Questions About John Brown

[My Name Is Kate]

The 13th amendment was passed at the end of the Civil War before the Southern states had been restored to the Union. How did the southerners violate the Constitution by seceding? They only joined the Union in the first place, on the condition that the Constitution recognize the legality of slavery. If Lincoln and the Northerners were so appalled by slavery, why did they even want the Southerners to be part of the Union? And why, after the Civil War, did the Radical Republicans quickly lose interest in the plight of the freed slaves? It wasn't for another 100 years or so before black people began to have anything resembling equal rights and equal opportunity anywhere in the country.

I did not say it was up to the slaves themselves to end slavery without a civil war. Please reread what I wrote, which is based on the information in your posts. I said that the only chance of slavery ending without a civil war, was if the slaves themselves, with the help of sympathetic free people, attempt to make a bid for their own freedom. Of course they could not do it all on their own. Really, to suggest that I am THAT uninformed is just plain disrespectful.