some federal crime. A role model he was not. Lincoln remains a great role model.
His memory and the true story of America the Beautiful must be fought for and preserved! Thank you Don for being on the vanguard of these two worthy causes!
I was born in Atlanta and reared in Georgia & Alabama. To pass the teacher's tests, I memorized a few facts about the Civil War from the sparse paragraphs in my high school history books. Even then I knew a lot of glossing-over was going on.
You, Mr. Don, have proven conclusively right here and now that the hard facts of history don't have to be as boring as they are in those stupid high school history books. This column alone has been worth the price of my subscription to your list. Thank you for bringing a lot of hidden history to light. Long live the memory of Honest Abe!
"suspending the Writ of Habeas Corpus"
Aren't we living in a de facto suspension of Habeas Corpus with the Dictatorship clinging to power in the District of Corruption ?
Augustine: The truth is like a lion. You don’t have to defend it. Let it loose. It will defend itself.
There is a reason why Satan/Lucifer/the Devil is called “the father of lies.”
In NZ we have had the same revisionist approach to historical fact. The liberals here have changed the meaning of Treaty of Waitangi that gave sovereignty to the British Crown into a Partnership. This in turn has led to calls for co-governance.
Fortunately we have brave writers, lawyers and historians in NZ who are doing what Mr.Surber has done here, putting the truth before the people.
It has had a positive effect.
Jacinda Ardern has gone. The Labour Party, our equivalent to the Democrats, is busily back pedaling from their most contentious policies, and best of all, the Wellington consensus that has supported the revisionist lies for the past forty years is being challenged as never before.
The lion is prowling…
It is amazing how the liberals change and distort history to fit their agenda of the moment. What or who is next?
If the Confederate Constitution effectively required states to allow slavery, how can one argue the Civil War was a fight for state's rights?
Donny Boy - "The first is it credits him — not FDR, LBJ and Obama — for the sprawling federal leviathan government we now suffer."
You forgot W, my veteran brother. Not criticizing your great work, but W expanded government exponentially via the national security apparatus that is now the 4th branch of government(unelected) weaponized against more than half of the country.
I have to mostly agree, Don, but slightly disagree on a couple of points. The vast majority of Confederate soldiers, something along the order of 98%, did not own slaves and had no real personal stake in keeping it legal. What motivated them to fight and die? I don't think we can totally discount the role states' rights played. I don't believe we can deny that federalism actually died during and shortly after the war.
Secondly, I don't believe it was necessary to slaughter 620,000 men to get rid of something that was going to inevitably die a richly deserved death anyway in a few years. Once agriculture was mechanized, which was not far off in an historic perspective, slaves were far too expensive to cultivate crops like cotton. Always follow the money. The rich plantation owners undoubtedly heavily influenced their state legislatures, but they were businessmen. Once they could cultivate 100 acres for the cost of keeping one or two slaves, slavery was dead. Competition from growers who mechanized would have killed it as surely as the sun rises in the east.
I agree blaming the growth of the federal gubmint on Lincoln is nonsense. Whereas Woodrow Wilson, a flaming liberal Democrat, signed the income tax into law that enabled the growth of the beast we are burdened with today.
Last, but not least, I don't think we can view the Civil War through a lens that is all black or all white. Most things are most realistically viewed in shades of grey.
Where is the 21st Century Lincoln to free us Americans living in our progressive slavery? As we hurdle at more rapid speed towards the inevitable second civil war, your beautiful history lesson echos George Santayana’s eloquent words from the Life of Reason in 1905 so well...”Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Robert Smalls should be in Statuary Hall
Check your history. South Carolina started the war at Fort Sumter. The North declared war after that. It was the South that wanted to splt the nation. Did you even read what Don wrote? I didn't know some of the details but I know he is going into more depth than I ever got in any American history class I ever had. Good job Mr. Surber. No, GREAT job. Thank you.
It is pointless to argue against fact, and what you have presented, Mr. Surber, is fact. Facts don't care about anyone's feelings, is also a fact.
I would respectfully offer the following (I'm not sure it is a difference in point of view, or opinion):
In Ken Burns' documentary, "The Civil War," the late Shelby Foote relates that most Southerners resented the North because the Union Army, was there – they viewed the Union Army soldiers as invaders, and occupiers – I don't see that as not valid.
Where I might differ (most respectfully) with your view is in perhaps HOW the end of slavery was brought about. Wasn't mobilizing an entire army and declaring war on what was then half of the nation to preserve the union was more or less completely throwing off this nation's own grounds for independence from England as contained in the declaration of such?
"When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."
Additionally, to my way of thinking, the Nebraska-Kansas affair begs the question: if such a legal and legislative solution existed to prevent the spread of the practice of slavery, could not a similar legal and legislative solution be worked out to address the question in each of the slavery sympathetic states? If such could only be done by keeping them in the union through military force, then the question must be asked, "Was it worth it?" Perhaps it was, but sadly, the left has been remarkably successful in changing that answer to no.
In any event, this is an almost purely academic debate because whatever the downstream effects, it is the here and now in which we live. In the here and now, the left has been equally remarkably successful, with the cooperation of guilt-ridden white liberals to throw off as much of this nation's history as possible that cannot be re-written to suit the narrative of perpetual victimhood.
Nonetheless, an excellent offering, today!
Everything you say is, as far as I know, totally correct. The war was about the fundamental view that all people were created equal with unalienable rights and slavery. No one had the right to enslave another person. Yet., Jefferson enslaved his own children. It was inevitable that the vision and the reality would explode. "A House divided cannot stand. " Exactly.
One question. This was NOT a civil war for control of the central government but a war to secede from the United States. Why was secession illegitimate? The Confederate Slave States wanted a divorce because of "irreconcilable differences."
The North was industrial and the Confederate States were agricultural oligarchies. What was invalid about that? I have some speculation but I am not as informed as you, Don Surber, and I have lived in the north until the last few years.
There is a building in center city Philadelphia called The Union League built during the so-called Civil War. The war was to preserve the Union without slavery. Why was preserving the Union necessary to abolish slavery? As you say, initially, Lincoln’s policy was to contain slavery with the view it would eventually disappear as the country industrialized. So the war was about Slavery but NOT about abolition.
Thank you for a much needed refresher course in American history. My all time favorite subject.