How ignorant and misinformed you are. Nobody and that includes Arizona Confederates, fought for the preservation of slavery. It has been proven time and time again that the War of Northern Aggression was not fought to preserve slavery, but to free the Confederate states from the strangling oppression of the centralized government. Those of you who are historically ignorant continue to lay the blame of slavery at the feet of the South when it was the North that built the slave ships and performed the act of trading for the slaves, brought them back to the U.S., and sold them to both Northerners and Southerners. The South was paying well over 75% of the federal revenues, yet only had 1/3 of the population. Does that sound fair to you? If your glorious union was so anti-slavery and fought to "free the slaves", as is so often said, why did it allow the illegally formed state of West Virginia to join the union on the condition that it could keep its slaves? And why did the union, with Lincoln's approval, propose the Corwin Amendment which would have forever protected slavery if the seceded states would rejoin the union? You can't have it both ways. The union couldn't be fighting to end something that it was protecting and promoting.
I submit to you that our fine Confederates were fighting for the exact same reasons that our colonial ancestors fought when they took up arms against the British; independence, the right to self-government, and freedom from an all-powerful, intrusive centralized government. Those of you who continue to blindly slander the South, the Confederacy, and all things Southern need to educate yourselves to the true history on the War of Northern Aggression and how the union soldiers marched through the South burning, looting, raping, and murdering people and property. Innocent civilians massacred and starved to death. You want to honor butchers, while we honor brave souls who fought to defend their homes and families from an invading army. Did you know that your wonderful Mr. Lincoln had 300,000 European socialists and criminals come over and aid in his bloody, unconstitutional campaign to conquer the South and put an end to individual liberty and self-government? What the CSA was fighting to prevent is exactly the mess we are in today in this country. They could see what would become of a people who were swallowed up by a huge, powerful central government that continually violates the Constitution and desires to control every aspect of our lives. Everyone lost in that war, not just the South. By his own admission, Lincoln destroyed the Republic.
I leave you with the following quote, "I saw in States' rights the only availing check upon the absolutism of the sovereign will, and secession filled me with hope, not as the destruction but as the redemption of Democracy. Therefore I deemed that you were fighting the battles of our liberty, our progress, and our civilization, and I mourn for the stake which was lost at Richmond more deeply than I rejoice over that which was saved at Waterloo."
-Lord Acton, in a letter to Robert E Lee right after the war
Jeff Paulk
Tulsa, OK
Tulsa, OK
