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I'm gonna tell you what's wrong with that statement.
If you think the British left without leaving a heritage.
What language do you speak? English. You know why, because they founded the colonies this nation was born out of.
What laws do you subscribe to? Hint, it ain't the Constiution...it's English Common law.
They also founded the institutions that would lead to the Civil War-including slavery. Which of course they themselves would abolish in 1804.
The Civil War may have been fought for many reasons, but slavery was up there. The southern states were pissed an abolitionist president with the full support of the north won. It wasn't fought just over states' rights.
When the British left, they left a small strip of land that stretched for maybe 100-150 miles from the eastern seaboard into the interior of the country. In Virginia, the border was the blue ridge mountains. In Penn. there were outposts as far as present-day Pittsburgh, but even that land was disputed by the French, various Indian nations, and the British (also New York disputed the area with Penn.). The British-held colonies, moreover, stretched from say Boston area to August, Ga. (and Ga. was mainly the Augusta area at the time of the Revolution). Florida was still a series of Spanish outposts that they disputed with the French, whose influence was spreading from the Natchez-New Orleans area. The Spanish held much of what is the Texas coast today.
Even Ben Franklin's writings attest to a fledgling nation (the U.S.) in which there were roughly 100 different languages spoken in Philly and New York. not only that but there was this colonial doctor named Alexander Hamilton (not the famous Alexander Hamilton), who toured the southern colonies before the Revolution and found that he heard German, various Gaelic dialects, French, English, Portuguese, Spanish, various Indian and African Gullah languages on his travels. When stopping at a tavern (an 18th century hotel), he wrote about struggling to understand the many dialects spoken in the British colonies. He specifically mentioned the Blue Ridge boundary in Virginia as a polyglot of nationalities.
And, remember the British colonies at the time of the Revolution were young still. They had acquired New York from the Dutch (Germans) only about 75 years earlier.
The fact that this is a predominantly English language country is really an accident of history more than it was the legacy of British rule -- because the British ruled a small strip of land that stretched from north Boston to Augusta, Ga.
Slave manumissions (freeing them) began in 1776 when a Massachussets slave sued for her freedom. It took her several years for the court to grant her her freedom based on the language in the Declaration of Independence and the Massachussets Constitution. Slave manumissions spread the northern states in the early Republic. Most slaves who lived in New York (Long Island) were not fully freed until 1834. The way it worked was certain slaves were freed after they reached a certain age, called gradual manumission. By 1834 and with the rising free black population, all of the current states at that time passed discriminatory laws against free blacks. They couldn't vote, own property, attend schools, testify in court, bring suits in courts of law, and some states even banned free blacks from its borders. The message was loud and clear--go back to Africa.
Secession that spawned the Civil War (or Slaveholders' Rebellion) began before Abe Lincoln was even inaugurated. Before his inauguration, Jeff Davis the Confederate president, called up 100,000 volunteers to begin training to fight the Yankees. It is here that the Confederated states at that time (Ala, Miss., Texas, Georgia, S.C., Florida, Louisiana) violated the Constitution of the United States by states raising armies during a time of peace. Once Lincoln was inaugurated in March 1861, he asked for 75,000 volunteers to help defend the United States against a slaveholders-led insurrection. When Southerners fired on the American flag at Fort Sumter, that started the war, because, after all, how does the U.S. or any country behave when people fire on their people? Usually war ensues.
This baloney about the war not being over slavery is so ridiculous. Each of the seceeding states sent documents of secession to the U.S. government. In each one of these documents, which amounted to declarations of independence, the seceeding states cite slavery as the reason for secession. Mississippi's document claims "our position is firmly identified with that of slavery..." South Carolina's included racist language about how only blacks can work in the tropical heat of the South. Every states' secession declaration claimed that Lincoln wanted to free the slaves. Actually the Republican platform at the time of the 1860 election was to prevent slavery from expanding into Kansas, Nebraska, the Dakotas, etc. The South wanted slavery to expand because it was tied to political power in Congress--congress members and senators tended to vote in sectional blocs from roughly 1850 to 1860 because the two-party system was in turmoil as Whigs folded, Democrats were split along North-South lines over slavery's expansion, and various factions coalesced to form the Republican party.
Southern states, moreover, wrote a constitution in which slavery was thoroughly protected, but mostly stated everything else that the U.S. Constitution says. There was one glaring admission, however. Leaders of the slaveholders' rebellion and secession proclaimed states' rights as their overarching rationale for secession. Yet the confederate constitution strictly prohibits Confederate states from seceeding from the Confederacy. So much for states' rights!
During the war Georgia and North Carolina fought losing states' rights battles against the Confederate government in Virginia (which seceeded after Sumter). In each occurence the Confederate federalist system won out until Confederate power waned significantly by the summer of 1863.
When the British left, they left a small strip of land that stretched for maybe 100-150 miles from the eastern seaboard into the interior of the country. In Virginia, the border was the blue ridge mountains. In Penn. there were outposts as far as present-day Pittsburgh, but even that land was disputed by the French, various Indian nations, and the British (also New York disputed the area with Penn.). The British-held colonies, moreover, stretched from say Boston area to August, Ga. (and Ga. was mainly the Augusta area at the time of the Revolution). Florida was still a series of Spanish outposts that they disputed with the French, whose influence was spreading from the Natchez-New Orleans area. The Spanish held much of what is the Texas coast today.
Even Ben Franklin's writings attest to a fledgling nation (the U.S.) in which there were roughly 100 different languages spoken in Philly and New York. not only that but there was this colonial doctor named Alexander Hamilton (not the famous Alexander Hamilton), who toured the southern colonies before the Revolution and found that he heard German, various Gaelic dialects, French, English, Portuguese, Spanish, various Indian and African Gullah languages on his travels. When stopping at a tavern (an 18th century hotel), he wrote about struggling to understand the many dialects spoken in the British colonies. He specifically mentioned the Blue Ridge boundary in Virginia as a polyglot of nationalities.
And, remember the British colonies at the time of the Revolution were young still. They had acquired New York from the Dutch (Germans) only about 75 years earlier.
The fact that this is a predominantly English language country is really an accident of history more than it was the legacy of British rule -- because the British ruled a small strip of land that stretched from north Boston to Augusta, Ga.
Slave manumissions (freeing them) began in 1776 when a Massachussets slave sued for her freedom. It took her several years for the court to grant her her freedom based on the language in the Declaration of Independence and the Massachussets Constitution. Slave manumissions spread the northern states in the early Republic. Most slaves who lived in New York (Long Island) were not fully freed until 1834. The way it worked was certain slaves were freed after they reached a certain age, called gradual manumission. By 1834 and with the rising free black population, all of the current states at that time passed discriminatory laws against free blacks. They couldn't vote, own property, attend schools, testify in court, bring suits in courts of law, and some states even banned free blacks from its borders. The message was loud and clear--go back to Africa.
Secession that spawned the Civil War (or Slaveholders' Rebellion) began before Abe Lincoln was even inaugurated. Before his inauguration, Jeff Davis the Confederate president, called up 100,000 volunteers to begin training to fight the Yankees. It is here that the Confederated states at that time (Ala, Miss., Texas, Georgia, S.C., Florida, Louisiana) violated the Constitution of the United States by states raising armies during a time of peace. Once Lincoln was inaugurated in March 1861, he asked for 75,000 volunteers to help defend the United States against a slaveholders-led insurrection. When Southerners fired on the American flag at Fort Sumter, that started the war, because, after all, how does the U.S. or any country behave when people fire on their people? Usually war ensues.
This baloney about the war not being over slavery is so ridiculous. Each of the seceeding states sent documents of secession to the U.S. government. In each one of these documents, which amounted to declarations of independence, the seceeding states cite slavery as the reason for secession. Mississippi's document claims "our position is firmly identified with that of slavery..." South Carolina's included racist language about how only blacks can work in the tropical heat of the South. Every states' secession declaration claimed that Lincoln wanted to free the slaves. Actually the Republican platform at the time of the 1860 election was to prevent slavery from expanding into Kansas, Nebraska, the Dakotas, etc. The South wanted slavery to expand because it was tied to political power in Congress--congress members and senators tended to vote in sectional blocs from roughly 1850 to 1860 because the two-party system was in turmoil as Whigs folded, Democrats were split along North-South lines over slavery's expansion, and various factions coalesced to form the Republican party.
Southern states, moreover, wrote a constitution in which slavery was thoroughly protected, but mostly stated everything else that the U.S. Constitution says. There was one glaring admission, however. Leaders of the slaveholders' rebellion and secession proclaimed states' rights as their overarching rationale for secession. Yet the confederate constitution strictly prohibits Confederate states from seceeding from the Confederacy. So much for states' rights!
During the war Georgia and North Carolina fought losing states' rights battles against the Confederate government in Virginia (which seceeded after Sumter). In each occurence the Confederate federalist system won out until Confederate power waned significantly by the summer of 1863.
Once they seceded they were not bound by the U.S. Constitution. The militias were formed in the South for defense because it was expected Lincoln would attack when he became president.
West Virginia seceded from a seceding state, for your information. The Virginians didn't like it but they didn't exactly decide they would kill all the West Virginians to keep them. Furthermore, states in the Cofnederacy routinely refused to provide militiamen, supplies, etc., to the Confederate government and the government could do nothing. The strong states' rights actually contributed to their failure. There is no wording in the Confederate Constitution that prohibits secession: Avalon Project - Constitution of the Confederate States; March 11, 1861
And it reproduces word for word the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Slavery was only one item cited by the secessionists out of a list of several including a lack of representation, the ability of the North to force their will on them, taxation issues, agrarian versus industrial economic systems, a growing federal government, etc. The SCOTUS in Dred Scott strongly protected slavery anyways and prevented the feds from limiting it anywhere as Lincoln wanted to do. If it was solely about slavery, remaining in the union would have not stopped them from having slaves and expanding it. Dred Scott tied the hands of the feds and without an amendment to the Constitution, they could do nothing to slavery, and no amendment would pass if the South remained.
BTW: the Dutch are not Germans though they are related if you go back far enough in history. NY was taken from the Netherlands not a German state.
Some states did not treat Blacks as non-citizens. Vermont legally treated Blacks as equal citizens, though there was severe racism and discrimination against them by many of the people of the state. NY imposed property ownership requirements on Blacks after Whites were no longer bound by them for voting. It's not quite as simple as "Blacks couldn't vote."
The word Dutch comes from the word Deutsch, which means German. The Netherlands were considered German by folks like Ben Franklin and other colonists. My use in my above post reflects the way the colonists at the time identified people from the Netherlands--as Dutch, meaning German--not to be confused with the modern-day state of Germany, which did not exist in the colonial era.
the Confederate Constitution, article IV, section "(4) The Confederate States shall guarantee to every State that now is, or hereafter may become, a member of this Confederacy, a republican form of government; and shall protect each of them against invasion; and on application of the Legislature or of the Executive when the Legislature is not in session) against domestic violence," prohibits secession or states from maintaining some other form of government. Moreover, there is not explicit language in the CSA Constitution that allows for secession. Isn't this rather puzzling if the secessionist argument centered on states' rights? Actually, states' rights applied only to the institution of slavery in relation to the federal government of the U.S.--in the mind of the southern secessionist.
More puzzling, however, is the relationship between the Confederate government in either Montgomery (later Richmond) and the governments of its states. Whenever there was a dispute between the CSA federal authority and the Confederate state governments, the CSA federal government won out. Georgia and North Carolina both threatened secession from the CSA during the war over the very states' rights issue. These states were issued severe ultimatums of what would happen if they left the Confederacy.
You claim the Confederacy could do whatever they wanted once they left the Union, but the dispute here is whether states had the right to leave the Union. Like the CSA constitution, the U.S. Constitution states had no power for secession through the supremacy clause and the omission of any language expressly allowing secession. In arguments made at the time, as well as later, if secession was a legal right, then what good was the Union in the first place? If secession was legal, and states could willy nilly leave the Union They could legally leave the state of Virginia, as well as conceivably, Richmond could leave the state of Virginia, and counties like Jones in Alabama could leave Alabama, and the county-seat of Jones could secede from Jones County. Where does secession end? In the case of the western counties of Virginia, they left the state of Virginia to remain in the Union, and documents from the time period consider the other counties adherence to secession as treasonous.
Several counties in each of the states that actually seceded also tried to remain in the Union, particularly around Knoxville, as well as several counties in Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida, etc. Secession is an absurdity because it would render the Union as a quasi-anarchy in which states, counties, municipalities and homesteads could leave at any time. How then could any government under such a system actually work?
Also it's significant to show some demographics of these southern areas opposed to secession. One thing they had in common was a small slave population and county and municipal governments devoid of much Planter/slaveholder influence. This shows that secession centered on the institution of slavery. Secession sentiment was strongest in states that had either a slave majority or the slave population was nearly equal to that of the white population.
When Jeff Davis called up 100,000 volunteers, there was already a militia system in place and many of these already organized militias (designed to protect against slave rebellions) formed up into Confederate Army units. Yet when this ocurred in Feb and early March 1861, Lincoln had not even become president yet. He was merely president-elect. The act of Davis's call and the forming of a Confederate States Army expressly violated the Constitution of the United States. And as Lincoln did, he treated the seceeded states as still part of the Union once he became president because of the ridiculousness of secession. Searching for a peaceful solution in the time between his March inuagural and the battle for Fort Sumter, Lincoln hoped to bring the southern states back into the fold. Southern states by contrast sought recognition from the Union and from a Union government that did not consider secession legal.
And if you consider the firing of confederates onto Fort Sumter, that would be an instance of attempting to wage war against the United States, similar to the way the Taliban-trained and Al Queda-led attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001. These were acts of war, just like Beauregard's order for Confederates to attack U.S. property--Fort Sumter.
Further, hundreds of thousands of southerners did not consider secession legal, namely Andrew Johnson. Yet the rank and file southerners opposing secession were run out of their states on a rail, or in the case of Lousiana, Mississipp, Alabama, and Georgia, many of these dissenters were imprisoned or forced to serve in the CS army building breastworks and digging latrines with slaves. There are several accounts written from the time period that document the concentration camps in these states or the impressment of dissenters into the CS Army.
Moreover, Lincoln had no power to change the institution of slavery. Even his Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 had no effect on slavery in the Union (areas under Union Army control, Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland, and Delaware saw no change in the slave system until the 13th Amendment abolished slavery). the act of leaving the Union by the Southern states was a premeditated act, which Southerners had threatened since the 1820 Missouri Compromise. Secession had everything to do with inoculating the South from Federal and promoting expansion of the slave empire into Western states and takeover of Cuba and central American nations.
It's puzzling that you disagree with me on the free blacks issue by stating that Vermont legally treated blacks as equal citizens, but you add that they discriminated against them as well. So which is it? If persons are discriminated against, are they full citizens or partial citizens. For free blacks in the 18th and 19th century, they were quasi-citizens who had no legal rights. From the evidence that I've seen, it was rather simple. Blacks could not vote and they were not considered citizens even if they were not "owned" as slaves. Even abolitionists wanted free blacks and slaves to leave the United States, except the more radical abolitionists such as Douglass, Gerritt Smith, and John Brown. It's probably important to note that even northern whites did not consider themselves "free" the way we use the words today. "Free" meant not owned like slaves were owned, but free whites in the North believed they possessed no independence because they were dependent on employers and the meager wages they paid. Independence meant being a small, independent farmer, or being an independent master mechanic--independent meaning they were not tied to the market system.
The Dred Scot decision expanded slavery to the point of disconstructing the whole idea of slave or free states. If a slaveowner could take their slaves with them anywhere in the Union as per the SCOTUS decision, then there was no distinction between the free North and slave South. The difference for slaveholding interests in the South at the time of secession was the execution of John Brown, whom some Northerners considered a hero. This angered the South and the slaveholders' oligarchy considered this treasonous and insulting to the southern institution. Furthermore, southerners considered themselves locked out of the electoral system since Lincoln had been elected in 1860 despite the fact that his name was not on the ballot in the slave states. They deemed the electoral system as being able to elect a president using only free states' electoral votes. So in this manner secession was about power--power for the slave states to expand slavery into territories and the annexation of other nations to include in the Union as slave states. Southerners pushed this agenda in Congress since 1820 and threatened secession all along the way.
As another poster on this thread correctly stated, states' rights was a farce because the Fugitive Slave Act made it to where northern states had to enforce it whether they wanted to or not.
Attempting to divorce slavery from the Civil War is kind of like trying to say terrorism had nothing to do with the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan. The reason so many folks believe slavery had nothing to do with the Civil War is based on racist-history conducted between 1900 and 1935 (give or take), which was dominated by biased researchers formed around historians William Dunning and Ulrich Phillips. By the 1930s and 40s, historians began looking again at the Civil War and found that earlier historians ignored evidence that did not fit in with their Confederate apologies. Also the way historians conducted their research changed greatly in the 1920s with the influence of Charles Beard.
History is not exact; it is necessarily revisionist. Historians' work reflects the time period in which it was produced. Early civil war historians projected an image of a benighted South that was wrongly subjugated by an activist, and militaristic, federal government. Since the 30s, this viewpoint has been shown over and over to be ridiculous because the evidence does not reflect those pro-Confederacy conclusions.
the Confederate Constitution, article IV, section "(4) The Confederate States shall guarantee to every State that now is, or hereafter may become, a member of this Confederacy, a republican form of government; and shall protect each of them against invasion; and on application of the Legislature or of the Executive when the Legislature is not in session) against domestic violence," prohibits secession or states from maintaining some other form of government. Moreover, there is not explicit language in the CSA Constitution that allows for secession. Isn't this rather puzzling if the secessionist argument centered on states' rights? Actually, states' rights applied only to the institution of slavery in relation to the federal government of the U.S.--in the mind of the southern secessionist.
That doesn't prohibit secession, and moreover, they used the words of the U.S. 10th Amendment in their constitution, reserving all non-prohibited pwoers to the states and people. That section you quote is concerning foreign invasion or riots, not legal acts of secession.
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More puzzling, however, is the relationship between the Confederate government in either Montgomery (later Richmond) and the governments of its states. Whenever there was a dispute between the CSA federal authority and the Confederate state governments, the CSA federal government won out. Georgia and North Carolina both threatened secession from the CSA during the war over the very states' rights issue. These states were issued severe ultimatums of what would happen if they left the Confederacy.
No, in practice the states won, and it proved disasterous to the war efforts. Militiamen refused to fight for other states, states refused to send their supplies to other states, and some states like VA looked down their noses at those from the more backwoods areas.
And of course, WV actually did secede from a seceded Confederate state.
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You claim the Confederacy could do whatever they wanted once they left the Union, but the dispute here is whether states had the right to leave the Union. Like the CSA constitution, the U.S. Constitution states had no power for secession through the supremacy clause and the omission of any language expressly allowing secession. In arguments made at the time, as well as later, if secession was a legal right, then what good was the Union in the first place? If secession was legal, and states could willy nilly leave the Union They could legally leave the state of Virginia, as well as conceivably, Richmond could leave the state of Virginia, and counties like Jones in Alabama could leave Alabama, and the county-seat of Jones could secede from Jones County. Where does secession end? In the case of the western counties of Virginia, they left the state of Virginia to remain in the Union, and documents from the time period consider the other counties adherence to secession as treasonous.
You have it backwards. There is nothing prohibiting secession, therefore it is legal, because of the 10th Amendment. Our legal system operates on the basis of anything not specifically forbidden, is legal.
Secession was a check on the power of the federal government, should the federal government become dangerous to liberty. Not even Calhoun suggested states leave willy nilly over any reason, but rather, only when absolutely necessary.
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Several counties in each of the states that actually seceded also tried to remain in the Union, particularly around Knoxville, as well as several counties in Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida, etc. Secession is an absurdity because it would render the Union as a quasi-anarchy in which states, counties, municipalities and homesteads could leave at any time. How then could any government under such a system actually work?
See above. Our country was founded based on liberty, not the rights of governments.
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Also it's significant to show some demographics of these southern areas opposed to secession. One thing they had in common was a small slave population and county and municipal governments devoid of much Planter/slaveholder influence. This shows that secession centered on the institution of slavery. Secession sentiment was strongest in states that had either a slave majority or the slave population was nearly equal to that of the white population.
Not quite. The areas with less slavery were rather backwoods (the Appalachians, for instance) where the people had little use for the people in the more developed areas. They essentially wanted to be left alone. During the American Revolution those same areas essentially sided with neither side but rather fought anyone who imposed their will on them.
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When Jeff Davis called up 100,000 volunteers, there was already a militia system in place and many of these already organized militias (designed to protect against slave rebellions) formed up into Confederate Army units. Yet when this ocurred in Feb and early March 1861, Lincoln had not even become president yet. He was merely president-elect. The act of Davis's call and the forming of a Confederate States Army expressly violated the Constitution of the United States. And as Lincoln did, he treated the seceeded states as still part of the Union once he became president because of the ridiculousness of secession. Searching for a peaceful solution in the time between his March inuagural and the battle for Fort Sumter, Lincoln hoped to bring the southern states back into the fold. Southern states by contrast sought recognition from the Union and from a Union government that did not consider secession legal.
He was not under the U.S. Constitutiona nd in fact renounced U.S. citizenship.
It was defensive. It was expected Lincoln would attack. The Confederacy strategy was to wage a defensive war, furthermore, not an offensive one.
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And if you consider the firing of confederates onto Fort Sumter, that would be an instance of attempting to wage war against the United States, similar to the way the Taliban-trained and Al Queda-led attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001. These were acts of war, just like Beauregard's order for Confederates to attack U.S. property--Fort Sumter.
Supplying a fort full of hostile forces was an act of war. You must not understand war and how it was especially at that time. Lincoln made an act of war by supplying that fort. Furthermore, even under the U.S. Constitution, the feds may only own property with the consent of the state it's in, and the state no longer consented to it.
No comparison. The terrorists targetted civilians, the Southerners went after only military targets.
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Further, hundreds of thousands of southerners did not consider secession legal, namely Andrew Johnson. Yet the rank and file southerners opposing secession were run out of their states on a rail, or in the case of Lousiana, Mississipp, Alabama, and Georgia, many of these dissenters were imprisoned or forced to serve in the CS army building breastworks and digging latrines with slaves. There are several accounts written from the time period that document the concentration camps in these states or the impressment of dissenters into the CS Army.
You over-state the numbers. Andrew Johnson had no use for the Northerners but likewise had no use for the Southern elite.
Lincoln had anyone who was critical of the government arrested, even executed. When the Chief Justice of the SCOTUS declared it unconstitutional he wanted him arrested but no one would follow the orders...
If one wants to go into concentration camps the North had more guilt than anything the South did...
The North also forced people to fight against their will. Some of my ancestors in Vermont were forced to fight (literally against their brothers and cousins).
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It's puzzling that you disagree with me on the free blacks issue by stating that Vermont legally treated blacks as equal citizens, but you add that they discriminated against them as well. So which is it? If persons are discriminated against, are they full citizens or partial citizens. For free blacks in the 18th and 19th century, they were quasi-citizens who had no legal rights. From the evidence that I've seen, it was rather simple. Blacks could not vote and they were not considered citizens even if they were not "owned" as slaves. Even abolitionists wanted free blacks and slaves to leave the United States, except the more radical abolitionists such as Douglass, Gerritt Smith, and John Brown. It's probably important to note that even northern whites did not consider themselves "free" the way we use the words today. "Free" meant not owned like slaves were owned, but free whites in the North believed they possessed no independence because they were dependent on employers and the meager wages they paid. Independence meant being a small, independent farmer, or being an independent master mechanic--independent meaning they were not tied to the market system.
Legally they had the same rights as whites but there was racism and discrimination in everyday life, not necessarily from the government. A good book for a picture of lfie for free Blacks in Vermont is the "Blind African Slave," a biography/autobiography about a free Black former slave who fought in the Revolution for his freedom and moved to VT because VT had banned slavery. Very interesting book.
Lincoln himself advocated sending the Blacks to Africa. But not everyone shared in this. Even some supporters of the idea weren't willing to force them out.
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The Dred Scot decision expanded slavery to the point of disconstructing the whole idea of slave or free states. If a slaveowner could take their slaves with them anywhere in the Union as per the SCOTUS decision, then there was no distinction between the free North and slave South. The difference for slaveholding interests in the South at the time of secession was the execution of John Brown, whom some Northerners considered a hero. This angered the South and the slaveholders' oligarchy considered this treasonous and insulting to the southern institution. Furthermore, southerners considered themselves locked out of the electoral system since Lincoln had been elected in 1860 despite the fact that his name was not on the ballot in the slave states. They deemed the electoral system as being able to elect a president using only free states' electoral votes. So in this manner secession was about power--power for the slave states to expand slavery into territories and the annexation of other nations to include in the Union as slave states. Southerners pushed this agenda in Congress since 1820 and threatened secession all along the way.
But the feds had no ability to block slavery (because of Dred Scott) so you can't place slavery as the real reason for secession. Slavery was fairly secure in 1860.
SC threatened secession in the 1830's based on taxes not slavery. The New England states likewise threatened to secede at various times for different reasons. Secession was not all about slavery.
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As another poster on this thread correctly stated, states' rights was a farce because the Fugitive Slave Act made it to where northern states had to enforce it whether they wanted to or not.
Attempting to divorce slavery from the Civil War is kind of like trying to say terrorism had nothing to do with the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan. The reason so many folks believe slavery had nothing to do with the Civil War is based on racist-history conducted between 1900 and 1935 (give or take), which was dominated by biased researchers formed around historians William Dunning and Ulrich Phillips. By the 1930s and 40s, historians began looking again at the Civil War and found that earlier historians ignored evidence that did not fit in with their Confederate apologies. Also the way historians conducted their research changed greatly in the 1920s with the influence of Charles Beard.
History is not exact; it is necessarily revisionist. Historians' work reflects the time period in which it was produced. Early civil war historians projected an image of a benighted South that was wrongly subjugated by an activist, and militaristic, federal government. Since the 30s, this viewpoint has been shown over and over to be ridiculous because the evidence does not reflect those pro-Confederacy conclusions.
Slavery was one of many reasons secession and the war happened. Few historians today believe in a single-causation theory. Multiple causation is what has been widely accepted. The Northerners who wrote history painted the slavery-only picture, Southerners tried to ignore slavery. The truth is neither side was unbiased.
Last edited by arctichomesteader; 04-10-2010 at 02:18 PM..
The south has the most fat people, the most uneducated people, the poorest people, the most teenage pregnancy and the most religious people. In other words, they're pretty much the main reason this country is in the ****ter.
Yeah jimrome, just pigeonhole the south for everything, never mind places like California or New York who have higher percentages of people, which when you crunch the numbers has more fat people. But to soley blame the south for everything is disingenuous, and your arguement is discarded.
That doesn't prohibit secession, and moreover, they used the words of the U.S. 10th Amendment in their constitution, reserving all non-prohibited pwoers to the states and people. That section you quote is concerning foreign invasion or riots, not legal acts of secession.
No, in practice the states won, and it proved disasterous to the war efforts. Militiamen refused to fight for other states, states refused to send their supplies to other states, and some states like VA looked down their noses at those from the more backwoods areas.
And of course, WV actually did secede from a seceded Confederate state.
You have it backwards. There is nothing prohibiting secession, therefore it is legal, because of the 10th Amendment. Our legal system operates on the basis of anything not specifically forbidden, is legal.
Secession was a check on the power of the federal government, should the federal government become dangerous to liberty. Not even Calhoun suggested states leave willy nilly over any reason, but rather, only when absolutely necessary.
See above. Our country was founded based on liberty, not the rights of governments.
Not quite. The areas with less slavery were rather backwoods (the Appalachians, for instance) where the people had little use for the people in the more developed areas. They essentially wanted to be left alone. During the American Revolution those same areas essentially sided with neither side but rather fought anyone who imposed their will on them.
He was not under the U.S. Constitutiona nd in fact renounced U.S. citizenship.
It was defensive. It was expected Lincoln would attack. The Confederacy strategy was to wage a defensive war, furthermore, not an offensive one.
Supplying a fort full of hostile forces was an act of war. You must not understand war and how it was especially at that time. Lincoln made an act of war by supplying that fort. Furthermore, even under the U.S. Constitution, the feds may only own property with the consent of the state it's in, and the state no longer consented to it.
No comparison. The terrorists targetted civilians, the Southerners went after only military targets.
You over-state the numbers. Andrew Johnson had no use for the Northerners but likewise had no use for the Southern elite.
Lincoln had anyone who was critical of the government arrested, even executed. When the Chief Justice of the SCOTUS declared it unconstitutional he wanted him arrested but no one would follow the orders...
If one wants to go into concentration camps the North had more guilt than anything the South did...
The North also forced people to fight against their will. Some of my ancestors in Vermont were forced to fight (literally against their brothers and cousins).
Legally they had the same rights as whites but there was racism and discrimination in everyday life, not necessarily from the government. A good book for a picture of lfie for free Blacks in Vermont is the "Blind African Slave," a biography/autobiography about a free Black former slave who fought in the Revolution for his freedom and moved to VT because VT had banned slavery. Very interesting book.
Lincoln himself advocated sending the Blacks to Africa. But not everyone shared in this. Even some supporters of the idea weren't willing to force them out.
But the feds had no ability to block slavery (because of Dred Scott) so you can't place slavery as the real reason for secession. Slavery was fairly secure in 1860.
SC threatened secession in the 1830's based on taxes not slavery. The New England states likewise threatened to secede at various times for different reasons. Secession was not all about slavery.
Slavery was one of many reasons secession and the war happened. Few historians today believe in a single-causation theory. Multiple causation is what has been widely accepted. The Northerners who wrote history painted the slavery-only picture, Southerners tried to ignore slavery. The truth is neither side was unbiased.
So I get the idea that you believe secession is legal. I'm not a constitutional scholar, but I'll reiterate what I posted earlier: secession easily reduces to absurdity the whole idea of Union. As for Northerners painted the picture of slavery as you assert, many of the historians of the Dunning school that promoted a pro-Confederacy Civil War historiography were indeed Northerners, U.B. Phillips notwithstanding.
Historians assert today that slavery was a core issue of the Civil War. As I said earlier, you cannot divorce slavery from Civil War causation.
As for war, I see you believe that a more hostile act is the U.S. Army supplying a fort that belonged to the United States rather than an insurrectionist power aggressively firing on the U.S. flag (and its inhabitants). In many ways this was the whole reason why the North did not want to part with the South--there were too many things connecting the regions, such as forts, rivers (that both regions relied upon for transportation), and other geographical entities. That being said, it's difficult to claim that an act of war is providing soldiers with supplies and ignoring a bombardment in the process. The bombarding of Fort Sumter was an act of aggression, similar to the firing on the Star of the West in January of 1861 by the Confederacy. There were other instances of aggression on the part of the South.
Moreover, I see that you like to point out abuses of power of the Lincoln administration while ignoring that the Confederates did the same things, even worse and in more instances. Civil war is nasty business, which is why I'm adamant that the South caused the war. Southern slaveholders caused the hostilities that ripped the nation apart and caused all of the suffering that ensued, even suffering within the Confederacy. The quartermaster corps of the CSA was brutal in their enforcement of Davis's conscription act of 1862. Even before that the southern rage militaire resulted in the tarring and feathering of dissidents, who were run out of town on rails, persecuted, tortured, abused, and imprisoned.
The evidence is what paints history the best. The evidence that I've seen on the Civil War paints an aggressive South that hoped for war and waged a brutal one in the process, even punishing its own citizens.
I really liked how you equivocated regarding the term "secession" in your response to me, which shows that you aren't really interested in the evidence and understanding. Rather you're trying to apologize for the South's slaveholders' rebellion that caused 620,000 military-related deaths (and no telling how many others) that led to the colonization of the South--and the reason why the nation has so many problems today.
I guess I'll make this one last post on this thread and then leave it to the neo Confederates in our midst.
The thing that is so ridiculous about all the Confederacy worship is that neo-Confederates imply that they are not U.S. citizens, but instead are citizens of some defunct rebellious nation. In essence, neo-Confederates claim rebellion is okay. If that is true and correct, then by the same logic it would acceptable then for African Americans to honor the efforts of slave rebellions, i.e. Nat Turner, Denmark Vesey, the Stono Rebellion, etc., each of which caused great harm to whites.
If honoring the Confederacy, an insurrectionist government that waged war against the United States, is acceptable, then equally acceptable would be other efforts at rebellion. We should set up Confederate Nation Day alongside Nat Turner Day. Both were insurrections or revolts.
Me, I'm an American, a citizen of the United States. While the U.S. is not perfect, it's a much better world than the slaveholders created between 1793 (when Eli Whitney's cotton gin was invented that made cotton farming, dependent on slave labor, profitable) and 1865, which prohibited most of the freedoms contained in the Bill of Rights and resisted the emerging capitalist, free-market economy. The South lost in its failed attempt at creating a nation and in its aggression against the U.S. You'd think people would get over it.
So I get the idea that you believe secession is legal. I'm not a constitutional scholar, but I'll reiterate what I posted earlier: secession easily reduces to absurdity the whole idea of Union. As for Northerners painted the picture of slavery as you assert, many of the historians of the Dunning school that promoted a pro-Confederacy Civil War historiography were indeed Northerners, U.B. Phillips notwithstanding.
But our country was founded on the importance of liberty, and in fact, we seceded from britain. Statists find this disturbing but it's what our founders created.
Quote:
Historians assert today that slavery was a core issue of the Civil War. As I said earlier, you cannot divorce slavery from Civil War causation.
Slavery was one factor out of many. Many historians don't consider it the main cause.
Quote:
As for war, I see you believe that a more hostile act is the U.S. Army supplying a fort that belonged to the United States rather than an insurrectionist power aggressively firing on the U.S. flag (and its inhabitants). In many ways this was the whole reason why the North did not want to part with the South--there were too many things connecting the regions, such as forts, rivers (that both regions relied upon for transportation), and other geographical entities. That being said, it's difficult to claim that an act of war is providing soldiers with supplies and ignoring a bombardment in the process. The bombarding of Fort Sumter was an act of aggression, similar to the firing on the Star of the West in January of 1861 by the Confederacy. There were other instances of aggression on the part of the South.
The rest of the federal forts had been given up peacefully. Lincoln knew precisely what he was doing, an act of war. It was his wish to provoke the South. It was no longer federal property, the state withdrew its consent to own it and furthermore had seceded, becoming a foreign country.
If the U.S. Army takes arms to a remote fort across a foreign country's waters or land without consent, do you think they won't possibly fire on our soldiers?
The North did not want to give up the South because most of the country's economy was based on Southern cotton, and the South paid most of the country's taxes, all out of proportion to its population. The North needed the South, the South did not need the North.
Quote:
Moreover, I see that you like to point out abuses of power of the Lincoln administration while ignoring that the Confederates did the same things, even worse and in more instances. Civil war is nasty business, which is why I'm adamant that the South caused the war. Southern slaveholders caused the hostilities that ripped the nation apart and caused all of the suffering that ensued, even suffering within the Confederacy. The quartermaster corps of the CSA was brutal in their enforcement of Davis's conscription act of 1862. Even before that the southern rage militaire resulted in the tarring and feathering of dissidents, who were run out of town on rails, persecuted, tortured, abused, and imprisoned.
You focus on the South and ignore the atrocities of the North. How about the massacre at Baltimore? The North had plenty of food yet starved prisoners. Lincoln had no respect for the Constitution, or the Supreme Court.
Quote:
I really liked how you equivocated regarding the term "secession" in your response to me, which shows that you aren't really interested in the evidence and understanding. Rather you're trying to apologize for the South's slaveholders' rebellion that caused 620,000 military-related deaths (and no telling how many others) that led to the colonization of the South--and the reason why the nation has so many problems today.
Lincoln's thirst for power caused those deaths. There was nothing in the Constitution forbidding secession and it was in the same tradition as our own Revolution.
I guess I'll make this one last post on this thread and then leave it to the neo Confederates in our midst.
The thing that is so ridiculous about all the Confederacy worship is that neo-Confederates imply that they are not U.S. citizens, but instead are citizens of some defunct rebellious nation. In essence, neo-Confederates claim rebellion is okay. If that is true and correct, then by the same logic it would acceptable then for African Americans to honor the efforts of slave rebellions, i.e. Nat Turner, Denmark Vesey, the Stono Rebellion, etc., each of which caused great harm to whites.
If honoring the Confederacy, an insurrectionist government that waged war against the United States, is acceptable, then equally acceptable would be other efforts at rebellion. We should set up Confederate Nation Day alongside Nat Turner Day. Both were insurrections or revolts.
Me, I'm an American, a citizen of the United States. While the U.S. is not perfect, it's a much better world than the slaveholders created between 1793 (when Eli Whitney's cotton gin was invented that made cotton farming, dependent on slave labor, profitable) and 1865, which prohibited most of the freedoms contained in the Bill of Rights and resisted the emerging capitalist, free-market economy. The South lost in its failed attempt at creating a nation and in its aggression against the U.S. You'd think people would get over it.
I do indeed have tremendous respect for those slaves who rebelled against slavery.
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