Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Because they were the target of the North? How else would you have them describe themselves? They didn't say, "We're leaving because of slavery". They said, "We, the slave holding states, are leaving."
for ****s sake, the emancipation proclamation ended human bondage. how the hell can you argue against that?
Even though the Emmancipation Proclomation was a good thing in hindsight, it was more or less a war measure to levy against the south from being in Britain's favor.
Quote:
Originally Posted by erikthealien
not if we were fighting nazis/confederates
And once again, I will say Confederates are NOT Nazis, not even close. Confederates were never genocidal towards anyone, so please, honestly, just shut up.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dane_in_LA
If I'd done that, the quotes would have been much longer.
Yet other secessionist states joined up with them, backed their case willingly. I take it we agree that no state seceded for the sake of doing so - that it had to be a pretty serious thing?
All of which joined AFTER the firing on Sumter, I'm pretty certain that most of them felt the government had grown too big for it's britches.
I may be reading the wrong document - where does the word "tariff" appear in Georgia's declaration? There are a few paragraphs about taxation, but the defense of slavery outweighs every other subject.
Like I had said, your referencing a Fire-Eater state, of course slavery is a huge role in it, but in Georgia's case, not the only one.
One paragraph. Again, the issue of slavery vs. non-slavery (again) absolutely dominates the document.
One paragraph, still makes it more than one cause. But seeing that Texas was a fire-eater state who's own economy was in the balance, it isn't too surprising.
As far as I can tell, they weren't really sure themselves. But even Virginia - whose ordinance of secession is as dry as a bone - has exactly one reason lined up:
In other words, they decided to align themselves with the other seceding states, and they pretty clearly identified those as the "Southern slave-holding" ones. They may not have felt their own motivation to be one of maintaining slavery, but the other seceding states sure did.
Back then, Slave State/Free State was more or less in the same terminology of Red State/Blue State. When the North had thrown the balance of power out of whack, many had felt it was the South's time to go.
On the flip side of that, a lot of people insist on adding complexity where none exists. The South had a number of grievances, but the catalyst - the political issue that ignited the entire tinderbox - was slavery. Some will say that the other issues - tariffs etc. - were the "real" ones, that slavery was just a rallying cry. Which to my mind is a very poor excuse indeed - the idea that the Southerners could only act in unison when slavery was threatened does not really make one more enamored of them.
I'm not denying that slavery is a catalyst, I implore you, check and see anywhere I said it wasn't. The fact is that Slavery wasn't the only thing the South was worried about. That isn't called insisting on complexity, that is just seeing the complexities. The alternative to oversimplifying, the very single thing that many users here think they are experts on (the Civil War) and very often do (oversimplify to X Levels).
The documents at the time make it clear that the seceding states weren't just identified as slave-holders - that's also how most of them self-identified.
I'm not denying it, but the South felt that it (representation wise) got screwed by the North.
They said, "We, the slave holding states, are leaving."
Then we agree, that was their self-identification. And no coincidence, because it was the most contentious political issue for decades. They certainly could have picked another banner to rally around - "we, the confederalists", or "we, the free states" for that matter.
Then we agree, that was their self-identification. And no coincidence, because it was the most contentious political issue for decades. They certainly could have picked another banner to rally around - "we, the confederalists", or "we, the free states" for that matter.
It was an afterthought, it wasn't the REASON for secession. Just a method of identification.
That's in Virginia's own documents. They picked the term.
That's how they decided to name themselves in a lot of their declarations. It's a fact. I suggest you deal with it.
Why?
You tell others to "deal with it", but actually, many of you who think the war was solely about slavery don't "deal with it" at all. You never ask, "why?" Why would Southern states be afraid that slavery was going to be abolished? Wasn't it a state issue? Did the federal government have the power to abolish slavery? If so, why hadn't the federal government abolished slavery decades earlier? Slavery was an abominable institution. Do you honestly think there were no Southerners that thought that? Why was the South so dependent on slaves? How many Northern banks had loaned money to Southern plantation owners using slaves as collateral? How many Northern insurance companies insured slaves? Why did so many non-slaveholding Southerners go to war? Why?
The truth isn't in the secession documents where they specifically identify slavery as the issue of the day, much as abortion might be identified as an issue of the day if some states chose to take a stand about that. The truth is in why. Why did the Southern states think that the federal government was suddenly going to destroy the Southern economy? Why would they fear that? Because a political reality had become terribly real in the 1860 election? That any system that aspires to being democratic is a political system that gives the advantage to urban areas, and necessarily disadvantages rural areas. Democracies subjugate their rural citizens. And our republic is a democratic one. The United States government will favor people who live in cities over people who live in more rural areas, it cannot do otherwise. And the South was one big rural area, and the North was growing into a collection of large urban centers. The political reality is that in terms of deciding anything on the federal level, the 1860 election demonstrated that the South was irrelevant.
If you join a club, and the agreement is that everyone's voice matters, but what happens is that a segment of the club join together, and whenever a vote is taken, that segment simply outnumbers everyone else, what they want always becomes the rule, and no other people really have a say, would you still want to be a member of that club? If you pay dues, don't you want a say in how the dues are spent? What if that segment makes a rule that just a few members pay dues, and that all the dues will be used to benefit the little clicque that rules, none of the dues will benefit you? Still want to be a member? What if the clicque decides no one can wear blue, anywhere or anytime, and blue is the bulk of your wardrobe? Can you afford to go out and buy a whole new wardrobe? Do you still want to be a member of the club? What if they decide next year, no red clothing? Or no gray clothes? No white clothes? How long can you afford to be a member of a club where decisions are being made for you, but without your input, and where you have no choice but to comply?
The political reality for the South in 1860 is that our government is based on numbers. The country's demographics had changed to the point that the South's population no longer afforded it a reliable voice in the government. The South and the North were so different, culturally, socially, economically, in EVERY way, that it was inevitable that a clash would happen between the two regions. In 1860, the Republicans (not the GOP then, but practically a brand-new party) took control of the Federal government. And because of demographics, because the Republicans represented Northern urban voters whose numbers were growing exponentially, it wasn't just for four years. From the rural Southern point of view, the political reality was that the Republicans had taken over, and whether their hold was permanent or not, the fact was that the rural Southern vote was not going to have the numbers to actually have a say in the federal government for a long, long, long time. Decades at least. Possibly never again.
The South had fought in the Revolutionary War, to be a part of a government where they had a voice. Less than ten decades later, the voice they thought they had was muffled. Why stay in a club where they had no say? Why not form their own club?
It was an afterthought, it wasn't the REASON for secession.
Are you saying that the Southern gentlemen who penned, say, Mississippi's or Georgia's declarations of secession were lying?
That Alexander Stephens were telling fibs in the Cornerstone Speech? The Confederat Vice President just made sh.t up?
Unless one can commune with their spirits from beyond the grave, their written words is what we have to go on. With that in mind, the perceived risk of abolition was the determining factor, at least for the first states t secede. Of course, once the war was a reality, most states would have to come down on one side or the other.
Afterthought is usually the great motivating factor for revisionist historians and aplogist.
So they were being revisionist, even as it was happening?
Wow.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
