The Confederacy was built on Slavery
Andrew Cory
But don't take my word for it, read the South Carolina "Causes of Secession" document. The document is broken down into roughly 3 parts. Part one lays out the constitutional legality for their secession, part two lays out the duties of the federal government towards the states. Part three lays out how those duties have not been carried out. Part 3 is all about slavery.
We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery[...]There is more, of course. Read it. Free-State hatred for slavery impelled the Free States to actions inimical to slavery-- actions South Carolina felt were unconstitutional. Begging the question about whether South Carolina was Constitutionally correct, there is no doubt that sans slavery, these issues wouldn’t have come up...
Most of us are familiar with the magnificent closing of Lincolns second inaugural address
With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.Focusing on the fourth paragraph allows us to ignore the second and third, which read in part
Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."That’s just mean. Lincoln viewed the war as a scourge sent by god to destroy slavery. In Lincoln's mind, the war was fundamentally about slavery...
What about the soldiers? The Union Soldiers went to war with a song on their lips:
John Brow’s Body (audio link). Some lyrics from that song:
John Brown died that the slaves might be free,
John Brown died that the slaves might be free,
John Brown died that the slaves might be free,
His soul goes marching on.
Northern Soldiers believed the war to be about Slavery...
The belief that the American Civil War was about something other than Slavery is a canard. Many people come by this believe honestly, though they do it by looking at their history textbooks, rather than the historical record. If we can truthfully say that the Confederacy was wrenched from the Union in order to keep slavery alive, then we must say that the armies called to help create that nation were also fighting for Slavery. The banners they fought under were banners supporting slavery...
We may honor Davis and Lee as men of passion and genius. Let us not forget the cause to which they dedicated that very passion and genius. We may honor the brave soldiers on both sides as paying the price for our nation’s Original Sin. It would be dishonoring their memories to forget that they died to expunge the sin of slavery...
Related Posts (on one page):
- Quoted
- The Confederacy was built on Slavery
- Saint Andrew's Cross
As it turned out, Virginia did secede after Ft. Sumter, but even it ended up divided (the Western counties chose to remain loyal to the Union and became the state of West Virginia in 1862.)
Not sure what this proves, except for a slim possibility that cooler heads on both sides just may have spared the nation from a Civil War and altered the course of history.
P.S. If I was ever going to write one of those alternate history novels, I'd start off with the premise that Robert E. Lee remained in the U.S. Army and was offered its command by Lincoln...
This does not mean we cannot take pride in the military exploits of the Americans on both sides who fought in this struggle, not a few of whom were freed or free-born African-Americans, and mourn for the deaths in combat that so many of them suffered. Nor does it mean we cannot take pride in the battle flags for which these Americans fought, union or confederate.
Eleven years ago, back in the winter of 1993-1994, our family, amid an Amtrak and rental van vacation, stopped near Biloxi, Mississippi at Belvoir, the last home of Jefferson Davis, who had been sole president of the short-lived Confederate States of America.
Out in back of the carefully-maintained mansion, is situated the tomb of the unknown soldier of the Confederacy. I stopped to pay my respects to the final resting place of this soldier, whose placement in that cemetery -- a small site that is all that remains of the Confederacy -- is really a memorial to the hundreds of thousands of young men who served in the Confederate armies that ranged the land from New Mexico to Pennsylvania, and from central Missouri to southern Florida.
Most of these men served and many of them were wounded or died under terms of the greatest possible military valor; a kind of service that I always have held in highest regard. As a loyal citizen of the United States of America, the greatest country in all history, I would have shot them dead had I opposed them gun in hand. But I cannot avoid saluting their bravery, their steadfastness, their loyalty to their own flags, the own commanders, their own fellows, their own states.
And salute him I did that day, the unknown soldier of the Confederacy, whose specific identity is hidden but whose body lies in a small bit of soil that still flies the flag under which he fought and died.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
That is a very incomplete statement if not wrong in its fundamental conclusion. Certainly the civil war had slavery as the critical factor especially from a southern point of view, but Lincoln’s concern was primarily about saving the Union from divisiveness, division and secession. Read the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858 to recognize that Lincoln had to walk a fine line on the slavery issue because he knew saving the Union was critical as the US at the time was acquiring new territories. I refer you to The Lincoln-Douglas Debate, 1858, Galesburg, October 7, 1858.
http://www.usconstitution.com/Lincoln-DouglasDebates5.htm
My great-grandmother emigrated from Ireland in summer 1865 to Cairo,Illinois. She didn’t understand the reason for the war between the states, nor the issues of slavery. All she knew was she was happy the war was over because it meant a lot of young irish lads were not going to be sent off to battle in a war they little understood. The issues were more complex than simply slavery in my view. You are correct, the Confederacy was built on slavery but the Civil War was about preserving the Union. That was Lincoln’s primary aim. And that is why the most divisive war in US history was fought.
Lincoln's hostility to slavery, coupled with his minority Presidency was the trigger to secession, sure. But there were other issues that were long-standing. Particularly trade and economic policy.
Would the South have seceeded without the slavery issue? Perhaps not. But they wouldn't have seceeded JUST over the slavery issue either -- at least as it stood. Economics had a lot to do with it, as the north industialized and the south did not.
This debate clearly outlines issues related to the acquiring of new US territories and the issues prior to the Civil War.
Of course, those are the people whose ideas and ideals were soundly defeated.
A bit of trivia, what did John Brown's body lies a mouldin' in the grave become? Let's see how many people know they history of this anthem. By the way, Brown deserved to die, and was a psycotic 'messiah'. I wouldn't pick him to be the banner bearer of anti-slavery. He wanted armed rebellion and mass murder at all costs.
On a side note, spurred by Arnold...I'm sure everyone knows, but what the heck. The Tomb of the Unknows and the entire cemetery of Arlington National is a spoil of war. Lee and his wife owned that property, and it was taken over by the Yankees and they rode horses through the great halls. He never got it back after the War (I do remember being told he didn't want it back in the state it was in). The Northern Army had by that time also made it into a cemetery. If we're gonna drag up the nasty stuff the South got up to, drag up what the North did too. Neither side was without blame in those sad, blood soaked killing fields.
From the perspective of the states which seceded, secession was about slavery and the war was about preserving the right to secede.
It's distressingly commonplace for people to deny the latter half. The Declarations of Secession make it quite clear: most of them explicitly say that the point is to preserve the institution of slavery.
It is also doubtful that slavery would have been settled legislativly, anytime soon, so the war was inevitable. But it likely would have been on a much smaller scale witout mass secession by several states.
McKiernan has it correct.
"Lincoln was slow to accept abolition, Douglass said, but steady. He recalled Jan. 1, 1863, when the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect, saying he would never "forget the outburst of joy and thanksgiving that rent the air." As he recalled, he became "willing to allow the president all the latitude of time, phraseology, and every honorable device that statesmanship might require" to realize abolition.
More, Douglass said, it was wise that Lincoln made preserving the Union his prime goal. White America, even in the North, would not have fought the war if eliminating slavery were the main war aim.
"Viewed from the genuine abolition ground, Mr. Lincoln seemed tardy, cold, dull and indifferent," Douglass said. Then he added, "But measuring him by the sentiment of his country, a sentiment he was bound as a statesman to consult, he was swift, zealous, radical and determined." He said all needed "a comprehensive view of Abraham Lincoln, and to make reasonable allowance for the circumstances of his position."
- Washington Times article
Of course, those are the people whose ideas and ideals were soundly defeated.
Hey Michael: Go fuck yourself. I'm one of those people who "likes" to say the civil war was about something else. But it's more than that I "like" to--unlike ignorant folks like you and Andrew, I know it was nowhere near that simple.
Andrew is cherry picking his quotes and taking history and those who were part of it out of context. Too bad. This is cheap and it's shallow and it's mean-spirited. Ultimately though, it's just ignorant.
The vast majority of those who fought for the confederacy never owned slaves. Some of them were abolitionists. Some who fought for the union were pro-slavery and indeed, there were slaveowners in the Union army. Maryland itself was a slave state that fought for the union, and the Emancipation Proclamation specifically exempted them.
Meanwhile, some of the southern states in that conflict were "slave states" mostly in name, because slavery was very rare there (Texas, for example).
Those of you who dredge up these shallow interpretations of history are self-righteous, obnoxious jerks.
That doesn't change the fact that the reason the war was happening in the first place was that the politicians of the south were terrified that the northern Republicans were going to suppress slavery, and used that fear to justify secession.
I don't hold the everyday footsoldier responsible for that any more than I hold the Pope responsible for the decisions of the German government which he served as a soldier - but I do hold the people who decided to secede responsible for it.
The Civil War was fought to preserve the Union. Slavery had one foot in the grave already, with the advancing technologies and the anti-slavery movements spreading across the US and also abroad would have brought the practice to an end within a generation. There were intelligent people on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line who recognized that. Slavery was the wedge issue, but the differences lay far deeper than that.
Hey, the land value of Deans World just went up mysteriously, did something obnoxious depart?
I'm sure it will be a lot nicer for you to be able to once again live in your echo chamber without the benefit of dissenting voices. Have fun.
I live in the actual Heart of Dixie. I'm not from down here, my family and I are from New England, but I have spent many years here. I know both sides of the history, and your first post was both intensely insulting and factually incorrect, as I explained in my first post.
As for "echo chamber," I think your continuing insulting behavior, your lack of critical thinking, and general high-handed lack of respect for opposing viewpoints makes you one of the most obnoxious non-banninated posters here. You rarely contribute anything to a discussion, merely pee all over others viewpoints with a haughty "you're wrong." Considering that I spend far more of my time on a much more diverse forum debating politics with people much further separated from my views on both sides, I think you have once more pulled an inference out of your colon thats worth as much as anything else that comes out of either end of either your digestive or respiratory systems.
Robert West, I answered your point in my first post. I feel no need to restate it merely to have to correct you.
Read: Doesn't agree with John Irving on everythingRead: actually presents opposing vierwpoints I don't agree with or dislike.
And, by the way, the Nazis weren't about exterminating us Jews. They just had a different view of the way things should work. You can't say the Nazis hated the Jews - because not all of them hated the Jews. In fact, most of them probably didn't - which makes all those Jew connections invalid.
Don't-Make-Me-Laugh.
Read back through the thread, not once did you actually present a case, as I did. Just as usual, you attack others, and get defensive when they don't stand for it. Apart from this issue, which to use the l33t term, I just pwn3d you on, you have NO idea what stances I take or what I believe. But your willing to extrapolate from one example, screened through your personal bias, and apparently draw a conclusion.
Down South we call people like that bigots.
Dean said that the Civil War wasn't about all about slavery because not everyone in the Confederacy owned slaves.
Well, I just said that Naziism wasn't about killing Jews because not every Nazi was on side with that.
Tell me the difference. Why is it completely ok to associate Naziism with extermination of the Jews while it's not ok to associate the Confederacy with slavery and the civil war with getting rid of it?
And I live in the South babe - Atlanta - more South than you'll ever get, unless you live here too. I know bigotry. I see it every day from both black and white people.
Anyway, I'm done with this post. I'll look forward to your response to my question.
Michael, you're a laugh riot.
Try Montgomery, Alabama, Cradle of the Confederacy, the Heart of Dixie itself.
I answered your question in my first post, which you consistently failed to read except the part slamming you (since everything must be about you I suppose). But to reiterate, slavery was a dying economic model. The cotton gin was just one of many devices that were making paid labor more practical than slaves. The leaders of the Confederacy realized this, as Jefferson Davis made clear when he rejected Lincolns offer. Apart from slavery, there were numerous differences in legal and social beliefs between the North and the South, and the Confederates believed that the only way to protect ALL of those was secession. In some ways, they were right. The end result would have likely, as proposals along these lines had been made already, emancipation and deportation of the great majority of the slaves.
The Nazis wanted to exterminate every last Jew, along with many other groups they considered subhuman. That you fail to see the difference merely underscores your bigotry.
It is my contention, based not on prejudice but upon reading the newspaper editorials of the time and the declarations of secession, that the other differences between the north and the south would not have been sufficient to bring about secession absent the slavery issue. Slavery wasn't just the wedge, it was the dominant issue before which all others paled.
I am open to evidence which contradicts that judgement, if it can be found in civil-war-era sources. But I cannot simply accept the claim put forward by those who wish to do so absent such sources. The contemporary sources which I have read deny it.
Nobody who has spent even a small amount of time reading contemporary source material could believe that; and nobody who has *thought* about the politics of today, and seen how messy and complicated things are, and how rarely it is possible to describe things in a simple frame, could believe that things were that simple.
Yet that is the stereotype that many people outside of the south develop during their public school history classes, and clearly it is a stereotype that those of us with a more nuanced view of history have to work hard to convince people we don't match.
And yet I'm just as concerned about another stereotype, which I've argued against extensively in comment threads at kuro5hin (and elsewhere), that slavery didn't play any part in the war at all; and I will admit to the failing that I instantly assume that people who discuss other elements of the war are trying to deny that slavery was a part of it. That's me reacting to my stereotype of unrepentant southern racists - and it's not helped by the fact that I *have* met such people, and argued with them, online.
I'm not saying that's the case for anyone *here*; i'm saying that I have to work to restrain my tendency to respond as though it were.
As a damyankee who has lived most of his life here, I think the answer to that is a resounding "yes."
As for sense of humour, I thought my convulted scatological reference to Michael Demmons overwhelming tendency to speak by emitting feces might have been a bit dry. . . sorry about that.
Yet that is the stereotype that many people outside of the south develop during their public school history classes, and clearly it is a stereotype that those of us with a more nuanced view of history have to work hard to convince people we don't match.
Bingo! We have a winner!
I take it thats a privilege granted by being a contributor, a position you have rejected.
That's up to Dean. Personally, I find it sketchy, but thats me.
In words which Dean deem an appropriate response, Go Fuck Yourself.
OH, and to quote the most recent post on your blog, made long before you got into it with me:
it’s time to leave.
To use the same level of profanity as you desire to,
Grow The Fuck Up.
Damn! There goes my trophy.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
We agree on almost everything, and would probably come to blows if we ever met in person.
I'm Irish, and you're a son of a bitch.
Bill Dooley
Dean,
I think you are trying to make a different point than I was. I don’t really care why the soldiers got involved (James McPherson wrote and Exellent book on the subject). What concerns me is why the South started the war There is no question that this was a slavery issue...
I have tended to agree with Mr. West throughout this argument, and especially
...
Saying the Civil War was about slavery is like saying the Gulf War (or operation Iraqi Freedom) was "about oil." Well, yes, indirectly. It was oil money that allowed the aristocracy in certain Arab countries to become incredibly wealthy, not to mention causing terrific social imbalances, which (combined with the complete absence of the rule of law, and social injustice) gave impetus to various revolutionary movements, the same way similar circumstances caused instability in post-WW1 Germany. Or: oil wealth + social injustice -> instability -> terrorism and military adventurism -> US involvement. Hence, in a way, our MidEast involvement is "about oil." But not really...
You cite the declaration of secession published by South Carolina. Would you like to add the Constitution of the Confederacy? How about the all the statments made by President Lincoln to the effect that he was far more concerned about the Union than slavery?
Are you going to mention that Lincoln didn't even make a serious effort to deal with the slavery issue until after Antietam, and that his administration's silence on this issue nearly allowed the British government to intervene in favor of international arbitration (i.e. de facto recognition of the Confederacy as a legal state)?
How about the fact that the South was about to start drafting slaves in early 1865? This, by itself, would have meant the eventual end of slavery in the South.
You should, by the way, really care about why the soldiers fought, since those motivations are what the war was "about," by definiton.
The question of slavery was tightly interwoven with political dominance in Washington, economic competition between North and South such as tariffs, and the challenges facing a manufacturing economy and a more primitive economy based on extracting raw materials, as well as the belief that the entire Southern way of life was threatened.
As has already been pointed out, more than one state seceeded not about slavery, but about states rights, and the concern that Washington had become too dominant. Lord knows what they would have thought of today's federal government. :)
Your statement that "There is no question that this was a slavery issue..." is clearly refuted by the disagreement in this thread, not to mention the sober reflections of many capable historians. It just isn't that simple.
Recall that the Dred Scott decision made the idea that black Americans were property; without the rights of citizens, a part of constitutional law. Recall that Lincoln was a minority candidate, and would have had a hard time dealing with the 1860-elected House and Senate in terms of maintaining a majority. Recall that the Republian platform was based not on outlawing slavery, but limiting the practice to parts of the US where it was already legal.
With this context in mind, the South had an excellent chance of blocking any real anti-slavery legislation for at least four years after 1860, and an honest reading of time would show that most of the North had little interest in freeing slaves, Garrison excepted. In fact, I'll even say that Garrison made things worse by his extremism.
Add to that the fact that the post-war North lagged behind the reconstructed South in allowing black Americans to vote, and you hardly have the picture of anti-slavery Northerners eager to die for the cause of racial equality. Instead you get the feeling that the North rather enjoyed rubbing the aristocratic face of the South into the dirt, which coincidentally included black sufferage. But only in the South.
So to say that the Civil Was was "about slavery" is as inaccurate as saying that the Civil War could be called the "Second War for Independance." Both contains threads of the truth, in the same way that certain facets of a mosaic are part of a greater picture.
Just for fun, I'll add the following statement: John Brown was not a martyr for a noble cause, but a bloody-handed terrorist who was justly executed.
Discuss.
If it was the only reason the North 'started the war' (yes I know the timeline, I'm being 'cantankerous' as someone we know called me...) then Lincoln and the entire US Army and Navy would have come out swinging the 'Down with Slavery' stick at the fore. They didn't, indicating by the sheer amount of time before they DID mention slavery, that is was a secondary goal.
Southern politicos did list Slavery as being important, but even their own papers prove this was but a 'symptom' of the sickness. They were losing money to the North via the massive industrial build up. The war was coming, even the FFs knew it (look how they worded the ending of the slave trade). Lincoln appears to have been the 'straw that broke the camel's back'. He made clear he didn't like or approve of slavery and that precipitated the great and deadly temper tantrum in the South. (While I staunchly belive any state may succeed at will when they believe the government no longer addresses their concerns, I just think it's suicidal and a terribly bad choice.) State's Rights don't have to exist without slavery, nor does slavery mean that State's Rights weren't a big part of it. They aren't mutually exclusive ideas.
Case in point:
Then immediately playing the "Nazi card."
{aside: It's amazing how anyone liberals don't approve of are somehow mystically linked to the Nazis. This illustrates a complete lack of comprehension of the ante bellum South, or (at least) a determination to paint a group of whom you disapprove in the worst possible light.}
So, according to the Mikester, the meme bruited about on Dean's World is "the conservative party line," and the vigorous refutation of a poor argument (or a decent argument poorly presented) is dislike for "opposing vierwpoints I don't agree with or dislike."
It may surprise you, Mike, but I like you, which is why I'm nice to you when I shoot you down. Well, I try to be nice, anyway.{g} But you really do have a bad habit of seeing things in terms of a "liberal=good," "conservative=bad" prism. Forget the current definition of liberal and conservative, that's just simple-minded. (note: I'll say the same thing about the obverse)
As evidence that both your reasoning and your perception are at fault is that you have rhetorically put both Dean and myself in the conservative camp, something that is absurd on the face of it. Both Dean and I have soundly thrashed conservatives (and/or Republicans) when we feel the need, and both of us hold at least some views which are strongly against the grain of current conservative thought, including the "war on drugs" and gay rights.
I also know -from long experience- that Dean has little use for poor or lazy reasoning. Hence I can understand his reaction. Mind you, I think he over-reacted a bit, but then I've gone off on people before myself, and really, really regretted it the next day. I can think of a very specific instance on this blog only a few weeks ago, but if no one else noticed, I'm not bringing it back up... {embarassed grin}
Point being that you have demonstrated -to be blunt- a bad habit of oversimplifying cultural or political questions to "liberal good," "conservative bad." Not only is it irritating, it's lousy rhetoric.
Now, if you want to see folks who really don't cut liberals any slack, try the Anti-idiotarian Rottweiler, or the Free Republic. You'll see the difference right away.
There is a difference. If I had called someone here a Nazi in order to "refute" their argument, you'd have a complaint. I didn't.
Pretty sad when you can't even use Naziism as a comparison without someone telling you you're invoking Goodwin's Law. All you've proven is that you know nothing about why Goodwin's Law was coined in the first place.
Yeah, I went a little off the deep end toward the end. But that's what happens when someone tells me they ask me to blog on their site, and then tells me to go fuck myself because I see things differently.
[Scott departs, humming "The Battle Hymn of the Republic"]
He earned the name "terrorist" in Kansas well before he went back to Virginia.
I sorta figured that.
I agree that the theory of voluntary federation implies that states have the legal right to secede, although division of property would have to be negotiated in that case. That doesn't prevent me from having contempt for the reasons stated to justify that secession. :)
And I'll add this, for the benefit of those who would excuse his actions due to his cause: the first victim to fall at Harper's Ferry at the hands of John Brown and his thugs was <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.wvculture.org/history/jnobrown.html">a free black man</a>. It is fortunate that John Brown's death served as a rallying point for the Union forces, because in all other ways his life brought nothing but misery for his fellow Americans.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Nice to see you ignored everything else, and focused on the Nazi reference. I never said that you called anyone here a Nazi, and if you got that impression then I did a poor job of expressing myself.
FWIW, I was deliberately ignoring Godwin's Law, mostly because I didn't want you to think I was pointing a finger at you in that respect.
My only point there was that comparing Southerners to Nazis has been a very popular sport for a certain part of the political spectrum for a long time. And it's getting very, very old. The only people who even come close are hard core Klansmen and skinheads; and there aren't that many of either around.
I can see why that (other) certain remark upset you. Generally when I get that mad I take my hands off the keyboard, sometimes turning the computer off just to help resist temptation. Then I stay away from the offending site/party for at least a week, just to regain my perspective.
I am curious to hear your opinion of "John Brown: terrorist" though. :)
'Cause there's absolutely no way it could ever be about anything else.
And you want to say others are desiring an echo chamber?
BK
Certainly, there was no indication that General Robert E Lee was fighting for other than his home state of Virginia. And I don't think he was the only southern military aristocrat who felt that way. In 1860, most people had in-bred loyalty to their home states. Federal patriotism was still sort of new.
On the other hand, there were all kinds of folks up north who couldn't give a shit one way or another about freeing the black slaves, and who didn't want them coming up north to compete for jobs with the white workmen, in the event they did get freedom.
Look real carefully at the record of the draft riot in the parts of New York City inhabited by the irish immigrants in 1863, where the rioters made efforts to murder some of New Yorks defenseless blacks.
Seems to me a lot of Johnny Rebs just didn't want to be bossed around by a bunch of Billy Yanks. And a lot of Billy Yanks just didn't want the United States of America busted up, slavery or no slavery.
As in any war, especially civil wars, the issues more complex than as indicated on the surface.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
I haven't read all those sources everyone speaks of. Deam Esmay has, and he concludes the Civil War had variety of causes. Since I respect Dean's viewport, capacity for reasoning and demonstrated ability to to self-educate, I truly believe a person can reasonably conclude, given the historical evidence, that the Civil War had variety of causes.
Use your emotional computers. Think about the people you know who honestly hold both positions. Then calm the blankety-blank down, and show some respect.
I sometimes wish that, in 1860, a Southerner had been elected President who intented to make slavery the law of the land, and that the North had seceded, and that the President then invaded the North to save the Union. Next the North whipped the South, reunited the country and ended slavery. That way, seccession would be established as Constituitional, State's Rights would be respected, slavery would have ended, and the Union would have been preserved.
Yours,
Wince
Much as I like southerners and the south, secession is the one issue I would have fought them over and killed them for.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Until his death, the primary spokesperson for the Southern cause in Congress was John C. Calhoun, senator from South Carolina. Calhoun unfailingly expressed his position as follows: the Southern way of life, represented by the institution of slavery, was being repressed in a hostile manner by the North.
This repression was mostly expressed in laws regarding new territories. Which laws? Slavery laws, of course.
So, the territorial expansion problem was one of expanding slavery, not one of expanding other aspects of Southern culture. No one cared if cotton planting, mint juleps, or twangy accents spread into Nebraska or New Mexico.
Ironically, Stephen Douglas, Lincoln's debate opponent in 1858, was perhaps more responsible for arousing Southern ire than any other person living in 1860. And why? His "popular sovereignty" proposals, which threatened the Clay compromises.
And what were those compromises concerned with, and what did Douglas feel the people needed to be sovereign over? Slavery laws.
Economics was a concern in the South. But most economic concerns in the South pointed inward, asking how the South could industrialize, rather than pointing at the North's repression. I remember reading issues of a magazine, published in New Orleans, that were concerned primarily with this very problem in the 1840s and early 1850s, and it had few things to say about the North until "Bleeding Kansas" and other issues forced it to address the causes its readers cared the most about.
And what was "Bleeding Kansas" about? Slavery laws in the new territories.
I realize that the simplistic view is wrong. I realize that Lincoln, at least in the beginning, cared about saving the Union more than slavery. I realize that many people fought out of loyalty to their state, whatever their state did.
Furthermore, I don't agree that the South needs to be constantly beaten over the head with their past, just as I think modern Germany needs to be left alone about their Nazi past.
But really, people. When you say that there was more to the Southern cause than slavery, you're making history the way you want it, not the way it was. Slavery was a thread running through all Southern grievances; you can no more divorce slavery from the rest of the issues in the war than you can divorce taxation from the American Revolution, or religion from the Inquisition and the Crusades.
Move the Thirteenth Amendment into the Bill of Rights, and we have no Civil War. If you don't believe that, you had better have some serious proof--nothing like what I've seen so far.
If a state can vote to get in, it should be able to vote to get out. Make it a super-majority, if you like, but the principle is sound. Consider this. If every single person in a state voted to secede, would you let them go? What if it was only eighty percent? Seventy-five? At some point a free people must be able to secede, or they aren't free.
Liberty!
If more folks were allowed to secede we would have fewer wars and fewer terrorists. Civil wars are uniformly nasty.
Yours,
Tom Hawkson, aka Wince
It's like a said earlier in this commentary thread. The issue was settled once and for all by the guns. The guns of a hundred battlefields from the deserts of the southwest to the mountains of Pennsylvania, and from the outer counties of Missouri to the swamps of southern Florida. All followed by the stillness of Appomattox, as some author called it. More than a million Americans fought four long years to settle this issue once and for all; hundreds of thousands of them died; many others were grievously wounded; and and entire part of the country was half beaten to death, burned, stripped of its dignity, and reduced to a century or more of poverty.
You want any of this to happen again, just so you can prove a dubious point of punctilio in the specifics of the compacts by which this country was bound together? Forget that, Wince. The United States of America, our country, is one nation and indivisible. And yes, under god, if you all want it that way. But indivisible, regardless.
So we are not about to let any part of the USA break away and float off. Not even if a number of the states had in fact chosen to follow a pact in which their governments kept human slaves under the pretense that this was normative political conduct for an advanced culture. Even if large parts of a different segment of the country now largely houses Spanish-speaking immigrants, illegal as well as legal. In war or in peace, the USA stays together in a single union.
Those who no longer wish to live here as US citizens, let them depart and find another land in which to live out their hostilities against the rest of us. One can imagine that if anyone wishes seriously to start up a sort of zionist movement for disaffected Dixiecrats, let them try purchasing part of Madagascar, or New Guinea. Or, if they wait long enough, Mars will be terraforming in about half a millenium.
But somehow, I don't think very many southerners will be interested.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
I hate to pile on Michael Demmons, but... Well, no I don't.
First, I like his echo chamber point. It appears to mean that anybody who disagrees with him wants an echo chamber. That's pretty darn funny.
Second, while 'go fuck yourself' is pretty harsh, so was the post that preceded.
Of course, those are the people whose ideas and ideals were soundly defeated.
You can read that a few ways. One is that the 'people' referenced are bigots and/or nascent slave-owners. Another way is that the 'people' are just idiots.
Now, if he had actually pointed out which ideas were soundly defeated, that would have been different. Instead he just called Dean something. Either an idiot or an asshole.
Go fuck yourself is an appropriate answer to that.
Then got all perturbed, "I'm leaving, nyahh, nyahhh nyahhh."
Thin skin on the Internet is pretty darn funny.
As somebody else said, Michael Demmons didn't put forth any arguments, he just attacked everybody else and said he was right.
As for the slavery issue, the Simpsons had the absolute best take when Apu was going for his citizenship test.
Tester: What was the cause of the Civil War?
Apu: There were many factors ranging from the economi...
Tester: Just say 'slavery'.
I also find it funny when people who obviously believe they are nuanced believe that something as huge as the Civil War was begun on one issue.
Question: How many slaves did the Emancipation Proclamation free?
Answer: None.
It only freed slaves in the seceded states and not those in the states who stayed in the Union.
Sort of sounds like this just wasn't your weekend.
But the truth was -- and still is -- that the american civil war wasn't just about slavery. Even to people who thought slavery was the wrongest-headed aspect of life in this country since the first slaves were brought here in the 17th century.
Anyway, it probably isn't a good idea to get into an FY contest on a blogsite, even if someone else starts it with you. The sharpest wits are those who know how to kill the other guy with a feather.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
I don't want to refight the Civil War to make a point.
Here is some more data. Norway seceded from Sweden. No war, no hard feelings, worked out pretty good. Ireland seceded from Great Britain after a nasty guerrilla conflict which echoes down to today. Would a vote have been better? It's arguable. Slovakia split off from the Czechs. Again, no war, no hard feelings, worked out pretty good.
I don't think the US could have split peacefully, and I am dubious about whether that would have been good in the long run, but there is nothing immoral or unethical about a country deciding to break up, and if you read the Constitution, it is silent on the point.
Yours,
Tom Hawkson, aka Wince
1) Norway did indeed declare independence from Sweden, which (I think) at one point controlled all Scandinavia under the same dynasty. But Norway, Sweden and Denmark all had originally been independent societies with separate cultures and languages. The USA, in contrast, has been increasingly monocultural since the american civil war, and especially in the era of mass communications and easy travel.
2) Ireland did not succeed from Britain without a terrible struggle. (Go into any irish bar and a half-dozen people will give your their particular slant on the Easter rebellion of 1916, the oppression of the Black and Tans, the saga of the struggle between Michael Collins and Eamon DeValera, and the epic of the Irish Republican Army which has not ended to this very day. And the issue of Northern Ireland, with its predominant population of Scots-Irish Protestants, is not yet settled and probably never will be settled. Look up the Orange Day parades if you imagine otherwise.
3) The Czechs and Slovaks parted company easily because, with separate languages and cultures, they were sort of a less-spiteful version of Jugoslavia to begin with. And the Czechs, who more or less dominated the show, always prefer to talk things out and compromise with hard realities, rather than cause all the exquisite masonry in old Prague busted up over nationalism.
None of the above situations are anything like what we have to deal with here in the USA. As for the argument about the US Constitution saying nothing about sucession of states, that's the whole point. There is no such provision and almost certainly there never will be.
And five will get you ten that one of hidden reasons nobody in Washington has been overly anxious to grant statehood to Puerto Rico has been that it would not be at all easy to undo such a status once granted to what is essentially a large, poor, alien culture in the Caribbean.
Think on this again, Wince. But next time, look for the shoals before you drop anchor.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI