Emancipation Proclamation

I found it very interesting that because of Robert E Lee being appointed as general of the Confederate Army, the out come turned into the writing of the Emancipation Proclamation. Before Lee was appointed as general, the Confederate Army struggled on the battle field and the Union was winning a majority of the battles. President Lincoln realized that a major factor for the South to be doing so well was because of the help of the slaves. Lincoln at the start of the war was'nt for abolishing slavery but just for keeping it from spreading to other states. Once Lincoln realized how much the slaves were helping the Confederate Army, he then knew that by abolishing slavery completley it would end up helping the Union Army in the long run.

Confederate Strategy

One of the things we've talked about with the slavery debate was that Southerners thought it would die out if not expanded. Today in lecture, Prof. Weber talked about the Confederates' defensive strategy, and how they weren't trying to necessarily expand slavery, just keep it in the territories where it already existed. When was it that this mentality changed among the Southerners? Or was it just a military strategy to try and maintain slave territory?

Missouri

How come Missouri was one of the most fought over states during the war? Was the fighting there really just a continuance of the boarder war with Kansas?

Sept 17-21: War & Watkins

Week 3

I was just wondering about inner family problems when it came to slavery in the south. For example, if the son of a slaveowner was absolutely against slavery do you think that they fought against each other in the Civil War. I have heard about movies where this problem has come up but I wasn't sure if it really happened in the 1860's.

9/12/07

Professor Weber is arguing that the institution of slavery caused the Civil War. In one of our previous discussions someone mentioned states' rights as being the cause of the Civil War. Aren't those two really the same thing? I mean, the ability to have slavery was a right that the Southern states wanted to keep.

week 3

During all this chaos in the south I wonder if any slave owner sat down and thought maybe it would be a good idea to give up their slaves and join the north just because he didn't want an uprise of slaves to harm him or his family.