161–170 of 278 posts
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> Should I believe you or lincoln? Both. The rebellion was about slavery for the rebels and preserving the Union for the Union. GP addressed the former, Lincoln spoke for the latter.
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It is interesting that the emancipation proclamation did not free the slaves of the northern and northern occupied states, despite that being there "main concern"
The main concern of the southern states was slavery. The main concern of the north was continuance of the Union as such. That is, the intent behind seccession was to maintain slavery. The intent behind the emancipation proclamation wasn't (solely) to end slavery, but to encourage rebellion by enslaved southerners.
Lincoln, like a good lawyer, modified the definition of a word, union, from (meriam webster 1. the formation of a single political unit[okay sure, but read on] from two or more separate and independent. Most dicts use the word "confederacy" for this definition as well) a voluntary agreement between indepenent parts, to involuntary permanance. Did he use trade embargoes like a peace seeking consolidator would? Regardless of your opinion on slavery's involvement, or how righteous either side was, Lincoln, at best, poorly* navigated the waters of the time and was the clear cause of military escalation bringing the greatest casualty of americans lives by population of its respective era.
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How do you explain the South's century of aggressive open racism after the civil war in your "it was just economic" theory? It was about slavery, racism was DEEPLY involved in US slavery, and racism and racists didn't just go away after the civil war. Sometimes it's as simple as people say it is, over and over and over in their defense of slavery and their post-Civil-War racist laws and propaganda. You don't need to…
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It's not dissimilar to the US wars in the middle east: The North toppled an evil government, freed some people, but didn't finish the job. So assholes ended back up in charge. They couldn't go quite as far, or quite go all ISIS, they had to settle for just the KKK, because it was all one country again, but somehow the losers didn't lose all that much in the long run.
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It should be understood that the british empire was at the peak of economic dependence on the raw material coming from the "new world" at the onset of the civil war; in particular, cotton exports for consumption by british textile mills [1]. > By the late 1850s, cotton grown in the United States accounted for 77 percent of the 800 million pounds of cotton consumed in Britain. It also accounted for 90 percent of the 1…
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It’s accepted that a disagreement over the future economic regime of the Union was core to the American Civil War. Part of that economic future was tariffs, as you highlight. But an even more foundational part was slavery, and it’s role in the economic future of the country. The elites of the North and South vehemently disagreed on the role of slavery in America’s future, and it’s absurd to say this didn’t escalate tensions.
It is not correct to frame slavery as an afterthought. It is not correct to frame the moral issue of slavery as the only reason for the war, because it had enormous economic and political implications beyond its morality.
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> The South didn't revolt over something Lincoln said, they revolted over the failure to secure their desire for expansion of slavery into the territories There was no such desire on the South's part, although the claim that there was was common in abolitionist propaganda of the time. The South already knew that none of the territories being added to the Union at that time were suitable for the kind of economy based…
Interestingly one of the reasons the south began their war over the right to own people was indeed because they were mad they couldn't force other states in the union to treat Black folks as slaves. Read up on the Fugitive Slave Act ( https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/fugitive-... ) Ironic considering the modern lost cause argument of the war being over "states' rights". There was one right they were…
Meaning, I take it, that the couldn't trust northern states to actually obey the Fugitive Slave Act? Even though there was an explicit provision in the Constitution about it?
> Ironic considering the modern lost cause argument of the war being over "states rights"
That's not a "modern" argument. It's the argument the south actually made at the time. And as a matter of law, they were right: both the Constitution and Federal law laid a legal duty on northern states, which northern states refused to obey.
Of course, our "modern" view is that it's perfectly OK to ignore a law if you think it's "wrong"; and this was the argument the north made for ignoring the Fugitive Slave Act: that slavery was wrong, so nobody had any duty to obey a law requiring them to support slavery in any way.
Ironic considering that the same "modern" people who make such arguments also talk about how having a rule of law, where people can't just arbitrarily ignore laws they don't like, is a good thing.
The truth is that both sides at the time of the civil war were wrong. The south was wrong because it was using arguments about rights and the rule of law to deny rights to the slaves. But the north was also wrong because it was undermining the very institution of law, which is wrong even if it's in a good cause, because the institution of law is necessary to have a civil society at all.
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The main concern of the southern states was slavery. The main concern of the north was continuance of the Union as such. That is, the intent behind seccession was to maintain slavery. The intent behind the emancipation proclamation wasn't (solely) to end slavery, but to encourage rebellion by enslaved southerners.
South Carolina did succeede due largely to its fear that the federal government would nationally abolish slavery. President Buchanan, before leaving office, made a gentlemans agreement that he would leave alone a largely abandoned sand bar military base that was run by South Carolinians inside the boundary of said state. In the middle of the night, a federal navy ship, who took all the armamments from a well establis…
Interesting claim, but it doesn't hold up. The battle of Ft. Sumpter started in April 1861. South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas had already seceded. Only Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee waited until after the battle.
> Did he use trade embargoes like a peace seeking consolidator would?
He wasn't looking to be a piece seeking consolidator, he was looking to put down a revolt. You're welcome to make the argument that actually it would have been better realpolitik to appease the southern states. In fact, I'd love to see that argument!
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I’m sorry but this is profoundly and aggressively incorrect. The civil war was not reframed after the fact to be about slavery, quite the opposite in fact. The ‘reframing’ is in fact what you’ve tried to assert, in that it was supposedly a matter of economics rather than slavery (though of course other factors were certainly at play). It’s part of the ‘lost cause’ narrative furthered by the southern states after the…
> The civil war was not reframed after the fact to be about slavery, quite the opposite in fact. Should I believe you or lincoln? '...My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery...' https://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/greele... If the civil war was about freeing slaves, why did lincoln wait so long to end slavery? Why didn't he do it imm…
The slavers wanted to conquer the west with slaves to stay relevant. Slavery was about wealth and control, in losing control of poor white people. The northern industrialists wanted cotton. Abolitionists saw the moral disgrace of slavery as an evil. Lincoln was more moderate and prioritized the nation.
The “states rights” bullshit was always bullshit. But then “get shot to keep rich aristocrats rich” isn’t a compelling battle cry. Conversely, the poor Irish and others participating in draft riots saw abolition as competition from the one strata of society lower then them.
Hence, the noble abstract goals of “preserving the union” and “protection our sacred rights” are front and center.
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How do you explain the South's century of aggressive open racism after the civil war in your "it was just economic" theory? It was about slavery, racism was DEEPLY involved in US slavery, and racism and racists didn't just go away after the civil war. Sometimes it's as simple as people say it is, over and over and over in their defense of slavery and their post-Civil-War racist laws and propaganda. You don't need to…
> How do you explain the South's century of aggressive open racism after the civil war in your "it was just economic" theory? "Is your assertion that racist white northerners fought a war against racist white southerners to free black people?". What about racist white northerners and racist white southerners confused you? > You don't need to try to save their reputations. Let them be remembered as the assholes they w…
It was economic in the sense that slavery was not central to West Virginia's economy, but was central to not-West Virginia's economy. A map makes this pretty apparent[0]. The argument isn't that the was was about racism, but about slavery. Those are often related, but aren't precisely the same.
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Interestingly one of the reasons the south began their war over the right to own people was indeed because they were mad they couldn't force other states in the union to treat Black folks as slaves. Read up on the Fugitive Slave Act ( https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/fugitive-... ) Ironic considering the modern lost cause argument of the war being over "states' rights". There was one right they were…
> they were mad they couldn't force other states in the union to treat Black folks as slaves Meaning, I take it, that the couldn't trust northern states to actually obey the Fugitive Slave Act? Even though there was an explicit provision in the Constitution about it? > Ironic considering the modern lost cause argument of the war being over "states rights" That's not a "modern" argument. It's the argument the south ac…
The right they talk about? The right to own people. Slavery.
> That's not a "modern" argument
The southern states were concerned with slavery at the time the war started, not "states rights" - as pointed out, they were perfectly happy to attempt to force free states to kidnap people. "States' rights" became the battle cry in the next century, read more about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Cause_of_the_Confederacy
Prior to then "states' rights" was not something heavily pushed by the south regarding the Civil War, they didn't think that way generally. As pointed out they were happy to reject the northern states' rights to disallow slavery!
> The truth is that both sides at the time of the civil war were wrong.
> But the north was also wrong because it was undermining the very institution of law
No, only the south was wrong here.
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I think you're picking a fight here that's not there: its relatively uncontroversial that there's been an aggressive campaign since the civil war to minimise slavery as a factor, particularly in the South - you will easily find "war of northern aggression" types because that is what they are taught.
Thanks for explaining. I didn't think Southern schools were still teaching the Lost Cause as history so recently.