Well, Bruce, you'd prolly have to live in the South to understand the way that there are still large number to white folks who continue to blame black folks fir their own failings... Let's face it, the South took a real beatin', especially when Sherman puit the final psycological nail in it's coffin by burnin' as much of the South as he could...

Then there was the bitter "occuaption" (reconsteruction, ha...) and when the Union troops left there was so much hatred that got tarnsferred onto the blacks...

And, Ron, do you think slavery would have continued past WW I, if that long??? I don't... But Jim Crow was still going strong well into the 50's and it wasn't until Brown V. Topeka Bord of Education in '54 and the '65 Civil Right Act where ol' Jim styarted to fade...

Hey, I'm not sayin' that slavery was right because it was as immoral as anything I can think of but Jim Crow was just a half a step behind it and some cases, worse...

As fir Ft. Sumpter??? Kinda reminds me of the Gulf of Tonkin situation.... Have you been to Charleston, S.C., Kendall, ol' buddy, and been to the Battery.... Well, from the battery you can barely see Ft Sumpter, it's so far off... Now when you think of the artillery of 1861 you would have to have more luck than yer hunter in yer huntin' story just to hit the island, let alone hurt anyone...

But, Ft. Sumpter is like a side bar here...

The real issue is, sadly, about politics and Lincoln didn't understand the Southern culture and didn't make the effort to defuse a bad situation....

And, please, folks, no more arguin' that this war was fought over slavery... If it were then there wouldn't have been slaves in Washington, D.C. when the war broke out, would there???

Bobert