But the Southerners
who "seceded" in 1861 weren't seceding because they were being oppressed. They wished to preserve slavery....
@goatprairie .
I get so tired of hearing that "to preserve slavery" crap I could puke on your head for bringing it up again.
That was the EXCUSE the Yankees used to give cover to "grand theft,state". After the war ended the carpetbaggers came in,and with their buddies from the north that were appointed to jobs like sheriff,judge,chief justice,county manager,state senator,etc,etc,etc,robbed the south blind. They had cute little tricks like the sheriff declaring a far up for sale due to delinquent taxes on the very morning of the sale,and would tack up the notice as his pals,the only bidders there,watched.
Keep in mind the taxes were delinquent because the farm owners had been away fighting the war,and most hadn't even gotten back home yet.
Mr Lincoln and accomplices may have talked a humanitarian goal,but it was all about control and profit by legalized theft.
The very island I live on now is one example. Several hundred acres,and MAYBE 10-15 families living here when the war started. None of those families were living here after the war because the sheriff put it up for sale at a tax auction,and it sold to Yankee industrialists who wanted a hunting club. The men came back from the war to discover they no longer had homes,and their families were living with relatives. Those same industralists and their offsprung retained owership of the island until the 60's or 70's,when duck hunting became uncouth and unfashionable amongst the Wall Street set,and it was sold off again.
Ironically enough,there is once again a hunting club here for rich southeasters. And me. My house is the only house here,and I am living on the same lot my mother and her sister lived on after the flu of 1918 and they were sent to live with a crippled up Civil War vet because he needed somebody to cook and take care of him,and they needed somewhere to live. The original house was still standing when I bought the land,but it was rotten to the core. It was so old it was built back when the kitchen was a separate building with a walkway between it and the house. I could grab a door jamb inside the house in my hand and crumble it.
These insider trading land deals were why so many Confederate soldiers left the south and moved west to start over. There was nothing here for most of them,and the courts were only concerned with keeping them poor and helpless.
And let's not even get into how in many places a former slave could murder his former owner or their family,and just be told to move away avoid revenge.
Want to know why the KKK gained so much power and turned racist? Now you know. The law only applied TO the southerners,and never FOR them. There were cases of blacks raping and murdering white women and the courts refusing to have them arrested or put on trial. Granted,it didn't happen often,but it DID happen.
Hell,it's still happening today,but these days it's happening more in Mn,LA, and Portland than the south.