Too bad that so many good men on BOTH SIDES had to die over lesser men’s greed
Well hey we actually agree on something. It really is just a tragic shame that so many people had to die because a handful of slaveowners with far more money and political clout than the combined populace or government of the poverty-stricken states they resided in (but half the sense of a common moth) refused to give up what they saw as a financial advantage when their trade partners made the end of slavery a condition of continued trade which alone prompted them to pressure their state governments to split from the Union and give birth to the Confederacy.
It is absolutely terrible that their hubris and utter economic incompetence hinging on the value of a single export which they hoped to use to blackmail Europe into sanctioning or even attacking the Union led to the deaths of good people when they failed to account for basic practices like stockpiling, the sheer difference in the amount of trade offered by their competitors, or the free economic market which simply gave the rival textile industry an opening to profit. Lesser men, as you said, in every possible regard. Lacking in moral fiber, higher thought, foresight, hindsight, the good sense and humility to know when to fold on a hand they made into a disaster even as they tried to rig the deck, or even the originality to come up with a flag that wasn’t just a blatant ripoff of others.
Needing a scapegoat, an excuse, and a balm to their massive egos the old money families behind this whole mess sold the message to destitute farmers that somehow the Union was planning to take their farms and plunder their wealth. Again, there was a colossal wealth gap and this fable of southern riches did not refer to the states and their residents themselves as the only disposable income existed in the hands of slaveowners which was rapidly dwindling since they lost their trade partners due to their - and I really can’t stress this enough - absolutely terrible business sense. And I suppose enough of the populace bought this nonsense to be willing to murder their brothers and throw away their lives in a meaningless war despite the fact that if they actually sat down an thought about it the abolition of slavery would actually benefit poor farmers since work would open up to farmhands on farms that would rather employ whites than freed slaves and the success of any farm would be a matter of market competition rather than a matter of inheriting unpaid labourers bred like animals, housed in unconscionable conditions, and fed on things that were thought unfit for human consumption meaning the poor simply could not compete if they wanted their workers - often simply themselves and their children - to be able to live to old age, remain healthy, or have any human dignity whatsoever. Another rallying cry was states rights but apart from the status of slaves the rights of the Confederate states were under no actual threat. Those remaining slave states did however have major issues with runaway slaves having legal protection from recapture if they made it to Union states and demanded to supersede the rights those states conferred. So in practice fighting for the Confederacy was doing the opposite of the things they claimed o be fighting for, hurting them immensely.
Tragic. Truly heart rending. And shame on the cowards who hide from reality. Shame on those who today continue to spit on their neighbours despite the fact that without the reconstruction effort they would have nothing, the war they started cost them almost everything they had left after their own economic failure had already beggared them. Shame on those who remain hateful to the slaves on whose scarred and broken backs those fortunes they lament being diminished were built on. Shame on those who allow for the basic rights of their country to be selective in practice. Ingrates, the lot of them.
Shame especially on those with no connection to reality whatsoever, who are already trying to cheat an election a second time. I hope those whose right to vote is being actively curtailed can overcome this sick injustice, can prove there’s still some semblance left of a functional and lawful government. And if they do deliver you from the orange evil and work to stabilize the chaos and rebuild everything you danced a merry jig around as he set it ablaze you can get back to resenting everyone else for trying to save you from your own ignorant stupidity and determination to repeat the catastrophically deadly failures of the past. More than anything I wish to see the day the hypocritical bullshit that fuels your conceit is finally recognized for what it is and leaves every fool that makes it their personal doctrine eating crow.