The Meaning of the Gettysburg Address

[Craig Hipkins]

(08-26-2012 10:27 AM)william l. richter Wrote:  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.

William, You make some real good points. I don't believe that I ever thought about it in that way before. The north had lost it's own Agrarian rebellion back in 1787 during the now forgotten Shay's Rebellion. I believe that the seeds of the southern struggle for independence arose from this. I guess one could even argue that the idealogy of the American Revolution (at least to the small subsistence farmer of the day) was destroyed forever after this failed challenge to the government.

Craig