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Old 06-18-2011, 06:53 PM
 
Location: vista
514 posts, read 763,190 times
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Left out in all these discussions are the blacks, mostly ex-slaves, who fought to free themselves. Other than a few Northern whites, they were the only ones to fight to end slavery. And they paid for it with a tremendous loss of life. BTW, happy Juneteenth everyone. Let's all celebrate the glorious Texans, who had not let 'their' slaves know that they were free until forced to by Union troops after the end of the war. Also, BTW, a favorite poster of mine will quickly point out that slaves fought for the South, too. Let's be fair and acknowledge that. They were hunnerds and hunnerds of 'em. They're not in any register that I know of but...To the main point, the blacks would all say it was worth it!
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Old 06-18-2011, 07:11 PM
 
Location: Lafayette, Louisiana
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I think a better question was could it have been prevented?
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Old 06-18-2011, 07:19 PM
 
Location: Rome, Georgia
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Agree with sailordave. The end of slavery would be worth the cost as long as there was no peaceful way to accomplish the same results. I would say that the rampant expansion of the federal government was part of the negative results of the war. The problem lies in two questions.

1) Would a peaceful seperation of the North and South have resulted in a timely freeing of the slaves?

2) Would an enduring seperation between the North and South have weakened the United States enough that we could not have contributed as much to the world as we have? (WWI, WWII, multiple inventions, and the like. I know that there are negatives too, but come on now)
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Old 06-19-2011, 10:46 AM
 
Location: Cushing OK
14,539 posts, read 21,199,368 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Georgiafrog View Post
Agree with sailordave. The end of slavery would be worth the cost as long as there was no peaceful way to accomplish the same results. I would say that the rampant expansion of the federal government was part of the negative results of the war. The problem lies in two questions.

1) Would a peaceful seperation of the North and South have resulted in a timely freeing of the slaves?

2) Would an enduring seperation between the North and South have weakened the United States enough that we could not have contributed as much to the world as we have? (WWI, WWII, multiple inventions, and the like. I know that there are negatives too, but come on now)
If the institution of slavery was essencially economic, then I'd say it would have. It would have transmuted itself into share cropping, which some had already done. The difference is slavery vs serfdom but it is a difference. But for some it was a point they might not have been pushed from. Like the Northern factories which fournd they could pay a very cheap wage to immigrants who would work for it under bad conditions and unlike slave owners there was no upkeep of anyone else, it could have become a system like that. In the south the slaves themselves were the wealth. In the north the labor of those hired was the wealth.

But it was just as much cultural and I'm sure for many to whom the politics were distant it was about a way of life. You can fight for your way of life even if for others its not considered just. And you'll probably fight harder. Slavery was part of it even for the majority without any. I suspect should they have split, eventually something like share cropping would have replaced it but only in time. And if abolitionist have continued to push (as they would, likely with violence) it simply would have hardened the positions.

As for a divided country, I think it would have stayed divided. The North had all the resources to succeeded without the south in a modern world. they had manufactering and trade and agriculture. The south was still largely rural. They had cotton but then in short order after the British mills couldn't get their usual supply they started growing what was a superior cotton in India, which also provided cheap labor which was not in an uprising. It would certanly have blunted the effect of the US as it was added to international relations. If the culture of the south remained agressively "old south" then I think Turtledove is right in his followup books to Guns of the South that they would have split on the world wars. Cultures had already diverged and there is no reason that if they were to have chosen to split they would have further isolated themselves.

Looking at places that have, the ones who wanted to stay split, and around cultural identities. An isolated south could easily have sunk back into its culture as the crutch and resisted being anything else.

Places foreably split--German and the oft partioning of eastern Europe, and the ulimately unsuccessful experiment of the reverse in Yugoslavia, tend to fall apart in time. Germany is now just one. Serbia and its neighbors have returned to their national identities like they wanted to when forced to be split or grouped by someone else.

I suspect Texas would have split from the south to become independent and the south would have not succeeded in claiming the west, so it would have ended up no larger than it started while the US would continue to expand.

The effect on the US, culturally, would have been large. At the end of the war soldiers were dismissed whereever they were and it was up to them to go home. With many thousands of young men with some pay on them free to go and do as they please, it changed the face of the culture. If you were most of the way to the west, why not just go the rest? Without this people still would have gone west, but with a different dynamic and probably not as rapidly. And the largest effect it had which would have continued to effect perception was that of identity. After the war, you were not just a Pensulvanian but an American. People by and large did not move much before, but the strong identiy of the state over the nation was broken, and the perception was changed of how the country was seen. I'm not sure if this wouldn't have happened anyway, give that the North was industrialized and already home to many immigrants, but it would have been different and slower.

The effect of wars where we made a big difference, ultimately ending both world wars sooner, would not have been. This is assuming the confederacy was on the other side purely because its the other side.

In terms of a 'misery index' I suspect life for the slaves wouldn't really change much when they had ceased to be slaves over serfs. Just the title. I think the abolitionists might have been perfectly happy about that as well since many did not like the institution of slavery but did not much like the slaves either. Cosmentic name change and presto chango, all is good.

That the south was NOT willing to do that even if it would not have made a substantial change, is a sign that it would have taken much time for it to happen in an independent south.
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Old 06-20-2011, 10:04 PM
 
10,238 posts, read 19,553,086 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nightbird47 View Post
I suspect Texas would have split from the south to become independent and the south would have not succeeded in claiming the west, so it would have ended up no larger than it started while the US would continue to expand.
Very articulate and interesting post, but without getting deeply into all the details, I did want to address the above. To wit: I have to respectfully disagree on this one.

Backtracking, this occurance (Texas secession from the Confederacy) is a common one in some "alternative history" books. But I really don't find much empirical support for that position beyond, parodoxically, that the South did lose the War. That is to say, afterwards, things took a different turn in Texas than it did in the other Southern states, it that not only did it (Texas) emerge relatively unscathed by the conflict but, in many ways, via the "cattle boom" it actually -- on some levels prospered (the hardships and vindictiveness of Reconstruction not withstanding).

Also, much of it was still a frontier and there was lots of cheap land and opportunites for pioneers (overwhelmingly from the southeast states) to put the war behind them and get a new start;in a way not possible in the Deep South. Thus, along with later Hollywood "western movies" celebrating the Texas cowboy and gunfighter, the state started to be seen -- on many levels -- as "different" from the other former Confederate States. More "western" than classically "Southern" in a sense (even though it actually doesn't make sense if truly examined apart from that somewhat fictional aspect). So, in a nut-shell, many of these historical alternates seperate Texas from the others -- in seceeding from the Confederacy -- not from examination of the real facts, but just that it fits into that "seperate identity" of Texas, today. And that to make it "believable" for many whose only real image of Texas is the Hollywood western, alternate history themes must play to the myth, not the reality.

As it really was (and Turtledove, in Guns of the South sorta verifies it), Texas was a true "cotton state" (the cowboy and rancher get the ackolades, but the average Texan was far more likely to have been a small farmer whose living depended on King Cotton). It's secession document was one of the most "pro-Confederate", and if not for Gov. Houston (a Southern Unionist) deliberately refusing to call the Texas Legislature into special secession to consider the issue, Texas might easily have been the second state to secede.

The record of Texas troops on the battlefield was second to none, the wartime governors were strongly pro-Confederate...and after the War, it was the second-to-last state to be "re-admitted" to the Union, as -- for one thing -- the Texas legislature (rightfully in my opinion!), flatly refused to declare secession null and void ad initio (i.e. from the beginning). The furthest they would go would admit it was null and void as a result of the war itself. And there are many other reasons too lengthy to get into here...

So -- and I know I can be very long-winded! LOL -- if the South had won, I firmly believe Texas would have remained a Confederate State. Hell, for one thing, it would have been Texas where -- even more so than happened in losing -- southeasterners wanting to prosper would have flooded into the state and probably shaped its basic character -- historically and culturally -- even more so than it did otherwise. Which, again, was always the dominating force in Texas history, culture, politics, religion, etc...
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Old 06-21-2011, 10:44 AM
Status: "111 N/A" (set 3 days ago)
 
12,912 posts, read 13,596,533 times
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The Slaughter was par for the course for war fare in that era due to the lack of medical advancements. I also think Generals fighting against men they had intimate knowledge of made some carnage unnecessary

After the turn of the century the United States began what some writers have defined as a social revolution and Slavery was going to be a casualty of it regardless of the war. Slaves served the American revolution well by keeping factories, farms and the economy going while men went to war and the South had that advantage during the civil war. Emancipation was a battle field strategy more than it was a moral edict so the abolitionist lost that victory.

I think if the South was allowed to secede the sectarian violence that would of ensued over the last 150 years would have resulted in many more deaths to date. Having to share the same world with people whom you have an ideological dichotomy is hard enough, I cant imagine the mason Dixon line being all there was to keep people from killing each other.
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Old 06-21-2011, 10:59 AM
 
Location: Way,Way Up On The Old East Coast
2,196 posts, read 1,990,612 times
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Default " "Betta Open Up Dem Factual History Books & Gives Em A Look" ...

Quote:
Originally Posted by xiansheng_g View Post
The Civil War was fought over whether or not States had the right to dissolve themselves from the Union. The tipping point of this dissolution was the issue of slavery. Neither of these issues was mutually exclusive. Furthermore, the "freeing of the slaves" was a military device to decimate the economic force of the Confederacy. In its final analysis, the Southern 19th century agrarian based economy, which was dependent on slavery was a knuckle dragging burden on new industrial society that the United States had embarked on.
xiansheng_g !!! ... !!! Precisely !

Indeed ...... It would have been bloody pleasure to have had you as a student in me ole American History classroom a few years back !!!

Rare it is mate to have a bloke ere on ole CDF that has even a minimal intellectual grasp on the accurate events of America's magnificent historical accounts !!!

The p.c. history "Pea Brains" have so distorted our great history that it's no bloomin wonder we have a whole boat load of folks dat jest don't have a freekin clue bout da past !!!

Keeps up duh great work thar xiansheng_g ... This motley crew could use a few moe of your good lessons !!!

Thanks A Bunch Ya'll / Old Sgt. Lamar
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Old 06-21-2011, 02:19 PM
 
Location: Brooklyn
40,049 posts, read 34,521,547 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Georgiafrog View Post
Would a peaceful seperation of the North and South have resulted in a timely freeing of the slaves?
How do you define "timely?" If the Union and Confederacy had agreed upon a mutual separation without war, surely you don't think that freeing slaves would have been acceptable as a pre-condition by the South?

So slavery in the South would have lasted beyond 1865. But if you look at slaveholding nations in the 19th century--of course a sovereign and independent Confederacy would have been one of them--you see that the practice was dying out without such things as civil wars. (Brazil turned out to be one of the last hangers-on; slavery there wasn't outlawed until 1889).
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Old 06-21-2011, 02:47 PM
 
Location: Parts Unknown, Northern California
48,564 posts, read 24,021,911 times
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None of us know what would have happened had the Confederacy endured rather than been eradicated. They may have wound up with a slave revolt on their hands, aided by sympathizers in the North. They may have gotten themselves entangled with a war against a European power as a consequence of what would have then been unfettered fillibustering in Central America. They may have come undone themselves...a nation founded on the doctrine of the right of secession whenever a regional portion disagrees with the majority, would surely have experienced problems remaining intact for a prolonged period.
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Old 06-21-2011, 10:23 PM
 
Location: Cushing OK
14,539 posts, read 21,199,368 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Grandstander View Post
None of us know what would have happened had the Confederacy endured rather than been eradicated. They may have wound up with a slave revolt on their hands, aided by sympathizers in the North. They may have gotten themselves entangled with a war against a European power as a consequence of what would have then been unfettered fillibustering in Central America. They may have come undone themselves...a nation founded on the doctrine of the right of secession whenever a regional portion disagrees with the majority, would surely have experienced problems remaining intact for a prolonged period.
Very true. European powers could easily have used them for purposes of manipulation. The climate might have led to slave revolts as abolitionists would have had only that option to end it then and sometimes given hope and then dashing it just breeds plans. But the greatest danger would have been states finding the rules of the central government unacceptable and leaving. What if they had tried to abolish slavery at some later time and the confederacy had simply split into chunks, some accepting and some not. Balkanization does nothing but create more instability and usually more violence as you have even more borders to deal with. Remember the US had had a government where participation in policies was voluntary, at least funding them, and it was literally scrapped in favor of one with more central power as it was falling apart and several states were going to go to war with each other.

If it had, likely the US might have just gone back and taken it a chunk at a time.
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