In a message dated 07/23/2003 10:53:29 AM Eastern Daylight Time, eharding2@cox.net writes: > The good and bad from both North and > > South should be taught, but from sources which are unbiased (and yes, you > > can find unbiased sources). > So where are these unbiased sources? It is my believe that the Civil War was the result of a crime against the South. Our right to succession was trampled by Northern greed. Did we or did we not have the right to secede from the Union? From what l have learned about state's rights, we did! Any thoughts? Carolyn "Surrender means that the history of this heroic struggle will be written by the enemy; that our youth will be trained by Northern school teachers; will learn from Northern school books their version of the War; will be impressed by all the influences of history and education to regard our gallant dead as traitors, and our maimed veterans as fit subjects for derision." --- General Pat Cleburne, CSA

The sources I primarily use are actual speeches, documents, etc., which I have to say in certain ways ARE biased due to who they were written by, but they were written by men who lived before, during, and after the War, and showed what and how they thought during those times. I tend to show actually what these people thought from their own words, not what someone thought they might have said...examples: speeches from Lincoln and other politicians, legal documents, etc. I may not be the best with words and expressing my meaning, so I hope you don't criticize me too harshly. As far as the South's right to secede, I tend to tell about one segment from the Declaration of Independence, which seemed to cause a previous war, a rebellion, our Revolutionary War which gave us independence from England. Were the South's reason's for seceding from the Union so different? "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of those ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying it's foundation on such principles and organizing its power in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness....." The South did not try to overthrow the Federal Government, they wished to secede from them and form their own government, a government based on the Principles of our Founding Fathers. In studying the economics of the time prior to when the Southern States seceded, it's easy to tell why this happened. Even as far back as 1828, Senator Thomas H. Benton from Missouri declared: "Before the Revolution [the South] was the seat of wealth, as well as hospitality....Wealth has fled from the South, and settled in regions north of the Potomac: and this in the face of the fact, that the South, in four staples alone, has exported produce, since the Revolution, to the value of eight hundred millions of dollars; and the North has exported comparatively nothing. Such an export would indicate unparalleled wealth, but for what fact?....Under Federal legislation, the exports of the South have been the basis of the Federal revenue.....Virginia, the two Carolinas, and Georgia, may be said to defray three-fourths, of the annual expense of supporting the Federal Government; and of this great sum, annually furnished by them, nothing or next to nothing is returned to them, in the shape of Government expenditures. That expenditure flows in an opposite direction - it flows northwardly, in one uniform, uninterrupted, and perennial stream. This is the reason why wealth disappears from the South and rises up in the North. Federal legislation does all this." I hope I haven't gone on too much, and again, I'm not trying to start a debate. I'm just pulling my information from speeches, documents, etc., from these times before, during, and after the War. Edward

Lincoln himself believed a State had could secede but it had to be a mutual agreement with the Federal government.. Permission must be granted from the Federal government. Why ? For example, except for the original States, territories were obtained from funds and treaties of the Federal government. Also what right of sovereignty did Tennessee, Mississippi or Missouri have ? They never had sovereignty before they were admitted into the Union. (but the original colonies and Texas did--that's another argument). There is a logical argument from both sides, that is why I tend to straddle the fence. Scott K. Williams,