Inquirer Editorial: It began at Fort Sumter

Inquirer Editorial: It began at Fort Sumter: Charleston, April 12 - the ball was opened at the end, and the war was opened.

Batteries on Sullivan Island, Morris Island, and other locations that are open on Fort Sumter at 4 o'clock in the morning.

Fort Sumter returned fire, and a lively cannonade was constant.

You were alive 150 years ago in Philadelphia, you could read these words in the Inquirer in a dispatch reporting the outbreak of civil war.

Since the first boom of thousands of weapons ran out of bed in the harbor front, and all day all the available space was crowded with ladies and gentlemen, watching the play through his glasses.

Today, we wonder if the Charleston aristocrats, who may have used binoculars to watch the rebel bombing of the federal fort really understood what was happening before their eyes.

Bloody conflict, which began 150 years ago to divide the United States in such a way are still visible if you look close enough. War saved the Union, but it's not the end of the argument for states' rights, which remains the root of much political debate today.

Afro-Americans benefited the most from the war that led to their release. But more than a century later, they are still in the back of whites in almost every economy, health, or academic examination.

Lines can be drawn from the complicated statistics today on the legacy of discrimination, which was gray, but not yet cleared.

Nevertheless, racial discrimination has become a topic that little discussion in the corridors of power.

Politicians today seem to intimidate the public movement, he prefers not to discuss the causes of inequality, clearly fear that doing so would weaken the argument that cutting spending on the poor and infirm is the best way to keep the listing economic ship of the nation from falling.

From this viewpoint ignores the equally disturbing price does not adequately provide for our most vulnerable citizens.

It also gives a pass to military spending, which, at more than $ 700 billion in 2009 (including expenditures for Iraq and Afghanistan operations), more than this country has ever spent time in a year, even during the Second World War or conflict in Korea and Vietnam.

In fact, reductions in military spending can be a good way to commemorate the war 150 years ago that was not the most expensive in dollars, but in life and how he tore the nation.

Our today pale in comparison. Some states, like on the brink of schism. They want to go their own way on immigration, abortion, gay marriage and other social issues. But no state government has threatened to take up arms to fight for their rights.