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Another guy that can't grasp the simple fact that The United States was crushing rebellion regardless of it's reason; a reason that happened to be...slavery.
By the way, the South's defending slavery WAS an economic issue.
And the North's unwaivering desire to keep the South in the Union was an economic issue.
Now let's follow ultimate cause and effect here.... Secession didn't start the war. The North's refusal to allow it did. Dig for the reasons WHY the North wasn't going to allow it, and PRESTO!!! You find the entire reason they went to war.
And let's agree here that the North's reasoning had nothing to do with some sense of comradery toward their southern bretheren..... This was purely economic on their part.
You understand, of course, that the motivation of someone who opposed secession says nothing about the motivation of those who argued for secession, don't you?
And you understand that their motivations for arguing EITHER side of secession is irrelevent, don't you?
A military installation whose ownership was in question. After extensive negotiations. And after giving the fort warning of its intentions so that no one would be hurt. And, in fact, the southern guns didn't harm a single US soldier. That's how they started the war.
And of course, Lincoln's decision to supply the fort, while Congress was not in session, which was deliberately provocative, is ignored. Why would Lincoln behave so provocatively? .
Probably for the same reason that every other United States president supplies U.S. military installations, particularly those likely to come under attack.
White Haven is in MO, not IL. Also, it's not clear that Grant even really owned the slave. He belonged to his wife's Father and there's no record of a transfer to him.
No, it actually addresses the very crux of the argument. You all want to argue the morality of slavery while the argument should be about the legality of secession.
I know, if you all can't demonize the South and post pictures of lynchings that it castrates your argument here, but I still fail to see why that is relevent when discussing the legality of secession....
Heck, even Angus has admitted that the REASON for secession is really his only major beef with it. Well the REASON the South wanted to do it has zero to do with whether it was a legal action or not.....
White Haven is in MO, not IL. Also, it's not clear that Grant even really owned the slave. He belonged to his wife's Father and there's no record of a transfer to him.
Understand that I believe this whole line of discussion to be irrelevent, BUT..... I couldn't help myself here.....
Being the man of the household, wouldn't you think that Grant could have dismissed the slaves at any time, or sent them to his wife's parents' home or something?
I mean sure, I guess technically he may not have "owned" them, but he didn't have to even have them or benefit from their work had he been opposed to the institution....
And were these people in a state of rebellion and war against The United States?
This is just more of your Pee Wee Herman defense of slavery and rebellion.
It's not a Pee Wee Herman defense.
It's a challenge. The North didn't go to war to end slavery. That wasn't their reason. There were Northerners who were still profiting, and profiting handsomely, from the slave trade. That is undeniable. The North went to war to preserve the union. It was even called that, The War to Preserve the Union, in Northern newspapers and pamphlets.
And many, many Southerners weren't fighting for slaves at all. The majority of Southerners weren't slave holders, most didn't even aspire to owning slaves. Maybe some fought for slavery. And others fought for the rights of the states to make such laws on the state level, to not have a federal government dictating such laws. And others fought just to defend their homes, just to drive out the invaders, because the war was mostly fought in Southern territory.
If most Northern soldiers didn't go to war to free slaves. And most Southern soldiers didn't go to war to keep slaves. Then, while there is no question that slavery was a significant issue, is it fair to say that the war was over slavery?
Isn't it just as fair to say that the war was over the sovereignty of the states? And when I make that statement, I'm actually looking at the situation from the perspective of someone from that time period. When the Constitution wasn't even 8 decades old, when the Revolutionary War wasn't ancient history, it wasn't even a century in the past. When it wasn't just the South that talked about seceding, but New England also toyed with the idea. When the debate the balance of power between the states and the federal government was still dominating the political spectrum, and Presidents were identifying themselves as Federalists and anti-Federalists.
One of the posters keeps harping on there's no right to win elections, like anyone ever said there was. It's not about winning an election, it's about being a part of an election. In a representative democracy, there is the expectation that national leaders will be chosen by a nation. What happens when one region of the country selects your national leader, and the rest of the country isn't a part of that selection?
Right now, we have Republicans lamenting that they are being left out of the governing process because the Democrats have control over the legislative bodies in our nation. But they know another election is coming, and that the level of Democrat control can be changed.
In 1860, the Southerners were facing a different reality. They'd been marginalized in the 1860 election. And the future didn't promise that that would change. The future just promised even more marginalization. Because the rural, agrarian South didn't have the votes, and the urban North did. And every population trend showed that disparity would only grow further, not diminish in the future.
Today, we are well aware of the various regions, the identities that those regions have. But we live in a very mobile world, and in a world that those regional identities are second to a national identity. The media and technology, the ease of moving from place to place, and the frequency with which we move, all lead to stronger national identification, and weaker regional identification. But in 1860, regional identification was dominant. And the regions were more distinct, the cultural differences were very distinct. The economic differences were very distinct. The social systems of the regions were very distinct. Religion, education, entertainment, all distinct from region to region.
So it was an important thing when your region was marginalized by the federal government. And it was an important thing if the demographics indicated that you would continue to be increasingly marginalized, because in any democratic system, its numbers that count. If you don't have the numbers, if you're not going to get the numbers, then you're going to be ruled. Less than a century earlier, these Southerners had fought being ruled in favor of ruling themselves. And in 1860, they were looking at being ruled again, by a region they had nothing in common with. And it's worth being noted, that in 1860, it was the South that was the liberal region of our country, and the North that was the conservative region, rigidly so.
So, once again, wars are fought over power. And explained by moral issues. But fought over power.
No, just the morality of it. Frankly, had there been no slavery the south could have seceded, and had I been around at the time, I would have celebrated the fact. They can secede now as far as I'm concerned. I'd be much happier in a nation rid of the right wing, bible-thumping, anti-government sentiment so prevalent in the south, and I'm sure they'd be a lot happier.
I believe the Union was worth preserving, but I probably wouldn't have fought a Civil War over it - always supposing the South refrained from attacking American soldiers. Slavery made that a non-issue, and transformed the war from something only constitutional scholars would care about to something meaningful.
I appreciate your modern sensibility, but frankly, I think you are failing to appreciate the fragility of the union at the time. New England had entertained the possiblity of secession in the 1830's. Then the South had played with the idea for the next two decades, and finally acted on it. Lincoln wasn't looking at the possibility of two countries from the union, he was looking at a framework of a nation being shattered. Not two countries, but dozens of countries. With England perched on the continent's shoulders, a country from whom we'd fought to gain our independence, and a country who'd brought war to us not even fifty years previously. And Mexico at our feet, wanting Texas back, eager to expand into New Mexico, into California with its gold (after all the Gold Rush had been just a bit more than 10 years earlier).
Let the South secede, and you let it all go. The War for Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, all a failed experiment, not even good for a hundred years. That's what haunted Lincoln, and for good reason.
And you understand that their motivations for arguing EITHER side of secession is irrelevent, don't you?
You keep ducking the point.
The point of this thread is set forth in the original post:
Quote:
As in most wars there were many but slavery was the dominant one.
In other words, the reason both that the South attempted to secede, and that the South started the war by firing on a U.S. military installation, was slavery.
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