Boooorring!

[JoeBob]

The War was about breach of contract, according to the SC declaration.

 

But according to the newspapers of the time it was greatly about Georgia buying shovels from Birmingham England for less money than they could buy shovels from New England.  So the North used high tariffs to protect their burgeoning foundries and industry.  The South rebelled and you know the rest. 

[packsaddle]

JoeBob, I salute your new-found faith in newspapers as authoritative sources. I guess at that time they had not yet discovered hyperbole or deceit.

 

Edit: Shovels, no less. I have to hand it to you. I'd never heard THAT one before.

Edited July 10, 2015 by packsaddle

[CalicoPenn]

It seems to be a bit johnny-come-lately to go to war over high tariffs when the Senators from the southern states had effectively dealt with just that issue 8 years before hand and when the southern states were no longer complaining about high tariffs because their representatives in DC had solved that problem. 

 

I've got to say I'm rather stunned that anyone wold suggest that original source material is just one opinion.

[Stosh]

@@packsaddle, these sources are only the ones that address slavery. There are just as many sources addressing the states' rights issue. No one is saying slavery wasn't an issue, but it wasn't the only issue.

 

Sorry @ but the issue was slavery, not states rights.  If any one had a state's right beef it would have been the Northern states who were being systematically chastised for not complying with the Fugitive Slave Act.  The Northern states did not want to be the bounty hunters for Southern slave owners, nor should they be forced to do so according to their resistance to the Act. The Underground Railroad was in operation well before the onset of the cession movement of the Southern States.  Was secession legal?  Google Hardford Convention and you will find Connecticut was on the verge of cession 50 years earlier because of the slavery issue.  This slavery issue was deeply ingrained in the politics of the US right from the very beginning.  It doesn't look like people are going to let it die anytime soon.

[Rick_in_CA]

The four states that issued Declarations of Secession are South Carolina, Mississippi, George and Texas. These are the statements by the state legislators on why they are seceding. They are among the primary documents written by the very people leading secession.
 
What is interesting about these declarations, is that they (especially South Carolina's) are not just declarations of their own reasons for secession, but they are arguments directed at the other slave states as to why they too should secede.
 
The whole "the war wasn't about slavery" is complete revisionist nonsense that is contradicted by the facts. Go read the transcripts of the debates the southern states had trying to decide if they should secede. You will see that slavery is the overriding issue.
 
Here is one example from the debates in Virginia (original in this link): The bold emphases is mine.

The PRESIDENT—
 
In further execution of the order of the day, I have the honor of introducing to you the Hon. HENRY L. BENNING, of Georgia.
 
Mr. BENNING came forward and said :
 
[Mr. BENNING:]

Mr. President and Members of the Convention:

I have been appointed by the Convention of the State of Georgia, to present to this Convention, the ordinance of secession of Georgia, and further, to invite Virginia, through this Convention, to join Georgia and the other seceded States in the formation of a Southern Confederacy. This, sir, is the whole extent of my mission. I have no power to make promises, none to receive promises; no power to bind at all in any respect. But still, sir, it has seemed to me that a proper respect for this Convention requires that I should with some fulness and particularity, exhibit before the Convention the reasons which have induced Georgia to take that important step of secession, and then to lay before the Convention some facts and considerations in favor of the acceptance of the invitation by Virginia. With your permission then, sir, I will pursue this course.

 

What was the reason that induced Georgia to take the step of secession? This reason may be summed up in one single proposition. It was a conviction, a deep conviction on the part of Georgia, that a separation from the North- was the only thing that could prevent the abolition of her slavery. This conviction, sir, was the main cause. It is true, sir, that the effect of this conviction was strengthened by a further conviction that such a separation would be the best remedy for the fugitive slave evil, and also the best, if not the only remedy, for the territorial evil. But, doubtless, if it had not been for the first conviction this step would never have been taken. It therefore becomes important to inquire whether this conviction was well founded.

 

Is it true, then, that unless there had been a separation from the North, slavery would be abolished in Georgia? I address myself to the proofs of that case.

 

In the first place, I say that the North hates slavery, and, in using that expression I speak wittingly. In saying that the Black Republican, party of the North hates slavery, I speak intentionally. If there is a doubt upon that question in the mind of any one who listens to me, a few of the multitude of proofs which could fill this room, would, I think, be sufficient to satisfy him. I beg to refer to a few of the proofs that are so abundant; and the first that I shall adduce consists in two extracts from a speech of Lincoln's, made in October, 1858. They are as follows : "I have always hated slavery as much as any abolitionist; I have always been an old line Whig; I have always hated it and I always believed it in the course of ultimate extinction, and if I were in Congress and a vote should come up on the question, whether slavery should be excluded from the territory, in spite of the Dred Scott decision, I would vote that it should."

...

Edited July 10, 2015 by Rick_in_CA

[Stosh]

People who can't separate the racial aspects of slavery from slavery itself will always have difficulty understanding the mindset of the Southern people in the early history of our nation.

 

Let's put it this way.  Manifest Destiny, The American Dream, Go west young man!, There's gold in California/Black Hills, etc. are all racially based just as much as slavery.  But no one is talking about that because we beat the crap out of the aboriginal people of this nation and put them into concentration camps until they complied.

 

So where's the outcry against the US Flag for that atrocity?  

 

Do a Google search on Little Crow if one wishes to understand racism in America in 1862.

[Gone]

People who can't separate the racial aspects of slavery from slavery itself will always have difficulty understanding the mindset of the Southern people in the early history of our nation.

 

Let's put it this way.  Manifest Destiny, The American Dream, Go west young man!, There's gold in California/Black Hills, etc. are all racially based just as much as slavery.  But no one is talking about that because we beat the crap out of the aboriginal people of this nation and put them into concentration camps until they complied.

 

So where's the outcry against the US Flag for that atrocity?  

 

Do a Google search on Little Crow if one wishes to understand racism in America in 1862.

Exactly my point @@Stosh.

 

But it's far easier for folks to pick on the single issue of slavery and tie it to racism and the battle flag/navy jack. It's what the media tells them to say and what the talking head mouth pieces advocate. An academic review of the history shows there was far more to the war than just slavery.

[Stosh]

As a modern example, let's assume that a few of the states decide that fossil fuels are really bad and start making people change to hybrid cars, solar heading in homes, etc. and one day we elect a president who ran on a no-gasoline platform.  He gets elected by only 39% of the popular vote.  

 

The reaction to this fiat would be the exactly the same as those of the South in 1860.  Their economy and way of life could not exist without slaves anymore than our way of life cannot be maintained without fossil fuels.  We all know it's not a good thing to rely on these fuels, but at this point we have no alternative.  Welcome to South of the Mason Dixon of 1860.  They didn't view this as a racial issue as much as they saw it as those Damnyankees (yes, that's all one word to a Southerner)  up north telling us what we can or can't do.  I guess you're going to have to substitute Californiahippy or New Englandecosnob for the modern example.

 

How far would we today go to protect our way of life?  Their way of life would cease to exist without the economics of slavery as would our country collapse without fossil fuels.

 

And in spite of all the rhetoric to the contrary, the residual effects of that activity after 150 years is still very much alive and well.  The flag controversy proves it in spades.

[Stosh]

The American Civil War

 

North 1

South 0

 

Halftime...

[desertrat77]

I have no ties to the South, nor the Confederate flag. 

 

What SC does with the flag is their business.   The issue should not be decided by social media, news media, millions of people that never took Civics in high school, nor carpetbaggers outside the state.   If the people of the state decide to remove or keep it, that decision should be made after a respectful, unemotional dialogue within the state.

 

Don't we have other national issues that demand greater cooperation and attention from every citizen?

Edited July 10, 2015 by desertrat77

[Stosh]

I have no ties to the South, nor the Confederate flag. 

 

What SC does with the flag is their business.   The issue should not be decided by social media, news media, millions of people that never took Civics in high school, nor carpetbaggers outside the state.   If the people of the state decide to remove or keep it, that decision should be made after a respectful, unemotional dialogue within the state.

 

Don't we have other national issues that demand greater cooperation and attention from every citizen?

 

Yeah, but it gives a warm-fuzzy feeling of winning something for a change at the expense of others.  There are a lot of people that are willing to settle for cheap wins than go out there and tackle the real problems we face.

[CalicoPenn]

The best take down of the States Rights argument I ever heard was an acknowledgement that "Yep - the Southern States fought the Civil War over State's Rights - specifically the State's Right to continue Slavery"

[Stosh]

With a truly balanced understanding of the War, one can easily understand the dynamics playing out on both sides of the issue.  The last thing on anyone's mind either North or South was the issue of race.  That is a modern re-write of the historical account.

 

So who started the War?  The first British colonists that brought slaves to America to simplify the development of the colonial economy.  By 1750 the industrial revolution was in full swing and some of the colonists in America embraced it and thus needed less manual labor to maintain that type of economy.  The rural colonies were slower to develop, but that which embraced the industrial revolution also was adapted to greatly improve the slave economy of the south.  Slaves WITH industrial machinery would greatly increase the production capabilities of the rural economy and just as slavery was naturally dying out in the South it was rejuvenated.

 

The magnitude of the slavery issue can be seen in how the states developed.  The Northern states tended to be small so that the Senate balance could more easily be kept.  Whereas Texas is greater than the New England states, they would be greatly opposed to having Texas come in as more than just one state and thus tipping the balance of slave/non-slave in the Senate.  The House was a different matter.  What would become of the balance of power if all those slaves were counted as fully human?  OMG, again the Southern states would have the advantage!  Can't have that!!!  So the North was just as much to fault as the south for this whole slavery mess, but modern re-write historians never tell one the whole truth. 

[JoeBob]

A war of economic aggression has no honor.  A war to submit others to your political point of view lacks a mass appeal.  Riots were fought in the streets of New York because they did NOT support abolition. (Or the draft that war entailed.)  

 

The 'Union' was not a covenant with God.  The 'Union' was a contract among the states.  If the 'Union' was so important to preserve, why not just honor the terms of the contract?

 

Slavery provides a noble rationale for greedy power brokers to force their customers to buy from them.

 

Being a Southern white boy, I'm weary of the world trying to make me feel shame for crimes that I didn't commit.  I never owned a slave.

 

If my family ever owned your family, and you are alive and healthy in the US today; you're welcome. 

[walk in the woods]

Was thinking about this a little last night.  Ultimately I suppose it was a fight between liberal New England elitist and Southern Plantation Aristocracy.  It is curious though that within 50 years of the end of the Civil War we had company towns springing up throughout the north.  I wonder where Pullman, Steinway, Hershey, Carnegie, Morgan and Rockefeller came down on the war?