Of course, winners write history, so you are free to believe what Grant writes. There are, however, reasons to suspect winner's history.

In the case of the civil war, the "liberate the slaves" theory would be more convincing if the nonslave states had begun the war after the emancipation proclamation, rather than that executive act occurring a year after the war was started by the southern states.

Many southerners who are neither racist nor believe slavery was permissible believe the war was about economic opportunism in the form of tariffs designed to enrich northern manufacturers in preference to regions that produced raw materials and agriculture. This thesis is at least consistent with the fact that the war was started by a southern state.

Undoubtedly, the causes of the war were complex and there were both honorable and dishonorable reasons for agents on both sides of the war. The continued debate today reflects, to some degree, the resentment that southerns continue to feel for not being able to express their belief that they were economically oppressed both before and after the war.

I wonder whether northerners have ever considered the role of their post war economic oppression in post civil war racism in the the south? This is probably not a permissible topic for discussion.

The question of why the Civil War was fought, and why the rank-and file men who fought it were willing to do so, are NOT the same question.

I am in 100% agreement that slavery was the overriding and necessary cause of the Civil War. Without the slavery issue, it is inconceivable that the Union could have been dissolved. Any argument to the contrary is, as this post indicates, nonsense.

However, only a small percentage of Confederate troops were slave owners. Unquestionably, the propertied interests in the South who depended on slavery used many forms of persuasion, including state loyalty, claims of economic hegemony, and many others to bring ordinary Southerners over to their side. It is not realistic nor fair to judge those who fought the war based on what we have learned in the 147 years that have passed since secession.

It is absolutely wrong to label Confederate soldiers as traitors, any more than it is correct to label ordinary German or Japanese soldiers in WWII as war criminals. They fought bravely and honorably and deserve our respect.

For the record, my great-great-grandfather was a Lieutenant Colonel in the 33rd Illinois Volunteer Infantry, until he was seriously wounded in the Vicksburg campaign and returned to civilian life.

I apologize that the entire post did not make it. Here is the rest of what should have been posted above beginning with the end of the cutoff quote:

continuing the Constitutionality of Secession:

"The framers were wise in their generation and wanted to do the very best possible to secure their own liberty and independence, and that also of their descendants to the latest days. It is preposterous to suppose that the people of one generation can lay down the best and only rules of government for all who are to come after them, and under unforeseen contingencies. At the time of the framing of our constitution the only
physical forces that had been subdued and made to serve man and do his labor, were the currents in the streams and in the air we breathe. Rude machinery, propelled by water power, had been invented; sails to propel ships upon the waters had been set to catch the passing breeze--but the application of steam to propel vessels against both wind and current, and machinery to do all manner of work had not been thought of. The instantaneous transmission of messages around the world by means of electricity would probably at that day have been attributed to witchcraft or a league with the Devil. Immaterial circumstances had changed as greatly as material ones. We could not and ought not to be rigidly bound by the rules laid down under circumstances so different for emergencies so utterly unanticipated. The fathers themselves would have been the first to declare that their prerogatives were not irrevocable. They would surely have resisted secession could they have lived to see the shape it assumed."

SUPPRESSION OF DISSENT BY THE SLAVE POWERS AND THE PROFIT MOTIVE

"There is little doubt in my mind now that the prevailing sentiment of the South would
have been opposed to secession in 1860 and 1861, if there had been a fair and calm expression of opinion, unbiased by threats, and if the ballot of one legal voter had counted for as much as that of any other. But there was no calm discussion of the question. Demagogues who were too old to enter the army if there should be a war, others who entertained so high an opinion of their own ability that they did not believe
they could be spared from the direction of the affairs of state in such an event declaimed vehemently and unceasingly against the North, against its aggressions upon the South; its interference with Southern rights, etc., etc. They denounced the Northerners as cowards, poltroons, Negro-worshippers; claimed that one Southern man was equal to five Northern men in battle; that if the South would stand up for its
rights the North would back down. Mr. Jefferson Davis said in a speech, delivered at La Grange, Mississippi, before the secession of that State, that he would agree to drink all the blood spilled south of Mason and Dixon's line if there should be a war. The young men who would have the fighting to do in case of war, believed all these
statements both in regard to the aggressiveness of the North and its cowardice. They, too, cried out for a separation from such people. The great bulk of the legal voters of the South were men who owned no slaves; their homes were generally in the hills and poor country; their facilities for educating their children, even up to the point of reading and writing, were very limited; their interest in the contest was very meagre--what there was, if they had been capable of seeing it, was with the North; they too needed
emancipation. Under the old regime they were looked down upon by those who controlled all the affairs in the interest of slave owners, as poor white trash who were allowed the ballot so long as they cast it according to direction.

I am aware that this last statement may be disputed and individual testimony perhaps
adduced to show that in ante-bellum days the ballot was as untrammelled in the South
as in any section of the country; but in the face of any such contradiction I reassert the statement. The shot-gun was not resorted to. Masked men did not ride over the country at night intimidating voters; but there was a firm feeling that a class existed in every State with a sort of divine right to control public affairs. If they could not get this control by one means they must by another. The end justified the means. The
coercion, if mild, was complete."

There were two political parties, it is true, in all the States, both strong in numbers and
respectability, but both equally loyal to the institution which stood paramount in Southern eyes to all other institutions in state or nation. The slave-owners were the minority, but governed both parties. Had politics ever divided the slave-holders and the nonslave-holders, the majority would have been obliged to yield, or internecine war would have been the consequence. I do not know that the Southern people were to
blame for this condition of affairs. There was a time when slavery was not profitable,
and the discussion of the merits of the institution was confined almost exclusively to
the territory where it existed. The States of Virginia and Kentucky came near abolishing slavery by their own acts, one State defeating the measure by a tie vote and the other only lacking one. But when the institution became profitable, all talk of its abolition ceased where it existed; and naturally, as human nature is constituted, arguments were adduced in its support. The cotton-gin probably had much to do with the justification of slavery.

GRANT'S THOUGHTS ON THE MERITS OF THE WAR WHILE ACCEPTING LEE'S SURRENDER AT APPOMATOX

"What General Lee's feelings were I do not know. As he was a man of much dignity, with an impassable face, it was impossible to say whether he felt inwardly glad that the end had finally come, or felt sad over the result, and was too manly to show it. Whatever his feelings, they were entirely concealed from my observation; but my own feelings, which had been quite jubilant on the receipt of his letter, were sad and depressed. I felt like anything rather than rejoicing at the downfall of a foe who had
fought so long and valiantly, and had suffered so much for a cause, though that cause was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse. I do not question, however, the sincerity of the great mass of those who were opposed to us."

Wait a minute. You ARE talking about the War of Northern Agression, aren't you?

Honey, ya'll just don't know what those rebs had in their hearts. Do you honestly think that the tiny minority of slaveholders could get all those working stiffs to fight for them?

You move from wrong to offensive.

So are you saying that the participants in the American Revolution were all traitors as well? Or is inconsistency your modus operandi?

The truth is not malicious nor is it uncharitable. They took up arms and waged war against the United States of America. There is no other name for such an act of armed insurrection. Here's the definition of treason from the American Heritage Dictionary -

trea·son (trē'zən)
n.
Violation of allegiance toward one's country or sovereign, especially the betrayal of one's country by waging war against it or by consciously and purposely acting to aid its enemies.

A betrayal of trust or confidence.

In the Civil War song "The Union Forever", part of the refrain was:

"Down with the traitors and up with the stars!"

Again, it isn't malicious or uncharitable to call something by it's proper name. It is malicious and quite uncharitable to the truth and to history to try and call something it is not which is precisely what all the apologists for the treasonous insurrection against the United States engage in whether intentionally or not.

Whether your DNA is Yankee or Reb, read these books:
1) by David Hackett Fischer -- Albion' Seed: Four British Folkways in America; and
2) by Shelby Foote -- The Civil War.
Each of these volumes is a mesmerizing page turner that will surprise you, no matter what your alllegiance. When you have read all four, then feel free to make categoric statements.

May I make a humble suggestion? The war you are arguing about is more than 100 years old. We have more important stuff to talk about.

Are we going to strike Iran based on more lies?
Are we going to be complacent about the fact that the "war" in Iraq was sold to us knowingly based on a pack of lies?

This is 2008. Could we please direct our ire in the right direction? Is that too much to ask?

Northern proto-liberals have way too much tied up in being morally superior to their southern neighbors.

History's obviously not a subject you are strong at champion.
1. the war between the states was not initially about slaves- in fact when it became one of the causes of the Union during the war many Union soldiers wanted to stop fighting.
2. Grant was no great president, his presidency has probably been the most corrupt in history. Furthermore, he manufactured a war against the Native Americans (in which Custer died) to justify stealing the Black Hills, which begs the question- what sort of a country puts the picture of a corruption tainted war criminal on their $50 note?