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Secession was a seriously slippery slope say that five [boy falls down a slide]

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times fast nevermind don't, we gave it a shot we got spit everywhere..What

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we're getting at is that the Secession of the Confederacy posed a threat to the

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Union just by existing if it were successful in leaving the Union then it

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would be impossible for the federal government ever again enforce the [Congress building]

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Constitution as soon as the Constitution or federal law got in the way of state [Man pushing up the constitution]

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government then that state could be just like ha I'm totally on my own

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Confederacy now suckas yeah in order for the federal government to survive in the

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long term it had to force the Confederate States back into line we [Soldier forcing states into line]

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don't like to talk in absolutes but war is pretty much inevitable the Union had

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to convince the Confederacy that they or rather the Constitution was the alpha [Two soldiers fighting]

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dog in this pack of states well, the war broke out on April twelfth 1861 and

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lasted until May 10 1865 two hundred ten thousand soldiers were killed in action

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and another 400,000 died of disease or battle wounds, more Americans died in the

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Civil War than in any war since and as a percentage of our population back then

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it was well yeah cataclysmic world war two was a very distant second but when

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it's Americans fighting Americans there's no avoiding American death tolls [kids bullying a boy on a bus]

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that are scarily high a big chunk of the fighting happened in Virginia mostly

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because the two capitals Washington DC and Richmond Virginia were hilariously

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close to each other it was kind of like magneto and Professor X facing off [Magneto and Professor X in a park by a chess board]

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across a chess board except the only superpower anybody had was making a lot

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of people die over time the fighting spread across the country like a nasty [Red blob spreads across the US]

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rash in the summertime Union ships blockaded southern ports and fought arms

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dealers on the Atlantic union general Meade got the upper hand on Lee in

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Gettysburg Pennsylvania and Ulysses S. Grant stepped in to finish the job [Ulysses replaces Meade]

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meanwhile Union General Sherman stabbed the south in the heart when he

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sacked Atlanta and set much of Georgia's food supply on fire..peach lovers [Fire burning and woman holding a peach]

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everywhere shed a tear..Over the years the public cared less and less about the

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actual policies that started the war instead the public saw the war as

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one between two versions of America there was the mostly free industrial

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technology oriented north and the aristocratic South even many poor [industrial factory on the coast]

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southern whites who didn't own slaves supported the Confederate Army because [Family eating dinner outside]

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they saw the north as aggressive jerks threatening their way of life out there

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they try and take away their sweet tea by the end of the war in 1865 the south

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had no choice but to throw in the towel and concede to those rude Yankees [Southern soldier surrendering to northern soldier]

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despite their wily military tactics the south lack of money, industry, resources,

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and manpower had done it in but that's okay the war was over now the South had

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tons of stuff to look forward to like years of social upheaval abject poverty [Southerners with cups of iced tea]

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and exploitation during Reconstruction....err, yay..

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