Most Americans in Abraham Lincoln's day were Christians. (Christians who didnt own slaves.) Prove me wrong.

[Lion IRC]

But Lincoln was mainly playing a political game, like politicians tend to do.

A game about what?
Not slavery according to you because nobody cared about slavery apparently.

So what was it that people cared enough about to fight a war?

Do you remember the explanation about Lincoln not being a Christian, or have you forgotten about that?

That wasn't 'explained'.
The person who thought that also said Lincoln didn't believe in life after death.

Spiritualists in Lincoln’s White House - The History Reader : The History Reader

Spiritualism in the United States exploded during the Civil War—fathers, husbands, and sons were dying on the battlefield at a rate never before imagined.

www.thehistoryreader.com

 

[pood]

The majority of people north and south did not give a fuck about the slaves...

...making the Civil War a bit of a waste of time. ???

No.
It just wasn't fought for the reasons the victors gave....

If they didn't care about slavery, if nobody cared about slavery, why did the Confederacy want to secede?

And WTF was Abraham Lincoln going on and on and on about?

Wow. Just … wow.

Try to wrap your head around this. As Bilby already said. Maybe repetition will make it sink in.

Not giving a fuck about SLAVES is not the same thing as not giving a fuck about SLAVERY.

The southern plantation aristocracy cared very deeply about SLAVERY — i.e., about KEEPING it. They, and the other good Christian folk of the south who did not own slaves, did not give a fuck about the SLAVES as PEOPLE. Had they given such a fuck, these good Christians would not have enslaved them in the first place.

The north, by and large, except for a tiny minority of abolitionists, did not give a fuck about the slaves either — or, for that matter, in their case, about the institution of slavery as such. They cared about PRESERVING THE UNION.

The war was fought to PRESERVE THE UNION after the Southern secession — and NOT to end slavery.

Got it now? Or did you get it all along but are just playing your typical evasive, word- and hair-splitting disingenuous little games?

 

[pood]

So what was it that people cared enough about to fight a war?

As noted above, TO PRESERVE THE UNION, AND NOT TO END SLAVERY.

Are you really this ignorant of U.S. history, or are you just playing games?

 

[pood]

The character of the war changed AFTER Jan. 1, 1863, when the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect. After that, Union soldiers were still fighting to preserve the union, but it was understood that victory in the war now would also necessitate freeing the slaves. And a lot of northerners were very unhappy about that.

 

[pood]

Here, read this from Lincoln’s first inaugural address. Does this sound like someone launching a war to end slavery?

I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution, which amendment, however, I have not seen, has passed Congress, to the effect that the federal government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service. To avoid misconstruction of what I have said, I depart from my purpose not to speak of particular amendments, so far as to say that holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable.

No objection to the permanence of slavery being made express and irrevocable in the Constitution!

 

[pood]

Here is Lincoln on Aug. 22, 1862:

I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time save Slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy Slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy Slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about Slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save this Union, and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause.

Bold by me.

 

[TomC]

Not slavery according to you because nobody cared about slavery apparently.

How you managed to draw this conclusion from:

Because their ethics improved. Secular ethics grew rapidly, even amongst Christians, because they are both better and more rational.
Why did slavery remain such a big thing in the Euro-Christian world for so long, and was so hard to get rid of?

It was the rise in secular ethics that resulted in a huge amount the ongoing cultural shifts going on at the time.

But I can't help but notice how, despite Emancipation, the level of virulent racism amongst Christians continued, and continues to this day. At least here in the USA.
Tom

 

[Lion IRC]

Bold by me.

It's a statement of the bleeding obvious that Lincoln wished slavery wasn't the issue threatening the union - but it WAS.

Read the bit you didn't BOLD

"If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about Slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save this Union, and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union."

 

[laughing dog]

Bold by me.

It's a statement of the bleeding obvious that Lincoln wished slavery wasn't the issue threatening the union - but it WAS.

Read the bit you didn't BOLD

"If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about Slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save this Union, and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union."

That clearly indicates slavery was not the issue for Lincoln snd reinforces pood’s argument that Lincoln’s motivation was the preservation of the union. It is bleeding obvious it helps rebut your argument.

 

[steve_bank]

To the OP most people did not have slaves. Slaves were a luxury that cost money.

Yes te vast majority were Christian orb a theist belief. Like Deism.

That most people did not have slaves does not mean that most people were against slavery. Or that most people were not racists.

 

[Swammerdami]

The Old Testament largely treats slavery as it does other parts of the so-called "Problem of Evil": Being enslaved was just a fact of life for some people. An exception is that Israelites should NOT be enslaved, but enslaving Gentiles was OK:

All the people who were left of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, who were not of the people of Israel—their descendants who were left after them in the land, whom the people of Israel were unable to devote to destruction—these Solomon drafted to be slaves, and so they are to this day.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

And I must take issue with the idea, implicit in this thread, that Americans abolished slavery BECAUSE they were Christians.

First note that there were wise and benevolent rulers in Asia and elsewhere who had abolished slavery -- at least temporarily -- long before the time of Jesus the Nazarene.

But more importantly, the Enlightenment and the Enlightened Founding Fathers, at least in the North, who set the young U.S.A. on its path were NOT Christians, at least in any normal meaning of the term.

Christianity had nothing to do with it.

I say it did. Specifically, by virtue of the fact that America was overwhelmingly Christian, most Christians did NOT own slaves, and the democratic (majority) conviction to end slavery drove the political and miilitary actions taken to end it.

America was overwhelmingly Brunette in hair color. Should we say that Brunettes freed the slaves?

Many or most of the Founding Fathers, especially in the North, were Unitarians or Deists or paid lip-service to Christianity without believing its fundamental tenets. George Washington did not take Communion as an adult; and in his speeches he spoke of "Great Author" rather than "God," and so on. John Adams rejected the divinity of Jesus Christ and the Trinity, notions he described as ''incomprehensible.'' Thomas Jefferson was a Deist; in fact all six of the first six U.S. Presidents seem to have been Deists or Unitarians (if they thought about religion at all). During the time immediately prior to the Emancipation, Thoreau and Emerson were leading Northern intellectuals; they were not orthodox Christians. Thomas Paine wasn't a politician so didn't need to pay "lip-service" to Jesus:

The most detestable wickedness, the most horrid cruelties, and the greatest miseries that have afflicted the human race, have had their origin in this thing called revelation, or revealed religion.

This wasn't unique to the New World. Key Enlightenment figures like David Hume and Voltaire weren't Christians. Note that many non-Christians did NOT advertise their atheism or agnosticism. There was a stigma: Even today there are some countries where atheism is a crime.

So it is at best very misleading to imagine that "Christians" enlightened the U.S.A. and ended slavery. To the contrary the orthodox Christians were more common in the southern slave-holding states.

I'll post this YouTube again since it offers such a good look at American Christianity!

Spoiler

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Most of our founding fathers in America owned slaves. Including Jefferson and Washington.

 

[DBT]

We have instructions in the bible on how slaves are to act;

''Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. 6 Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. 7 Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not people, 8 because you know that the Lord will reward each one for whatever good they do, whether they are slave or free.'' Ephesians 6:5-9

As there appears to nothing that explicitly condemns the practice of slavery in the bible, it could be assumed that the God of the bible has no moral issue with the practice?

 

[ideologyhunter]

No matter how brutal and malevolent the Bible god gets -- killing every fetus on the planet, listing tribes destined for total slaughter, allowing chattel slavery, death penalties assigned for cursing your parents, teaching a different religion to the Jews, etc., etc, etc., the believers have a way of telling you it's not what you think it is. No wonder they side overwhelmingly with Trump.

 

[pood]

Bold by me.

It's a statement of the bleeding obvious that Lincoln wished slavery wasn't the issue threatening the union - but it WAS.

Read the bit you didn't BOLD

"If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about Slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save this Union, and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union."

Jebus Christ on a baloney sandwich, THIS PROVES MY POINT. He CLEARLY states, right in your face, that what he does or doesn’t do about slavery entirely depends on whatever SAVES THE UNION, and NOT SAVES OR ABOLISHES SLAVERY. What is wrong with you, that you are so deliberately obtuse?

 

[pood]

How about that bit in the inaugural address wherein he states that he will support a constitutional amendment to make slavery permanent, if only the South repeals their secession and stays in the Union, hmmm?????

 

[pood]

We have instructions in the bible on how slaves are to act;

''Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. 6 Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. 7 Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not people, 8 because you know that the Lord will reward each one for whatever good they do, whether they are slave or free.'' Ephesians 6:5-9

As there appears to nothing that explicitly condemns the practice of slavery in the bible, it could be assumed that the God of the bible has no moral issue with the practice?

This is also why Christianity is such a nihilistic cult, as Nietzsche noted. What the passage from Paul is saying is that your earthly life means nothing — if you are a slave, that was your fate as ordained by Goddie. Your real reward comes in the AFTER life, which, as any sensible person knows, does not exist.

 

[pood]

To return from a moment to Lincoln’s passage about slavery and the union, he is PLAINLY STATING that he would sell out the future of every slave in America, and their progeny, if only doing so would keep his precious fucking union intact. How much clearer could he possibly be, except to the willfully obtuse? In retrospect it might have been better if the union had followed the advice some prominent pol, I forget who, gave, who said, “wayward sisters, go in peace,” because we might all have been better off, except temporarily extant slaves. That’s because we would have saved some 700,000 lives, and slavery probably would have ended anyway in less than a generation, because an independent south would have been a social, economic, and political basket case.

 

[pood]

Saved 700,00 “lives,” not “slaves,” in previous post. Corrected the error.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

Bold by me.

It's a statement of the bleeding obvious that Lincoln wished slavery wasn't the issue threatening the union - but it WAS.

Read the bit you didn't BOLD

"If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about Slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save this Union, and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union."

Jebus Christ on a baloney sandwich, THIS PROVES MY POINT. He CLEARLY states, right in your face, that what he does or doesn’t do about slavery entirely depends on whatever SAVES THE UNION, and NOT SAVES OR ABOLISHES SLAVERY. What is wrong with you, that you are so deliberately obtuse?

This is why I have such an "ugly attitude" with these people. All they do is twist words and make dishonest arguments, no matter how generous you are with them.