In Federalist Paper 45, Madison guaranteed: "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite." The South seceded because of Washington's encroachment on that vision. Today, it's worse. Turn Madison's vision on its head, and you have today's America.
DiLorenzo does a yeoman's job in documenting Lincoln's ruthlessness and hypocrisy, and how historians have covered it up. The Framers had a deathly fear of federal government abuse. They saw state sovereignty as a protection. That's why they gave us the Ninth and 10th Amendments. They saw secession as the ultimate protection against Washington tyranny.
If one studies American hostory beyond the stuff they teach in high school, you can clearly see that the Civil War era marked a huge shift in power from the state level, to the national level. Prior to the war, the federal government could do very little without getting approval from the states first. After the war, the federal government started doing what it wanted and the states were expected to rubber stamp it, if their approval was even sought at all.
Lincoln did some things that were very bold, often radical, and technically illegal. He suspended basic rights during the war such as habeus corpus....
As the Civil War started, in the very beginning of Lincoln's presidential term, a group of "Peace Democrats" proposed a peaceful resolution to the developing Civil War by offering a truce with the South, and forming a constitutional convention to amend the U.S. Constitution to protect States' rights. The proposal was ignored by the Unionists of the North and not taken seriously by the South. However, the Peace Democrats, also call copperheads by their enemies, publicly criticized Lincoln's belief that violating the U.S. Constitution was required to save it as a whole. With Congress not in session until July, Lincoln assumed all powers not delegated in the Constitution, including the power to suspend habeas corpus. In 1861, Lincoln had already suspended civil law in territories where resistance to the North's military power would be dangerous. In 1862, when copperhead democrats began criticizing Lincoln's violation of the Constitution, Lincoln suspended habeas corpus throughout the nation and had many copperhead democrats arrested under military authority because he felt that the State Courts in the north west would not convict war protesters such as the copperheads. He proclaimed that all persons who discouraged enlistments or engaged in disloyal practices would come under Martial Law.
Among the 13,000 people arrested under martial law was a Maryland Secessionist, John Merryman. Immediately, Hon. Roger B. Taney, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States issued a writ of habeas corpus commanding the military to bring Merryman before him. The military refused to follow the writ. Justice Taney, in Ex parte MERRYMAN, then ruled the suspension of habeas corpus unconstitutional because the writ could not be suspended without an Act of Congress. President Lincoln and the military ignored Justice Taney's ruling.
Finally, in 1866, after the war, the Supreme Court officially restored habeas corpus in Ex-parte Milligan, ruling that military trials in areas where the civil courts were capable of functioning were illegal.
So one can see what Lincoln's true agenda was. He wanted to save the Union at anycost. Today, looking at where our country is now, it may be hard to fault him for that. Still, looking back, one can see that this is the time that shift of power took place. And since then surface-level history has been revised to protray the Southerners as evil "traitors and terrorists" and Lincoln as the hero who went to war to save the slaves. It's a pretty little black and white picture, but it's not what really happened.
And since then surface-level history has been revised to protray the Southerners as evil "traitors and terrorists" and Lincoln as the hero who went to war to save the slaves. It's a pretty little black and white picture, but it's not what really happened.
They weren't traitors ? I wouldn't neccisarily call them terrorists. But traitor would be a fitting word. Oh History is being revised alright Much like the war of Northern Agression. :) No ? So the war wasn't in the majority about slaves and the refusal to grant that right to states?The south's economy was based on labor produced by slaves. It was seen as an individual state issue that they saw the federal govt. inteferring with. Therefore although there were other factors in states deciding yea or nea on seccession, the right or the state's right to allow or disallow slavery was the crux of the matter and saw the fed as being too powerful in deciding that for all the states rights and their rights or percieved rights to keep slaves. Oddly since then the states have had less and less power and the feds more.
You may count me out of that side of the debate. To me they broke the oath, if they want to be Johnny Cochran and tell me they didn't break it technically, so be it. Yea, O.J was innocent too. (TECHNICALLY) There is also something called good faith. They broke it. An oath is an oath, wether it be to your country , the constitution or to tell the truth in court under oath or in some cases all three to break it is wrong PERIOD. The south was wrong. The revisionists will tell you it was about state rights, they are right, what they won't tell you or get into very often is what state rights were they secceding for ? The right of free interstate banking ? The right of individual education standards ? The right to gamble? It was in the large majority about each states own rights to keep slaves, no matter how many times you refuse it, it's a fact. Oh I forgot the part of the article that said all the historians have colluded or conspired to cover this up. Right.
To me they broke the oath, if they want to be Johnny Cochran and tell me they didn't break it technically, so be it....The south was wrong. The revisionists will tell you it was about state rights, they are right, what they won't tell you or get into very often is what state rights were they secceding for?...It was in the large majority about each states own rights to keep slaves, no matter how many times you refuse it, it's a fact.
No the north broke their oath. Northerners were to play by the rules of the Consitution but they didn't want to do that anymore. It wasn't about slavvery because there was no legislation to take it away. Lincoln didn't even want to get rid of slavery in slave states. It was about a party that threatened to treat slave holders as criminals. That would have violated the Constitution and the southern states left as they had the right to do. They even adopted a Constitution that was much like the one in effect in the north.
What do you mean that's not the issue. That IS the issue. A war was fought mainly over just that. Just because something is legal doesn't make it right.
Time and time again I have seen you post in the abortion thread when people say that hey abortion is legal your retort is always (correctly in my book) Slavery was once legal too. Does that make it right ?
So how was the abolition of slavery brought about ? The souths economy was driven by slave labor. They (the states) saw the feds incursion into thier rights to keep and or abolish it an infringement on those rights one of them, the main sticking point was slavery. Are you denying that ?
Are you denying that the war was not fought by the southern states to keep those rights ?
Are you denying or do you not think that slavery WAS the main part of the rights they wanted to keep ?
Are you saying the war was not mostly about slavery?
Here's something they made sure to include in the confederate constitution. Seems it must have been important enough for them to include it.
No slave or other person held to service or labor in any State or Territory of the Confederate States, under the laws thereof, escaping or lawfully carried into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor; but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such slave belongs,. or to whom such service or labor may be due.
From the link you provided. This is regarding Georgia's seccession
The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery. They have endeavored to weaken our security, to disturb our domestic peace and tranquility, and persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property, and by the use of their power in the Federal Government have striven to deprive us of an equal enjoyment of the common Territories of the Republic. This hostile policy of our confederates has been pursued with every circumstance of aggravation which could arouse the passions and excite the hatred of our people, and has placed the two sections of the Union for many years past in the condition of virtual civil war. Our people, still attached to the Union from habit and national traditions, and averse to change, hoped that time, reason, and argument would bring, if not redress, at least exemption from further insults, injuries, and dangers. Recent events have fully dissipated all such hopes and demonstrated the necessity of separation. Our Northern confederates, after a full and calm hearing of all the facts, after a fair warning of our purpose not to submit to the rule of the authors of all these wrongs and injuries, have by a large majority committed the Government of the United States into their hands. The people of Georgia, after an equally full and fair and deliberate hearing of the case, have declared with equal firmness that they shall not rule over them. A brief history of the rise, progress, and policy of anti-slavery and the political organization into whose hands the administration of the Federal Government has been committed will fully justify the pronounced verdict of the people of Georgia. The party of Lincoln, called the Republican party, under its present name and organization, is of recent origin. It is admitted to be an anti-slavery party. While it attracts to itself by its creed the scattered advocates of exploded political heresies, of condemned theories in political economy, the advocates of commercial restrictions, of protection, of special privileges, of waste and corruption in the administration of Government, anti-slavery is its mission and its purpose. By anti-slavery it is made a power in the state. The question of slavery was the great difficulty in the way of the formation of the Constitution
right I forgot it wasn't about slavery pfffft,,,,,,,,,right. O.K sure what ever you say.....
So let's see to summarize some people's posistion on here.
It's the North's fault, and the North was the agressor. And it wasn't about slavery.
In your efforts to limit this complicated picture to a stick drawing, you're missing several points entirely.
Was the point of contention between the North and South largely about slavery? Yes, of course. No one is even really disputing that. Was the war that resulted from this disagreement about slavery? No. And it's very important to understand the distinction, subtle though it may be.
Let's try another example. Child pornography is a problem. You'll find very few people who are in favor of it, just as you'll find few in favor of slavery. But now let's say the Government wanted to stop child pornography and they decide that since a lot of child pornography is on the internet, they need to shut the internet down. Now if you decide the oppose the government in shutting the internet down, does that mean you're in favor of child pornography? Of course not. While that was what caused the dispute, it's not what the dispute itself is about.
The North and South were opposed on the issue of slavery and it drove them apart. The secession of the Southern states was basically about slavery and their Constitutional rights to continue it, and thereby protect their economic livlihood. In response, the North went to war for the purpose of stopping that secession, not to stop slavery. He didn't even try to stop slavery until two years into the war.
I say it's important to note the difference because if you think the war was about slavery, then it becomes all too easy to just pass it off as a good vs. evil struggle where the righteous Union marched into the evil Confederacy and forced them to stop their slavin' ways, end of story. But if that's what you think, you completely miss the real history of what happened. You miss how we went as a country from a collection of states, to a an entity driven by a central power. You miss the precedent and curcumstance by which the federal government came into ascendance and you're more likely to believe that it's simply always been that way and that's how the Founding Fathers intended it. But that's not the case. This is not the government they had in mind, at least not entirely. One of the major sources of checks and balances is gone. The states no longer have the ability to oppose the federal government and so the federal government has turned into something monstrous in size and no longer entirely clear in its purpose and intent. And this all goes back to Lincoln and the Civil War. But if you want to continue thinking it was about slavery and nothing more, then all this is lost on you.
In your efforts to limit this complicated picture to a stick drawing, you're missing several points entirely
No I am not touching on every little nuance if you'd like we can get into such exciting things as the Missouri compormise. geez.
I would agree with you that the states rights have been sadly diminished, you'l get no argument from me there. Of course there were other nuances that led to the war. Slavery was the main component in that factor.
Was the war that resulted from this disagreement about slavery? No. And it's very important to understand the distinction, subtle though it may be.
O.K let me ask you this. If slavery had been completely taken off the table and the southern states were guaranteed to have slavery kept as it was do you think they still would have attacked Ft.Sumter ? Do you think that they would have not seceeded if they were promised that slavery was not going to be touched ?
Slavery was the root of the argument. The south's economy would have been devastated by abolishing slavery. they didn't want to see it happen. Were they right ? They decided it was important enough to seceed from the union to preserve what they saw as a right.
Let's try another example. Child pornography is a problem. You'll find very few people who are in favor of it, just as you'll find few in favor of slavery. But now let's say the Government wanted to stop child pornography and they decide that since a lot of child pornography is on the internet, they need to shut the internet down. Now if you decide the oppose the government in shutting the internet down, does that mean you're in favor of child pornography? Of course not. While that was what caused the dispute, it's not what the dispute itself is about
But it is the root of that dispute.
does that mean you take up arms against your country and seceede from the Union ?
I say it's important to note the difference because if you think the war was about slavery, then it becomes all too easy to just pass it off as a good vs. evil struggle where the righteous Union marched into the evil Confederacy and forced them to stop their slavin' ways, end of story
so was the south the good guy ? Where do people get such moral relatavism from ? The union fought to preserve the union. The reason that the union was dissolved by the confederacy was to keep their rights to slave owners. The Union could have easily said O.K look it's not that important to us. We'd rather keep slavery as is and not have you seceed. Apperantly it was important enough to some because they said, look we are not going to back off of this, we are not going to stop in our efforts to abolish slavery. They did that knowing full well what the outcome was. So it was good vs. evil. It was enough people saying you know what this IS important and slavery is wrong and if you seceed over it we will do what we need to do to preserve that union. Many lives were lost to do so. Those lives could have been saved if some didn't see slavery as such a good thing. Were they the good guy ? Look at every letter of grievance that accompanies the declaration of secession. They ALL mention slavery many times over and the right to keep it. They were the ones who left due to their belief that they should keep slaves or have the right to. Were they right ? If you feel they were or were justified by some divine creedo written in a law then all is lost on you.
O.K let me ask you this. If slavery had been completely taken off the table and the southern states were guaranteed to have slavery kept as it was do you think they still would have attacked Ft.Sumter ?
They didn't attack Fort Sumter with the idea in mind of starting a war. They had no reason to start a war and indeed it was in their best interest to try and secede from the Union without one as they never were likely to win such a war. But they did believe the presence of Union troops there in the harbor represented a threat to Confederate national security, so they tried to force them out. In retrospect, it would seem using force to do so was a poor political decision as it gave Lincoln an excuse to use military force to achieve his own objectives. So while the answer to the question is no, I think the question is sort of misleading as it implies they attacked Ft. Sumter in order to defend slavery. Whereas if they had seceded for any other reason, they still would have attacked the fort.
Do you think that they would have not seceeded if they were promised that slavery was not going to be touched ?
I think they would not have seceded had they not felt that the growing, disproportionate power of the North was inevitably going to be brought to bear against them. And indeed, slavery was the main point of contention. I'm not disputing that. But to say that the reason for the dispute is what brought them to the point of war just isn't accurate and something gets lost. The North wasn't willing to go to war over slavery. If they were, they could have done that earlier under different circumstances. Actually, let me propose an alternate history...
Let's say the South decided not to secede but instead just keep fighting the issue politically. Eventually the North may have gotten together enough power to outlaw slavery against the minority voice of the South. Let's say at that point the Southerners refuse to give up their slaves. So in response the North sends troops in to enforce the new law, the Southerners resist, and it turns into a war. *That* war would have been about ending slavery.
But in the real history, the North didn't go to war to end slavery. They hadn't even ended it in their own territory. The South may have been fighting to defend their lifestyle, of which slavery was a part, but the North was fighting to save the Union.
Slavery was the root of the argument. The south's economy would have been devastated by abolishing slavery. they didn't want to see it happen. Were they right ?
Yes, they were right that it would have wreaked havoc on their lifestyle. Was the institution of slavery right? I don't think it was, but they apparently did, and so again we come back to that question of when it is ok to force your morals on someone else?
does that mean you take up arms against your country and seceede from the Union ?
What if I just decided that I wanted to move to another country because I didn't like this new policy? And then what if the government tried to prevent me? Would you say my dispute with the government was about child pornography? That may have been what was at the root of the dispute, but the fight itself is about personal freedom.
so was the south the good guy ?
It would help if you got past the idea that there had to be a good guy and a bad guy. In my opinion there's nothing good about slavery. But that doesn't mean the South didn't perhaps have some valid legal points on other issues. I think the North overstepped their legal bounds during the course of the Civil War. That doesn't mean they're the "bad guy". In many ways, I think the way it turned out just may have been the best result possible in that situation. And even if we forgive Lincoln for bypassing the Constitution on several occasions because the end justified the means, I don't think that means we should forget that it happened and pretend instead that the way it was afterwards was simply how it had always been.
The union fought to preserve the union. The reason that the union was dissolved by the confederacy was to keep their rights to slave owners.
Now you're getting it. They were fighting for different things. So you can't say the war was just about ending slavery. It would actually make more sense to say the war was about defending slavery if you look at it from the South's point of view, but neither side was fighting the war for the purpose of ending slavery.
It's amazing how some conservatives who berate the academic world in anti-intellecutual screeds time and again will quote people like Walter Williams.
The man spends nearly all professional career in a cloistered academia. Now Williams and his friends from the academic world can rip Abe Lincoln in their theoretical circle-jerks.
You want parse the words in oaths the Confederate traitors in Congress took? Go ahead.
But I don't want to hear you whine about Bill Clinton again , because you CAN'T and still stay consistent.
Hoist your Confederate traitor idols on a pedistal if you want. But save an empty one for John Walker Lindh.
I bet the secessionists knew they were traitors. Lee, Davis et. al. knew that what they were doing could put them in front of a firing squad. Lincoln woudn't give them the satisfaction of dying a martyrs death like al Qaeda.
I wonder if, in their private moments, they reveled in it. Every Johnny Reb, dressed in butternut, relished the role of romantic scoundrel. Who doesn't love Rhett Butler?
But, Rhett thought the Confederates were idiots.
What do you have, he asked them. Nothing, he said, but slavery and arrogance.
Through the horrid years of the war: terrible gunshot wounds, disease, infection, starvation.
There's your war, Alison. There's you war, jethro. Looks great in the movies.
Always has to be a struggle of good versus evil, doesn't it Rick?
But, Rhett thought the Confederates were idiots.
In some ways they were. At the very least they were hotheads and indeed arrogant. And it seemed to end up getting them into more than they could handle.
There's your war, Alison. There's you war, jethro. Looks great in the movies.
What makes you think anyone here was in favor of the war? Are you even really following along with this discussion? All you do is sit there making pointless comments trying to make anyone who even *seems* to have an unusual or contradictory opinion look like they support the most horrible things known to humanity by making nonsensical comparisons and accusations.
I don't usually like to attack people, but personally I consider those who would use emotional manipulatiuon to make their argument rather than reasoned debate to be some of the most dangerous people around. People who promote ignorance over tolerance and understanding are the true enemies of freedom. If you don't have anything useful to contribute that will help expand people's understanding of the issues, if you're just going to misrepresent what people say and use inappropriate comparisons to bog them down with emotional stigmas, then you're doing nothing to help anyone. Quite the opposite in fact, you're doing your best to stifle learning and communication.
Allison, what do you think of the Rebel Banner that so many southern states still hoist up their flagpoles, to fly in the breeze right under "Old Glory"?
Offhand I would guess about 50% of it is just about local pride. Not terribly different from people who display banners of their favorite sports teams and try to make themselves seem like something more than they are by attaching themselves to part of something bigger. The South did have it's own culture and it differed from that of the North by more ways than just slavery, and I imagine some people feel some sort of sense of pride in that.
The other 50% is either ignorance of what the dispute was about (not the war specifically, but the dispute in general), or maybe they really are racists and would even today like to see slavery reinstituted. The rest of your post seems to suggest that may actually be a possibility.
But let me make this point again. Neither I nor jethro nor anyone else is defending slavery. We're not even trying to defend the South's use of it. What we're saying is put aside the emotion and the rhetoric of it all for a moment and let's look at what actually happened, keeping in mind what the prevailing attitudes were at the time instead of distorting it through the prism of the values we hold today. If you want to understand why the war happened, you have to understand how the people of that day thought, not impose what your reasons for fighting would have been onto people of the past.
Back then *some* people opposed slavery. (Those damn liberals you know! Always wanting to change things) But actually most people didn't really have an opinion one way or the other. Back then slavery was a part of people's realities and it had been all their lives, and wasn't as unthinkable as it is today. One might compare it to huge corporate executive salaries. Today some people are against them, but most people just accept them as part of life. Yet it's possible 150 years from now society could change and look back and think it was nothing short of madness that some people got paid 500 times more money than others and mistakingly assume that everyone in this era was outraged about it too.
So going back to the very beginning, my original point was the South didn't really need for a war to happen. They did forcibly take Ft. Sumter, but that was because they believed they had a right to it, and it wasn't because they were trying to start a war. It was the North who escalated it to the level of a war and went on the offensive. But their reason for doing so wasn't to stop slavery, it was to conquer the South and force them back into the Union. Something, if you look at it, they probably didn't really have the authority to do, but they did anyway, and as a consequence, it greatly changed the American political structure from then on, from one that was a collection of states connected by a central power, to one where the country was driven by the central authority of the federal government.
You don't need to agree with slavery or condone racism to see that's what happened.
Our people, still attached to the Union from habit and national traditions, and averse to change, hoped that time, reason, and argument would bring, if not redress, at least exemption from further insults, injuries, and dangers. Recent events have fully dissipated all such hopes and demonstrated the necessity of separation. Our Northern confederates, after a full and calm hearing of all the facts, after a fair warning of our purpose not to submit to the rule of the authors of all these wrongs and injuries, have by a large majority committed the Government of the United States into their hands. The people of Georgia, after an equally full and fair and deliberate hearing of the case, have declared with equal firmness that they shall not rule over them. A brief history of the rise, progress, and policy of anti-slavery and the political organization into whose hands the administration of the Federal Government has been committed will fully justify the pronounced verdict of the people of Georgia.
Sounds like the didn't want to associate with northereners and they wanted to control their own destiny. A more fundamental issue than slavery.
I say it's important to note the difference because if you think the war was about slavery, then it becomes all too easy to just pass it off as a good vs. evil struggle where the righteous Union marched into the evil Confederacy and forced them to stop their slavin' ways, end of story. But if that's what you think, you completely miss the real history of what happened. You miss how we went as a country from a collection of states, to a an entity driven by a central power. You miss the precedent and curcumstance by which the federal government came into ascendance and you're more likely to believe that it's simply always been that way and that's how the Founding Fathers intended it. But that's not the case. This is not the government they had in mind, at least not entirely. One of the major sources of checks and balances is gone. The states no longer have the ability to oppose the federal government and so the federal government has turned into something monstrous in size and no longer entirely clear in its purpose and intent. And this all goes back to Lincoln and the Civil War. But if you want to continue thinking it was about slavery and nothing more, then all this is lost on you.
EXACTLY. One more point that Rob misses is that if the south had not seceded slavery would have continued for an indefinite period of time. So if the south wanted only to preserve slavery they would not havce seceded at all.
The Union could have easily said O.K look it's not that important to us. We'd rather keep slavery as is and not have you seceed. That WAS Lincoln's position.
They were the ones who left due to their belief that they should keep slaves or have the right to. And if they had not seceded they would have KEPT their slaves.
Let's say the South decided not to secede but instead just keep fighting the issue politically. Eventually the North may have gotten together enough power to outlaw slavery against the minority voice of the South. May is the key word. Also it is possible with the increasing use of machinery slavery may have vbecome to expensive and eventually died on its own.
But in the real history, the North didn't go to war to end slavery. They hadn't even ended it in their own territory. The South may have been fighting to defend their lifestyle, of which slavery was a part, but the North was fighting to save the Union. if the war was about slavery the north would have ended it in Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland and Delaware. They wouldn't even try.
O.K let me ask you this. If slavery had been completely taken off the table and the southern states were guaranteed to have slavery kept as it was do you think they still would have attacked Ft.Sumter ? Do you think that they would have not seceeded if they were promised that slavery was not going to be touched ?
Slavery was protected. It could not have been ended had the south stayed in the union.
Whether they seceeded or not, they were not going to end it without a calamitous civil disturbance, call it War or whatever, but the fact is... They LOVED Slavery and wanted to KEEP it. Times change and so do people.
Which is/was the whole point of the War, was it not?
First I don't appreciate you implying that I am a racist. That is uncalled for and typical of you, fold. You aren't willing to believe the truth as I said beore. You are, despicable. As for the above comment I am not sure what you mean. If the south had stayed in the union slavery would have continued for a long period of time. So if slavery was the issue the south would have been better off not seceeding.
Lincoln did win that is fact. But the southern states were neither treasonous or seditious. The had the legal right to seced. It is an example of the vitors writing the history. And an example of you believing it without question.
west virginia certainly was not, jethro. once virginia seceded, it was no longer subject to the piece of the constitution restricting splitting states. i said it earlier in this thread, that by admitting west virginia as a state, congress acknowledged, and legalised the secession of virginia.
Allison wrote: But let me make this point again. Neither I nor jethro nor anyone else is defending slavery. We're not even trying to defend the South's use of it.
fold's response: Allison... I understand your points and what you are trying to say and some of your points are validones. But seriously...
Allison wrote: But let me make this point again. Neither I nor jethro nor anyone else is defending slavery. We're not even trying to defend the South's use of it.
fold's response: Allison... I understand your points and what you are trying to say and some of your points are validones. But seriously...
yes it did. and then 17 (i think) counties left virginia.
Did they have the authority to leave Virginia? I don't know maybe they did. But whether Virgina was a state of the union or the confederacy it was still a state. Another question is did the west Virgina states have the requisite population or other requirements to be an independent state of the Union? I don't know.
They didn't attack Fort Sumter with the idea in mind of starting a war. They had no reason to start a war and indeed it was in their best interest to try and secede from the Union without one as they never were likely to win such a war
First of all any time you attack another fort, territory, state, etc. It is an act of war and they knew that they were in the military. You say they had no reason to start a war. They had many in their minds and they knew it going in. A good read is Robert E Lee or Jefferson Davis memoirs. You might be shocked to know that not only did they plan on what they were doing, they knew full well that they were breaking their oath as MILITARY personal.
As far as you assumption that as you say they had: Â >"They had no reason to start a war and indeed it was in their best interest to try and secede from the Union without one as they never were likely to win such a war"
Well, they DID start the war, wether you want to admit that, they did. Furthermore, the south and it's leaders were very arrogant and fully believed they could win the war with the north They thought they would win in less than a year and have thier own little southern slave owning utopia. They saw the union as weak and uncomitted to its cause. They were wrong. They did come very close however to actually winning. They ran out of materials and men through horrid sickening attrition.
The main reason that the South seceeded was to keep the rights to own slaves. The North fought to keep that Union together. But slavery was the root of that. The war probably wouldn't have been fought if slavery was left as is or intact. I think we all agree on that. O.K Fine.
If the North hadn't cared about ending slavery at all or was indefferent to it they would have CERTAINLY dropped the slavey issue for then and worked on it or chipped away at it. They didn't instead of telling the south that "well o.k guys look, we don't like slavery but we don't feel it's worth people dying over and or our union being ripped apart so forget it. We don't want you to seceed so we'll drop it, own all the slaves you'd like and do as you wish by state."
Instead they didn't drop it. Fortunatley for the slaves they didn't drop it to appease the south. the South chose to seceed instead of going along with it. The North chose to press it. The south thought keeping PEOPLE as slaves and subumans was important enough to seceed from the union over. So were they righteous ?
So one pushed and eventually went to war with those who wanted to keep it as a right. Was the average union soilder or the people of the north having rallies everyday for equal rights ? no. of course not. They weren't exactly ready to make them first class citizens but at the very least THEY found it abhorant enough to tell the south, hey you guys are wrong, put an end to it. The south said hey we need negros and their whole families to work the cotton and you've got no rights to interfere in us buying and selling people and doing what we want with them so back off or we are seceeding. The North pressed on when they could have let it go, so obviously they DID care somewhat or saw it as wrong. The south had no problem with it, they viewed them as farm implements.
So if you don't see who is more righteous or "good" Then the truth would be a tough thing to see if you don't see one side being more in the right.
There are no absloutes in war. In this conflict today against terrorism to the Civil war and in between, there was not nor will there ever be a side that is 100% righteous. It doesn't mean that one side is not more righteous or that they are equal. Sometimes it is good vs. evil or wrong vs. right it doesnt mean that those who are on the side of right are 100% righteous. If you feel that the south was righteous then we have nothing to debate further.
Someone wondered what would happen had the South actually been successful. Yes slavery would have proabably ended EVENTUALLY but for how long would it have gone on ? Hell they didn't end Jim Crow laws in the south until the 60's, almost 100 years later. As Fold pointed out, there is still a small backward contingent who probably would still be in favor of slaves. It's hard for anyone to say how long it could or would have continued. What ever the length of time it would have continued a horrid practice for years. It's easy for us to say we should have left the south alone since it would have died out anyways. it's easy to say of course if you weren't a slave. Was one more year, ten more years, twenty more years, 50 more years acceptable ? Sure if you werent a slave and owned a plantaition. It should have ended sooner and whatever revisionists spin is put on it it took a war for one of those two principles to win.
You ignore the truth, fold.
Do states have a right of secession? That question was settled through the costly War of 1861. In his recently published book, "The Real Lincoln," Thomas DiLorenzo marshals abundant unambiguous evidence that virtually every political leader of the time and earlier believed that states had a right of secession.
It is so good it needed posting again!
The last two paragraphs of that story:
In Federalist Paper 45, Madison guaranteed: "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite." The South seceded because of Washington's encroachment on that vision. Today, it's worse. Turn Madison's vision on its head, and you have today's America.
DiLorenzo does a yeoman's job in documenting Lincoln's ruthlessness and hypocrisy, and how historians have covered it up. The Framers had a deathly fear of federal government abuse. They saw state sovereignty as a protection. That's why they gave us the Ninth and 10th Amendments. They saw secession as the ultimate protection against Washington tyranny.
If one studies American hostory beyond the stuff they teach in high school, you can clearly see that the Civil War era marked a huge shift in power from the state level, to the national level. Prior to the war, the federal government could do very little without getting approval from the states first. After the war, the federal government started doing what it wanted and the states were expected to rubber stamp it, if their approval was even sought at all.
Lincoln did some things that were very bold, often radical, and technically illegal. He suspended basic rights during the war such as habeus corpus....
As the Civil War started, in the very beginning of Lincoln's presidential term, a group of "Peace Democrats" proposed a peaceful resolution to the developing Civil War by offering a truce with the South, and forming a constitutional convention to amend the U.S. Constitution to protect States' rights. The proposal was ignored by the Unionists of the North and not taken seriously by the South. However, the Peace Democrats, also call copperheads by their enemies, publicly criticized Lincoln's belief that violating the U.S. Constitution was required to save it as a whole. With Congress not in session until July, Lincoln assumed all powers not delegated in the Constitution, including the power to suspend habeas corpus. In 1861, Lincoln had already suspended civil law in territories where resistance to the North's military power would be dangerous. In 1862, when copperhead democrats began criticizing Lincoln's violation of the Constitution, Lincoln suspended habeas corpus throughout the nation and had many copperhead democrats arrested under military authority because he felt that the State Courts in the north west would not convict war protesters such as the copperheads. He proclaimed that all persons who discouraged enlistments or engaged in disloyal practices would come under Martial Law.
Among the 13,000 people arrested under martial law was a Maryland Secessionist, John Merryman. Immediately, Hon. Roger B. Taney, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States issued a writ of habeas corpus commanding the military to bring Merryman before him. The military refused to follow the writ. Justice Taney, in Ex parte MERRYMAN, then ruled the suspension of habeas corpus unconstitutional because the writ could not be suspended without an Act of Congress. President Lincoln and the military ignored Justice Taney's ruling.
Finally, in 1866, after the war, the Supreme Court officially restored habeas corpus in Ex-parte Milligan, ruling that military trials in areas where the civil courts were capable of functioning were illegal.
So one can see what Lincoln's true agenda was. He wanted to save the Union at anycost. Today, looking at where our country is now, it may be hard to fault him for that. Still, looking back, one can see that this is the time that shift of power took place. And since then surface-level history has been revised to protray the Southerners as evil "traitors and terrorists" and Lincoln as the hero who went to war to save the slaves. It's a pretty little black and white picture, but it's not what really happened.
They weren't traitors ? I wouldn't neccisarily call them terrorists. But traitor would be a fitting word.
Oh History is being revised alright Much like the war of Northern Agression. :)
No ? So the war wasn't in the majority about slaves and the refusal to grant that right to states?The south's economy was based on labor produced by slaves. It was seen as an individual state issue that they saw the federal govt. inteferring with. Therefore although there were other factors in states deciding yea or nea on seccession, the right or the state's right to allow or disallow slavery was the crux of the matter and saw the fed as being too powerful in deciding that for all the states rights and their rights or percieved rights to keep slaves. Oddly since then the states have had less and less power and the feds more.
Rick Lundstrom, check in here or read your messages on the left side of the screen.
Lance Brown "Why do I keep getting a "moderator will review your message" message?" 4/7/02 3:20pm
Rick,
You may count me out of that side of the debate. To me they broke the oath, if they want to be Johnny Cochran and tell me they didn't break it technically, so be it. Yea, O.J was innocent too. (TECHNICALLY) There is also something called good faith. They broke it. An oath is an oath, wether it be to your country , the constitution or to tell the truth in court under oath or in some cases all three to break it is wrong PERIOD. The south was wrong. The revisionists will tell you it was about state rights, they are right, what they won't tell you or get into very often is what state rights were they secceding for ? The right of free interstate banking ? The right of individual education standards ? The right to gamble? It was in the large majority about each states own rights to keep slaves, no matter how many times you refuse it, it's a fact. Oh I forgot the part of the article that said all the historians have colluded or conspired to cover this up. Right.
But I don't want to hear you whine about Bill Clinton again , because you CAN'T and still stay consistent.
Isn't there a difference between perjury and politics?
Yes, one is illegal and the other is not.
Depends on what the meaning of the word is, is ?
To me they broke the oath, if they want to be Johnny Cochran and tell me they didn't break it technically, so be it....The south was wrong. The revisionists will tell you it was about state rights, they are right, what they won't tell you or get into very often is what state rights were they secceding for?...It was in the large majority about each states own rights to keep slaves, no matter how many times you refuse it, it's a fact.
No the north broke their oath. Northerners were to play by the rules of the Consitution but they didn't want to do that anymore. It wasn't about slavvery because there was no legislation to take it away. Lincoln didn't even want to get rid of slavery in slave states. It was about a party that threatened to treat slave holders as criminals. That would have violated the Constitution and the southern states left as they had the right to do. They even adopted a Constitution that was much like the one in effect in the north.
Ahh so the North broke their oath, and invaded the south too.
Really ? Do tell.
So was the constitution that the south drafted that allowed slaves legal ? Or was it right ?
Ahh so the North broke their oath, and invaded the south too.
Why yes they did.
So was the constitution that the south drafted that allowed slaves legal? See for yourself: http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/csa/csa.htm
Or was it right? That is not the issue.
What do you mean that's not the issue. That IS the issue. A war was fought mainly over just that. Just because something is legal doesn't make it right.
Time and time again I have seen you post in the abortion thread when people say that hey abortion is legal your retort is always (correctly in my book) Slavery was once legal too. Does that make it right ?
So how was the abolition of slavery brought about ? The souths economy was driven by slave labor. They (the states) saw the feds incursion into thier rights to keep and or abolish it an infringement on those rights one of them, the main sticking point was slavery. Are you denying that ?
Are you denying that the war was not fought by the southern states to keep those rights ?
Are you denying or do you not think that slavery WAS the main part of the rights they wanted to keep ?
Are you saying the war was not mostly about slavery?
Are you saying that the south was right ?
Here's something they made sure to include in the confederate constitution. Seems it must have been important enough for them to include it.
Were they right Jethro ?
Jethro,
From the link you provided. This is regarding Georgia's seccession
right I forgot it wasn't about slavery pfffft,,,,,,,,,right. O.K sure what ever you say.....
Were they right ?
So let's see to summarize some people's posistion on here.
It's the North's fault, and the North was the agressor. And it wasn't about slavery.
Damn that's funny.
So let's see to summarize some people's posistion on here.
It's the North's fault, and the North was the agressor. And it wasn't about slavery.
In your efforts to limit this complicated picture to a stick drawing, you're missing several points entirely.
Was the point of contention between the North and South largely about slavery? Yes, of course. No one is even really disputing that. Was the war that resulted from this disagreement about slavery? No. And it's very important to understand the distinction, subtle though it may be.
Let's try another example. Child pornography is a problem. You'll find very few people who are in favor of it, just as you'll find few in favor of slavery. But now let's say the Government wanted to stop child pornography and they decide that since a lot of child pornography is on the internet, they need to shut the internet down. Now if you decide the oppose the government in shutting the internet down, does that mean you're in favor of child pornography? Of course not. While that was what caused the dispute, it's not what the dispute itself is about.
The North and South were opposed on the issue of slavery and it drove them apart. The secession of the Southern states was basically about slavery and their Constitutional rights to continue it, and thereby protect their economic livlihood. In response, the North went to war for the purpose of stopping that secession, not to stop slavery. He didn't even try to stop slavery until two years into the war.
I say it's important to note the difference because if you think the war was about slavery, then it becomes all too easy to just pass it off as a good vs. evil struggle where the righteous Union marched into the evil Confederacy and forced them to stop their slavin' ways, end of story. But if that's what you think, you completely miss the real history of what happened. You miss how we went as a country from a collection of states, to a an entity driven by a central power. You miss the precedent and curcumstance by which the federal government came into ascendance and you're more likely to believe that it's simply always been that way and that's how the Founding Fathers intended it. But that's not the case. This is not the government they had in mind, at least not entirely. One of the major sources of checks and balances is gone. The states no longer have the ability to oppose the federal government and so the federal government has turned into something monstrous in size and no longer entirely clear in its purpose and intent. And this all goes back to Lincoln and the Civil War. But if you want to continue thinking it was about slavery and nothing more, then all this is lost on you.
Allison Wonderland,
No I am not touching on every little nuance if you'd like we can get into such exciting things as the Missouri compormise. geez.
I would agree with you that the states rights have been sadly diminished, you'l get no argument from me there.
Of course there were other nuances that led to the war. Slavery was the main component in that factor.
O.K let me ask you this. If slavery had been completely taken off the table and the southern states were guaranteed to have slavery kept as it was do you think they still would have attacked Ft.Sumter ?
Do you think that they would have not seceeded if they were promised that slavery was not going to be touched ?
Slavery was the root of the argument. The south's economy would have been devastated by abolishing slavery. they didn't want to see it happen. Were they right ? They decided it was important enough to seceed from the union to preserve what they saw as a right.
But it is the root of that dispute.
does that mean you take up arms against your country and seceede from the Union ?
so was the south the good guy ? Where do people get such moral relatavism from ? The union fought to preserve the union. The reason that the union was dissolved by the confederacy was to keep their rights to slave owners. The Union could have easily said O.K look it's not that important to us. We'd rather keep slavery as is and not have you seceed. Apperantly it was important enough to some because they said, look we are not going to back off of this, we are not going to stop in our efforts to abolish slavery. They did that knowing full well what the outcome was. So it was good vs. evil. It was enough people saying you know what this IS important and slavery is wrong and if you seceed over it we will do what we need to do to preserve that union. Many lives were lost to do so. Those lives could have been saved if some didn't see slavery as such a good thing. Were they the good guy ? Look at every letter of grievance that accompanies the declaration of secession. They ALL mention slavery many times over and the right to keep it. They were the ones who left due to their belief that they should keep slaves or have the right to. Were they right ? If you feel they were or were justified by some divine creedo written in a law then all is lost on you.
O.K let me ask you this. If slavery had been completely taken off the table and the southern states were guaranteed to have slavery kept as it was do you think they still would have attacked Ft.Sumter ?
They didn't attack Fort Sumter with the idea in mind of starting a war. They had no reason to start a war and indeed it was in their best interest to try and secede from the Union without one as they never were likely to win such a war. But they did believe the presence of Union troops there in the harbor represented a threat to Confederate national security, so they tried to force them out. In retrospect, it would seem using force to do so was a poor political decision as it gave Lincoln an excuse to use military force to achieve his own objectives. So while the answer to the question is no, I think the question is sort of misleading as it implies they attacked Ft. Sumter in order to defend slavery. Whereas if they had seceded for any other reason, they still would have attacked the fort.
Do you think that they would have not seceeded if they were promised that slavery was not going to be touched ?
I think they would not have seceded had they not felt that the growing, disproportionate power of the North was inevitably going to be brought to bear against them. And indeed, slavery was the main point of contention. I'm not disputing that. But to say that the reason for the dispute is what brought them to the point of war just isn't accurate and something gets lost. The North wasn't willing to go to war over slavery. If they were, they could have done that earlier under different circumstances. Actually, let me propose an alternate history...
Let's say the South decided not to secede but instead just keep fighting the issue politically. Eventually the North may have gotten together enough power to outlaw slavery against the minority voice of the South. Let's say at that point the Southerners refuse to give up their slaves. So in response the North sends troops in to enforce the new law, the Southerners resist, and it turns into a war. *That* war would have been about ending slavery.
But in the real history, the North didn't go to war to end slavery. They hadn't even ended it in their own territory. The South may have been fighting to defend their lifestyle, of which slavery was a part, but the North was fighting to save the Union.
Slavery was the root of the argument. The south's economy would have been devastated by abolishing slavery. they didn't want to see it happen. Were they right ?
Yes, they were right that it would have wreaked havoc on their lifestyle. Was the institution of slavery right? I don't think it was, but they apparently did, and so again we come back to that question of when it is ok to force your morals on someone else?
does that mean you take up arms against your country and seceede from the Union ?
What if I just decided that I wanted to move to another country because I didn't like this new policy? And then what if the government tried to prevent me? Would you say my dispute with the government was about child pornography? That may have been what was at the root of the dispute, but the fight itself is about personal freedom.
so was the south the good guy ?
It would help if you got past the idea that there had to be a good guy and a bad guy. In my opinion there's nothing good about slavery. But that doesn't mean the South didn't perhaps have some valid legal points on other issues. I think the North overstepped their legal bounds during the course of the Civil War. That doesn't mean they're the "bad guy". In many ways, I think the way it turned out just may have been the best result possible in that situation. And even if we forgive Lincoln for bypassing the Constitution on several occasions because the end justified the means, I don't think that means we should forget that it happened and pretend instead that the way it was afterwards was simply how it had always been.
The union fought to preserve the union. The reason that the union was dissolved by the confederacy was to keep their rights to slave owners.
Now you're getting it. They were fighting for different things. So you can't say the war was just about ending slavery. It would actually make more sense to say the war was about defending slavery if you look at it from the South's point of view, but neither side was fighting the war for the purpose of ending slavery.
It's amazing how some conservatives who berate the academic world in anti-intellecutual screeds time and again will quote people like Walter Williams.
The man spends nearly all professional career in a cloistered academia. Now Williams and his friends from the academic world can rip Abe Lincoln in their theoretical circle-jerks.
You want parse the words in oaths the Confederate traitors in Congress took? Go ahead.
But I don't want to hear you whine about Bill Clinton again , because you CAN'T and still stay consistent.
Hoist your Confederate traitor idols on a pedistal if you want. But save an empty one for John Walker Lindh.
"Isn't there a difference between perjury and politics? "
I'm talking about treason and your tratorous Confederate idols.
I bet the secessionists knew they were traitors. Lee, Davis et. al. knew that what they were doing could put them in front of a firing squad. Lincoln woudn't give them the satisfaction of dying a martyrs death like al Qaeda.
I wonder if, in their private moments, they reveled in it. Every Johnny Reb, dressed in butternut, relished the role of romantic scoundrel. Who doesn't love Rhett Butler?
But, Rhett thought the Confederates were idiots.
What do you have, he asked them. Nothing, he said, but slavery and arrogance.
Through the horrid years of the war: terrible gunshot wounds, disease, infection, starvation.
There's your war, Alison. There's you war, jethro. Looks great in the movies.
But it was a bloody misadventure.
Always has to be a struggle of good versus evil, doesn't it Rick?
But, Rhett thought the Confederates were idiots.
In some ways they were. At the very least they were hotheads and indeed arrogant. And it seemed to end up getting them into more than they could handle.
There's your war, Alison. There's you war, jethro. Looks great in the movies.
What makes you think anyone here was in favor of the war? Are you even really following along with this discussion? All you do is sit there making pointless comments trying to make anyone who even *seems* to have an unusual or contradictory opinion look like they support the most horrible things known to humanity by making nonsensical comparisons and accusations.
I don't usually like to attack people, but personally I consider those who would use emotional manipulatiuon to make their argument rather than reasoned debate to be some of the most dangerous people around. People who promote ignorance over tolerance and understanding are the true enemies of freedom. If you don't have anything useful to contribute that will help expand people's understanding of the issues, if you're just going to misrepresent what people say and use inappropriate comparisons to bog them down with emotional stigmas, then you're doing nothing to help anyone. Quite the opposite in fact, you're doing your best to stifle learning and communication.
Allison, what do you think of the Rebel Banner that so many southern states still hoist up their flagpoles, to fly in the breeze right under "Old Glory"?
Offhand I would guess about 50% of it is just about local pride. Not terribly different from people who display banners of their favorite sports teams and try to make themselves seem like something more than they are by attaching themselves to part of something bigger. The South did have it's own culture and it differed from that of the North by more ways than just slavery, and I imagine some people feel some sort of sense of pride in that.
The other 50% is either ignorance of what the dispute was about (not the war specifically, but the dispute in general), or maybe they really are racists and would even today like to see slavery reinstituted. The rest of your post seems to suggest that may actually be a possibility.
But let me make this point again. Neither I nor jethro nor anyone else is defending slavery. We're not even trying to defend the South's use of it. What we're saying is put aside the emotion and the rhetoric of it all for a moment and let's look at what actually happened, keeping in mind what the prevailing attitudes were at the time instead of distorting it through the prism of the values we hold today. If you want to understand why the war happened, you have to understand how the people of that day thought, not impose what your reasons for fighting would have been onto people of the past.
Back then *some* people opposed slavery. (Those damn liberals you know! Always wanting to change things) But actually most people didn't really have an opinion one way or the other. Back then slavery was a part of people's realities and it had been all their lives, and wasn't as unthinkable as it is today. One might compare it to huge corporate executive salaries. Today some people are against them, but most people just accept them as part of life. Yet it's possible 150 years from now society could change and look back and think it was nothing short of madness that some people got paid 500 times more money than others and mistakingly assume that everyone in this era was outraged about it too.
So going back to the very beginning, my original point was the South didn't really need for a war to happen. They did forcibly take Ft. Sumter, but that was because they believed they had a right to it, and it wasn't because they were trying to start a war. It was the North who escalated it to the level of a war and went on the offensive. But their reason for doing so wasn't to stop slavery, it was to conquer the South and force them back into the Union. Something, if you look at it, they probably didn't really have the authority to do, but they did anyway, and as a consequence, it greatly changed the American political structure from then on, from one that was a collection of states connected by a central power, to one where the country was driven by the central authority of the federal government.
You don't need to agree with slavery or condone racism to see that's what happened.
Again that isn't the issue. see above.
Our people, still attached to the Union from habit and national traditions, and averse to change, hoped that time, reason, and argument would bring, if not redress, at least exemption from further insults, injuries, and dangers. Recent events have fully dissipated all such hopes and demonstrated the necessity of separation. Our Northern confederates, after a full and calm hearing of all the facts, after a fair warning of our purpose not to submit to the rule of the authors of all these wrongs and injuries, have by a large majority committed the Government of the United States into their hands. The people of Georgia, after an equally full and fair and deliberate hearing of the case, have declared with equal firmness that they shall not rule over them. A brief history of the rise, progress, and policy of anti-slavery and the political organization into whose hands the administration of the Federal Government has been committed will fully justify the pronounced verdict of the people of Georgia.
Sounds like the didn't want to associate with northereners and they wanted to control their own destiny. A more fundamental issue than slavery.
I say it's important to note the difference because if you think the war was about slavery, then it becomes all too easy to just pass it off as a good vs. evil struggle where the righteous Union marched into the evil Confederacy and forced them to stop their slavin' ways, end of story. But if that's what you think, you completely miss the real history of what happened. You miss how we went as a country from a collection of states, to a an entity driven by a central power. You miss the precedent and curcumstance by which the federal government came into ascendance and you're more likely to believe that it's simply always been that way and that's how the Founding Fathers intended it. But that's not the case. This is not the government they had in mind, at least not entirely. One of the major sources of checks and balances is gone. The states no longer have the ability to oppose the federal government and so the federal government has turned into something monstrous in size and no longer entirely clear in its purpose and intent. And this all goes back to Lincoln and the Civil War. But if you want to continue thinking it was about slavery and nothing more, then all this is lost on you.
EXACTLY. One more point that Rob misses is that if the south had not seceded slavery would have continued for an indefinite period of time. So if the south wanted only to preserve slavery they would not havce seceded at all.
The Union could have easily said O.K look it's not that important to us. We'd rather keep slavery as is and not have you seceed. That WAS Lincoln's position.
They were the ones who left due to their belief that they should keep slaves or have the right to. And if they had not seceded they would have KEPT their slaves.
Let's say the South decided not to secede but instead just keep fighting the issue politically. Eventually the North may have gotten together enough power to outlaw slavery against the minority voice of the South. May is the key word. Also it is possible with the increasing use of machinery slavery may have vbecome to expensive and eventually died on its own.
But in the real history, the North didn't go to war to end slavery. They hadn't even ended it in their own territory. The South may have been fighting to defend their lifestyle, of which slavery was a part, but the North was fighting to save the Union. if the war was about slavery the north would have ended it in Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland and Delaware. They wouldn't even try.
You continue to try to incite me Jethro, and I search for and admire the truth, just FYI.
fold you don't care one whit about the truth.
and west virginia, jethro. don't forget west virginia.
The victors can do what they want. See how they rewrote history?
O.K let me ask you this. If slavery had been completely taken off the table and the southern states were guaranteed to have slavery kept as it was do you think they still would have attacked Ft.Sumter ?
Do you think that they would have not seceeded if they were promised that slavery was not going to be touched ?
Slavery was protected. It could not have been ended had the south stayed in the union.
Whether they seceeded or not, they were not going to end it without a calamitous civil disturbance, call it War or whatever, but the fact is... They LOVED Slavery and wanted to KEEP it. Times change and so do people.
Which is/was the whole point of the War, was it not?
First I don't appreciate you implying that I am a racist. That is uncalled for and typical of you, fold. You aren't willing to believe the truth as I said beore. You are, despicable. As for the above comment I am not sure what you mean. If the south had stayed in the union slavery would have continued for a long period of time. So if slavery was the issue the south would have been better off not seceeding.
West Virginia: another example of ignoring the Constitution.
"It was Lincoln's war. "
It was Lincoln's triumph -- over treason and sedition.
Lincoln did win that is fact. But the southern states were neither treasonous or seditious. The had the legal right to seced. It is an example of the vitors writing the history. And an example of you believing it without question.
Yes you did.
west virginia certainly was not, jethro. once virginia seceded, it was no longer subject to the piece of the constitution restricting splitting states. i said it earlier in this thread, that by admitting west virginia as a state, congress acknowledged, and legalised the secession of virginia.
When Virgina left all of Virginia left.
Allison wrote: But let me make this point again. Neither I nor jethro nor anyone else is defending slavery. We're not even trying to defend the South's use of it.
fold's response: Allison... I understand your points and what you are trying to say and some of your points are validones. But seriously...
In this case, you should speak for yourself...
yes it did. and then 17 (i think) counties left virginia.
A couple of weeks ago, I reviewed Loyola University (Maryland) professor of economics Thomas DiLorenzo's "The Real Lincoln," a book that presented abundant evidence that most of the Founders took the right of state secession for granted. Despite that evidence, some readers concluded differently.
Your misdeed was implying that I am a racist.
Allison wrote: But let me make this point again. Neither I nor jethro nor anyone else is defending slavery. We're not even trying to defend the South's use of it.
fold's response: Allison... I understand your points and what you are trying to say and some of your points are validones. But seriously...
In this case, you should speak for yourself...
yes it did. and then 17 (i think) counties left virginia.
Did they have the authority to leave Virginia? I don't know maybe they did. But whether Virgina was a state of the union or the confederacy it was still a state. Another question is did the west Virgina states have the requisite population or other requirements to be an independent state of the Union? I don't know.
Alison Wonderland,
First of all any time you attack another fort, territory, state, etc. It is an act of war and they knew that they were in the military. You say they had no reason to start a war. They had many in their minds and they knew it going in. A good read is Robert E Lee or Jefferson Davis memoirs. You might be shocked to know that not only did they plan on what they were doing, they knew full well that they were breaking their oath as MILITARY personal.
As far as you assumption that as you say they had:
 >"They had no reason to start a war and indeed it was in their best interest to try and secede from the Union without one as they never were likely to win such a war"
Well, they DID start the war, wether you want to admit that, they did. Furthermore, the south and it's leaders were very arrogant and fully believed they could win the war with the north They thought they would win in less than a year and have thier own little southern slave owning utopia. They saw the union as weak and uncomitted to its cause. They were wrong. They did come very close however to actually winning. They ran out of materials and men through horrid sickening attrition.
The main reason that the South seceeded was to keep the rights to own slaves. The North fought to keep that Union together. But slavery was the root of that. The war probably wouldn't have been fought if slavery was left as is or intact. I think we all agree on that. O.K Fine.
If the North hadn't cared about ending slavery at all or was indefferent to it they would have CERTAINLY dropped the slavey issue for then and worked on it or chipped away at it. They didn't instead of telling the south that "well o.k guys look, we don't like slavery but we don't feel it's worth people dying over and or our union being ripped apart so forget it. We don't want you to seceed so we'll drop it, own all the slaves you'd like and do as you wish by state."
Instead they didn't drop it. Fortunatley for the slaves they didn't drop it to appease the south. the South chose to seceed instead of going along with it. The North chose to press it. The south thought keeping PEOPLE as slaves and subumans was important enough to seceed from the union over. So were they righteous ?
So one pushed and eventually went to war with those who wanted to keep it as a right. Was the average union soilder or the people of the north having rallies everyday for equal rights ? no. of course not. They weren't exactly ready to make them first class citizens but at the very least THEY found it abhorant enough to tell the south, hey you guys are wrong, put an end to it. The south said hey we need negros and their whole families to work the cotton and you've got no rights to interfere in us buying and selling people and doing what we want with them so back off or we are seceeding. The North pressed on when they could have let it go, so obviously they DID care somewhat or saw it as wrong. The south had no problem with it, they viewed them as farm implements.
So if you don't see who is more righteous or "good" Then the truth would be a tough thing to see if you don't see one side being more in the right.
There are no absloutes in war. In this conflict today against terrorism to the Civil war and in between, there was not nor will there ever be a side that is 100% righteous. It doesn't mean that one side is not more righteous or that they are equal. Sometimes it is good vs. evil or wrong vs. right it doesnt mean that those who are on the side of right are 100% righteous. If you feel that the south was righteous then we have nothing to debate further.
Someone wondered what would happen had the South actually been successful. Yes slavery would have proabably ended EVENTUALLY but for how long would it have gone on ? Hell they didn't end Jim Crow laws in the south until the 60's, almost 100 years later. As Fold pointed out, there is still a small backward contingent who probably would still be in favor of slaves. It's hard for anyone to say how long it could or would have continued. What ever the length of time it would have continued a horrid practice for years. It's easy for us to say we should have left the south alone since it would have died out anyways. it's easy to say of course if you weren't a slave. Was one more year, ten more years, twenty more years, 50 more years acceptable ? Sure if you werent a slave and owned a plantaition. It should have ended sooner and whatever revisionists spin is put on it it took a war for one of those two principles to win.
No Lincoln started the war. He was told not to reinforce or supply Fort Sumter. He was told to get out.