"Not what i said. Try re-reading, or asking for clarification."

that was for chris...

"
Evidently not. The south was un-controllable. They had to be controlled. Like i said, Better to annihilate
your enemies now, then face them later on their terms."

what evidence do you have to show they were uncontrollable? they were controllable previously and afterwards, they were only uncontrollable when Lincoln was being a dick.  also they decided when to secede, if anything the war was on their terms...

And you still do.

i think the US civil war was in part the outcome of debate in the US since the 1780s between the Federalists and Confederalists. its been a while since I studied US History but I remember that the US was originally intended to be a loose confederation of States that generally ran their own affairs with little interference from the centre.

over time Federalists came along and wanted a strong centre and weaker states.

by the time you get to the period of the US civil war the south already had enough with the union dictating to the states what they saw as their own rights, freedoms & privileges and thats why they seceded. slavery of course was key.

after the US civil war you could say the US came of age as a true nation rather than just a union.

I didnt claim the south would of given up slaves in 1865 peacefully. but there were worse things in the US then slavery or prejudice against blacks in the US back then; factory conditions for example were much worse and were left unchanged until the early 20th century...

obviously the south fought it, they were being forced to give them up, obviously the would resist...

"Then what did this mean?"

it meant that a peaceful approach could of gotten rid of slavery without a war that would wipe out a significant portion of the US's population...

"worse than chattel slavery?  A white factory worker in 1860 could say "f this" and walk to Minnesota and cut logs,"

first of all, typically they would owe them money, possibly for the voyage to america or another reason so they wouldnt be able to run off anywhere because they were in debt... they often didnt have a choice... sometimes they signed something right off the boat that made them legally obligated to work somewhere for such a period of time...

"
And they got their asses smashed into submission. Glory glory hallelujah."

actually they had significantly less casualties then the Union, so really, the North get their asses smashed...  and the hundreds of thousands of casualties on both sides could of been avoided...

Never thought I'd say this but, I'm with Chris on this one.
Except for the entire 'war is good' thingy

the funny thing was, back then when the war started people actually thought it was just going to be like a play or such, until they realized lots of men were dying (stupid fools who set up lawn chairs near others getting killed are bound to realize such things)

And once the North gained the upper hand after Gettysburg, they simply made it a war of Attrition following the southern army all over nipping at their heels the whole time. Not to mention most battles were around 1:1 in deaths for both sides, although a few were significantly more than that, like at Gettysburg. Then there were battles where MANY THOUSANDS died, like Shiloh. So all in all, I'm sure that despite that they thought it was going to be a short thing, it was actually a good thing. It taught Americans to tolerate each other. Otherwise I'm sure that some states would have broken off by now.

And war is good. Didn't you know? Heroes are made, villains are defeated. Children go without fathers, brothers or sisters or mothers or even homes. Hundreds of thousands are killed. what, 3 million men gathered to attack Normandy and invade Europe in ww2, several thousand died on the beaches. Heroes were made. History was made. War is the key thing to society today. How else can you imagine that we have the technology we have today? Companies make better and better tech to provide to their armies and while they're at it do the same for the people. What is useful for the people is useful for the army. Take the one up example, You and I are even with fists, so you pick up a branch, I pick up a rock, you pick up a knife, I pick up a sword, you pick up a bow and arrow, I pick up a crossbow, you pick up a musket I pick up a cannon you pick up an m16 I pick up an Barrett .50 Cal, you pick up a missile I pick up a nuke, etc. Eventually we realize the power of what we have in our hands and bring it back down because if you kill me and i kill you, neither of us win and WE WANT to win. We don't want to lose. So we decide lets bring it back down to where I have a better chance of winning and not killing myself.

Such is war.

ok then Deci, tolerate each other to a degree. After all, most americans are still alive. If they weren't tolerant to a degree, then we'd all have been killed by now by some random person. Occasionally, we are