What 'Lincoln' misses and another Civil War film gets right

[Armistead]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

"Political Correctness"? Were the Southern States being politically correct when they seceeded?

You're right, the war wasn't about slavery. It was about Secession vs preserving the Union. Secession, on the other hand, was all about slavery.

Secession was about lack of representation and taxation, with the south paying the majority of taxes. Lincoln could've resolved this, but was a pansey of the northern capitalist who didn't want to pay taxes. Lincoln could've perserved the union and ended slavery in a fair way like most nations of the world did without almost destroying our nation. Lincoln is a hero because it worked out in the end, but it could've went the other way and almost did. There were several meetings to resolve these fiscal conflicts, but Lincoln wouldn't budge. The north overall didn't want slavery to end, it supplied the tariffs to the government, the north simply wanted to control the souths wealth for their benefit through control of congress.

Slavery was dying in the south, only about 8% of families owned slaves. Had Lincoln not been so hard headed many southern states would've remained in the union and the few that left would've folded in a few years.

The fact is both sides were racist, slavery wasn't the issue, it only became an issue. Course it did resolve and create much of the tax code we have today, when the south left, we saw the creation of income tax in the north and the federal govt continued to go nuts with taxes, tariffs during and after the war and grew into the monster it is today.

Like Grant said..."if the war was about slavery, I would've changed sides"

The fact will remain modern history is built on many myths because the union won. There was little about this era where anyone can claim moral high ground, just shrewd politicians and rich greedy people/