Cheers and Merry Christmas.

I find the assumptions made rather odd. Beyond that, simply asserting that public school history education is inadequate (no shocker there)does not, in any way, bolster Paul's "we should have bought all the slaves and that would've averted war" thesis.

While it may well be that the war was avoidable, the notion that slavery could have been ended simply purchasing the slaves and freeing them is absurd, as the point of contention was that the southern states needed to maintain the institution of slavery, and the a major issue that sparked the war in the first place was the issue of westward expansion and whether slavery would be allowed or not.

The comparison to the UK simply isn't apt and the notion that the slaves could simply have been bought up and slavery then outlawed is ridiculous. The southern states would never have allowed that to happen.

I don't disagree, btw, that many of Lincoln's actions were unconstitutional. That fact, however, doesn't mean there was some easy fix to the slavery issue. Indeed, the slavery issue had been festering since independence and there were no simple solutions to it.

I am not sure that your retort demonstrates a great knowledge of history, btw.

Anyone familiar with either historical (i.e. the politics at the time of the Civil War and shortly thereafter) or recent ("Lincoln Revisited" etc.) will know that the "Log Cabin Lincoln" is as much a myth as the "Cherry Tree George Washington" -- and that Dr. Paul's comments regarding both the unconstitutionality of Lincoln's actions and the false ex post facto justification of the "Civil War" as being to end slavery are quite correct, as are his comments regarding the PEACEFUL ending of slavery in other nations (PRIOR to its end in the U.S. mind you) -- are all well documented historically.

And this validates that Ron Paul's knowledge exceeds simply American history, but also embraces a solid knowledge of world history as well (both subjects I'm fairly certain Mr. Russert has little beyond a superficial acquaintance with -- he would likely earn a solid "F" in were he to have attended anything other than an American "rubber-stamp" university). Sadly, Mr. Russert is not alone -- most Americans have little knowledge of their own actual history, much less that of the rest of the world (I went to school with many of you, and quite frankly you didn't learn anything about history that wasn't "packaged-up" for you in a Saturday morning "Schoolhouse Rock" cartoon snippet and could be stated in a cute song, the result of which is that nearly all American students of the last half century are sadly misinformed.)

Paul's comically simplistic theorizing on the Civil War shows that he hasn't fully realized he is running for POTUS and isn't at a mensa meeting anymore. It is so easy to throw around fresh but crazy thoughts like the paper money myopia when you aren't in any danger of being in charge of anything, I wonder if he would be able to become a little more disciplined if he actually became President?