On Mon, 14 Sep 2015 18:35:33 -0400, Keyser Söze
wrote:

Even if the goal was to end slavery, I always had to ask, wouldn't a
system of economic sanctions work better than a war that killed 2.5%
of the entire US population?
After all, sanctions ended apartheid in South Africa in a little over
30 years and if you listen to people like Al Sharpton, Michael Eric
Dyson or Cornel West, it still hasn't ended here over 150 years later.
The war certainly never ended the conflict between north and south.
If anything it only made the divisions stronger.


Whew. Thank goodness you fellas were never allowed to teach in the
public's schools, at least not in the non-civil war revisionist part of
the country.

Do you think that a war that killed 3/4 million people and destroyed
the economy of the part of the country where all of the slaves resided
was good for the slaves?
This was a 19th century Iraq. The north invades, broke virtually
everything and then just left. Those freed slaves were abandoned in a
devastates landscape and most ended up going back to the same
plantations they used to work at, begging for a job.Their pay pretty
much covered their living expenses but not always.
Life did not really change much for them for almost 100 years.

You think that was the best solution?

I still have to ask "what if" and wonder if a program of economic
sanctions and boycotts of slave grown cotton would not have been more
effective.
I still think war is always the last choice, not the first choice but
that was the only option that was offered.