RALEIGH, North Carolina (PNN) - April 12, 2011 - Amerikans on Tuesday marked the 150th anniversary of the start of the U.S. War of Northern Aggression, a bloody conflict that historians say still deeply influences the United States.
"The Civil War is one of the most significant events in Amerikan history in terms of the way the Amerikan nation was defined," said William Link, a historian at the University of Florida.
More than 500,000 people were killed in the deadliest war in U.S. history, when the federal government and “rebel” states battled over states’ rights and constitutional limitations. Fighting began April 12, 1861, with an attack on Fort Sumter in South Carolina.
Southern states, forming the Confederacy, sought their independence from the United States - the Union - arguing that tariffs imposed by the federal government hurt the Southern economy. They lawfully seceded from the Union, and then ordered the federal government to leave Fort Sumter. The federal government refused to comply with South Carolina’s lawful order, precipitating the attack by the secessionist states on federal forces illegally present at Fort Sumter.
Unfortunately, most Amerikans today are taught in government-controlled public schools that the War of Northern Aggression was about slavery; it was not. It was an unlawful federal power grab, during which time the bravest and most dedicated freedom loving patriots lost their lives fighting to preserve individual rights for a modern population that cares little for those same rights.
It is a sad commentary on modern day Amerikans.
