Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> On Apr 8, 2010, at 1:10 PM, SA wrote:
>
> > But the point is that for the majority of the South's population, it
> > wasn't one country. It was one group of states attacking another
> > group of states. It was only called a Civil War in the North.
>
> Well of course the South would say that. But I still don't see how one
> can call a central government's response to secession by a region that
> joined the nation by choice, not conquest, imperialism in the same
> sense as bombing a foreign country and/or changing its government.
I would count the slaves as part of the South's population. I don't think they thought the North was imperialist! And if I remember correctly, important elements in the Confederate leadership were planning openly imperialist adventures into Latin America and the U.S. west had secession succeeded.
Lincoln was not an abolitionist, but as someone suggests, the Republican Party was not a unity and it included Radicals to begin with. After all, the House impeached Johnson, & it was a close vote in the Senate. That foreshadowed the _eventual_ unity of Northern Capital and Southern oligarchs.
Carrol