Kevin,
I didn't talk about slavery because that is a given. BUT, What is the rest of the story? Have you looked at what really went on. Like Lowell Mass. using 300,000 bales of cotton and not saying one word about the evils of slavery. It was their pocket book.
How about the 1000 ships that left New York Harbor in the first 20 months of the 1860's to get slaves for the slave market in the New World. Everyone knew what the ship was doing, what is was for and not one person stopped one ship. {ABOUT 3 PER DAY} In fact when S.C. left the Union , the mayor of New York jokingly said that maybe New York needed to leave the Union as well, since the purse string from the South were all around New York. Oh, and the last U.S. flagged ship delivered slave to Brazil, did so in 1880 and it came from up North.
The rum industry got it's sugar cane from the sale of slaves, and about a 1/3 of the rum was used to buy more slaves! Another pocket book thing. The rum brewing was up in the North, the shipping industry was in the North and they got slaves from the Blacks in Africa that rounded up slaves and sold them to the whites waiting in ships. More of the untold story.
When we study history we study what there is to study. The written words and accounts of Washington, Jefferson, and Adams in the Am Rev. for example. But not one word about the average guy out there. In the South in 1860, about 88% of the South was not involved in slavery and was busy just putting food on the table, something on their back, and a roof over their heads. In the conventions that pulled the states out of the union, about 93-99% of those attended were slave owners. So what are they going to be talking about. That which involved the little guy or was some that involved them and their pocket books? Money is the root of all evil, and for almost all the wars. Religion is the other big one.
So can you really trust what those guys wrote at those conventions? It was written that the current President spent something in the millions over his party when he became president. The press just 4 years earlier bashed Bush for spending 1/3 of what O spent. They were saying what Bush spent shouldn't have been spent. Then in the first two years of this president, he added something like 12 trillion to the nations debt or more, but just 2 years before the press was knocking the Bush terms (all 8 years) for adding 3 trillion to the national debt. So who do you want to trash is up to who you want to trash. If you want some of the facts not in your history book, you can contact me at my email address. I'll leave it so that this web site doesn't get into the mess I have seen others. But I will not set by and be questioned after over 30 years of study and family history which reflexes this nations history.
I do teach history and I try to step back and look at the big picture not focused in what went on in the last 10 years before the event. I have found a lot of interesting things that show that what your taught in school isn't really right. I will not call it an out and out lie but the French say it this way: "A half truth is a whole lie." We know that in war the winners write the history and they don't give the other side. So, you get a half truth with every war we fought even Viet Nam. You don't know how many history teachers have admitted to me that they know they teach only half the story. (but my question, and I don't throw it into their face) If you not part of the solution then your part of the problem, then why is the South still fighting the war...because of the rape, murder, looting, pillage, and arson that went on in the name of what? Not slavery, because if the South wins, freeing the slave is a mute point. Which brings up another question: Where is the land of the free and home of the brave if it takes a gun to hold the country together? I will sorry to you guys on this. I didn't expect people to pick at me but I will not stand by and be bash and my family bashed for mis-guided people who believe they have the complete story. Again, I don't come here often and I try to keep it on subject. I would suggest that you look at http://rebelyell1.com. My website for some more of the story that isn't out there. There are pictures of re-enactments, and battlefields. And if you know were to look you find somethings on the Mayan world which I helped clear a structure back about 1970. I pictured standing on it as it looks now. I cleared trees is all I did. Nothing more. But then you'll have to go through my website to find it. Again my humble apologies.
"Show me a man who doesn't read a newspaper and I'll show you a man who isn't informed. Show me a man who does read a newspaper and I show you a man who is mis-informed." from newspaper man
Mark Twain