Quote from: "Blazor"Quote from: "Fashionista"Quote from: "Blazor"Quote from: "Dinky Dazza"Does anyone know the true story of Fort Sumter?Quote from: "Blazor"
School books will tell you the South fired on the fort, thus starting the war. But that is far from the truth.
Lincoln had things working against him, and he did not want to lose his support. So he devised a strategy to provoke the South into firing first. The fort, being in Carolina, was officially Southern owned with secession, and Union owned forts were asked to abandon them. But Lincoln sent a hostile fleet, to resupply the fort. So, with the fort in front, and the fleet approaching from the harbor, the South fired in self defense upon the fleet. Again, the Union would not give up the fort when asked, so the fort was fired upon.
From my humble Northern roots, I've become a full fledged South supporter in my older years... the slavery sucked...but it was going for longer up north...
ac_drinks
You are exactly right. While the South was not allowed slaves after the war, the North still kept theirs, for several years.
I thought slavery in the North was banned before the American Civil War?
Some states did, yes, but not all. In fact, Lincoln gave even more favortism to the Northern states that simply didnt secede and join the Confederacy. The 13th amendment wasnt even signed until 4 years in to the war.Delaware did not ratify the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery until 1901, the only non-seceded state that opposed the Amendment into the twentieth century. Northern slaves did not celebrate gradual emancipation as they would the abolition of slavery with the 13th Amendment. Under these gradual policies not much changed for slaves; many slaves remained in bondage, freedom was delayed for children, and much of the status quo remained in society. This is not to discount the shift that did occur in the period after the Revolution. Many slaves were freed individually during or after the Revolutionary War, and there was certainly an increased discussion about issues of slavery and race in the North. However, it is clear that only in New England did slavery die quickly. In the rest of the northern states, the process was very slow and slavery still had a presence up until the Civil War. While the North started to build their Free Soil Ideology and argue with the South over issues of slavery, the institution was still present there (albeit a shadow of slavery in the South). Clearly the line between "free" and "slave" in antebellum America was not as solid as sometimes presented.
I did read that freed slaves were often in bondage after slavery officially ended.