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Interesting fact of the day: Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation **only** freed the southern slaves and kept the north slaves legal and enslaved. It was a sort "screw you to the south" more so than to abolish slavery.
Lincoln only supported and pushed through the 13th amendment once slavery was voluntarily abolished at the state level first.
Four Union States allowed slavery when the war started.
@threalist Yup, it was all the states that bordered the south but were in the north.
Though technically you could argue after the emancipation proclimation (since the north is the legal recognized government) the north was the only region left with slaves after that moment..
Of course the reality is more complex since southern states didnt recognize the authority. But at least from the perspective of the north, as the one true government, after that point slavery existed **only** in the north (legally).
@freemo @threalist Speaking of border states, one problem the South had was all the high tech industry was either in the North or in those border states that sided with the North.
The Confederates built a big powder mill - one of their few industrial successes - and they had to confiscate a Northern made steam engine to make it go!
They also wound up pulling railcars with horses because their steam locomotives were broken and they could not fix them.
> 25% of the white men who served were immigrants, and further 25% were first-generation Americans
Yea and similar the native americans (a group i am part of) were vastly abused by the north and sided mostly with the south.
Usually the picture painted as the north as some hero for minorities and the south as a bunch of racists is a gross oversimplification... The truth is both sides were just racists fighting racists, as would be the case at that time in history when everything and everyone was racist.
@freemo @threalist Yes the Civil War was, like most wars, a battle between two forms of exploitation. The North practiced the modern interest and debt serfdom method, while the South took the old fashioned approach.
The Northern approach made better use of technology.
As far as I can tell there have been very few wars with an actual good guy involved, and those few had the good guy on defense.
At best you have a bad guy versus a really horrible guy.
