Re: [tlug] [OT] US Civil War

["Josh Glover" <jmglov@example.com>]

On 22/08/07, CL <az.4tlug@example.com> wrote:

> I've heard it mostly in the Border States.  As you go south, "Secession"
> becomes "Rebellion."

I think that the split is largely socio-economic. The Southern states
had their share of intellectuals, and their reasons for succession
were just as valid--in their minds--as the reasons of the original
colonists for declaring independence from Britain. I've read a lot of
the intellectual underpinnings of the secessionist movement, and they
are logically consistent.

Among the lower classes, where the education required to understand
the likes of Paine et al. was lacking, "rebellion" was a more popular
rallying cry, because everyone understood the concept.

Lincoln used "slavery" as a similar rallying cry for those in the
North too uneducated, lazy, or otherwise unwilling to examine the real
motivations for the war, which were almost all economic, and not
moral.

Again, I have severely mixed feelings about the war, but it is still a
fascinating topic, 150 years after the fact.

-- 
Cheers,
Josh