The Hinge of Fate | National Catholic Reporter

The Hinge of Fate | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: Gettysburg was one of those turn about moments, as was the determination to at first accept and then emancipate first runaway slaves and then all slaves in Union control - which essentially made the south collapse economically.  Had that position been taken at the start of the war (by Lincoln and his commanders), the South may have fallen much faster, regardless of battle field gallantry.  As important were the solidiers left in the South after the war to threaten the Southern Aristocracy in those cases where they tried to reinslave the freemen.  Of course, because their labor was still essential, those who stayed were in danger.  The authors of the Fourteenth Amendment tried to hold those gains, but the loss of armed pressence eliminated them as the Gentry had no love of civil rights for any but themselves.  The Mississippi Democratic primary run-off just concluded shows that in that matter, nothing has changed in many Southern hearts - and military might cannot change that.  Indeed, while automated cotton picking freed the descendents of freedman, the need to pick organges quickly for juice and slaughter chickens and hogs has led to a new lower class of undocumented migrants and the resistance to any law tht will change their fate.  And that is how your breakfast is linked to Gettysburg.