Oops, big lump of your posts....

[uaskme]

Are those two statements mutually exclusive? For example, slavery could be the cause of distrust, anger and conflict leading to secession. But, the first shot could be attributed to a radical nationalistic fervor, a new nation 'flexing its muscles'.

Could of been many things, some we might think of, others we may never know.

What we do know, what it was not? Just one single Cause.

 

[Lost Cause]

Are those two statements mutually exclusive? For example, slavery could be the cause of distrust, anger and conflict leading to secession. But, the first shot could be attributed to a radical nationalistic fervor, a new nation 'flexing its muscles'.

IMO, distrust, anger and conflict were the key emotions leading to the war on both sides. Was this attributed primarily to slavery? Secession drove the first seven and Sumter/Call to Arms the last four.

 

[Mosby]

https://www.mcall.com/news/mc-xpm-1993-02-15-2902444-story.html
https://www.alternet.org/2012/11/inconvenient-truth-about-lincoln-you-wont-hear-hollywood/
http://www.abraham-lincoln-history.org/abraham-lincoln-the-railroad-lawyer/
https://www.uprr.com/aboutup/history/lincoln/lincoln_up/index.shtml -- from a railroad company site

Did the railroads help nominate him? Was he pushing their agenda?

Lincoln's son (who went to Phillips Exeter for a year, Harvard, and Yale Law School) was President of a railroad.

 

[John Fenton]

Lot of Questions about a subject that only yesterday seemed so simple. Maybe the subject, is just not that simple.

We have to educate ourselves.

again no relevant discussion. in the post you quoted i only asked one question.
i am 100 % self educated and in my field (retired now) i was the instructor and achieved all of my certifications without the aid of being taught by someone else. you might call me a culture creator rather than a culture consumer. in other words, i have passed my knowledge on but received very little from the collective culture, except through literature, that i operated in. i think i have an intuitive extra that allows me to figure things out and how they work. i do this by reading and by doing. this applies to my knowledge and opinions of the civil war. when i ask a question , it often becomes mired in argumentative mud and is left for me to extricate. i thought this site might be a good place to get objective opinions . am i objective ? not always but i try to give an answer, not hyperbole.

Your contradicting your own apparent argument that “slavery was the primary cause of the war,” yet it “did not cause the first shot.”

the first shot was caused by the attempted resupply of a federal fort. why was this an issue ? it was now a south carolina fort. why did it become a south carolina fort instead of a federal fort ? because south carolina seceded and the fort goes with it. why did south carolina secede ? we should be able to stop here but i have read that some say it wasn't over slavery even when south carolina plainly said it was.

According to antebellum invention/patent records, they didn't invent much technology nor anything that advanced society collectively(Roger Burlingame, March of the Iron Men: A Social History of Union Through Invention (New York, 1938).

you are correct that the south did very little inventing and i was surprised when i looked at 19th century american inventions just how little did occur in the south by southerners. one of the few involved refrigeration. however as regards Whitney, i simply meant that southerners were aquainted with tech. my point was that the south was static and they wanted to keep it that way while at the same time enjoy tech benefits in business and pleasure for those who could afford it . southern agriculture practices required very little in the way of innovation but when it was required it was applied. after all necessity is the mother of invention.

on the single cause issue i have seen many posts making this claim about other posters. there is NO single cause but all of the causes have a common element or thread that ties them together. this thread is slavery. without this binding the rest lose their level of significance and , i my opinion, would have been resolved peaceably through the legislative process , as has been the case since.

the treasury of virtue idea is a reaction to the lost cause or " Great Alibi ". however both were coined by southerners. i do not believe the north has the same preoccupation with redemption as the south.

 

[James Lutzweiler]

I must remember moderation requirements are specifically designed to keep our progress clear.
If, for instance I had a focus on Peace Committees sent to Legislative bodies, where I would hope to find a conspiratorial theme of disbanding, and reforming, I could possibly limit my attention to 1860-1861. It would certainly be easier to gather it all in, but it would be a leaky cistern at best. How about Neptune; it would be more consonant to my extremes, James Lutzweiler?
Lubliner.

OK, Lubliner, I dub thee Neptunepicker #1. Congratulations! I doubt this designation (or compound for that matter) has ever been used before in all of human history. You are truly unique!

Now watch someone want to be Saturnpicker and run circles around you!!

James

 

[Mosby]

Lincoln carried CA with 32% and OR with 36%. He clearly won those states due to split vote, but they didn't have many electoral votes then. NJ was the only state where the opposition to Lincoln got together in the Fusion Party. The Fusion Party won the popular vote in NJ, but Lincoln won 4 of 7 electoral votes, due to carrying 4 of 5 Congressional districts. Northern NJ went strongly Democratic, maybe partly due to there already being a Democratic ethnic vote. Most states used a WTA system rather than by Congressional district.

NJ went Democratic every election from 1852 to 1888 inclusive, except for the Grant landslide of 1872. NJ had the 2nd highest percentage slaves at 1800 of northern states next to NY, and still had a few slaves in 1860. I would assume that part of the Democratic tendencies was due to its border location, as well like Maryland a significant ethnic vote. Southern OH, IN, and IL were mostly southern settled and strongly Democratic with much southern sympathy.

 

[ForeverFree]

It's useful to describe what it means to say slavery was the root cause of the war.

In this video, historian Elizabeth Varon talks about the "fundamentalist school" in the first 3-4 minutes of a talk. She says "there's emerged in recent years a strong consensus, which scholars call the fundamentalist school, that slavery was the root fundamental cause of the civil war and that the political antagonisms between the North and South flowed from the fact that the North was a free labor society while the South was a slave labor society which remained committed to slavery and indeed to extending its domain."

When historians say that slavery was the root cause of the war they mean to say the following:

• At its root, the war was caused by the conflict between the free labor North and the slave labor South. That is, "slavery" did not cause the war, per se; rather the conflict between the sections over free labor versus slave labor was the root cause of the war. This conflict led to political antagonism that resulted in war. In this conflict, countless political, social, and cultural battles became proxy wars that became a full-fledged military war by the 1860s.

• The conflict of free labor versus slave labor was the primary and essential element in causing the war. That is, it is difficult to conceive there being a Civil War without this element. There were other sectional conflicts, but they did not rise to the level where secession and ultimately war were seen as necessary to resolve the conflict.
********

To add to what historians mean when they say the conflict between free labor and slave labor was the root cause of the war, there is this. In his book At the Precipice: Americans North and South during the Secession Crisis, author Shearer Davis Bowman writes

The inability to engineer an acceptable compromise during the secession crisis reflected the reality that neither northern nor southern stalwarts could endorse concessions that did not seem to undermine what they perceived to be their fundamental interests rights and honor as citizens of the American Republic.​

​

Avery Craven has powerfully concluded, "neither the North nor the South could you yield its position because slavery had come to symbolize values in each of their socio-economic structures for which men fight and die but which they do not give up or compromise."​

​

That last comment is key: the conflict of free labor versus slave labor was uncompromising. There was no middle ground between free labor and slave labor. Or at least, the antagonists could not find one. Other elements, such as tariffs, could find a middle ground for resolution. The North and South could not find a middle ground on the fundamental conflict.

I would add on this point that studies of intellectual history, emotional history and rhetoric indicate that the sections had evolved hardened views of their labor systems into which so much emotional, intellectual, political, social, and political capital had been invested, that they could not give up on their views. For the sections, free labor and slave labor were not just theories or world views; these things represented who they were culturally, intellectually, socially, and so on. These were not just conflicting world views, they were conflicting identities. These identities were entrenched to a point that compromise meant, as Shearer Bowman put it, giving up on their interests, rights, and honor. The sides were not going to do that, and then the war came.

- Alan

 

[WJC]

Could of been many things, some we might think of, others we may never know.

What we do know, what it was not? Just one single Cause.

Thanks for your response.
Again, few if any among us asserts that there was just "one single cause". What has been asserted ad infinitum is that among the many causes there was one, single root cause, the one that more than any of the others was the reason for secession.

 

[WJC]

IMO, distrust, anger and conflict were the key emotions leading to the war on both sides. Was this attributed primarily to slavery? Secession drove the first seven and Sumter/Call to Arms the last four.

Thanks for your response.
And what drove secession?

 

[WJC]

i will settle on a yes/no answer to ... was the confederate cause noble ?

I'll answer the challenge: No, it was not.

 

[O' Be Joyful]

I would think that sentiment would be embraced by all. We'll see.

Seems ta' me, Alan...

https://leagueofthesouth.com/

is tryin...but I may be stOOpid.

 

[O' Be Joyful]

"lost cause mythology"

Hmm...

 

[O' Be Joyful]

righteous anger?

what is the source of...

 

[O' Be Joyful]

we are going on a guilt trip.

time too get over it...don't ja zhink?

 

[O' Be Joyful]

TOV conquers all.

source?

 

[O' Be Joyful]

Single Causers

SLAVERY...PERIOD.

 

[O' Be Joyful]

i am new here but cannot believe what i am reading .
that institutionalized slavery was the primary cause of the war is indisputable even if it did not cause the first shot. to minimize it's importance is repugnant . that so many still feel otherwise is equally repugnant. i wonder what confederate supporters want ? was the confederacy really a noble cause or does it need to be in order to rationalize it ?

Welcome to you John. You are far ahead of...many here.

 

[O' Be Joyful]

Unfortunate Myth. SC was losing Cotton Production.

So...they were mOrons???

 

[O' Be Joyful]

Well, once Lincoln ordered the blockade they could not export cotton, which the southern economy contracted and contracted and then crashed. Also, the Confederacy tried to dupe the Europeans into breaking the blockade by tantalizing them with cotton.

I'm still waiting for someone to point me in the direction of a important invention/innovation/patent that came out of the southeast during antebellum/CW/post CW/or even the past 100 years.

Coca-Cola. und Moon-Pies. Yum...

 

[Lubliner]

Even if the capital is not in Richmond, it's going to be near the top of Union targets due to Tredegar. It would not have been #1 but it's in the top 3 even without the seat of government here

Savannah could have been a safer choice. A seaport city, that even though it was closed up early on, it withstood all attacks until Sherman came up in its rear. Columbia was on a river. Anywhere they chose to locate, they should have understood a certain influx of wealth would come with them. But also the target would be shifted no matter what. Was it really easier to manage the state of affairs by being in Richmond? I can't believe so.
Lubliner.