The US Civil War as an example of God's Wrath.

I think you are referring to the Jefferson quote and misattributing it to Lincoln. Jefferson didn't quote Jesus but he did express the Biblical concept that God will judge a nation for its sins, slavery in this case.Lincoln quoted Jesus's saying "Offenses must come but woe to those by whom they come" -- the offenses being slavery, and the woe being God's judgment on those who support slavery.Um, no, I don't believe that Lincoln is to be believed because he was President, I believe the fact should be respected that an American President expressed a true Biblical precept that was well recognized and accepted by Christians in general in his day and that he was one of many Presidents who understood and quoted the Bible as guide to the nation back in the day.Also Lincoln did not start the war, the South did.

You're right. Sorry Which again of course holds true for President Obama when he used the quote I used as a signature. You did say that Lincoln saw it as God's judgement and from that I think that you are inferring that the war was God personally pleased with the way that judgement was exercised. I profoundly disagree with that statement.

It's a tradition for Presidents to quote the Bible or sound Christian. But Obama didn't say anything about God's judgment. The point I'm trying to make here is that God's judgment on nations is not some weird oddball idea of my own, or my own peculiar "sect" as people like to call it here, but a very traditional Christian principle that comes from the Bible, which ought to be recognized from the fact that both Lincoln and Jefferson believed it quite seriously and applied it to the sin of slavery in the US.I don't get what you are saying about God being pleased with the war? War is horrible, and God's judgments are horrible, that's why He tells us to warn people when it's coming in the hope of bringing them to repentance. The lists of things that will happen to Israel if they fail to keep God's law is scary: famine, war, invasion by foreigners, economic disaster. I think it's Deut 9 and Lev 26 but I need to check. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Slavery was just one of the issues and not the main. The two main issues were, the economic differences between the north and the south, and states rights versus federal rights. Slavery was one manifestation of both of these issues but not the only manifestation.Also, the institution of slavery itself was not the biggest factor in the slavery debate. The expansion or non-expansion of slavery was one of the issues that pushed the tipping point. If the southern states had agreed not to expand slavery the Civil War would never have happened. A future conflict may have happened but the economic infeasibility of slavery may have prevented a future conflict from happening. Slavery may have died a slow death until the dead enders were forced to change either by law or force of arms. Either way it would have been a much smaller and less traumatic break. I am not saying that that alternative history would have been better, just that it would have been different.You have to be very careful when you state that slavery was the cause of the Civil War. Few things in history are black and white. There are many nuances and many other issues that tie in and wrap around each other.

All of these things would have happened without the Civil War. Slavery was an nonviable economic system before the war. All of the problems you mention come from the pre-civil war society of the south. The collapse of the southern economy was inevitable. Whether the north could have facilitated a slow soft landing remains a question. I think ultimately the south would have lashed out some how no matter what.

In a sense it was a side issue. That the whole southern economy was based on slavery makes it a very large side issue. Slavery was a manifestation of the real issues of the economic differences and states right issues.Edited by Theodoric, : No reason given.

The importation of slaves had already been outlawed in the US before the Civil War.

Yes, and pressure to reopen the international slave trade helped to radicalize the south even further.

Er ...

It is a difficult nuanced thing. The thread you link to does not go counter to anything I have said here. States rights and the economic issues were tied around slavery. Without slavery there would not have been a civil war, that being said slavery was not the sole cause of the civil war.Looking back at my arguments here I guess I did not express them as well as I could have. The point I am trying to make is that it is easy to just state that slavery was the cause of the Civil War. That is a simplistic and naive argument. Slavery was the linchpin that all the causes revolved around, but in no way was the sole cause.

Okay I can agree with this. I'd also suggest that slavery ended up being the sole issue over which the sides could not compromise. Once the Missouri Compromise was undone in the Dred Scott decision, there was no way to settle the differences between North and South over the expansion of slavery to either sides satisfaction. In fact that problem led directly to Lincoln's election despite his receiving not one electoral vote from a southern state.Even after secession, the issue of what would happen in the territories and what was to happen to runaway slaves was probably going to lead to shooting.I won't bother with responding to your other posts given what you say here.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Yes, and I'm aware there were other causes. I said "main issue," not "only."But I don't see why it matters in this context which is that Lincoln considered the war to be God's judgment for slavery, and Jefferson had earlier believed that God would eventually have to judge the nation for slavery. Perhaps some of the other issues involved God's judgment as well, or maybe not, but the idea here is that slavery certainly did.

Learn to think Faith.No one has disputed that people think the US Civil War was punishment by the God you try to market. But that is not evidence that the US Civil War was punishment by the God you try to market.In fact, your post supports the position that there were many very normal, secular, human causes for the US Civil War. No God need apply.Tour task is not to show that people believe a fantasy but rather actual evidence that would support your contention.Why did your vile evil God punish many more non-slave owners than owners?Why did your vile evil God punish the slaves themselves?Why did only the US get punished and not Cuba, Jamaica, the Virgin Islands, Bermuda ...

Good question.Fundamentalists believe that the United States is essentially the Western inheritors of all of the OT promises made to Israel. So its kinda similar to how you discipline your own kids but not the neighbors kids when they break into your Boone's Farm stash.

What led inevitably to shooting, in my humble Canadian opinion, was the fact that the states had their own armies ("militias"). In Canada, the provinces can disagree "violently" with the federal government or with each other but they can't do anything about it.Maybe the Civil War was God's punishment for having a flawed constitution.