> The second point is, was it necessary to fight the Civil War at all? I
> have long had a suspicion that the Civil War caused damage -- in terms
> of casualties and regional resentments that endure to this day -- that
> outweighs the benefit of ending slavery quickly (which, in itself,
> seemed an afterthought -- Lincoln appeared much more concerned with his
> fetish of preserving the union, to me a meaningless abstraction). Even
> without the war, how long could slavery have endured without the South
> becoming a pariah state in the 19th century as South Africa did in the
> 20th? My position is a pacifist one -- I think wars bring more ills
> than solutions.
And that Hitler fellow? What were we thinking!
-- Paul Rosenberg Reason and Democracy rad at gte.net
"Let's put the information BACK into the information age!"