Red Dead Redemption 2

[Ragemage]

snip

First of all, abolitionists were not the sugar plums and rainbows you seem to think they were. One of their biggest (and almost successful) plan was to send all the slaves back to Africa "where they belong". Why do you think we took the territory known as "Liberia", a country in Africa that still exists today? It's where the US was going to ship them all. http://www.inmotionaame.org/migrati...417231476893327190?migration=4&topic=8&bhcp=1 Abraham Lincoln was also a proponent of this and even went so far as to suggest we send African slaves to the Caribbean to colonize them instead. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...-wanted-to-deport-slaves-to-new-colonies.html

Second of all, if you think all poor whites fought in the war because they had ambitions to own a bunch of slaves themselves, you'd be poorly mistaken. The Antebellum South had an almost feudalistic system in place. Where you were born, you stayed. These people had no ambitions of becoming high-falootin' first class. There's hundreds of memoirs online you can read from the soldiers themselves about why they fought, and almost none of them have anything to do with "dem there darkies r' gettin' outta line!" like you seem to think.

Third of all, you act like only whites fought in the Confederacy. Au contraire my friend, blacks and Native Americans also fought for the Confederate side, so much so that the Confederacy promised the Natives their very own sovereign lands in the South-west/Central America if the Confederacy won. http://www.scv.org/documents/edpapers/american_indian_confederates.pdf And contrary to what you may think, blacks also fought in the Confederacy: , http://rense.com/general56/theforgottenblackconfed.htm

Anyway, back to Red Dead Redemption before me having to correct your complete ignorance of the South during the Civil War derails this entire thread, I just hope we get that slow motion shooting back. That was one of the best parts of the game for me, especially during Undead Nightmare. It reminded me of days of old when I'd sit in front of my PS2 playing Max Payne and using up all my bullet time in a single fight because I loved slow-motion gun-play so much. Really I just want what @Mr Fish wants, and that's Undead Nightmare 2. The first one was the best zombie game I've ever played even though it was just a DLC for fun.

 

[CT Phipps]

You mean abolitionists were often racist as shit?

OH MY GOD!

I DID NOT KNOW THAT!



You know, one of my favorite stories of abolitionism was "White baiting" with Fancy Parties. They were basically beauty pageants/horror shows designed to cause riots of the White audiences. Basically, they would have a series of increasingly lighter-skinned women walk out and talk about all of the lurid terrible sexual abuse they'd suffered at the hands of their owners.

The idea being they would eventually show women who completely appeared to be white but who were legally Negroes allowed to be enslaved and abused.

The idea being the abolitionists knew their audiences would be accepting of such for Black women but would be horrified when it seemed like it was done to White women as they would not accept the "one drop" rule's predecessor. They were extraordinarily effective because they played to the audience's racism versus trying to fight it.

It's the nature of slavery that some truly despicable awful racists thought it was a nightmarish institution belonging to psychopaths.

Also, in one of my recent tabletop games I based the adventure on Black Slave Owners in Louisiana who had the uphill battle of trying to convince the slave-owners of other states they sincerely believed in the cause of the Confederacy. The influence of French slavery and its traditions being very different from American Southern tradition (while still awful).

 

[Vergil]

You mean abolitionists were often racist as shit?

OH MY GOD!

I DID NOT KNOW THAT!



You know, one of my favorite stories of abolitionism was "White baiting" with Fancy Parties. They were basically beauty pageants/horror shows designed to cause riots of the White audiences. Basically, they would have a series of increasingly lighter-skinned women walk out and talk about all of the lurid terrible sexual abuse they'd suffered at the hands of their owners.

The idea being they would eventually show women who completely appeared to be white but who were legally Negroes allowed to be enslaved and abused.

The idea being the abolitionists knew their audiences would be accepting of such for Black women but would be horrified when it seemed like it was done to White women as they would not accept the "one drop" rule's predecessor. They were extraordinarily effective because they played to the audience's racism versus trying to fight it.

It's the nature of slavery that some truly despicable awful racists thought it was a nightmarish institution belonging to psychopaths.

I liked the part where you didn't address his argument at all. 10/10
Also wow they pulled ludicrous publicity stunts and incited riots? They really were the BLM of their time.

 

[Ragemage]

snip

That has nothing to do with my post except for the very beginning. If you're going to say something as disgusting as "ayy kill all Confederate soldiers lmao" then you better be ready to defend your position hoss, because that's a loooot of peoples' ancestors you're talking about murdering. But if you're going to be a chicken shit and just ignore everything I say and instead focus on one little aspect so you look like the agreeable "moderate" then go right ahead.

Back to Read Dead, I really hope they fix the horse controls this time. I mean, Legend of Zelda has had fantastic horse controls ever since Ocarina of Time, all Rockstar had to do was copy that, but instead they tried to make their own horse system and fucked up completely. The only horses worth using were, once again, in Undead Nightmare, the 4 horses of the Apocalypse, and that's only because they had special abilities that made them worth riding despite the awful handling.

 

[CT Phipps]

I liked the part where you didn't address his argument at all. 10/10

What argument?

I agree with him.

The abolitionist movement in the United States can be summarized as a group of angry racist white men with almost nothing in common who were increasingly willing to use whatever means necessary to destroy the institution of slavery as the government seemed completely unwilling to do anything to oppose it.

The Republican Party is, itself, fascinating because the organization really was a one issue party. There were Anti-Catholics, drunken rednecks, uptown limousine liberals, hicks, murderous gangsters, and pious saints all gathered together to create a political institution to stop slavery.

People fed up with the compromises, peace, and placation of the system who said, "Enough is fucking enough."

Just like the Founding Fathers, ironically.

 

[R.Graves]

Trust me, look up Darkest Africa.

Honestly that just sounds like an interracial porn site.

 

[Dr Fallout]

Honestly that just sounds like an interracial porn site.

It's not, just look it up. It's really interesting. Look for the book.

 

[Ragemage]

What argument?

I agree with him.

You only cherry picked the very first paragraph and just happened to say positive things about it while completely ignoring everything else I had to say in favor of looking pretty. Good job. Once again, even though you'll simply choose to ignore this too, you can't say things like "Kill all Confederates" and then go tralalaing away like nothing's wrong and you're being an agreeable respectable person. No no no, I won't let you insult my ancestors that way and let people think you're some nice person because you blatantly throw out entire paragraphs and pick up specific things you agree with to talk about so people will be complacent and not argue with you anymore.

I also just remembered from Red Dead Redemption, the regular game, one part I liked a lot was how in the end

Spoiler

you become Marston's son and avenge your father.

I'd really like to see more games with a sort of "family-tree" dynamic like in Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, where every season it's a different descendant of the original fighting the bad guy instead of being the same person. I would love to be able to sire a child at one point and then be able to play as said child later on, then keep going like that, making a whole dynasty of characters. It's been done before in games like Harvest Moon and Fire Emblem, I don't see why it couldn't happen here.

 

[CT Phipps]

Seriously? You want me to actually address this?

Fine.

First of all, abolitionists were not the sugar plums and rainbows you seem to think they were. One of their biggest (and almost successful) plan was to send all the slaves back to Africa "where they belong". Why do you think we took the territory known as "Liberia", a country in Africa that still exists today? It's where the US was going to ship them all. http://www.inmotionaame.org/migrati...417231476893327190?migration=4&topic=8&bhcp=1 Abraham Lincoln was also a proponent of this and even went so far as to suggest we send African slaves to the Caribbean to colonize them instead. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...-wanted-to-deport-slaves-to-new-colonies.html

Like I said, the abolitionist movement wasn't a bunch of pious saints (or if there were, there were a bunch of assholes among them). I generally dislike trying to elevate people up and white wash history. If you want to know Christopher Columbus you can't talk about the discovery of America and stop. You should follow him past his awful governorship and recall. If you want to know Washington, you don't talk about him owning slaves, you also talk about his career both before and after the Revolution as well as his involvement in the French and Indian War. History is stranger than fiction and the heroes and villains of history are anything but, being fascinating characters who deserve to be appreciated in their own right.

One of the things I often get in an argument about HP Lovecraft is that he was a racist asshole. He was, breaking off a friendship with a fellow writer who he discovered was Black. That doesn't mean his creations were not amazing, though. History is full of assholes and it's also arrogant of society today that the future won't look back at us with equally monstrous eyes.

History is more A Song of Ice and Fire than Lord of the Rings.

Second of all, if you think all poor whites fought in the war because they had ambitions to own a bunch of slaves themselves, you'd be poorly mistaken. The Antebellum South had an almost feudalistic system in place. Where you were born, you stayed. These people had no ambitions of becoming high-falootin' first class. There's hundreds of memoirs online you can read from the soldiers themselves about why they fought, and almost none of them have anything to do with "dem there darkies r' gettin' outta line!" like you seem to think.

Talking economic politics is a matter which goes well beyond vested political interest. If we're addressing the issue of Southern fighting, the simple fact is that it was an ingrained truth of the superiority of the White Man to the Negro in the South (and much of the North) the way water was wet. The independence of the South was an issue driven by the desire to create an everlasting protected series of states for the promogation of slavery and this is listed in the Declaration of Independence from each state. If you ask why individuals went to war, you could undoubtedly get a variety of answers from "To Protect Virginia", Glory, or because their family was going to.

However, the simple fact is the secession is for slavery and by slavers for slavers which is a culture that is based on slavery. The feudal aristocrat pretensions of the South were an isolating factor even then as they seemed to assume Europe would continually support them, unaware Europe was glad to have overthrown those and as soon as the Emancipation Proclamation was signed, would NEVER support them because the South's only real saving grace was they claimed the North would not free their slaves if they were defeated.

Third of all, you act like only whites fought in the Confederacy. Au contraire my friend, blacks and Native Americans also fought for the Confederate side, so much so that the Confederacy promised the Natives their very own sovereign lands in the South-west/Central America if the Confederacy won. http://www.scv.org/documents/edpapers/american_indian_confederates.pdf And contrary to what you may think, blacks also fought in the Confederacy: , http://rense.com/general56/theforgottenblackconfed.htm

Where did you get the idea I ever said only Whites fought for the Confederacy?

 

[RangerBoo]

Hey, speaking of annoying SJW's, if anybody want to read 77 pages worth of butthurt and bans here is the Neogaf thread I was talking about: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1295765
Are any of these people even actual gamers or are they just a bunch of regressive leftist special snowflakes who need to bitch nonstop about "diversity"?

 

[Vergil]

Are any of these people even actual gamers or are they just a bunch of regressive leftist special snowflakes who need to bitch nonstop about "diversity"?

The second one.
Seriously Neogaf is like the epicenter of cancerous SJWs in gaming. The only time I look at that website is when I need a good hearty chuckle.

 

[Ragemage]

Talking economic politics is a matter which goes well beyond vested political interest. If we're addressing the issue of Southern fighting, the simple fact is that it was an ingrained truth of the superiority of the White Man to the Negro in the South (and much of the North) the way water was wet. The independence of the South was an issue driven by the desire to create an everlasting protected series of states for the promogation of slavery and this is listed in the Declaration of Independence from each state. If you ask why individuals went to war, you could undoubtedly get a variety of answers from "To Protect Virginia", Glory, or because their family was going to.

I was talking about the common soldier, so yes, you agree with me that it wasn't entirely about slavery for the Confederacy. It only became about slavery when Lincoln impeded upon it with the Emancipation Proclamation, and even then he really only did it because he felt it would get more people to join the Union's war efforts. Lincoln wasn't the biggest fan of African Americans. http://atlantablackstar.com/2015/05...sts-quotes-abraham-lincoln-said-black-people/

However, the simple fact is the secession is for slavery and by slavers for slavers which is a culture that is based on slavery. The feudal aristocrat pretensions of the South were an isolating factor even then as they seemed to assume Europe would continually support them, unaware Europe was glad to have overthrown those and as soon as the Emancipation Proclamation was signed, would NEVER support them because the South's only real saving grace was they claimed the North would not free their slaves if they were defeated.

So you don't think Europe supported the Confederacy at all? HAHAHAHAHA http://www.military-history.org/blo...ring-the-american-civil-war-peter-tsouras.htm The British were very much involved with the Confederacy. The only reason they stopped supporting them near the end of the war is because the Confederacy was desperate for money and raised the taxes on cotton, whereupon Britain started getting their cotton supplies from India instead (which is one of the reasons India has such a booming textile industry today interestingly enough)

Where did you get the idea I ever said only Whites fought for the Confederacy?

Oh gee, I don't know, how about right here:

Eh, it's a bit more complicated than that. While the poor Whites of America, which the majority of Southerners were, aren't individuals who owned slaves--they had very much a vested economic interest in the system of slavery. Much like being rich in America is something all citizens aspire to being, such is the case of White Southerners hoping to eventually own slaves of their own. It also is a matter of social status and prestige as there was a fear that Blacks once freed would take away jobs from Whites as well as push them out economically.

 

[CT Phipps]

Hey, speaking of annoying SJW's, if anybody want to read 77 pages worth of butthurt and bans here is the Neogaf thread I was talking about: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1295765
Are any of these people even actual gamers or are they just a bunch of regressive leftist special snowflakes who need to bitch nonstop about "diversity"?

Oooo, ooo! *raises hand* I'm a Unspecial Snowflake who is all the colors!

You only cherry picked the very first paragraph and just happened to say positive things about it while completely ignoring everything else I had to say in favor of looking pretty.

Slavery is an agreed upon universal evil. Thank God. Therefore, what we're discussing is whether or not the conflict had issues of values dissonance, whether people were fighting for complicated reasons, and all the various other things which real life induces versus the more cut and dry world of fiction. In which case, we're discussing a gritty historical period and how it should be handled in fiction not actually something which affects real people.

It's the equivalent of saying "Should BJ feel guilty for murdering all those Nazis in The New Order because they had families?" Actually, no, that's a poor example. It's actually The Saboteur which is a game which is really fun and I enjoyed but had SERIOUS historical issues like the fact it completely removes the Vichy French and the Wehrmacht to make all Germans Nazis.

Also, for some reason, a game about the French Resistance has its protagonist as an ex-IRA Irishman.

It also had topless burlesque shows you can put on.

The game was very fun but it also was bad history. Yet, is bad history a bad thing always? It's an interesting question as the West is the purest media example of that because it is historically one of the biggest cases of bad history ever. Not just on matters of race and Native Americans but that it was a lawless violent place.

4 murders took place in Dodge City during one year.

Oooo.

Good job. Once again, even though you'll simply choose to ignore this too, you can't say things like "Kill all Confederates" and then go tralalaing away like nothing's wrong and you're being an agreeable respectable person. No no no, I won't let you insult my ancestors that way and let people think you're some nice person because you blatantly throw out entire paragraphs and pick up specific things you agree with to talk about so people will be complacent and not argue with you anymore

Tying Everything Back to Red Dead Redemption

It's interesting the subject of "Kill all Confederates" comes up when I'm condemning the issue of the fact you're forced to kill the entirety of the Enclave in Fallout 3 while simultaneously bemoaning the fact the "Good" ending of Fallout 4 is to cause a slave-holding society in the Institute to become a bunch of homeless refugees who will almost certainly die of Super Mutants, starvation, and worse. Yay. you're a big fucking hero, Sole Survivor.

Ultimately, it is my hope that Fallout: New Orleans will have the option of shooting Post-Nuke slaver plantation owners and freeing slaves because I was greatly impressed by the Paradise Falls and Lincoln missions of Fallout 3 but deeply underwhelmed by the handling of freeing slaves/The Railroad/The Institute in Fallout 4. Like everything else in the game, it was underwhelming and underbaked.

Personally, I'm inclined to think Red Dead Redemption 2 will NOT take place in the Civil War since while the setting for The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly, the Western is traditionally defined in the thirty year period following the Civil War until the time in which the settlement of the West is completed. I do think, however, Reconstruction is a potential theme to visit as you will be visiting the South in the map.

Certainly, this places an interesting opportunity to fight te fledgling Ku Klux Klan and other "Southern Resistance" movements in a interesting light as potential enemies. I consider them a terrorist organization which has been lionized by the media for the better part of the 20th century. Given the way the original Red Dead Redemption talked about such complicated issues as the genocide of the Native American and Mexico's cycle of revolutions in a funny gameable manner (quotes on funny), I think it'd be interesting to address in a similar manner how the Civil War effected Blacks and Whites moved to continue repressing them with Reconstruction made a failure thanks to terrorism (see John Wilkes Booth).

It could be educational AND fun.

And yes, I would rather shoot at Southern apologist slavers and slave owners than say they weren't so bad in my escapist fiction.

I was talking about the common soldier, so yes, you agree with me that it wasn't entirely about slavery for the Confederacy. It only became about slavery when Lincoln impeded upon it with the Emancipation Proclamation, and even then he really only did it because he felt it would get more people to join the Union's war efforts. Lincoln wasn't the biggest fan of African Americans. http://atlantablackstar.com/2015/05...sts-quotes-abraham-lincoln-said-black-people/

Malcolm X certainly wasn't a man who much cared for Lincoln.

However, I do think this is a good article on the subject. http://quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jala/26...-of-the-lincoln-legacy?rgn=main;view=fulltext

Oh gee, I don't know, how about right here:

I had a discussion with a fellow scholar about Robert E. Lee about the subject. Specifically the old canard about Robert E. Lee fighting for Virginia as his noble-esque motivation. I pointed out that the system he chose to protect cannot be so easily handwaved away or his treason as either way he was killing citizens of the United States. I can actually name two Confederate generals who called for the abolition of slavery to win the war but that does not mean the system of slavery was one which the white soldiers were fighting for was not one which they agreed upon and championed--simply again because that WAS the basis of the Southern way of life.

But this all ties into the larger issue of RDR2 and how slavery in a post-Civil War era would be handled with the option to go to the South.

 

[Dr Fallout]

Interesting, apparently Lincoln had no intention to end slavery and wanted to placate the South, so the Union went to war merely to keep the country together. It's possible that if the Confederates hadn't breaken away slavery would have stayed for a couple more decades (well, until the abolitionists wanted to secede themselves).

 

[Vergil]

And yes, I would rather shoot at Southern apologist slavers and slave owners than say they weren't so bad in my escapist fiction.

Of course you'd prefer the game to just be about mindless shooting instead of having a deep and complex narrative, you are a Fallout 3 fan afterall.

It's interesting the subject of "Kill all Confederates" comes up when I'm condemning the issue of the fact you're forced to kill the entirety of the Enclave in Fallout 3 while simultaneously bemoaning the fact the "Good" ending of Fallout 4 is to cause a slave-holding society in the Institute to become a bunch of homeless refugees who will almost certainly die of Super Mutants, starvation, and worse. Yay. you're a big fucking hero, Sole Survivor.

Uh, no you're not. You're currently saying the best ending is the "lol kill everyone ending xD" in Fallout 3 and talking about how you're just fine having the Enclave and Brotherhood be 2D poorly written stereotypes for you to mindlessly mow down.

Do I need to post that quote where you say the thing you like about Fallout is just shooting things again?
In the same Goddamn paragraph you talk about deep and complex themes and the importance of them and then immediately go "lol i just wanna shoot stuff shieeeeet".

 

[Dr Fallout]

Interestingly enough, there's evidence to suggest that the Confederacy while left mainly because of slavery would have freed the slaves irregardless, as they began to do so at the end of the war. Admired generals such as Lee and Johnston did not hold slaves, and only a small minority owned slaves, and the majority of that minority worked alongside them in the fields. Also, the CSA allowed states to either abolish it or not before their defeat, while the Union allowed slavery in Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland and Delaware until 1868, three years after the civil war.

I think slavery is terrible and wrong, but the civil war is more ambigious then some would prefer. Course, Russian Civil war for the win.

 

[CT Phipps]

Interesting, apparently Lincoln had no intention to end slavery and wanted to placate the South, so the Union went to war merely to keep the country together. It's possible that if the Confederates hadn't breaken away slavery would have stayed for a couple more decades (well, until the abolitionists wanted to secede themselves).

Oh yeah.

Lincoln was an abolitionist as it was the equivalent of Trump's Wall for his candidacy. He was also perceived as a dangerous radical by the South. Lincoln also lied to his supporters regularly during the Civil War (so much for Honest Abe) about his intentions regarding slavery because he didn't want to be perceived as fighting a war for Negroes versus preserving the Union.

But yes, Lincoln's primary goal was to create the engines of gradually ending slavery. So much so the Emancipation Proclamation actually didn't end slavery if you want a strict legal definition of it as it only freed the slaves in the states in rebellion versus slavery in general (1 million slaves were technically still enslaved) but ended up being perceived as the end of slavery defacto.

Slavery was also doomed for numerous other reasons, not the least being a feudal serf/slave based economy is a shitty economic system. Much like Obama, Lincoln was a lot less radical than his enemies perceived him as being and a lot less progressive than his supporters wanted him to be.

Of course you'd prefer the game to just be about mindless shooting instead of having a deep and complex narrative, you are a Fallout 3 fan afterall.

Uh, no you're not. You're currently saying the best ending is the "lol kill everyone ending xD" in Fallout 3 and talking about how you're just fine having the Enclave and Brotherhood be 2D poorly written stereotypes for you to mindlessly mow down.

Do I need to post that quote where you say the thing you like about Fallout is just shooting things again?
In the same Goddamn paragraph you talk about deep and complex themes and the importance of them and then immediately go "lol i just wanna shoot stuff shieeeeet".

I like shooting things. I like to have a good reason for shooting things.

Interestingly enough, there's evidence to suggest that the Confederacy while left mainly because of slavery would have freed the slaves irregardless, as they began to do so at the end of the war. Admired generals such as Lee and Johnston did not hold slaves, and only a small minority owned slaves, and the majority of that minority worked alongside them in the fields. Also, the CSA allowed states to either abolish it or not before their defeat, while the Union allowed slavery in Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland and Delaware until 1868, three years after the civil war.

I think slavery is terrible and wrong, but the civil war is more ambigious then some would prefer. Course, Russian Civil war for the win.

My perception of the issue of slave owning and Southerners is that it would have dragged on for as long as humanly possible because of cultural inertia. I live in Ashland, Ky which is 30 minutes away from West Virginia's heartland. One of the things you'll understand is coal is life there. If you go down to the museum here in Ashland, you'll find them as corporate monuments to how coal is a transformative and living lifestyle which gives meaning to the people there. There's even a giant toy version of the coal power plant which toddlers can play in.

The constant political buzzfeed is "Coal is under attack. Coal is our way of life. Coal is what makes West Virginia great." This despite the coal industry is complete shit. It's terrible for power, its economically unfeasible, we're running out of it, and it destroys the environment. There's also numerous better alternatives which the companies could still invest in and which would preserve their fortunes.

But they can't let go of Coal.

The thing with slavery in the South was it was the cultural identity of many slave owners beyond the practicality. White superiority wasn't just a justification for slavery but a part of the way they perceived the world and attacking it would be undercutting their perception of the way the world should be run. I actually liken it to the end of the samurai in Meijii Japan. I would compare it to the end of serfdom in Russia but I know little about that time period and would get clobbered in a historical argument.

 

[Vergil]

I like shooting things. I like to have a good reason for shooting things.

Well to me boring bland cookie cutter enemies with no personality isnt good enough, tenfold when they're retarded strawmen of my ancestors. If all you want is to mindlessly shoot shit I'm sures plenty of COD or Doom forums out there. Theres a time and a place for those kinda games but it aint in narritive based ones like Fallout or (hopefully) RDR.

 

[CT Phipps]

Well to me boring bland cookie cutter enemies with no personality isnt good enough, tenfold when they're retarded strawmen of my ancestors. If all you want is to mindlessly shoot shit I'm sures plenty of COD or Doom forums out there. Theres a time and a place for those kinda games but it aint in narritive based ones like Fallout or (hopefully) RDR.

My ancestors are ones who lost the Civil War but successfully managed to maintain a racial separatness and domination of the Black minority for almost a century thereafter. I also speak of this literally since my Great-Great Aunt (who lived to be 99) lived on a damned plantation when I visited her growing up, which we would often go visit. Her grandparents had certainly told her of their opinions on the Civil War.

Would I prefer a nuanced look at the Reconstruction Era? Yes.

But being as it's Red Dead Redemption? I'd also like to shoot up the Klan and those who learned nothing from the conflict other than they were going to continue their brutality against Blacks well beyond.

In that, they won.

 

[Dr Fallout]

Oh yeah.

Lincoln was an abolitionist as it was the equivalent of Trump's Wall for his candidacy. He was also perceived as a dangerous radical by the South. Lincoln also lied to his supporters regularly during the Civil War (so much for Honest Abe) about his intentions regarding slavery because he didn't want to be perceived as fighting a war for Negroes versus preserving the Union.

But yes, Lincoln's primary goal was to create the engines of gradually ending slavery. So much so the Emancipation Proclamation actually didn't end slavery if you want a strict legal definition of it as it only freed the slaves in the states in rebellion versus slavery in general (1 million slaves were technically still enslaved) but ended up being perceived as the end of slavery defacto.

Perhaps, we can't really be sure if he was a fervent abolitionist or merely using it to gain the support of a loud minority that had a lot of influence in certain states. Personally I believe he was an abolitionist but had no intention in ending slavery in the South, merely making ex-slaves in the north more secure and safe from bounty hunters. Don't quote me on it.

Slavery was also doomed for numerous other reasons, not the least being a feudal serf/slave based economy is a shitty economic system. Much like Obama, Lincoln was a lot less radical than his enemies perceived him as being and a lot less progressive than his supporters wanted him to be.

Actually, slavery was immensely profitable. The South produced almost 75% of US exports in the year 1860, a large part of it due to slave labour. It was big, it was profitable and it made a select few immensely rich.

My perception of the issue of slave owning and Southerners is that it would have dragged on for as long as humanly possible because of cultural inertia.

Only a small minority owned slaves, and it wasn't slavery but racism that had cultural inertia. The north was just as racist, it merely didn't support slavery.