Washington was not exactly a fan of 'state's rights' either, of the founding fathers he was one of the most in favor of a strong central government.

The Constitution was undermined in many ways during the Civil War, some of which were by Lincoln. But it can be argued that slavery was an inherently criminal institution that was antagonistic to the constitution unto itself. If you think otherwise, then you're taking the Confederate view that slaves were property and not humans.

he obliterated the vast portions of his own country and initiated the death of 650,000 Americans to do so.

I had assumed the British supported the Confederacy because they wanted to cement the division in North America. It hadn't occurred to me that Lincoln's apparent ambiguity about slavery might have been a factor.

I merely believe that the liberal trends represented by Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution represented the most just political document up to that point, and since there have been egregious attacks made against it. Lincoln sits at the forefront of the aggressors.

I agree with you completely, but most point out again that Lincoln was perfectly willing to tolerate slavery (even opposing abolitionist movements to a certain degree) yet unwilling to tolerate secession.

He repeatedly stated such in personal and public correspondence.

Can you truly say that, knowing what we do of what Lincoln said, had he would have allowed secession if the CSA had proceeded with emancipation on its own?

I will never defend the CSA, but I won't accept glory being heaped on someone merely as a consequence of another's evil.

The South was the first to recruit an army, the South fired the first shots, after skirmishing in the no-man's land between Washington and Richmond for a year the South invaded the North.

The South bayonetted black Union prisoners of war, the South had a veritable concentration camp at Andersonville, oh yeah and the South would have never taken up arms were it not for the protection of SLAVERY. So how is it that you're laying all of this carnage on Lincoln's head?

This is the tough thing about documents. There's no way to write them in a way that is immune to interpretation in a different historical context.

That is impossible to know, but the thing is that crises and events unfolded for him in a certain order, and he performed the way he performed. He never had the opportunity to prioritize slavery over the secession, because secession was an acute problem and slavery was a chronic problem.

If I break into a person's house to rob it and he just happens to be running a meth lab, his meth lab has nothing to do with my attempted robbery or the violence that erupted because of my robbery.

Lincoln argued that any secession was legally void. That was his justification for war.

Interestingly, we've focused on North American slaves and pretty much ignored the home of about 90% of the Africans transported to the new world: Brazil and the Carribean.

You're kind of arguing that slavery was entirely an incidental issue in the Civil War. It was a mass event: which means all kinds of agendas came together. Lee was philosophically opposed to slavery. Grant had sixteen slaves up to the Emancipation Proclamation. What's certain is that the Civil War was a bizarre sequence of events which saw the viewpoint of a small minority become the prevailing perspective. Without resorting to ideology, I'm not sure how any sense could be made of it.

As the south was seceding, the Republicans around Lincoln demanded that he make a speech advocating a constitutional amendment permanently protecting slavery in the south... to calm to south down. Lincoln made a speech, but didn't mention this amendment. Instead he said that in sentiment, he was with the abolitionists. Lincoln knew that the Emancipation Proclamation could be overturned by the next president. He struggled to have the northern states initiate legislation allowing citizenship of black men. The northern legislators were stagnant. Lincoln still had war power in the south, so he actually used it to start black citizenship there. In the last years of his life, he put all of his energy into guiding the 13th amendment through Congress. It's said that before he was shot, his health was poor due to stress.

It's a wonder the war ended as soon as it did. Thanks, Lincoln.

The exclusion was just as bad as any enforced labour.

It was bad, but it was not as bad. Under slavery your own children could be taken from you and sold. That could not happen to sharecroppers. You could learn to read. You could move. It was bad, but it was better.

The mass migration to the north, which particularly happened during the industrialization for WWI, resulted in severe ghettoization

I find it inconceivable that one man could enslave another and think he has moral authority. BUT then im not from that generation so i must assume that many did.

Views may change and while the victor rights the script, truth can be gathered by certain means. There was good roman caesars relative to others but lets be sober in our judgement. If you praise you must also condemn.

They considered them beasts of burden, brutish, without potential for intelligence, and as such were not owed the same moral obligations.

With every institutionalized prejudice there is something comparable. The one metaphor that the Nazis constantly used about the Jews was that they were a plague or a disease. The colonists in Africa regarded the indigenous people as brutes and savages. And the world has had its infidels, its apostates, its heathens, its witches... The way to overcome a moral inhibition is to regard your adversary as inferior, set apart.

You must be careful with your They's...Spanish slaves were baptised as well as branded

Thomas Stonewall Jackson taught one balck friend to read and write, and the slave promptly wrote himself a pass to the North...He also caught hell from the locals while teaching at VMI for teaching their slaves the Bible...He accepted slavery as just, and so, moral...But he was kind of a nut...