- Joined
- Aug 27, 2011
- Location
- Central Massachusetts
A lot of that is just paranoid propaganda: the North wanting to "subjugate" the South by "highway robbery," oppression, and tyranny ... nonsense! Those are simply excuses the secessionist leadership used to justify of secession and war to their own people.Another great post @John Hartwell It seems Jackson, in many ways, was prophetic in understanding the nature of the war the South was to undertake, and in the understanding of his enemy (literally, considering he knew the military leaders he would contending with). He knew what the South was up against and wanted to be on the offensive from the very beginning.
There are a couple of pieces from these articles that stood out for me:
"The great error, which most of our rulers and people made in the commencement of this struggle was in preparing for a short war or no war at all" - seems like both sides had the same expectations at the start of the war - "Few saw the shape that the contest would assume, the magnitude on which it would be conducted, and the desperation that would characterize our subjugation" - desperate times call for desperate measures, and it seems the aim was indeed subjugation, ironically tied to the freeing of a people subjugated...
"the North deliberately resolved to cut open the goose that had laid the golden eggs, and therefore drew the sword" - very melodramatic. Envy of the South's bounty had a large part to play in the reasons for the war, according to Southerners perceptions
The second article goes on to call the war a "national crime", "a case of national highway robbery and murder", and a "North American invasion of the South" - the solution as proposed by Jackson was to "treat them as highway robbers and murderers" and raise the black flag, which it seems the North had already done (according to this article) by inaugurating such a war. Rather than the 'gentlemanly' war that was expected at the beginning, what transpired was a 'no holds barred' contest in which the winner took all, and Jackson may have foreseen that before anybody else...
The threats, posturing, and political skulduggery the South had used for decades to maintain their dominance of the national government were no longer working. So many in the North who had repeatedly given in to all that, were no longer willing to do so. The North had desperately tried to keep the bullying South content with "compromises" that amounted to nothing short of cowardly surrender. Still the southern leadership wanted more. When they could no longer get what they wanted through manipulation of the democratic process, they simply rejected that process, and left the Union.
"the North deliberately resolved to cut open the goose that had laid the golden eggs, and therefore drew the sword" is the most ludicrous example of political hypocrisy of the age.
The real tragedy is that after secession, compromise was impossible. It came down to one issue: Union or disunion. There was no room for compromise -- one side or the other had to submit entirely. By firing the first shot, the South chose trial by combat ... and the judgement of the battlefield was against them.
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