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You are saying that if the south had been allowed to succeed they would still have continued a business relationship with the northern states to export their cotton? Why did they need to export through the north ? Didn't they have important ports in the south?
I really wish they could have come up with a better way to avoid the war. Since slavery was an issue would it have been better for Lincoln to punish the south with a slave tax on anything created with slave labor or something like that ? It would have forced the south to give up slave labor quicker since it would not have been profitable, and maybe anti slavery England would have accepted it too?
The South didn't invest as much for internal improvements as the north. The south was geared around a few cash crops:cotton, Tobacco, indigo, and rice with cotton being the king of them all. The south didn't invest as much as the north into improving harbors, building rail roads, and even roads. This made south unable to ship it's goods as directly as the north or to be able to manufacture as much. The south's rail roads were focused on getting cotton north for shipment and to turn into finished good like cloth. Where as the north's were built around getting goods in general between cities and other places of industry.
The problem with slavery is that capital that could have gone to expand industry instead goes into purchasing more and more slaves and land.
"You people of the South don’t know what you are doing. This country will be drenched in blood, and God only knows how it will end.
The North can make a steam engine, locomotive or railway car; hardly a yard of cloth or a pair of shoes can you make. You are rushing into war with one of the most powerful, ingeniously mechanical and determined people on earth-right at your doors. You are bound to fail. Only in spirit and determination are you prepared for war. In all else you are totally unprepared, with a bad cause to start with."--General Sherman
If you can't make a yard of cloth, how the heck are you going to have much of an shipping industry or clothe your troops? The inability to manufacture and transport stuff around is one of the many reasons why confederacy was unable to win the war.This is also way succession is stupid. Almost no state in the union has all the industry or resources as the whole .
Did the confederate state leaders ever discuss if they would continue to keep the us constitution after succeeding or would they create a new one? I know they would probably change certain parts of the constitution if they kept it.
They created an new constitution based on the US constitution. It prohibited any law that limited or banned slavery. They called their constitution the Articles of Confederacy(like the Constitution that preceded the current one).The south was never going to give up slavery. It's economy had grown too addicted to it.
I have seen this stated several times, but it is not even close to true. The revenues for the USA in 1860 are online. The US Government had to institute an income tax to pay for the horrible war debt that they incurred holding the Union together.
No, an income tax -- as we know it today -- did not exist at the time at all. Get your facts straight. The point of contention was the tariffs which penalized the agricultural Southern states in order to protect northern industrial interests. The latter region constituted roughly a quarter of the total population, yet paid about 75% of the tax revenues into federal coffers. In turn, this revenue was spent mostly to benefit northern industrial interests in some form or fashion (as they controlled the House of Representative).
The funnier of the argument that the Union was so covetous of southern revenue that the Union then turned around and spent four years utterly destroying the economic infrastructure that the south used to pay that revenue. Now that's one brilliant plan.
LOL Then why did Lincoln tell Horace Greely -- in summary -- that the reason he couldn't let the South "go in peace" was to keep its tax money?
Why else did Lincoln use force to maintain a Union that is not a Union at all if it has to be held together by force? It certainly wasn't to "free the slaves", and no serious historian -- professional nor layman -- believes that, anyway. A "Union" by definition is voluntary and membership be withdrawn from the association.
Here is a pretty good article on Greely's feelings. It seems fair and balanced and pretty much (IMHO), sums up northern public opinion on the secession of the Lower South, originally. That is, while opposing secession, were still opposed to using military force for the purpose of coercion; not the least of reasons being the Constitution did not provide the federal government with that power.
That is why Lincoln deliberately provoked an incident at Ft. Sumter. In order to rally northern public opinion around an invasion of the South...as he knew it would have failed, otherwise. Thus, he chose a course that cost thousands of brave northern boys to die for something that was never necessary at all...
=chirack;34618523]They created an new constitution based on the US constitution. It prohibited any law that limited or banned slavery. They called their constitution the Articles of Confederacy(like the Constitution that preceded the current one).The south was never going to give up slavery. It's economy had grown too addicted to it.
No, if the South had won, we would still have slaves down here today, right? Is that what you are saying, chirack? If so, just say so, and present reasons one way or another.
As it was, the CSA constitution banned the slave trade itself and allowed for the entry of non-slave holding states to join; and allowed for member states to ban the institution within its borders. However, it did allow for slave-holders to bring them into another state. Admittedly, this is a "sticky point" in terms of wording. However, not any morally different than emancipation laws in the northern states which assured the abolishment of slavery would be gradual and not entail any financial inconvenience on the part of northern slave owners, nor the northern shipping merchants who made fortunes upon the trade (slave trading was a purely northern commodity).
But anyway, you need to go back and read your history. The Constitution of the Confederate States of America was called just that. Not ever anything like the silly title you present. LOL Articles of the Confederacy? Where in the hell do you come by that nonsense?
Did the confederate state leaders ever discuss if they would continue to keep the us constitution after succeeding or would they create a new one? I know they would probably change certain parts of the constitution if they kept it.
You ask good questions, VG, and I definitely not claiming to have all the answers...only my own opinion (which is all historical questions can ever be...individual viewpoints...).
But anyway, here is a link to the full text, so you can read and form your own conclusion:
We, the people of the Confederate States, each State acting in its sovereign and independent character, in order to form a permanent federal government, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity--invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God--do ordain and establish this Constitution for the Confederate States of America.
One thing to note, however? Notice the preamble above? How it speaks of creating a "permanent federal government"?
Well, as it relates to the general subject of secession, then the language is even stronger than that of the original Union. So the point being? It would seem to back up that the application refers to a desire that, naturally, the parties involved want it to be ongoing and perpetual and permanent -- or else they would not have formed it at all.
But sure as the sun sets in the west --they almost certainly never meant that the individual sovereign states were anything but a voluntary association.
I mean, the Confederate States had just declared their own right of secession from the original Union. Would it have made the slightest bit of sense they would have entered into a new confederacy prohibiting the same option?
No, an income tax -- as we know it today -- did not exist at the time at all. Get your facts straight. The point of contention was the tariffs which penalized the agricultural Southern states in order to protect northern industrial interests. The latter region constituted roughly a quarter of the total population, yet paid about 75% of the tax revenues into federal coffers. In turn, this revenue was spent mostly to benefit northern industrial interests in some form or fashion (as they controlled the House of Representative).
You shouldn't discuss the Civil War if you are so ignorant of history. The IRS was created in 1862 to pay for the Civil War. The proposition that the Civil War was fought to protect tax revenues is just revisionist nonsense.
I find it entertaining that the preamble of the confederate constitution mentions god, which was totally lacking from the US constitution. The sentiment for a theocracy was already rampant in the South 150 years ago. We're still dealing with that today.
When reading this one question comes to my mind. It says over and over how the south distrusted the new Republican party and blamed them for the start of the war. How did they go from hating the Republicans to embracing them so completely that all southern states are now red?
Barry Goldwater. The Democratic party was schizo with liberal Democrats in the north and conservative Democrats in the South. Goldwater redefined conservatism in the Republican Party and his political legacy shifted the Republican Party far to the right. No Republican would ever again pull an Eisenhower and send in federal troops to enforce integration in the South. When the Democratic old guard died off, the new Republicans were ready to take over.
Why do you pick a small sample of people to represent a whole region?
I wasn't trying to. I guess the media makes it seem that way .
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