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What did British officers think of the American civil war as it was happening?

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Re: What did British officers think of the American civil war as it was happening?

#191

Post by tptacek »

piethesailorman wrote: post #190
tptacek wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nehemiah Adams? Really? Gross.

Quoted post unavailable.

"Seriously", "you're citing a 19th century weirdo against over a century of historical research on the treatment of slaves, virtually all of which repudiates that weirdo", comma, "gross".

Further, "I'm not a proponent of slavery" is a sequence of words that loses a lot of its power when it follows a direct assertion that people may have been better off under slavery, as not only Nehemiah Adams believed, but you, from your own comment, also seem to as well?

"Black slave families were closer and more stable(parental seperation rates) than they are now". Gross! The principle of charity is a thing, but there are limits to charity.

Re: What did British officers think of the American civil war as it was happening?

#192

Post by Talanes »

scheme271 wrote: post #106
edgyquant wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because Vietnam showed that conscripting armies of that size was not an efficient way to fight a modern war. You want people, volunteers, who want to be in the army. Also technology. We’re close to that point in, like in Roman history, where the income of entire villages was only enough to field one Calvary soldier (knight.) Not that we’re going towards feudalism but history has a cycle of armies going from a small f…

During the early republic, only the richest could equipment themselves but my understanding is that the Marian reforms changed this by professionalizing the army and having the general of a legion supply the soldiers with their weapons. Also, the thing about a village supporting one cavalry soldier seems off. The roman army focused on infantry with cavalry being supplied by allied forces.

>Also, the thing about a village supporting one cavalry soldier seems off. The roman army focused on infantry with cavalry being supplied by allied forces.

Also possible that they're thinking of the Roman Kingdom and the Equites?

Re: What did British officers think of the American civil war as it was happening?

#193

Post by billjings »

lettergram wrote: post #175
billjings wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It took me about five minutes to find South Carolina's declaration of secession. And the first thing that document mentions is slavery: "In the present case, that fact is established with certainty. We assert that fourteen of the States have deliberately refused, for years past, to fulfill their constitutional obligations, and we refer to their own Statutes for the proof. The Constitution of the United States, in its…

While it discusses slavery, the first thing mentioned is constitutional obligations. The reality, is the south didn’t feel it was being represented. It felt it would be better on its own (regardless of the slave issue, there’s a whole mess there). The north, decided it wasn’t going to let the south go its own way. That’s why the south calls it “the war of northern aggression”. (I say this from their perspective) Firs…

Lettergram, the "constitutional obligations" the first paragraph takes issue with are stipulated in the second paragraph: The obligation to return escaped slaves to their owners.

You ought to be ashamed of yourself for your conduct in this discussion. And god help you if you walk away from here making the same claims as you have in this thread: they will lead you down into the dark.

Re: What did British officers think of the American civil war as it was happening?

#194

Post by gragundier »

piethesailorman wrote: post #174
majormajor wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"aggressive racism wasn't really seen in the south before the Civil War" is absurd and only supportable if you don't consider the treatment of the slaves . There was a ton of brutality, and you're sitting here saying there wasn't any aggression. 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…

Quoted post unavailable.

The 1800s were brutal everywhere, but slavery is an inherently corrupt system. I can certainly imagine merciful white masters who genuinely cared for their slaves, but slavery is such a cut and dry obvious violation of human rights that it's not worth considering. A single person being considered, even in the most benign technical sense, property is an atrocity. We can and perhaps should commemorate those who worked very hard to salvage justice in an inherently just system, but we're still trying to wash the stains of racial injustice within our society today. Any time spent uplifting these persons must unfortunately be set aside to provide equity to those long ignored.

All of that being said, I can't say for certain that you're being intellectually honest, you're conflating quite a few things with crucial nuance. As an example, you claim black slave families were closer and more stable, because they were penned in and forced to breed together to provide additional laborers who would replace them. Have you ever considered that divorced families are better off than unhappy marriages? Have you considered that perhaps marriages aren't entirely necessary, and modern black culture isn't well suited to traditional marriage norms codified by white JudeoChristian people? If you're heart is in the right place, I'd imagine you could tell us a story of a true ally to black slaves in the south. One whom was raised in a toxic racist environment, but learned to work within a inherently broken system to provide some sense of equity.

Re: What did British officers think of the American civil war as it was happening?

#195

Post by philwelch »

qiskit wrote: post #119
skibble wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You may be shocked to hear this, but Lincoln was a politician and was occasionally slightly disingenuous in order to achieve his political agenda. There wasn't public support for a war to end slavery. There was public support for a war to preserve the union.

Here's another quote from Lincoln:

"'A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved - I do not expect the house to fall - but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other."

He could claim as much as he wanted, once the war started, that his goal was to restore the Union even at the expense of continuing to tolerate slavery, but there was no way the Confederates could possibly take him at his word when he said so.

Re: What did British officers think of the American civil war as it was happening?

#196

Post by brendoelfrendo »

lettergram wrote: post #175
billjings wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It took me about five minutes to find South Carolina's declaration of secession. And the first thing that document mentions is slavery: "In the present case, that fact is established with certainty. We assert that fourteen of the States have deliberately refused, for years past, to fulfill their constitutional obligations, and we refer to their own Statutes for the proof. The Constitution of the United States, in its…

While it discusses slavery, the first thing mentioned is constitutional obligations. The reality, is the south didn’t feel it was being represented. It felt it would be better on its own (regardless of the slave issue, there’s a whole mess there). The north, decided it wasn’t going to let the south go its own way. That’s why the south calls it “the war of northern aggression”. (I say this from their perspective) Firs…

Consider instead, then, Mississippi. Here is the second paragraph of their declaration of secession:

"Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin."

In other words: they hold that slavery is the foundation of their economy and commerce; that black slaves in particular are the best suited for labor, by virtue of some racist justifications; and that the institution of slavery is under imminent threat of abolition and therefore they need to secede in order to maintain the slavery status quo.

Re: What did British officers think of the American civil war as it was happening?

#197

Post by piethesailorman »

tptacek wrote: post #191
piethesailorman wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

"Seriously", "you're citing a 19th century weirdo against over a century of historical research on the treatment of slaves, virtually all of which repudiates that weirdo", comma, "gross". Further, "I'm not a proponent of slavery" is a sequence of words that loses a lot of its power when it follows a direct assertion that people may have been better off under slavery, as not only Nehemiah Adams believed, but you, from…

So your big criticisim of Nehemiah is that he is 1. He is a weirdo? 2. I can list more names who think as I do than I can count to the contrary?

Re: What did British officers think of the American civil war as it was happening?

#198

Post by tptacek »

piethesailorman wrote: post #197
tptacek wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Seriously", "you're citing a 19th century weirdo against over a century of historical research on the treatment of slaves, virtually all of which repudiates that weirdo", comma, "gross". Further, "I'm not a proponent of slavery" is a sequence of words that loses a lot of its power when it follows a direct assertion that people may have been better off under slavery, as not only Nehemiah Adams believed, but you, from…

So your big criticisim of Nehemiah is that he is 1. He is a weirdo? 2. I can list more names who think as I do than I can count to the contrary?

No, I think my criticism has more to do with the fact that Adams felt like the antebellum south was much to be admired for keeping its negroes off the street at night, much as advocates for the south apparently (here's those pesky historians again) were happy to point out the low rates of rape and sexual assault against white women in the south --- who, after all, would risk imprisonment assaulting a white woman, when there were so many Black slaves that could be raped without consequence. Family stability. Alabama forbade the sale of enslaved children without their mother --- until they reached 5 years of age.

Nehemiah Adams? Really? Gross.

Re: What did British officers think of the American civil war as it was happening?

#199

Post by philwelch »

berdario wrote: post #83
edgyquant wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America and Russia had a great relationship until the end of WWI. The Bolshevik’s set this in stone towards the end of the civil war when the entente (specifically Britain) opened dialogue towards a trade deal. Lenin used them as the great other, despite knowing they wanted normalized relations, and then the USSR taking Eastern Europe sealed the deal. Self determination was US policy at that time (and kind of ever si…

> The Bolshevik’s set this in stone towards the end of the civil war... I'm not sure about the events that you're referring to. The Treaty of Riga was in 1921, the Anglo-Soviet Trade Agreement was signed in 1921 as well, the USSR was only declared in 1922, and the UK recognized it in 1924, the same year in which Lenin died. In fact, related to the Trade Agreement he complained: > The British government has handed us…

> In 1939, Stalin offered to Britain and France to deploy a million troops against Nazi Germany, but he had been rebuffed

At which point he instead allied with Nazi Germany, aided in the invasion of Poland, personally ordered the mass execution of Polish POW's, and invaded Finland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.

> Despite all this, the USSR asked to join NATO in 1954, but again: it had been rebuffed

By 1954, the USSR had already set up undemocratic communist puppet states in Eastern Europe, been caught engaging in espionage against the United States, attempted to blockade West Berlin in order to pressure the Western Allies into abandoning it to Soviet control, and committed genocide and war crimes on possibly the greatest scale seen in history.

Re: What did British officers think of the American civil war as it was happening?

#200

Post by ironcurtain »

Why do you call it a civil war? In a civil war two parties fight for dominance over the country - England’s and Russian’s civil wars, more than two hundred years apart, are great example. In that war, South did not want to dominate North but secede. It seems calling the conflict “a Civil war” just follows Northern narrative.
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