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Not bad, not bad at all, but it needs just a bit more.
How about something like, " the need of those in the North to keep the South from exercising its theoretical/percieved/hoped for/Great Pumpkin right to leave the Union."
Good to talk with you again, by-the-way.
Unionblue
__________________ "The American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery." Frederick Douglass
"Loyalty to our ancestors does not include loyalty to their mistakes." George Santayana
you have presented a most scholarly defense of the south's right to leave the union. From my perspective, it is wrong. However, it is a valid view and worthy of consideration.
Do we need to continue flagellating that particularly deceased horse? This is the point at which we say you've made your point, we've made ours, and there's no reason to keep beating it.
This might be the very reason a popular forum called Civil War West forbids discussion of the reasons for the WBTS -- 140 years of discussion have not provided a definitive answer. What we discuss today will, as well, be as fruitless. Secession was legal or it wasn't. Until the US Supreme Court decides the issue, it will remain questionable. And, whatever it decides, some of us will disagree with the decision.
Are you suggesting that the more controversial elements of the subject should be censored? A Civil War forum which forbids discussion of the causes of the war is like a bowl of chilli without any spices: a completely pointless exercise.
It's certainly true that nobody is going to change their mind because of anything which is written here. But I, for one, do not engage in these debates because I expect to persuade anyone to my point of view; my prime motivation is to try to get some understanding of the opposite perspective. No, really! It fascinates me that intelligent and decent people can support a cause which I find repulsive, and it makes me want to get inside their heads and try to work out how they can think something right when it seems to me to be so obviously wrong. And that point of view, when you come to think about it, necessarily involves a degree of respect for one's "opponents". If I didn't care about why someone like Unionblue believes what he does I wouldn't make the effort to participate here.
If you think such discussions constitute the flogging of a dead horse the simplest solution would be for you to switch your attention to other boards.
But in my own view, those who called upon God to preserve a particular way of life and risked war to keep others in perpetual bondage at the expense of wrecking a nation that called upon a higher good, both moral and political, seems to me a higher goal.
Neil:
I would have to disagree with your reasoning that the South called upon God to "preserve a particular way of life." I'm inclined to believe that the Confederacy's prayers to God were offered as a request for protection from an invading army.
At "the expense of wrecking a nation" is an interesting statement. Are you actually suggesting that the South's desire to create their own nation would have caused the rest of America to collapse? This seems like a strange notion since God had apparently been directing citizens for decades to 'expand west' because of population growth in the east. Or are you suggesting that God told the South in particular to expand to Cuba, South America and Mexico for the sole reason of supporting slavery; and the North to 'go West' in order to fulfill the more noble mission of 'benevolent distention?'
Like Bill, I too would appreciate your interpretation of the phrase, "a highergood." Claiming that one group of people are on a more elevated moral and political level than another, is only a stone's throw away from how the United States felt about blacks and Native Americans...isn't it?
Dawna
"The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible." ~Oscar Wilde~
Please keep your eyes open for those smiley face things. They mean JOKE.
I agree with Bill on the topic of censorship. If you don't want to watch, read, listen, etc., turn it off and move on.
IIRC, you're the author of several 'it happened, so let it go' posts regarding current threads. We all have different ideas on whether, and when, a topic is dead.
Thanks for your welcome, Tommy. As you probably know by now Dawna and I are great friends and it was Dawna who inspired me to have a look into the Civil War! I will check out the Meet and Greet section soon.
Thanks for your welcome, Tommy. As you probably know by now Dawna and I are great friends and it was Dawna who inspired me to have a look into the Civil War! I will check out the Meet and Greet section soon.
Jayne,
You are very welcome and Nope, I didn't have a clue. But I do now. I hope you enjoy your peek into the War between the States.
I've looked at this thread for nearly an hour and I admit I got floored by the ammuont of information provided.
Some observations:
Manifest Destiny was not strictly a Northern attitude. I own a reproduction 1863 map of the Confederacy which depicts parts of what is now New Mexico and Arizona as CSA territory. Richmond probably had expansion plans in the event the CSA was victorious.
As for the conflicts with the Indians, it was a conflict betewwn an expanding USA and the various Indian nations that felt that they were losing their hunting lands and their way of life. They did not resort to warfare, they were warriors already.
Expansion of Slavery: the South feared the loss of political power and wanted to add Slave states to maintain their power in Congress.
This is the thing about looking at a 19th century attitude with 21st Century vision. What we call repugnant today was perfectly acceptable 150 years ago.
This is how a nation grows and matures.
__________________ F. S. Powers
Union Ancersor: Pvt Arnuah Norton, 60th Ohio. (G-G-G Grandfather) Died at Salisbury NC, November 3, 1864
Confederate Ancestors: Captain Thomas A. Morrow, 29th Texas Cavalry (G-G-G- Uncle) and 2LT George W. Morrow, 31st Texas Cavalry (G-G-G Grandfather). Both survived the war
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