Civil War History - Secession and PoliticsWas it Slavery, or was it States Rights? Perhaps it was the election of Lincoln? What were the real reasons for Southern Secession and what were the political issues in this time of war? Find your answers here in the Secession and Politics Disussion.
Others have also answered your debates on this issue of Northern labor and such. Connie Boone comes to mind and I was very satisfied with her information on this area. I am just as sure you can find her former postings and threads on the subject. You have your opinion and you have presented it. I pretty much concur with past replies given to it.
It does not excuse, in my own opinion, the primary reason on why the South left the Union and caused rebellion, war and destruction to the entire nation. This debating tactic merely delays and always veers off the subject of the cause of secession and the real problems with the Confederate constitution.
This ability to excuse the South over slavery because for some reason there are areas of the Confederate constitution that could be considered an improvement over the US one, is truly somewhat amazing to me. That for some reason 5 good sections could top one extremely bad section. One could make the same argument in a sense for the situation in Germany when Hitler came to power. After all, the country when commanded by that man and his party, got the trains running on time, created job employment, built new super highways, had excellent health care, created advancement opportunities for it's citizens in newly acquired territory, etc., and so on.
All one had to do is what you deplore so much today. Ignore certain facts or make no inquires into how things are being done, keep your head down and ask no questions.
I get that there was racism in the ENTIRE country, Tommy, I get the idea that there was enough national sin to go around, that the North was not a bastion of purity nor above treating negroes as less than second-class citizens, in fact far worse, not as citizens at all. In a place where there were signs that said, 'No Dogs or Irish Allowed' or if you had a German accent there was a good chance of getting beaten up at the polls, no, the North has no claim of moral superiority.
But WHY did the South leave the Union? What did it want above all else? What was the major issue dividing the country before the war? What subject would not and could not be resolved to the point the South felt it HAD to leave the Union? We can dart, dodge, ignore or bring up anything else, but the words, the documents, the main issues keep returning to the same point, the same subject, the same cause. Right or wrong, I see that cause as an established, documented, historical fact. And wishing it ain't so don't make it so.
Again, my own opinion.
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
Neil,
I wasn't trying to divert the point of the thread. Honest. I was just countering your "too bad no Stowe to help etc" statement. She had her chance, in the South to help but instead profited from it. That is all my point was. As to Connie. To be perfectly frank. I disliked her intensely. So I ignored her. Failing that, she was the reason I left the board for so long. I do not think she even came close to countering my labor contentions because I never finished it. Because to do so would have diverted the point of that thread as I recall. No offense but she was way over her head with labor. That is one thing I have studied intensely. For 25 years in fact. I know more about it that the CW in fact. I do find it interesting that only slavery gets discussed. Comparisons in labor are blithely dismissed. Northern labor Never gets discussed or investigated. That has put me off several threads. The obsession on slavery blinds. As obsessions tend to do.
“But WHY did the South leave the Union? What did it want above all else? “
They wanted out of the Union. Simple as that. There is the why and the want. They wanted out from under a compact they felt was being broken. Regardless of anything. Slavery was just the popular occasion. You want a single bullet. There wasn't one. Except inequality in state's rights, which had many facets. If not slavery, then in 10 years when the South was closed off and delegated to a third world country (just as the US did with the South til they needed them for WW2, then started with improved transport to use other 3rd world countries.) used for cheap labor to supply Northern textile industries while the railroads, lands, gold, all those vast resources of every sort were to be used Exclusively for northerners.....They’d have left then. Or over another issue. Or the build up of issues. States rights was too important. The IDEA. Fact was there was gross inequality in the states rights. And it was progressively getting worse. And that is my opinion but also a rock hard fact. Not a wish.
The South was doing quite well for itself by the time of WW1, thats a wee bit prior to WW2, I point out Texas as an example. In fact parts of the South were doing better than their so called opressors in the North. Savannah, Charleston, Atlanta, Vicksburg were all thriving centers of commerce... Madison, Des Moines... weren't.
As to the rioting... it isn't too hard, if you bother to look, to see who pushed those riots. Kind of makes you proud of the men you support to know they sponsored attacking soldiers (armed and unarmed) in the streets w/ rocks, pistols and hatred. Actually the Peace knick Democrats of the 1960's weren't doing anything their ancestors 100 years prior hadn't done. But , oh my, how dare those soldiers fight back... poor innocent civilians. Loot, loot, loot just as fast as you can... till the police or army shows up! I've never understood why everyone seems to take the side of the poor down trodden rioters. Unless of coarse they're black rioters... then it's shoot them down in the streets.
If you look to the casualty rates, again you actualy have to look this up and not just spit hate, In places like Charleston Il the soldiers apparently showed increadible restraint. And in NYC... I wish the order "Street Fight, March!" had been given. There would have been a LOT more dead civilians and most of them wouldn't have been innocent...
But then again, I am a firm believer that the ANG troops should have opened fire and kept up that fire in the 1960's. Maybe we would have less problems today in our political system. No draft dodgers, treasonous so n so's in our highest halls of power.
An interesting 'what if' don't you think? What if the US actually had followed a policy of punishing treason, sedition etc... might be an interesting turn of events. A more bitter policy towards the South after the War, a more liberal use of the rope. Purges on par w/ Hitler or Napoleon. Then perhaps those who have compared Lincoln to Hitler would have a point... and those who have compared the suffereings of the South to the Holocaust would have a basis in fact.
__________________ Shane Christen
American Legion Post 352
SUVCW Camp Abernethy# 48
Lifetime NRA member
3rd MN VI
For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow. Eccl 1:18
Hal, you're right to a degree... the CSA Constitution was an improvement over the US Constitution of 1860... it wasn't after the War for the simple reason that there were several amendments to the US Constitution during and after the War that the CSA would never have allowed. That whole slavery thing just sticks out so vibrantly. When the French see something as a stumbling block to kissing you on both cheeks for sticking it to the US there has got to be a problem.
__________________ Shane Christen
American Legion Post 352
SUVCW Camp Abernethy# 48
Lifetime NRA member
3rd MN VI
For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow. Eccl 1:18
The problem w/ the "gross inequality" of states rights... is just that it is an argument repeatedly used which seems to not hold up to solid research. I think perhaps the reason is the belief that the North only included states like NY, Mass etc. Lets not bother to look at Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota or Iowa. or staes that stayed in the Union such as Kentucky. "Gross inequality" more smoke and mirrors.
Apparently, that was how the South felt, was that because they no longer dominated US politics? Or was it becasue that was what a few in power in the South were telling others to think? A lie told often enough begins to take on the shroud of truth.
Southern politicians started the War for political gain and financial profit.
__________________ Shane Christen
American Legion Post 352
SUVCW Camp Abernethy# 48
Lifetime NRA member
3rd MN VI
For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow. Eccl 1:18
A more bitter policy towards the South after the War, a more liberal use of the rope. Purges on par w/ Hitler or Napoleon. Then perhaps those who have compared Lincoln to Hitler would have a point... and those who have compared the suffereings of the South to the Holocaust would have a basis in fact.
You make a fair point. But I recently noticed a reference to the "Black Holocaust" in an article reproduced on another thread. Presumably you would agree that this phrase is equally absurd?
I have visited two major concentration camps: Dachau & Auschwitz. I do not wish to minimise or scoff at the suffering which negro slaves went through, but nothing they experienced can reasonably be compared to what went on in the factories of liquidation in Europe in the 1940s.
I also cannot help comparing the present-day standard of living and average life expectancy in the various countries of Africa with those enjoyed in the United States. Presumably you would agree with me that the American descendants of slaves are clear beneficiaries from what happened to their ancestors, and that the claims for financial compensation which some of them have made are the acts of charlatans?
Bill
(Message edited by Bill_torrens on September 30, 2004)
Charles, it appears you, like Neil, made the common mistake of counting slaves from the slave States that had decided NOT to secede but rather to remain in the Union - until Lincoln ran them out later on with his sledge hammer and fly response to Sumter.
Please keep in mind that there were only SEVEN seceded slave States at the time of the CSA constitution, while the USA had EIGHT slave States. The USA had a government commited to protecting slavery everywhere it existed, and had as a constitution that protected it in the common territories (see Dred Scott) as well as in the States.
Please take no offense to this, because none is intended, but I think this common error highlights the difficulty most people have in making the mental adjustment to the reality of the time vs. the mental block of south = evil while north = good, CSA = wicked fascict pigs while USA = savior of the world.
Shane: "...the CSA Constitution was an improvement over the US Constitution of 1860... it wasn't after the War for the simple reason that there were several amendments to the US Constitution during and after the War that the CSA would never have allowed. That whole slavery thing just sticks out so vibrantly."
Shane, please keep in mind, that had Sumter been resolved without shots being fired, 8 slave states would have still remained in the USA, with the competing CSA trying to woo them away with a constitution that strengthened the States vs. the central government. Under those circumstances, the amendments made in the USA would have certainly been more like the one that actually passed congress in early 1861 (which Lincoln refers to in his 1st inaugural) - one that guaranteed slavery would be protected, rather than eradicating it.
Had there been no shots fired, slavery was definitely safe and sound in both American confederations, for the immediate future.
Hal
(Message edited by hawglips on September 30, 2004)
Shane: Apparently, that was how the South felt, was that because they no longer dominated US politics? Or was it becasue that was what a few in power in the South were telling others to think? A lie told often enough begins to take on the shroud of truth.
Southern politicians started the War for political gain and financial profit.
Obviously, this last statement is way off the mark. I will not argue against your first question, nor your statement about the nature of lies (which explains why so many people believe the prevailing mythology).
I am convinced that they did secede, at least in part, because they realized the day of northern dominance had arrived to stay, bringing all those repercussions into play. But so far, no proponent of forcing union here has been able to explain how any of the northern States were harmed by the Southern secessions, without pointing to the lost revenue and markets which so many Northern industrialists loudly clamored about. Why they decided to disallow secession is much more ****ing than why anyone seceded.
And I cannot imagine how the Southern politicians were hoping to profit from seceding. Political gain, yes. Financial profit - Stephens was right, they stood to lose more than they gained (except as it pertains to tariffs paid the central government).
As Davis, Stephens and other Southern politicians emphasized, they wanted peace with the North and with the world. I really wish Lincoln would have given peace a chance, instead of seeing the CSA and its improved constitution as a political threat that had to be eliminated in order to preserve the empire.
How long would it have taken for the 8th State to come over to the CSA had peace been allowed? I think the CSA had its work cut out for it, as the USA would have adjusted quickly and would have become more like the CSA to keep States in the union. And that would have been a tremendous victory for democracy.
Neil: This ability to excuse the South over slavery because for some reason there are areas of the Confederate constitution that could be considered an improvement over the US one, is truly somewhat amazing to me.
So, how does one excuse the USA over slavery?
The ability to hold the CSA accountable for protecting slavery, while pretending the USA was innocent of those same crimes, is amazing to me.
It doesn't look to me like the poor slaves of the USA had it any better than their CSA brethren. Their bondage was assured just as much as that of those in the CSA, thanks to the (somehow excusable?) laws and Constitution of the USA.
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