Was War Necessary After Secession?

[tamaroa]

Neil,


"The only difference is the Colonies won at their illegal attempt at rebellion, no matter how noble the goals, and the South lost at their illegal attempt at rebellion."

This is what I have been saying all along. This country was founded no more legally than was the Southern Confederacy. All along I have maintained two things, one is that the south had as much right to leave the Union as the Colonies did to leave England. In both cases it was due to economics. In both cases, one can provide for and against reasons for both sides with much angst and discourse. I once flouted my college professor's opinion and twisted a test question around indicating that the colonists right to revolt was unjustified. He gave me a B plus on the test whose original question was to explain why we were justified in throwing off the yoke of British tyranny.

But your last paragraph in your last post says it all. It can be further condensed to three words "Might makes right." We can all argue to til we are all blue in the face but no one's opinion has been changed. However, I can say with certainty, Neil, while you have enriched my knowledge of the opposition, you have not changed my position.

Simply put I still believe the colonists were unjustified in their revolt. I do not believe Benedict Arnold was a traitor, I think Tories got the bum end of the deal. I believe the South had the right to secede though I do not necessarily agree it was the right thing to do. While I believe slavery was wrong; I try to look at it through he eyes of southerner's of ALL classes, witness my efforts to explain life on the Burrough's farm.

I am glad that the South lost the Civil War so that we are one great nation, though unlike many of you, I believe that the country would have reunited within a decade or two after the war had they won. This is the opinion of E.P. Alexander who stated in his book "Military Memoirs of a Confederate" that he was glad the south lost the war, but that had they won, the two countries would spend no more than a decade apart. And this from the Chief of Artillery of the ANV who did his best to shred Yankee soldiers.

And my last thought is that while I am ashamed of much of our behavior in the 19th century (between slavery, Know Nothings, the harsh treatment of Irish catholics, the trumped up Mexican War and Spanish American War, The idiotic concept of Manifest Destiny,The Trail of Tears, Wa****a Creek, Wounded Knee) I am imminently proud of what we have become today. And what we have become today is largely as a result of patriotic Southerners who probably have a greater representation in our Armed Forces today than any other region.

Bill

[johan_steele]

Well said Bill, I believe Charlie Daniels said it best: "We may have done a little bit of fighting amongst ourselves but you outsiders best leave us alone."

Might does make right, right or wrong that is a cold hard fact. For the victor writes the history and passes sentence upon the loser. The American Revolution was treason, there is no doubt about it. Our founding fathers, while great men were a far cry from angels. But they knew what they were doing was Treason, as did the men who created the CSA.

Had the CSA won; I might still hold the same opinion, the CSA commited treason... However, if they won the right to tell the US to go stick a cork in it... well to the victor go the spoils.

I don't see a reunion in a decade if the CSA had won; the feelings were far too bitter. While the soldiers might have been willing for such a reunion the politicians and stay at homes would have had just as much animosity as 1860. In fact I would tend to think of the US & CSA being on different sides of the aisle for quite a while.

[bill_torrens]

Dear Neil,

Thanks for your thoughts. I’m sorry that you interpret terms like “forced Union” and “coercion” as labels for those who happen to disagree with me. I don’t mind in the slightest if you refer to Confederates as “rebels” or “traitors”, since these are words which simply and soberly convey your interpretation of their actions. And I have to tell you that, of all the adjectives which I could apply to the Union cause, “coercionist” is by far the most moderate. I’m actually going out of my way to be polite!

“But I beg you both not to be discouraged or to keep yourselves in a state of prolonged 'frustration'. A cause to which you have both pledged yourselves to is surely worth a bit more effort, is it not?”

Oh, I’m certainly prepared to make the effort. But I do find it irksome when a carefully-worded argument is occasionally answered by an emotionally-charged stream of consciousness which is not, properly speaking, a counter-argument at all. One of the beauties of the English language is its precision; it enables us to construct a proposition with forensic accuracy. To read a response which shows that the writer hasn’t even thought about what he or she has read before starting to thump the keyboard in reply just makes me grind my teeth. Please understand that I am not alluding to you when I write this.

On the subject of slavery, I echo what I seem to remember Hal saying a little while ago: I am more than happy to debate it at any time, but the thread needs to be relevant.

On the subject of 1776 as compared to 1861, I have just read Bill Doherty’s most thoughtful contribution. It’s ironic, isn’t it? As a Briton I am arguing that the colonies were right, and an American like Bill is arguing that they were wrong. [To qualify that statement slightly I should add that I support the Americans’ right to self-determination provided that it is clear that a majority of people in each of the 13 colonies favoured independence. How exactly one measures public opinion in the 1770s is unclear to me, and I remain slightly sceptical about the contention that a clear majority of Americans favoured the Revolutionary cause. Bill, I have recently read Willard Sterne Randall’s biography of Benedict Arnold, and take the view that, although he was clearly an egotist of the first rank, he was an extremely competent man who was very shabbily treated – particularly by the Pennsylvanian authorities.]

“The only difference is the Colonies won at their illegal attempt at rebellion, no matter how noble the goals, and the South lost at their illegal attempt at rebellion.”

This is, substantially, an argument which Shane has recently put forward. If we subtract the gratuitous phrase “no matter how noble the goals”, we are left with “The only difference is the Colonies won at their illegal attempt at rebellion and the South lost.”

Without necessarily agreeing with this statement, I concede that it constitutes a logical comparison of the two conflicts. Both were, unequivocally, bad causes. That’s what you seem to be saying. From a purely expedient point of view, you note the fundamental difference between defeat and victory. But, ethically speaking, concepts like victory and defeat are irrelevant. You are conceding that, morally speaking, there was no difference between the actions of Abraham Lincoln’s cabinet and those of the government of King George III. So far so good, but you boggle my mind when you then then go on to castigate the “selfishness” of the Southern leaders while idolising the leaders of the Revolution. You’ve admitted that their actions are morally identical but then persist in drawing a clear distinction between them. This is the kind of thing which makes people like Hal and myself want to jump screaming over the cliff top.

All the best,

Bill.

[bill_torrens]

Dear Shane,

I happily admit that the United States had a good case for demanding financial compensation for the loss of Federal military installations in the Confederacy.

Beyond that I simply do not understand the significance which you apparently attach to the fact that Fort Sumter was built by the Federal Government. What of it? Do you seriously believe that all British military installations in North America had been paid for by colonial taxes? The British government invested in these structures, in just the same way that the Federal government invested in structures in the South. But they could hardly claim the right to maintain garrisons in them after 1783, could they?

Bill

[johan_steele]

No William they were not, in fact one of the root causes of the Revolutionary War was that England wanted the Colonies to pay their fair share of the wars fought w/ France. The problem was that the Rebels generally believed England wasn't all that intertested in their welfare and firmly believed there were two seperate sets of English Law; one for England and a seperate one for the colonies. A valid argument some might say.

William what I am saying in the statement that Ft Sumter was built by Federal monies is that it was certainly not the property of SC, no more than Norfolk Navy Yard was the property of Virginia or the Presidio the property of California. This being said SC did not have the right to say: get out we want the fort as ours since it's in SC the rest of the Union be ****ed. No more than they had the right to seize arsenals, mints, treasuries or US Regular troops.

Could a national vote have been taken deciding whether or not the CSA should go? I don't know if such a thing was ever proposed or even if it was possible. I look at Federal Installations as the property of all of the states. The president was oath bound to defend them. The Forts were built to defend the coast & vital ports... how can they be viewed as a threat to SC? The troops at Ft Sumter made no attempts to stop shipping from arriving in Charleston.

Ft Sumter wasn't the only such Fort the CSA wanted. They seized Ft Pulaski, Ship Island and forts all up and down the Atlantic seaboard. Ft Sumter was where they opened fire in an effort to reduce the fort & kill it's inhabitants. Why? THe answer seems to me that the South wanted a shooting war. There is no real logic to such actions unless one realizes that when Lincoln called for troops to suppress the rebellion (which had just turned violent) the CSA knew other slave states on the fence would join them.

Thea has asked the question of why didn't the troops just get provisions from Charleston instead of being provisioned from the North. It's a valid question and one I've not seen asked. The answer is that US Regulars were verbally & physically assaulted in the streets of Charleston simply because they wore the blue frock coats and Hardee hats of the US Army. Major Anderson withdrew to Ft Sumter from Ft Pickens because he felt his men safer there and he seriously expected to be attacked.

US Regulars were men recruited from all over the US, their homes were Mass, Indiana and places other than the south; yet there were men from Georgia, Florida and elsewhere in the CSA. They were symbols of Federal authority and a symbol of thre intent that the WHOLE nation must defend itself. Men from NY & Virginia were in Texas defending the inhabitants from hostile Indians and spread across the frontier to defend the nations citizens. To fire upon those men at Ft Sumter and to make them prisoners, as happened throughout Texas, was an act of War. I don't understand how anyone cannot see it. Do soldiers not have the same rights as the citizens they are sworn to defend? Or are we to believe President Lincoln was bound to abandon Regulars to their fate simply to placate the South?

[rivrrat]

Dear Mr. Torrens,
I have “thought about it” and here are my thoughts.
Frankly I think that your arguments in this discussion, which seems to have expanded to every thread on the board, tend to resemble fantasy. Lets call it the Bill Torrens everything is so simple syndrome. When reduced to its essential components your argument rests on one basic assumption. If any rebellion is justified than all rebellions are justified. Therefore anyone who supports the American Revolution of 1776 and not the Confederate Rebellion of 1860 is guilty of a double standard. This is based on your statement that the American Colonists and the Confederates did exactly the same thing.
In Southwest Missouri where I grew up we have a very descriptive phrase, which I think fits your argument. Bull S***! In my post I did not say that either the Colonists or the Confederates were either right or wrong. What I said was that they were in rebellion. I think that we can all agree on that. Our difference is in what is rebellion. You seem to think that rebellion is the simple splitting of political units into other political units, and that if one rebellion is right than all rebellions are right or conversely if one rebellion is wrong than all rebellions are wrong. This idea is simplistic to the extreme.
Lets look at our terms. I will start with a working definition of revolution; Revolution is the attempt by one segment of a society to change the structure or policy of the existing government through the use or threat of armed force. Don’t bother looking in Webster for this definition its mine. I think it is accurate. If you disagree give me another one. Rebellion and Revolution are the same political act. Successful rebellions are revolutions. The act of rebellion is intrinsically neither right nor wrong, good or bad. It is a means of obtaining political change. Was it Bismarck who said, “War is politics by other means.”? For example the Russian revolution of 1918, can we say that either side was right? Certainly the Czarist government was rotten and change was necessary. By the same token the Communist dictatorship, which was the result, was not much of an improvement. Revolution is an act. It carries no inherit morality. So to say that if I accept the American Revolution I have to also accept the Confederate revolution is utter non-sense. The British Empire did not have to simply let the Colonies go. The United States did not have to simply let the Confederacy go.
Much has been made of the right of revolution in these discussions. I am a believer in the right of revolution, however there is another element of revolution. There is no right or guarantee that your revolution will be successful. The decision to attempt the advancement of a political cause through the use of violence is a momentous one. When you roll the rebellion dice you have to be ready to accept the result. The Founding Fathers knew this. I think that the confederates knew this also. The Colonists rolled the dice and won. The Confederacy rolled the dice and lost.
I know that the next thing I will hear is the “does might make right” argument. I am not saying that might makes right, what I am saying is that we don’t live in an ideal world. In the real world, unfortunately, violence does settle sometimes issues. In the case of the United States the issue of succession from the Union was one that both sides were willing to resort to violence to settle. Well it was settled.
As to your idea that 1776 and 1861 were the same thing please read the following documents carefully.
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
Action of Second Continental Congress, July 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America
WHEN in the Course of human Events,
it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation.
WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness -- That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security. Such has been the patient Sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the Necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The History of the present King of Great- Britain is a History of repeated Injuries and Usurpations, all having in direct Object the Establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid World.
HE has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public Good.
HE has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing Importance, unless suspended in their Operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
HE has refused to pass other Laws for the Accommodation of large Districts of People, unless those People would relinquish the Right of Representation in the Legislature, a Right inestimable to them, and formidable to Tyrants only.
HE has called together Legislative Bodies at Places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the Depository of their public Records, for the sole Purpose of fatiguing them into Compliance with his Measures.
HE has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly Firmness his Invasions on the Rights of the People.
HE has refused for a long Time, after such Dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of the Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the Dangers of Invasion from without, and the Convulsions within.
HE has endeavoured to prevent the Population of these States; for that Purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their Migrations hither, and raising the Conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
HE has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
HE has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the Tenure of their Offices, and the Amount and Payment of their Salaries.
HE has erected a Multitude of new Offices, and sent hither Swarms of Officers to harrass our People, and eat out their Substance.
HE has kept among us, in Times of Peace, Standing Armies, without the consent of our Legislatures.
HE has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
HE has combined with others to subject us to a Jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, and unacknowledged by our Laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
FOR quartering large Bodies of Armed Troops among us;
FOR protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
FOR cutting off our Trade with all Parts of the World:
FOR imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
FOR depriving us, in many Cases, of the Benefits of Trial by Jury:
FOR transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended Offences:
FOR abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an arbitrary Government, and enlarging its Boundaries, so as to render it at once an Example and fit Instrument for introducing the same absolute Rules into these Colonies:
FOR taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
FOR suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with Power to legislate for us in all Cases whatsoever.
HE has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
HE has plundered our Seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our Towns, and destroyed the Lives of our People.
HE is, at this Time, transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the Works of Death, Desolation, and Tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and Perfidy, scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous Ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized Nation.
HE has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the Executioners of their Friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
HE has excited domestic Insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the Inhabitants of our Frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known Rule of Warfare, is an undistinguished Destruction, of all Ages, Sexes and Conditions.
IN every stage of these Oppressions we have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble Terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated Injury. A Prince, whose Character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the Ruler of a free People.
NOR have we been wanting in Attentions to our British Brethren. We have warned them from Time to Time of Attempts by their Legislature to extend an unwarrantable Jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the Circumstances of our Emigration and Settlement here. We have appealed to their native Justice and Magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the Ties of our common Kindred to disavow these Usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our Connections and Correspondence. They too have been deaf to the Voice of Justice and of Consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the Necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of Mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace, Friends.
WE, therefore, the Representatives of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, in GENERAL CONGRESS, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the Rectitude of our Intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly Publish and Declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be, FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES; that they are absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political Connection between them and the State of Great-Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which INDEPENDENT STATES may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm Reliance on the Protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

Confederate States of America
Mississippi Secession
A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union.
In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.
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.
That we do not overstate the dangers to our institution, a reference to a few facts will sufficiently prove.
The hostility to this institution commenced before the adoption of the Constitution, and was manifested in the well-known Ordinance of 1787, in regard to the Northwestern Territory.
The feeling increased, until, in 1819-20, it deprived the South of more than half the vast territory acquired from France.
The same hostility dismembered Texas and seized upon all the territory acquired from Mexico.
It has grown until it denies the right of property in slaves, and refuses protection to that right on the high seas, in the Territories, and wherever the government of the United States had jurisdiction.
It refuses the admission of new slave States into the Union, and seeks to extinguish it by confining it within its present limits, denying the power of expansion.
It tramples the original equality of the South under foot.
It has nullified the Fugitive Slave Law in almost every free State in the Union, and has utterly broken the compact which our fathers pledged their faith to maintain.
It advocates negro equality, socially and politically, and promotes insurrection and incendiarism in our midst.
It has enlisted its press, its pulpit and its schools against us, until the whole popular mind of the North is excited and inflamed with prejudice.
It has made combinations and formed associations to carry out its schemes of emancipation in the States and wherever else slavery exists.
It seeks not to elevate or to support the slave, but to destroy his present condition without providing a better.
It has invaded a State, and invested with the honors of martyrdom the wretch whose purpose was to apply flames to our dwellings, and the weapons of destruction to our lives.
It has broken every compact into which it has entered for our security.
It has given indubitable evidence of its design to ruin our agriculture, to prostrate our industrial pursuits and to destroy our social system.
It knows no relenting or hesitation in its purposes; it stops not in its march of aggression, and leaves us no room to hope for cessation or for pause.
It has recently obtained control of the Government, by the prosecution of its unhallowed schemes, and destroyed the last expectation of living together in friendship and brotherhood.
Utter subjugation awaits us in the Union, if we should consent longer to remain in it. It is not a matter of choice, but of necessity. We must either submit to degradation, and to the loss of property worth four billions of money, or we must secede from the Union framed by our fathers, to secure this as well as every other species of property. For far less cause than this, our fathers separated from the Crown of England.
Our decision is made. We follow their footsteps. We embrace the alternative of separation; and for the reasons here stated, we resolve to maintain our rights with the full consciousness of the justice of our course, and the undoubting belief of our ability to maintain it.

The Declarations of Causes of Secession issued by Georgia and Texas included complaints about unfair economic policies that favored the North at the expense of the South. These were obvious references to the South's anger over tariffs, over the misuse of tariff revenue, and over other economic policies that the South opposed. In fact, Georgia's declaration includes a specific complaint about the protectionist policies of the North. Jefferson Davis mentioned the South's objections to federal tariffs in his first message to the Confederate congress (he cited the North's imposition of "burdens on commerce as a protection to their manufacturing and shipping interests").




Rep. John Reagan, U.S. House of Representatives, January 15, 1861, Congressional Globe, 36th Congress, 2nd Session, I, p. 391
Reagan became the Postmaster General for the Confederacy

“You are not content with the vast millions of tribute we pay you annually under the operation of our revenue laws, our navigation laws, your fishing bounties, and by making your people our manufacturers, our merchants, our shippers. You are not satisfied with the vast tribute we pay to build up your great cities, your railroads, and your canals. You are not satisfied with the millions of tribute we have been paying you on account of the balance of exchange, which you hold against us. You are not satisfied that we of the South are almost reduced to the condition of overseers of northern capitalists. You are not satisfied with all this; but you must wage a relentless crusade against our rights and institutions. . . .
We do not intend that you shall reduce us to such a condition. But I can tell you what your folly and injustice will compel us to do. It will compel us to be free from your domination, and more self-reliant than we have been. It will compel us to assert and maintain our separate independence. It will compel us to manufacture for ourselves, to build up our own commerce, our own great cities, our own railroad and canals; and to use the tribute money we now pay you for these things for the support of a government which will be friendly to all our interests, hostile to none of them.”

“Boston Transcript, March 18, 1861
It does not require extraordinary sagacity to perceive that trade is perhaps the controlling motive operating to prevent the return of the seceding States of the Union, . . . it is apparent that the people of the principal seceding States are now for commercial independence. They dream that the centers of traffic can be changed from Northern to Southern ports. The merchants of New Orleans, Charleston, and Savannah are possessed with the idea that New York, Boston, and Philadelphia may be shorn [deprived], in the future, of their mercantile greatness, by a revenue system verging on free trade. If the Southern Confederation is allowed to carry out a policy by which only a nominal duty [tax] is laid upon imports, no doubt the business of the chief Northern cities will be seriously injured thereby.
The difference is so great between the tariff of the Union and that of the Confederated States, that the entire Northwest must find it to their advantage to purchase their imported goods at New Orleans rather than at New York.”


As for the Confederacy seceded over just slavery or as slavery being the root cause of the war rather than just the popular occasion to raise the long contested issue of State’s rights, it annoys me no end that everyone seems to forget the four States that provided the most men, materials and leaders did NOT secede over slavery. They seceded over coercion.

Tennessee and the other upper South states did NOT secede because the South fired at Ft Sumter. They seceded over Lincoln’s actions both before and after. Tennessee had already voted NOT to secede from the Union, even in the face of the “commissioners’s” who were sent to sway them to join.. The firing on Ft Sumter did not change Tennessee’s citizen’s minds. Lincoln did that.



YMOS
tommy

[unionblue]

Tommy,

Most of John Regan's arguments were answered by Alexander Stephens speech to the Georgia legislature in which he stated most of the objections he had were carried out by Southern Presidents in the White House with the consent of most in Congress.

As for the Morrill Tariff being any kind of an issue, I ask that you go to the Tariff thread and read my post Thursday, January 22, 2004 - 02:49 am. You will see the rates had been adjusted to reflect a past tariff, not create higher rates.

You will also read that in the vote to pass the Morrill Tariff, 25-14, 4 Republicans voted AGAINST the bill, while 6 Border State senators from Bell's Union Party voted for it along with 8 Northeastern Democrats. That leaves on 11 Republicans left to vote for the bill to get the total of 25. This clearly shows the voting was not done according to North/South sectional lines.

And what were the stated declaration of causes for those four states when they seceded?

Sincerely,
Unionblue

(Message edited by Unionblue on January 26, 2004)

[bill_torrens]

Dear Doug,

Thanks very much for your thoughts.

“Frankly I think that your arguments in this discussion, which seems to have expanded to every thread on the board, tend to resemble fantasy.”

At the moment I am participating in this thread and the one on “Sumter: A Can of Worms”. So that was a silly thing to say, wasn’t it? It hardly gets you off to a good start.

“When reduced to its essential components your argument rests on one basic assumption. If any rebellion is justified than all rebellions are justified.”

No, I have never said this. But I take the view that the onus is on people who view the American Revolution as justified and the establishment of the Confederacy as unjustified to explain the difference. That’s all.

“Bull S***!”

How vulgar.

“You seem to think that rebellion is the simple splitting of political units into other political units.”

No, not necessarily. I think I would draw a distinction between revolutions which seek to overthrow the political and/or social establishment in a country without changing its borders [viz The French Revolution or The Russian Revolution], and ones which seek to separate a region from an existing nation state [1776 & 1861]. If in 1861 the majority of Democrats throughout the United States had taken up arms to try to overthrow the Lincoln Government and replace it with something else, that would have been fundamentally different from what the seceding states attempted.

My view is that the second type of “revolution” – which is really just the assertion of the right to self-determination – is always justified provided that it is supported by the majority of people within the seceding or revolting area. Always. Without exception. And I am utterly indifferent to arguments which seek to prove how secession was illegal in 1861. You could prove to me conclusively that it breached Federal law in 73 separate ways, and I wouldn’t turn a hair. Because – and here I fear that I am repeating what I wrote in earlier posts – I believe that the right to self-determination is one of those “truths” which are “self-evident” and which cannot be abridged or compromised by the laws or constitution of any nation state. It is more important than the United Kingdom; it is more important than the United States. It is more important than the constitutions of either country, and it is more important than their respective legal frameworks. I would gladly pile all of the above on a metaphorical bonfire and set fire to the lot rather than admit any diminution of the principle of self-determination. How can I make my position any clearer?

“Rebellion and Revolution are the same political act. Successful rebellions are revolutions. The act of rebellion is intrinsically neither right nor wrong, good or bad. It is a means of obtaining political change.”

Subject to the distinction I have just made in the above paragraph, I find nothing to disagree with here.

“So to say that if I accept the American Revolution I have to also accept the Confederate revolution is utter non-sense.”

Agreed. That’s why I have never said it.

“The decision to attempt the advancement of a political cause through the use of violence is a momentous one.”

It is. And I think it only fair to point out that this was something which the Confederate States of America never attempted. The United States, on the other hand, did.

“In the case of the United States the issue of succession from the Union was one that both sides were willing to resort to violence to settle.”

No. One side sought only to be left alone. The other was willing – indeed indecently anxious – to resort to violence.

Bill

[unionblue]

William,

Would revolution or the right of self-determination be acceptable is there was no majority of the population who desired to rebel? But only a segment, not the majority?

Is it the numbers of those who desire rebellion make a determination if the cause or reason is just or correct?

Sincerely,
Unionblue