Well, the first record of slaves being brought to a colony was by a group of English pirates. All of the colonies had slavery and supported it at one time or another, so it doesn't do any good to blame the South alone.
screamingeagle, once again you show your blatant ignorance or disregard of the facts. The CSA didn't start conscription for over a year after The War began, not at the beginning. Within 3 months of the Confederate Conscription Act of 1862, Lincoln issued orders for each state to provide a quota of 300,000 "volunteers" or draftees (if they didn't meet the quotas) that would be paid a nice bounty up front ($100 and up), no doubt because more and more men didn't like what was happening. This was called the Militia Act of 1862 and it happened in July 1862. These soldiers signed up for 9 months each.
Notice how the language used by the Federal government is "volunteer" at the same time that they ask the states to resort to "drafting" men. Its no wonder so many people get their history so screwed up. It was a plea for volunteers that if not met would require a draft, and the Fedgov didn't give the states long to meet their quotas before drafting started. With this new threat of a draft, a bunch of men "volunteered" in most states and collected their bounty for doing so.
The first US quota was for 300,000 men. The second was for another 300,000 in August of 1862. Although the first quota was met because of the threat of the draft, the second one was not met, even with drafting by the northern states. This quota was for 300,000 men for three years, not nine months. The grand total of soldiers generated through these two calls was 508,000, not the 600,000 the Fedgov asked for. So, you can see that Northern men were not exactly jumping at the bit to go fight by this time.
The states themselves held off the drafting as long as they could after the August '62 call was made. There was significant resistance to the draft in Indiana, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Ohio and Maryland. The enthusiasm waned after 1861 and the troubles Lincoln had getting the states to draft volunteers in 1862 led him to declare a national draft in 1863, a move that caused massive riots in New York City and resistance in many communities throughout the US.
The North had roughly three times as many men as the South at that time, so even without a draft, they wouldn't have had any trouble outnumbering the Confederates on the field. So speeches weren't all Lincoln needed. It took his pressing for laws to be passed (by Congress) that made it hard to avoid military service if you were a man living in the North. As for those White slaves you mentioned, one of my ancestors was one, and dozens of his descendants fought proudly for the South.
Edited by: Colonel_Reb
