Civil War History - "What if..." DiscussionsWhat if they had attacked instead of digging in...? What if he was in charge of the army instead...? Did you ever have a "What if..." question, and you weren't sure where to post it? Here's the place to ask these speculative questions!
It is intriguing to me that in these times when we hear of civil wars happening around the world there is a heavy negative connotation. Commentators wring their hands and decry the death and suffering. Nations often intervene with troops to stop the fighting. Have you watched the news lately?
When we hear of ****lia and the like we aren't even told of the issues involved.
If our Civil War were to happen today nations and the UN would be pressed to send in troops. No one would care what the issues were, they would want to stop the fighting.
Ironic, isn't it? The one war we revere today as a nation is the kind of war that causes even us to say, "Gee, someone should go in and stop that"!
Jefferson Davis could have been brought up on tax issues and encouraging people to pay taxes to the Confederacy instead of the North. Tax issues destroyed many Southerners ( Robert E. Lee being the most famous example) and could have been used against him.
As the instigator he could be in trouble. The tax collection agencies used to punish the South were in their infancy but rules could be made up on the spot.
First off, how many civil wars in other nations has this country gotten involved with? And then, more importantly, why has it or why has it NOT gotten involved in such wars?
You again, as usual, go for the unsupported statement, give your own opinion, and then expect those who read it to accept it as some sort of proven fact or "eternal truth."
The idea that this nation's citizens would sit still for the idea of foreign troops, authorized by the UN or not, to come to its shores, drive on it highways and enter its fields and cities to stop a present-day civil war just bogles the mind. Don't you get it, DJ? Do you really stop to think before engaging in such daydreams?
"Gee, shouldn't we go in and stop that?" is barstool talk, not foreign policy and again, how often to you hear people say stuff like, "let them kill each other" or "it's none of our business" and such. Like I said, maybe you need to get out more, travel down South and listen to what people are saying. Most Americans want to be left ALONE. You pretty much have to walk up to them, spit in their eyes and THEN slap them in the face before they realize they have a problem.
As a people (not our elected politicians) we are slow to anger and slow to use force. 9/11 is a perfect example of this behavior. Long before the attacks on American soil, our servicemen were dying by the hundreds in attacks on our installations, ships and embassies, but that was OK, that's what they were paid for, right? Only after we lose a few thousand innocent civilians here in the homeland do we get riled up enough to attack other countries.
As for Jeff Davis and you tax collections fantasy, I'm afraid you are still reading DiLoser and maybe his friend Chuck Adams and are still sucking up bad history.
Yes, starting an illegal rebellion over the results of a fair election and the overwhelming desire to keep people in chains like cattle will cost you a bit when you lose. And maybe, just maybe, that's right when you participate in something as big and as wrong that cost the lives of over 620,000 of your fellow citizens. Call me old-fashioned, I guess.
But again, it's hard to call it "Lincoln's style" when the man offered to compensate slaveholders for their loss of "property" if they would just stop the fighting.
And plus the fact, the man was DEAD when these supposed taxes ruined Lee and Davis.
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
Well some good points in your post as usual UnionBlue.
Frankly when we were attacked all through the 1990's we ignored them. Al Qaeda would set up camps in Afghanistan, we shot missiles at an aspirin factory. They attacked our embassies, we went after Iraq. Osama is in Pakistan, so we prepare to attack Iran! We can't seem to make a direct line!
We have tried ignoring the enemy. But we got bit on the rear. We have tried fighting the enemy, but people are tired of fighting. Eventually we will have to infiltrate and negotiate with the group. Just as the UK did with the IRA. That took decades, but evbentually it worked.
That sort of patience may have been what was called for to avoid our Civil War. It was perfectly fine for Northern territories that weren't industrialized to keep their slaves, everyone knew those states had to catch up. Why southern states that hadn't made the transition couldn't be afforded the same time to move into the industrial age I have no idea.
Well some good points in your post as usual UnionBlue.
Frankly when we were attacked all through the 1990's we ignored them. Al Qaeda would set up camps in Afghanistan, we shot missiles at an aspirin factory. They attacked our embassies, we went after Iraq. Osama is in Pakistan, so we prepare to attack Iran! We can't seem to make a direct line!
We have tried ignoring the enemy. But we got bit on the rear. We have tried fighting the enemy, but people are tired of fighting. Eventually we will have to infiltrate and negotiate with the group. Just as the UK did with the IRA. That took decades, but evbentually it worked.
That sort of patience may have been what was called for to avoid our Civil War. It was perfectly fine for Northern territories that weren't industrialized to keep their slaves, everyone knew those states had to catch up. Why southern states that hadn't made the transition couldn't be afforded the same time to move into the industrial age I have no idea.
Do you?
Yes.
The South did not wish to give up their slaves, no matter how much time was afforded them to do so.
This was a choice they freely made themselves and please consider something else DJ, one that I am sure most on this forum will agree with me.
The North did not go to war with the South over the issue of slavery.
Unionblue (With a small "b" not a capital "B")
__________________ "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
...
That sort of patience may have been what was called for to avoid our Civil War. It was perfectly fine for Northern territories that weren't industrialized to keep their slaves, everyone knew those states had to catch up. Why southern states that hadn't made the transition couldn't be afforded the same time to move into the industrial age I have no idea.
Here is when some Northern states ended slavery by either legislation or judicial action:
MA 1783
NH 1783
NY 1799
CT 1784
RI 1784
PA 1780
NJ 1804
VT 1777
Some of those (such as NY, PA, and NJ) were for gradual emancipation; NJ was for a particularly long period before all slaves were actually freed. But NJ is the LAST state to free the slaves on its own. In the 56 years between that action and the Civil War, no other slave state voluntarily ended slavery. So answer these questions: what were those Southern states waiting for, just how much time do you think they should be given, and why?
Tim
__________________ "Let us, then, consider all attempts to weaken this Union, by maintaining that each state is separately and individually independent, as a species of political heresy, which can never benefit us, but may bring on us the most serious distresses."
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, 1740-1824, Revolutionary War soldier, one of the authors of the US Constitution in 1787, speaking at the South Carolina Ratifying Convention in 1788.
We're getting far afield of "The Trial of Jefferson Davis." Where's my blue pencil?
ole
__________________ I never knew a man who wished to be himself a slave. Consider if you know any good thing that no man desires for himself. A. Lincoln
They were justly punished severely as the Confiscation Acts of the U.S. Congress were upheld. And no one was ever reimbursed by the government for the lost value of a slave.
Nor were the debts of the Confederate government ever repaid.
A more likely scenario. America doesn't have a sterling record in the rush-to-judgement arena. Wirz got caught in it. With Davis, there was a cooling-off period.
ole
Wirz was murdered. Grant should have been held Re: Andersonville.
Davis didn't care if he was murdered, or not. He wanted his day in court. The yankee government did not want to risk
being tried for what THEY had done to the South, and indeed what they had to this precious UNION they talk so much about (or what was left of it).
The South did not wish to give up their slaves, no matter how much time was afforded them to do so.
This was a choice they freely made themselves and please consider something else DJ, one that I am sure most on this forum will agree with me.
The North did not go to war with the South over the issue of slavery.
Unionblue (With a small "b" not a capital "B")
Hey, Blue... or blue, or whatever...
Exactly why did the South have to give up their slaves in the first place? They did not hold to your abolitionist values... Your ex-congregationalist ministers turned transcendentalist tree-huggers! Your WE ARE GOD NOW group.
The South were following Christian slave laws from the Bible.
They were civilizing a pagan people and getting them into heaven.
It was still legal to own them...
Your group were the agitators and the terrorists, who were
involving the new-self righteous into the federal voting pool... Your group were the murderers, who felt it was okay to start killing people over leaving the Union.
YOUR PEOPLE KILLED FIRST AT MANASSAS, don't forget.
They were the criminals.
Slavery was not illegal, up to the time it was amended out of existence.
The South did no wrong in owning slaves. Individuals may have sinned, and abused, but so do parents, and we don't stop people from having kids because of that!
No, I am going to take the other side.
Slavery was LEGAL, and CONSTITUTIONAL and your people
created the problems that led to secession...
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