Herb

That is the ONLY reason that I have ever been able to justify in my mind as to why men right off the farm with no thought of owning a slave would march so readily to war, as their grandfathers did during the Revolution. It had to be for the right of self determination against what they thought to be an overbaring intrusion in their lives by another people and even their own government.

Taxes, trade, slavery and any number of other causes I do not feel would have stirred such passion with which whose men acted upon. And yes, even in the later part of the war, the hope they held that they still might yet win as they charged up that long path to Cemetery Ridge, or at Franklin, and many other places. There had to be something more that they were willing to give their lives for.

They gave their lives then fighting against something we readily accept as a normal way of life today. To be dictated to even to our everyday lifes of what we should or shouldn't eat or drink. What we should drive. What is too much for us to have or own. What is premissible to say and not to say. What we are to accept even if it is against our religious upbring. That we are not now even to mention the name of our Saviour because it might offend someone.

That is the Nation we have inherited since April 9th 1865. Where others now have the right to tell you how to live.