Editor,
This letter is not to belittle Abraham Lincoln, the “Great Emancipator,” but to tell the truth as your last week’s contributor did.
Lincoln did not run for President in 1859 on an anti-slavery ticket, but only that no more slave states were to be added, and that the ratio between slave and free states remained even.
“Bloody Kansas” was a struggle over that issue. He also did not free the slaves until 1863, three years into the Civil War.
His main reason for doing that was to weaken the South by reducing their labor force. Cotton was no longer king in the South because the South had depended on England to buy their cotton and this would finance their war.
But Britain decided to grow and buy cotton in Malaysia and Egypt instead. So, by freeing the slaves, this would further weaken the South. This is the truth, and like he said last week, “don’t be afraid of it.”
Always remember that historians inevitably write the war and its cause according to the winners. And believe it or not, some constitutionalists believe to this day that the South had every right to secede as a constitutional right.
Dave Carpenter
Midpines
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