[!CrackMonkey!] Canadia issues travel advisory; don't go to the US

[Jeremy McLeod]

On Thu Nov 07, 2002 at 10:16:20AM -0500, Shawn McMahon wrote:
> I recall (from history, not personal experience) the first time the
> Republicans took over the government.  The Democrats were dead-set
> opposed to their big policy initiative then, too; freeing the slaves.
> You can say this for the Dems; at least they're consistently
> inconsistent.

You mean they were dead set against allowing the Republicans to further
tip the imbalance of economic power toward the North by raising tariffs
and taxes.  You mean they were dead set against allowing the Republicans
to centralize power by creating a national bank and a national currency,
controlled by the Federal government.  You mean they were dead set
against government subsidation of businesses and 'internal
improvements'.  You mean the Republican Party was not in the least
(well, maybe the least--there _were_ a couple of them) an abolitionist
party, and Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation was a military tactic
(two years into the war) intended to incite a slave rebellion in
Confederate territory.  It didn't actually free any slaves, even in
Union-controlled Southern regions.

The Civil War wasn't about slavery.  It was _made out_ to be about
slavery rather late in the war because support was waning, and abolition
was by then the only moral stance Lincoln could fall back on.  Not that
Lincoln was an abolitionist--far from it--but he was a consummate
politician.

-- 
Jeremy McLeod
jeremym at loonix.org