Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Surrender at Appomattox.

Because it was already so bad, dummy. The South was in a Depression from about 1863 to 1963.

Keep digging .

Most were faring OK up until the thirties. Including blacks that still had the family unit intact and their own schools. Literacy was much higher and out of wedlock birth rates were comparable to whites.

… Most were faring OK up until the thirties. Including blacks that still had the family unit intact and their own schools. Literacy was much higher and out of wedlock birth rates were comparable to whites.

No my dad and other family were not rich, just self sufficient. If you were willing to work, you lived OK. If not then you suffered. No .gov handouts.

Because it was already so bad, dummy. The South was in a Depression from about 1863 to 1963.

I would say that much of rural Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana are still depressed, just look at the high rates of poverty and teen births and low rates of high school graduation. In an increasingly technologically driven economy those who can't keep up don't slide back, they fall off a cliff.

You seem to think that I care what you support "across the board". The fact is, your kind fought my kind so that this central government could have the power it does today. But for that, what you think or feel would have no effect on me whatsoever.

I'm proud of what my ancestors helped to accomplish, the suppression of rebellion and the restoration of the Union. I also think that Lincoln was our greatest President, 'cause he did whatever was necessary to accomplish the mission and he never lost sight of what that mission was.

I am a fan of a strong central government and the theoretical economy of scale that it brings to the table. It isn't always efficient, but it usually works and, IMO, would work better if there were short term limits such that the business of government was the welfare of the people, rather than a focus on being reelected.

Police State? Where?

Refighting the Civil War always come down to:
Did the North win the war? Did the South lose the war?

The South lost the war because they could not capitalize on their early victories. They had about a year, maybe two, to win enough battles, including some victories in the North, to bring enough pressure to bear to prevail. They needed what we now call a blitzkrieg strategy.
Same thing happened to Japan in the Pacific about 80 years later.

Lincoln won the war because he was tougher. He never caved to the enormous pressures he endured when the South had their early success. Many wanted him to do just that.

Lincoln won the war because he was smarter. He know how to count. Count to 21-22 million Yankees vs. about 7 million Rebs and 3.5 million slaves.

The South lost the war in the West. Lincoln brought better generals and more resources. Failure after failure in the West took its tole.
Lincoln, Grant, Sherman and Sheridan figured out how to destroy the basic infrastructure of the South and moved East.

Some Southern Governor began to withhold resources from the Confederacy for their own states. They were after all...fighting for “State Rights.”
So Lincoln rallied the North behind a single cause. Preserve the Union. And later he added; Free the Slaves.

Like I said; Lincoln was smarter. And tough enough to win his war.

Not really. That analysis proves nor solves nothing. One could as easily say, "Stalin was tough enough and smart enough to win his war. Hitler wasn't."

Not even close. Whatever one's feelings about Lincoln, it cannot be denied that he was a brilliant manager of people, putting his own ego in abeyance while patiently tolerating the pettiness of a McClellan or the outright hostility of a Stanton.

Not that such forbearance should ever be confused with weakness, Lincoln did not hesitate to remove those he felt to be incompetent or otherwise insufficient from command.

A pity for the South that Jeff Davis possessed few of those talents, his misplaced loyalty to the incompetent Bragg in particular being a prime miscalculation.

Birdwatcher

That analysis proves nor solves nothing.

birdy, i am still laughing about you putting the word english, and the word morality, in the same paragraph.

but recall the British Empire fell under the weight of its own morality, its subject peoples voting themselves free.