American slavery of Africans (#1861)

I like to title my posts after the running number of my posts when it seems like a significant date, this is one of those. 1861 brought us the first fighting between the North and the South. Upon President Lincoln's election in November 1860, he had declared that "Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free...". (1) With his election and subsequent intent to free America from slavery, the South rose up and declared a secession from our Federal Government and thus began 11 southern states fighting for a Confederacy while 21 Northern states fight to keep the whole union intact. (2) The fighting that started nearly four years to the day is finished in 1865 when the South surrenders. Less than a week later President Lincoln is assassinated. (3) All this to break the fever of slavery and an intent to return all men to the dignity of self-determination. The past behavior of our nation should serve as a reminder that the struggle to self-determination has been hard fought with lost life and limb as it's vessel. Those who still see the concept of slavery as a means for production have not given up the ghost in that area but instead have tweaked their ambitions toward lesser forms of slavery that still serve their greedy and lustful purposes. Although the war between the North and South ended with a Northern victory, the South has not been easily weaned from it's intent to treat some as less or more than others. The South may be a more common example of this but let's be clear, everywhere there are some who think the notion that race is still unequal in it's privilege. However, what I will say is that there are more who think that what Martin Luther King Junior said in his "I have a dream" speech is still the morally correct ethic: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."

(1), (2), (3) http://www.historyplace.com/civilwar/