The Meaning of the Gettysburg Address

[Bill Richter]

The American Civil War was fought to promote Union, Freedom, and Equality. At least that is what one learns in public schools, and even colleges and universities. But that is only partially true. What the war really was all about was raw political power--about which white people would rule the United States. It was the successful attempt to take the political imperium from the Southern agrarian, slaveholding aristocracy that governed this nation until the most terrible of all American wars, and transfer it to the industrial, shipping magnates of the North, who have run it since. Which is one reason the war produced a reborn Union, but only a technical Freedom, and little Equality, legacies that haunt the United States even today.