Civil War

[WCR]

But doesn't a President take an oath to defend the constitution, thus allowed to use force to preserve the union? Also, didn't the states attack the Federal Fort, first?

 

[klamath]

But that's not why the war was fought! Over half a million people died, and entire cities were burned to the ground, and for what? It sure as hell wasn't to end slavery, that was just a happy accident.

Believing the civil war was about slavery is worse than thinking the Iraq war is about freeing the people of Iraq. It's simply false.

No it wasn't but what was the reason the south seceded? Because they thought that the North was about to force them to get rid of slavery. There are lots of reasons for the civil war but that is one of the main ones. I think that Lee was a great man and I hate Sherman. Sherman and Custer were the worse tyrants to the indians of all.

 

[Corydoras]

eted, you might find Lincoln's correspondence more revealing than his speeches. Early in the war, he wrote to Horace Greeley a letter to the effect of, look, I'm slowly coming along toward emancipation, but I really don't think it's that urgent, and the people aren't ready for it, and preserving the United States is more important.

I don't have a citation for that letter, but it accords with much that I read in his correspondence.

 

[drednot]

It's wrong to say that Lincoln opposed the War and that Southern leaders were for it. Both sides chose personal political survival over Peace.

Certainly Southern leaders chose secession.

But both sides knowingly chose to precipitate war in the Sumpter incident, rather than lose face among their consituents.

The South could simply have let Lincoln resupply the starving holdouts at Sumpter while still claiming to be a seperate sovereign entity. (eg, Cuba and Gunatanamo).

Similarly, Lincoln could have yielded Sumpter, like all the other federal forts, while working toward the goal of reconstruction.

But Lincoln bowed to northern political pressure and sent resupply boats to Sumpter, to save the credibility of his administration, fully expecting the South to fire the first shots. It was more important for him to deflect nothern ire toward the South than to avoid war.

Similarly, Southern leaders sealed their own fate by preemptively attacking Sumpter in response, destroying their cause in the process.

 

[ARealConservative]

Fragmentation of the United States would and will lead to our downfall. Lincoln did not start the war. The States left as soon as he was elected, seven of them. Why? Because they knew he didn't like slavery and wanted to do something about it. Ironically, when they began to kill U.S. soldiers, they legally lost the rights to their property. Before that, the executive had no power to confiscate property or change laws.

I can't believe so many posts on here defend States leaving the Union. Divided we fall . . . and if a State was going to leave, then doing it for a better reason than to continue to enslave people would be more defensible.

Do you believe we went to war with England over a tiny tax?

Do you believe that Lincoln ordering armed troops into the states that left the union was a good idea?

Are you aware that Lincolns decision to do just that caused border states to also leave the union and side with the south?

Self Determinination was the cause of both the Revolutionary War and the so called civil war. I believe your time in the Lincoln museum indoctrinated you well.

 

[katao]

If Paul's individual rights are something we can agree on, then it is wrong to have laws taking those rights away. If we are interested in our national sovereignty, then states leaving the Union is as bad as us joining Canada and Mexico.

Good questions, but it comes down to understanding that rights aren't granted by the Government (that is what the Declaration is communicating). They are inherent in our very existence. We, the People, choose the form of Government we decide best protects our rights. If it is not, the People have every right to leave it and form their own. For the North to not allow the South to do this very thing, was an offense to EVERYTHING this nation was built upon.

 

[eted]

I believe it states that freedom of the individual is paramount. And this is what the United States government should have the power to do, protect the rights of the individual.

 

[eted]

So rights of individual black slaves don't count? And when we are tired of discussing it democratically, then war is OK?

 

[jblosser]

Fragmentation of the United States would and will lead to our downfall.

Not relevant, but prove it. Many smaller countries than most of our states do just fine.

Lincoln did not start the war. The States left as soon as he was elected, seven of them. Why? Because they knew he didn't like slavery and wanted to do something about it.

If they knew it they were the only ones, since his own words indicate at best indifference to their freedom. The man wanted to make them leave the country. There were riots against blacks in NY after the EP was released because the North was absolutely opposed to the idea they were fighting and dying for the sake of black slaves they didn't even want in the states.

Ironically, when they began to kill U.S. soldiers, they legally lost the rights to their property. Before that, the executive had no power to confiscate property or change laws.

I can't believe so many posts on here defend States leaving the Union. Divided we fall . . . and if a State was going to leave, then doing it for a better reason than to continue to enslave people would be more defensible.

You have yet to demonstrate or even argue why secession was not legal or was a legal casus belli for the north. Or do the ends merely justify the means?

 

[drednot]

Fragmentation of the United States would and will lead to our downfall. ....
I can't believe so many posts on here defend States leaving the Union. Divided we fall . . . and if a State was going to leave, then doing it for a better reason than to continue to enslave people would be more defensible.

So presumably being seperate from Canada has led to the downfall of Canada and the US?? What makes the Mason-Dixon line so different from 54'40? (Or the Rio Grande for that matter)

What "downfall" are you suggesting? Calamitous interstate war with half a million dead and the destruction of half of the capital of the nation? Oh wait, we acheived that through "Union".

Furthermore, I dont think it's unreasonable to belive that with the elimination of the Fugitive Slave Law and the possibility of manumission, that Slavery would have been abolished in the 19th century regardless and the states would have reuinited with a less centralized federal government.

 

[ARealConservative]

So rights of individual black slaves don't count? And when we are tired of discussing it democratically, then war is OK?

Women in Saudi Arabia have a real lack of freedom - do you support going to war with them over it?

This is the same mindset. Lincoln marched on the south - not the other way around

 

[jblosser]

So rights of individual black slaves don't count? And when we are tired of discussing it democratically, then war is OK?

No one is arguing slavery is good. But the ends do not justify the means, and if every other civilized country managed to free their slaves without bloodshed, one has to ask why we couldn't. The fact is we were well on the way when Lincoln pushed centralization and used this as a PR issue, the same way the current left uses welfare, education, health care, etc scares as a PR and electorate control issue. It would have cost us less to buy the freedom of every slave than to wage that war, and that's only the monetary cost.

And we are not a democracy. We are a constitutional republic. Seceding was a valid and legal constitutional republican response to being told your sovereignty as states was void. The proper question is "when we are tired of discussing it as a constitutional republic, then war is ok", but that question has to go to Lincoln, not Davis.

 

[Corydoras]

There were people writing to Lincoln talking about how he did not have to take the political risk of emancipating the slaves and infuriating both pro-slavery Northerners and all of the South. These correspondents felt that slavery was becoming economically infeasible; it was widely believed that slavery was becoming so expensive that market forces would push it out of existence by the 1930s at the latest. And of course there were other people, like John Brown, who felt that a single more day of slavery was too many.

It's not either/or, the individual versus the government. Heck, that's been discussed since, what, when the ancient Greeks were watching "Antigone"? It is in the nature of human society that there will always be a struggle between the government and the person. And things today in the United States have gone too far toward the government, and Ron Paul is pushing things back. And part of pushing back against the government is by retrieving some powers back from the federal government and returning them to the states.

 

[katao]

So rights of individual black slaves don't count? And when we are tired of discussing it democratically, then war is OK?

Absolutely, the rights of those slaves matter. The South, just as in the rest of the World, was finally coming to see this important principle. The rest of the world accomplished it without bloodshed.

Just as the means to help Iraqi women get freedom isn't through warfare, but through example, the same was true of the North.

 

[drednot]

I believe it states that freedom of the individual is paramount. And this is what the United States government should have the power to do, protect the rights of the individual.

This highlights the fundemental Libertarian divide.

Generally speaking, libertarians believe that rights should be enforced locally.

Sacrificing oneself for the perceived liberty of others is counterproductive, unless you yourself are threatened.

Thus it's better to let Iraqi's fight for their own liberty than to spend trillions to liberate them by force. (Opposing Hitler was appropriate for Europe on the other hand, as Hitler was a credible threat to much more than just the Sudatenland.)

Many antebellum abolitionist libertarians argued to let the South go. In fact, some argued that the Fugitive Slave Law was so heinous that the North should secede from the South rather than abide by it.

 

[katao]

This highlights the fundemental Libertarian divide.

Generally speaking, libertarians believe that rights should be enforced locally.

Sacrificing oneself for the perceived liberty of others is counterproductive, unless you yourself are threatened.

Thus it's better to let Iraqi's fight for their own liberty than to spend trillions to liberate them by force. (Opposing Hitler was appropriate for Europe on the other hand, as Hitler was a credible threat to much more than just the Sudatenland.)

Agreed, with the clarification that if you feel strongly that their rights need defending, then please go personally fight that battle.

 

[Mordechai Vanunu]

In the documentary "The Money Masters" I saw a most interesting theory.

It said that international bankers were manipulating economic conditions on the U.S. with the ultimate goal of making states secede from the union, and eventually gain total economic control of the states through division. Divide and conquer strategy. Lincoln knew this and going to war was the only way to beat them.

 

[recess]

Lincoln and the republicans(whigs) were just waiting to into power and push their entire economic agenda of protectionism,Central bank,and corporate welfare.The only thing in their way were Jeffersonian Democrats. Going to war enabled Lincoln to push this agenda through a one sided congress

 

[drednot]

In the documentary "The Money Masters" I saw a most interesting theory.

It said that international bankers were manipulating economic conditions on the U.S. with the ultimate goal of making states secede from the union, and eventually gain total economic control of the states through division. Divide and conquer strategy. Lincoln knew this and going to war was the only way to beat them.

That's an incredibly bizarre and counterintuitive claim.
I'd love to see the details, even if only for entertainment value.

 

[axiomata]

There's been at least a couple threads in this forum where various people have claimed a constitutional right to secession. And in each one I have asked for it to be clearly stated and no one has.

Madison, who I am pretty sure knew a little about the original intent, said:

The conduct of S. Carolina has called forth not only the question of nullification, but the more formidable one of secession. It is asked whether a State by resuming the sovereign form in which it entered the Union, may not of right withdraw from it at will. As this is a simple question whether a State, more than an individual, has a right to violate its engagements, it would seem that it might be safely left to answer itself. But the countenance given to the claim shows that it cannot be so lightly dismissed. The natural feelings which laudably attach the people composing a State, to its authority and importance, are at present too much excited by the unnatural feelings, with which they have been inspired agst their brethren of other States, not to expose them, to the danger of being misled into erroneous views of the nature of the Union and the interest they have in it. One thing at least seems to be too clear to be questioned, that whilst a State remains within the Union it cannot withdraw its citizens from the operation of the Constitution & laws of the Union. In the event of an actual secession without the Consent of the Co States, the course to be pursued by these involves questions painful in the discussion of them. God grant that the menacing appearances, which obtruded it may not be followed by positive occurrences requiring the more painful task of deciding them?

There is no doubt, people and states have a natural right to revolt. But to contend that secession and nullification is a right of states is absurd. And if you don't realize this then you must be of the opinion that the great American Experiment is a failure.