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Location: New Albany, Indiana (Greater Louisville)
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I think the notion that any union of places must be permanent is baseless. I also think leaving a union because you want to continue the most brutal form of slavery ever is a really bad reason for doing so.
The dysfunctional states such as New England, Illinois, California, and New York will continue to lose population and industrial activity (except for some software tech, biotech, and pharma). Just my own prognostications; feel free to correct/disagree
Dysfunctional: don't watch Faux News and long for it to be 1955 again (or forever).
I think the notion that any union of places must be permanent is baseless. I also think leaving a union because you want to continue the most brutal form of slavery ever is a really bad reason for doing so.
I think I get what you're saying here. I think there might be something like 2 basic types of human organizations. One is a forward-looking group of like-minded people forming a community. The other is formed when a group of like-minded people get together to accomplish a very particular goal or set of objectives. The first type looks forward & doesn't imagine an ending for itself. The second type, for example, could have as its goal to end world hunger. The second type looks forward but imagines a future where their goal is accomplished & they're no longer needed & at that point disband. It's funny (ironic) that organizations of all kinds seem to somehow take on a life of their own, & want to 'stay alive' even though they no longer have a purpose, or their purpose has changed so much as to be unrecognizable.
People & government & countries & states & communities are, without a doubt, messy.
The pig-headed Northern abolitionists were every bit as uncompromising as the Southern slaveowners, and the roots of the conflict can be traced back, to a lesser degree, to the disagreement between Adams and Jefferson over whether the United States would be an industrial, or an agrarian nation. The fires of resentment were stoked by both sides, and the refusal to acknowledge this is a common trait among those peddling the oversimplified Leftist "answer".
Shouldn't people who are opposing slavery be pigheaded? And what about the pig-headed Southerners who pushed through the Fugitive Slave Act, a ban on use of the mails to send anti-slavery literature, etc.
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Location: Dallas, TX
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Quote:
Originally Posted by guidoLaMoto
"He's a Civil War buff? I'd love to be a Civil War buff." --George Costanza
I'm not a Civil War buff either, but this Brexit negotiation got me to thinking-- The Southern States didn't negotiate. They just left. Other than ego & lust for power, why did The North feel such a need to go to war over it? If you invite a bad actor to your birthday party and he wants to leave, do you beat him up to make him stay?
I see problems with your birthday party analogy. Granted, all analogies fail at some point, but I find this analogy especially misguided.
*The party guests did not sign a pre-agreed contract to be at the party for X amount of time, complete with rules of behavior, and so forth. A society's members (in this case, a nation's citizens) are in an implied contractual agreement to submit to it's governing authorities.
*A party's purpose is an informal get-together whose purpose is purely social. A nation's purpose is to make, interpret, and enforce formal rules that all members of society must abide by - the purpose of which is to protect society and/or its members from physical and in some cases mental harm (violence, unauthorized damage to property, crimes of honesty), plus help bring about enforcement of justified formal agreements to perform or restrain from performing an act. Which leads to the next point.
*A party guest refusing to participate in the party does not threaten the safety, security, mutuality of trust, and overall well-being of the party's guests (indeed, parties, as said, don't presume to perform that role). Nor does it threaten the essential purpose of the party (for guests to socialize and have a good time). A region leaving a nation can easily do so - especially if it sets a precedent "If that region can break away from the nation, why can't my region"). Which likewise leads to a more serious point.
*If a region can break away from its highest-sovereign government simply on its say-so, then it's difficult to justify even smaller regions breaking away as well -- all the way down to a private individual and his or her property. In fact, I made a few semi-jokes about me and my property becoming its own independent country. If that happened, it would turn into anarchy, and in fact make the nation LESS secure than before.
On to the American South - specific situation.
*Already a precedent of secession being illegal. Andrew Jackson, about 30 years before the Civil War, threatened to send troops into South Carolina when it threatened to "nullify" its signature to the US Constitution.
*The Federal government was coming around to the idea that human beings were not in any just sense property - they are entities with their own brain, their own mind, their own consciousness, their own experiences, their own wills, their own desires, their own capacity to feel pain (physical, mental, or psychic), and especially a full capacity to engage in the same ranges of activities and expressions as other human beings - completely independent of their masters'.
*Therefore, the Slave States had an unreasonable broad definition of "property", which even by that time was deemed unjustifiable by every other economically, technologically, and culturally advanced nation on earth. It was condemned in every part of Europe by that time, and save Brazil in the rest of Latin America. Even Czarist Russia was moving away from serfdom (essentially a type of slavery).
Quote:
Originally Posted by robertbrianbush
Shouldn't people who are opposing slavery be pigheaded? And what about the pig-headed Southerners who pushed through the Fugitive Slave Act, a ban on use of the mails to send anti-slavery literature, etc.
Isn't a darling of the right, Barry Goldwater, known for saying "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice"? If this is consistent, then the intellectually honest believer in this line MUST also be an anti-slavery extremist.
I think the notion that any union of places must be permanent is baseless. I also think leaving a union because you want to continue the most brutal form of slavery ever is a really bad reason for doing so.
Ulysses S. Grant in defense of Robert E. Lee however not defending (or justifying, rationalizing, romanticizing, legitimizing, normalizing, etc.) his cause:
Quote:
...When I had left camp that morning I had not expected so soon the result that was then taking place, and consequently was in rough garb. I was without a sword, as I usually was when on horseback on the field, and wore a soldier’s blouse for a coat, with the shoulder straps of my rank to indicate to the army who I was. When I went into the house I found General Lee. We greeted each other, and after shaking hands took our seats. I had my staff with me, a good portion of whom were in the room during the whole of the interview.
What General Lee’s feelings were I do not know. As he was a man of much dignity, with an impassible face, it was impossible to say whether he felt inwardly glad that the end had finally come, or felt sad over the result, and was too manly to show it. Whatever his feelings, they were entirely concealed from my observation; but my own feelings, which had been quite jubilant on the receipt of his letter, were sad and depressed. I felt like anything rather than rejoicing at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly, and had suffered so much for a cause, though that cause was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse. ...
--Ulysses S. Grant (1822–85). Personal Memoirs. 1885–86.
Chapter LXVII. Grant, Ulysses S. 1885–86. Personal Memoirs
Shouldn't people who are opposing slavery be pigheaded? And what about the pig-headed Southerners who pushed through the Fugitive Slave Act, a ban on use of the mails to send anti-slavery literature, etc.
The humanitarian opposition to slavery was a world-wide (albeit thinly-organized) phenomenon, predating the American Civil War by a century or more; the journals of this movement are well-documented and preserved. (Great Britain, for example, had formally abolished slavery in 1807, but an organized anti-slavery movement began much earlier.) And by the mid-Nineteenth Century, it was apparent to the more-historically- and diplomatically-astute, that the days of slavery were numbered, no matter what. The American South was better-equipped to resist this due to the one-time advantage of a supply of new (but not inexhaustible) cotton lands.
So again, it must be asked:
Was an earlier, but still certain end to slavery worth half a million dead, at least the same number maimed, (temporary) impoverishment, delayed economic progress, and a century of continued animosity?
Yes or no?
Last edited by 2nd trick op; 04-19-2019 at 11:38 PM..
Was an earlier, but still certain end to slavery worth half a million dead, at least the same number maimed, (temporary) impoverishment, delayed economic progress, and a century of continued animosity?
Yes or no?
I think you would have wound up with a war either way. Before the 1830's the South was geographically isolated and one-off slaves did escape. They were few and far between. When better stage coach roads and rails came into being, slaves were potentially a lot more mobile. As were their "owners", who wanted to travel with them. Those slaves represented a lot of the owners' capital investment. So if the owner wanted to take a trip, say, to NYC he had a choice of leaving the slave behind, somewhat unattended, or taking him or her along. Both posed the risk of flight. Thus the need to ratchet up enforcement of fugitive slave laws. This precluded a "live and let live" posture from the North, as the North and its law enforcement and citizenry were being asked to return "property" to the "owners." The North was being asked not only to allow slavery for the sake of "peace" but to provide active assistance.
Also, the "Underground Railroad" was aided in stretches by real iron railroads, meaning that a slave could catch a ride, say, from North Carolina or Tennessee north to a "free" destination. Thus, the Dred Scott Decision, which involved a slave that had been taken to Illinois, a free state, mandated the repatriation of slaves. In the loathsome decision published days after Buchanan's inauguration in 1857, the US Supreme Court backed the view that Negro slaves were subhuman property. Thus, the Civil War maybe could have been postponed a year or so. Even if secession was not fought militarily, the avalanche of escaped slaves would have forced the South to take aggressive action.
The south had a much lower population with a much more fertile and longer growing season. Couple that together the south’s resources were much more demanded globally thus the wealth and power concentrated in southern land owners far surpassed that of northerners.
The fact was the north needed the south and not vice versus. This was excacerbated in that the south’s economy relied upon large amounts of inexpensive labor. The war was needed for the north to continue to flex their control of the nation and retain the south’s resources and tax base.
The war served to liberate southern whites as well. How much was their labor worth when an employer could get free labor?
The war served to liberate southern whites as well. How much was their labor worth when an employer could get free labor?
I think it's a mistake to call slave labor free labor, any more than saying tractors plow fields for free. Ownership of slaves did involve cost. Yes, the labor was very cheap compared to paid laborers. But still not free.
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