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Interview with civil war soldier in 1947

P.S. One day people will look back on World War II veterans the same way that we in our generation think of Civil War veterans or World War I veterans.
So if any of you have WWII vets in your family, it might be a good idea to ask them to dictate a letter or several page narrative describing their experiences in the war, and their feelings about the political state of affairs before and during the war.
Maybe after the written version is created you could do a video of your elderly veteran relative speaking in his own voice to go over some of these things.
That might be a valuable thing for your kids and grandkids as part of your family's history.
My grandfather was in the Constabulary in WWII. He helped round up Nazi war criminals and was present during the Nuremberg Trials. Before he died I asked him to write as much about his life as he could. He wrote several hundred pages and it fascinates me every time I read it.

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The 2020 version of the motivation is much more relevant than the words of an actual soldier in the war. /s

Soldiers don't interpret wars, they fight them. His words from 1947 come after decades of reflection. Still, he lived an honorable life and I have respect for any and all soldiers fighting for their country, regardless of their politician's true motivations. If General Lee and the South was ready to relinquish slavery, they sure as hell didn't act like it, and none of the Governors apparently got the memo.
 
Soldiers don't interpret wars, they fight them. His words from 1947 come after decades of reflection. Still, he lived an honorable life and I have respect for any and all soldiers fighting for their country, regardless of their politician's true motivations. If General Lee and the South was ready to relinquish slavery, they sure as hell didn't act like it, and none of the Governors apparently got the memo.
General Lee and the Southern States knew it wasn't about slavery same as that soldier did. While that was the motivating usurping that pushed many to secede, they had the good sense to realize that if the supposedly "limited power of the federal government" could force such a thing on the will of the previously free states, they could literally force anything. Time has proven they were correct. Again, the Emancipation Proclamation only freed slaves in the southern states. How ironic that his 'authority' only extended to those that defied him. Think about that for just a second.... And here we are today. A federal government with a nearly 5 TRILLION dollar annual budget and ALL 50 states COMBINED with annual budgets of approx $1.5T. Over THREE TIMES the size. We were $2.5B in debt after the civil war. Hadn't been debt free since. (Hadn't been debt free since Jackson, who saw it for what it was, and cleared the books.) While on paper we have a republic, I think we all realize what we really have. An out of control federal state increasingly run by unelected power brokers. We are collectively slave labor. How ironic.
 
Too bad Georgia's Declaration/Explanation of Secession directly refutes his recollection.

http://www.civildiscourse-historyblog.com/blog/2018/7/1/secession-documents-georgia

Georgia's decision to secede and go to war was very much intertwined with keeping slavery and expansion of slavery into the newly aquired western territorries. I guess you could argue that keeping slaves and expanding slavery into the western territories was a "states right" issue.....but at the same time arguing that the secession was about states rights alone and not slavery and the expansion of slavery is pretty nieve.
 
Too bad Georgia's Declaration/Explanation of Secession directly refutes his recollection.

http://www.civildiscourse-historyblog.com/blog/2018/7/1/secession-documents-georgia

Georgia's decision to secede and go to war was very much intertwined with keeping slavery and expansion of slavery into the newly aquired western territories. I guess you could argue that keeping slaves and expanding slavery into the western territories was a "states right" issue.....but at the same time arguing that the secession was about states rights alone and not slavery and the expansion of slavery is pretty nieve.
Hopefully you read the entire thing and not just the prejudicial 'highlights'. It's not that you 'could argue'. THAT IS the reason. The secession document clearly outlines the MULTI and just grievances against what was a geography and then party trying to rule by force and protect disproportionate interests. . Lincoln and the Union apparently only understood the term "Republic" as a noun, and not a verb. They did not 'save the Republic". They destroyed it.
(FYI - it is spelled naive)
 
Too bad Georgia's Declaration/Explanation of Secession directly refutes his recollection.

http://www.civildiscourse-historyblog.com/blog/2018/7/1/secession-documents-georgia

Georgia's decision to secede and go to war was very much intertwined with keeping slavery and expansion of slavery into the newly aquired western territorries. I guess you could argue that keeping slaves and expanding slavery into the western territories was a "states right" issue.....but at the same time arguing that the secession was about states rights alone and not slavery and the expansion of slavery is pretty nieve.
This^ Just read GA's decoration of succession and it's clear they wanted to keep slavery more than anything else.

Now I have no doubt a 16-20 year old soldier had any idea what he was fighting for other than he was fighting people attacking his homeland. But the ones paying for that soldiers uniform, guns, bullets, powder and rations was paying for it with slave money, and paying it primarily to keep their slaves.
 
Hopefully you read the entire thing and not just the prejudicial 'highlights'. It's not that you 'could argue'. THAT IS the reason. The secession document clearly outlines the MULTI and just grievances against what was a geography and then party trying to rule by force and protect disproportionate interests. . Lincoln and the Union apparently only understood the term "Republic" as a noun, and not a verb. They did not 'save the Republic". They destroyed it.
(FYI - it is spelled naive)

Of course I’ve read the whole thing, more than once, and long before today. That’s how I knew that Georgia had major concerns about keeping slavery and expanding slavery into the western territories.

And thanks for the spelling correction. That kind of wit has always impressed some people, not me though, lol.
 
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