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.
I'm having a difficult time understanding the concept that liberty should be settled by the numbers; that a group of people who peacefully left an unsuitable government are viewed as having imposed (a tricky feat when you're the minority) their will on the majority; and that anyone would want to keep another beyond and against their will. The very notion chills me to the bone.
I couldn't agree more. I guess we're just a pair of dumb foreigners who imperfectly understand the concept of republican democracy. Or should that be Republican democracy?
I want to pick up on your comment: "that anyone would want to keep another beyond and against their will. The very notion chills me to the bone." Well, it chills me too. And I have the most enormous difficulty in understanding how people whom I like and respect (Unionblue, for instance) can subscribe to such callousness when they are clearly not callous people themselves. I have a theory that all nations on the upward part of the curve which takes you to global power and then sees you slide down the other side have been equally ruthless. Although I am no expert on mid-18th century history I suspect that British people were equally cold-blooded when they were expanding and - so improbably for such a small island - on their way to dominating the globe. There is no doubt that the Romans were the same.
Where our Northern friends delude themselves is in the belief that such cold-blooded and selfish behaviour is somehow an expression of democracy. And I'm afraid it doesn't matter how earnestly they wave their pieces of legal paper in our faces and protest that they were only after the pound of flesh which was their due: it still chills us to the bone, doesn't it?
Bill
Last edited by bill_torrens; 12-18-2005 at 12:18 PM.
Although I am no expert on mid-18th century history I suspect that British people were equally cold-blooded when they were expanding and - so improbably for such a small island - on their way to dominating the globe. There is no doubt that the Romans were the same.
Bill
Bill - Acknowledging that the above post was directed to Dawna....if I may interject here and ask you a question?
Why do you suppose that Britain (or Rome) wanted to expand? For what purpose might a nation do this?
Where our Northern friends delude themselves is in the belief that such cold-blooded and selfish behaviour is somehow an expression of democracy. And I'm afraid it doesn't matter how earnestly they wave their pieces of legal paper in our faces and protest that they were only after the pound of flesh which was their due: it still chills us to the bone, doesn't it?
Good Morning Bill,
I would respectfully suggest that you fail to understand the intimate relationship between the ideals of liberty and democratic self-government, and the concept of the need for a strong union to protect those liberties. Let's step back for a moment to reflect on this... The rights that Southerners complained about not being respected boiled down to the right to own slaves and to carry slave "property" into the federal territories. After the end of Reconstruction, and the long chill of "Jim Crow," the federal government again began to act as the protector of the rights of minorities to have equal access to public institutions and resources. If a nation with a government that is elected democratically and is dedicated to the protection of its citizens rights and liberties can be dismantled by any one individual or group of those citizens at their whim just because they did not get their way in an election, then as Jefferson warned us, democratic government itself becomes impossible.
best,
marc
__________________ "It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues." - Abraham Lincoln
Bill - Acknowledging that the above post was directed to Dawna....if I may interject here and ask you a question?
Why do you suppose that Britain (or Rome) wanted to expand? For what purpose might a nation do this?
The purpose would be self-aggrandizement and self-enrichment. Although, depending on the era in which it happened, it could be laced with a hypocritical religion and/or an evangelistic and self-congratulatory form of patriotism.
If a nation with a government that is elected democratically and is dedicated to the protection of its citizens rights and liberties can be dismantled by any one individual or group of those citizens at their whim just because they did not get their way in an election, then as Jefferson warned us, democratic government itself becomes impossible.
I don't accept that the secession of eleven states constituted the dismantling of the U.S. government. I don't accept that it came within a million miles of constituting this. There seems to be an almost pathological inability on the Union side of the argument to recognise the difference between dismantling a nation and merely reducing it in size. The two concepts really aren't the same.
I don't accept that the secession of eleven states constituted the dismantling of the U.S. government. I don't accept that it came within a million miles of constituting this. There seems to be an almost pathological inability on the Union side of the argument to recognise the difference between dismantling a nation and merely reducing it in size. The two concepts really aren't the same.
Regards,
Bill
Bill,
What it would mean is that no democratic Union could long exist where any party or group that was unhappy with the results of a democratic election could just claim to no longer be a part of it. No one ultimately has to abide by the results of the democratic process. The federal government, charged with the responsibility of ensuring the rights and liberties of its citizens, does not have the power to do so.
best,
marc
__________________ "It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues." - Abraham Lincoln
How can a supposedly democratic nation claim any kind of moral authority when several million of its people are kept prisoners within it against their will? This is so obviously a greater subversion of liberty than the departure of a region that it boggles my kind that anyone could argue to the contrary.
And that, I suppose, is what it ultimately boils down to. Ultimately, our two camps are speaking completely different languages. For all our best efforts, we stare at each other across a chasm of mutual incomprehension.
How can a supposedly democratic nation claim any kind of moral authority when several million of its people are kept prisoners within it against their will? This is so obviously a greater subversion of liberty than the departure of a region that it boggles my kind that anyone could argue to the contrary.
And that, I suppose, is what it ultimately boils down to. Ultimately, our two camps are speaking completely different languages. For all our best efforts, we stare at each other across a chasm of mutual incomprehension.
Regards,
Bill
Bill,
Perhaps not so large a chasm as you think. My problem with all of the justifications for Southern secession is that it was done in the name of that slavery, and they dared to invoke the principles of liberty and self-government.
best,
marc
__________________ "It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues." - Abraham Lincoln
The Southern states seceded not because they were suffering oppression, but in the interest of continuing to oppress their slaves.
Marc:
I'm afraid that we'll have to disagree on this and in the words of President Jefferson Davis:
"I tried all in my power to avert this war. I saw it coming, for twelve years I worked night and day to prevent it, but I could not. The North was mad and blind; it would not let us govern ourselves, and so the war came, and now it must go on till the last man of this generation falls in his tracks, and his children seize the musket and fight our battle, unless you acknowledge our right to self government. We are not fighting for slavery. We are fighting for Independence, and that, or extermination."
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