Really? Seriously???

Hmm. Okay, fine, I'll look into that.

So are you saying that the tremendous bitterness in the South (which lasted well into the 20th century) was due simply to the fact that they lost that war, and not due to any unfair or extreme exploitation and damage to Southern society following the conflict?

Lincoln had promised "malice toward none, charity for all"...a noble promise...but then he was assassinated. Andrew Johnson seems to have tried to follow Lincoln's intentions in that in various ways, but he got attacked to the point of impeachment proceedings, didn't he?

"Johnson was nominated for the Vice President slot in 1864 on the National Union Party ticket. He and Lincoln were elected in November 1864. Johnson succeeded to the Presidency upon Lincoln's assassination on April 15, 1865.

As president he took charge of Presidential Reconstruction – the first phase of Reconstruction – which lasted until the Radical Republicans gained control of Congress in the 1866 elections. His conciliatory policies towards the South, his hurry to reincorporate the former Confederates back into the union, and his vetoes of civil rights bills embroiled him in a bitter dispute with some Republicans.[4] The Radicals in the House of Representatives impeached him in 1868 while charging him with violating the Tenure of Office Act, a law enacted by Congress in March 1867 over Johnson's veto, but he was acquitted by a single vote in the Senate"


Do you really believe that the South was not treated in an unnecessarily punitive way following that war? Losing sides are usually treated pretty badly after a major war, because the victors take revenge in various ways, and the business people among the victors sieze advantage for their own profit.

I don't think people usually grasp what that is like unless they themselves have been on the losing end of a major war and have been occupied by a foreign conqueror. It's not a pleasant experience, no matter how you look at it, and it's not an experience that ordinary people deserve to go through (no matter what their leaders led them into). Has anyone here had that experience? If so, they'd be less inclined to place all righteous moral condemnation upon ONLY the losers in any given war, yet give complete moral carte blanche to the winners...as if they were spotless from beginning to end in their own behaviour.

I think there were significant errors and misdeeds on both sides in that war...and in the Reconstruction period that followed.

At any rate, let's discuss it in a reasonable way, Greg, and not start personally attacking one another again, okay? I'm simply discussing viewpoints on history...I am not trying to prove that you are a bad person...or a stupid person...or anything of that sort.