American civil war question

[Harry Bosch]

Slavery. We fought the war because of slavery. Is there some question as to whether or not that was wrong? Had the south won everyone would have been cool with owning slaves?

aa

Yeah yeah,

And we invaded Iraq to democratize the middle east. Rescue Iraqis from tyranny...

Tom

Yep, the civil war was over slavery. Not "states rights".

 

[repoman]

. yeah...

OK.
At least you're agreeing that "might makes right".

Whatever you're fighting for becomes right, if you win.

Got it.
Tom

Slavery. We fought the war because of slavery. Is there some question as to whether or not that was wrong? Had the south won everyone would have been cool with owning slaves?

aa

 

[Emily Lake]

It was a revolt against the constitutionally enacted government of the US. That’s treason.

It was not a revolt against the government of the US. It was a secession from a voluntary union. And it wasn't treason - there was nothing in the constitution at the time that disallowed secession.

Consider a similar situation in the UK. A fair bit of Scotland wants to be independent of England and Wales. Every now and then, the Scottish people and parliament vote on whether or not to secede from the UK. So consider a scenario where that vote passes, and Scotland declares themselves independent of the UK. They don't attack England, but they do demand that England remove their troops from Scottish soil.

At that point, England refuses to remove their troops, and instead sends reinforcements to that fort, with the intention of using such troops to FORCE Scotland to remain a vassal state of the UK.

If Scottish troops respond militarily to prevent that reinforcement, do you consider the Scotts to be the aggressors who started a war?
If the Scotts peacefully withdraw from their union, and England decides to use force in order to prevent them from doing so, who is the aggressor and who the traitor?

 

[TomC]

At that point, England refuses to remove their troops, and instead sends reinforcements to that fort, with the intention of using such troops to FORCE Scotland to remain a vassal state of the UK.

Imagine if the European Union's response to the recent British secession from the Union they agreed to join was to send troops to London to make sure that the British government understood that they'd joined The Union!

Choosing to secede is actionable treason. Continuing the secession would result in war. And the war would be English people's fault, because they already agreed to join the EU. Under their own conditions, like keeping the pound.

Yeah, that's pretty much the same as why the northerners launched a war against the Confederacy.
Tom

 

[Emily Lake]

Slavery. We fought the war because of slavery. Is there some question as to whether or not that was wrong? Had the south won everyone would have been cool with owning slaves?

The north was pretty okay with slavery up until they didn't need money from the south anymore.

This is part of the history of the civil war, and it's a part that gets overlooked in the desire to focus solely on slavery as a moral failing of all residents of the south (despite the fact that only a very small minority of white residents in the south had slaves at all).

After the revolutionary war, the south was the wealthiest part of the nation. A significant amount of US incomes were from tobacco, cotton, and other agriculture in the south, fueled by slavery. The northern states didn't have the climate to grow those crops in the same volume as the southern plantations did. For half a century, the southern states paid in the vast majority of federally collected taxes, and those taxes were distributed to the northern states in order to industrialize them and build industries that would allow the north to be profitable.

Although there were quakers and other groups who were strongly opposed to slavery throughout all of US history, the didn't gain any ground politically until AFTER the north was industrialized by the influx of moneys from the south. It was only after the north no longer needed slave-based money in order to survive that they decided to support the abolition of slavery. Abolition of slavery would result in a complete economic collapse of the south.

Some groups were opposed to slavery on moral grounds, but in truth, the vast majority of citizens in both the north and the south gave no shits whatsoever about the rights of slaves. That moral argument gained significant ground as a political wedge for power in congress, but only once the north was no longer dependent on the wealth of the south.

After the civil war, between the economic collapse of their agricultural bases and the costs placed upon them from reconstruction... the south became the poorest part of the nation. The southern states are *still* the poorest in the nation. The economic devastation has continued for over a century... and to this day people in the north tend to turn their noses up at people in the south, to treat them as subhuman vermin, and to assume the worst of them.

Yes, the war was about slavery. Yes, slavery is detestable. But don't go fooling yourselves that the north was some bastion of moral superiority. They were perfectly content to allow the continuation of slavery as long as they were benefiting from it.

 

[Emily Lake]

Look, the war was about slavery, yes. But it's a lot more complex and nuanced than "north is good and morally righteous, south is full of meanies who deserve to burn in hell".

Granting that the conflict was more complicated than just about owning slaves, recognizing many factors that contributed to the schism and secession doesn't in any way diminish your own moral standing that slavery was bad. There's no need to oversimplify the issue into a pure good/bad dichotomy.

 

[repoman]

Whoever has enough power to frame an act as treasonous is what really counts.

However, there were not mass trials and executions or moderate prison sentences as normally happens after treason. Not saying that reconstruction was a picnic for The South - nor should it have been.

So what did the mainstream of opinion consider the secession at the time?

 

[Gospel]

It was a revolt against the constitutionally enacted government of the US. That’s treason.

It was not a revolt against the government of the US. It was a secession from a voluntary union. And it wasn't treason - there was nothing in the constitution at the time that disallowed secession.

Yall are so cute with this. I agree there was nothing in the constitution at the time that disallowed secession but there wasn't anything in the constitution that allowed secession either. so that leaves us with what was in the constitution at the time. Right?

Think about it.

 

[Emily Lake]

It was a revolt against the constitutionally enacted government of the US. That’s treason.

It was not a revolt against the government of the US. It was a secession from a voluntary union. And it wasn't treason - there was nothing in the constitution at the time that disallowed secession.

Yall are so cute with this. I agree there was nothing in the constitution at the time that disallowed secession but there wasn't anything in the constitution that allowed secession either. so that leaves us with what was in the constitution at the time. Right?

Think about it.

I'm pretty sure that leaves us at...

Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

The Constitution did not prohibit the right to secede, therefore the States had the right to secede.

 

[Jarhyn]

Yall are so cute with this. I agree there was nothing in the constitution at the time that disallowed secession but there wasn't anything in the constitution that allowed secession either. so that leaves us with what was in the constitution at the time. Right?

Think about it.

I'm pretty sure that leaves us at...

Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

The Constitution did not prohibit the right to secede, therefore the States had the right to secede.

No, they didn't. The legislators took an oath to the constitution, and declared themselves it's enemy when they attempted to reject it and violate their oaths.

They committed treason, plain and simple.

None of that matters, though. They were right to have been challenged in their desire to own humans as chattel and to continue doing as such.

I would challenge anyone today who tried to do the same, to the same extent.

 

[TomC]

They committed treason, plain and simple.

So did George Washington and Donald Trump.

It's the American way.
Tom

 

[Jarhyn]

They committed treason, plain and simple.

So did George Washington and Donald Trump.

It's the American way.
Tom

My point is, Emily wants to pretend for whatever ulterior reason that they didn't break their oaths to the constitution, that they were not prohibited legally from doing what they did, and particularly in the way they did it.

They did break their oaths to uphold the constitution. This is unequivocally the truth.

And they did it so that they could hold people as slaves.

 

[TomC]

They did break their oaths to uphold the constitution. This is unequivocally the truth.

Where, exactly, in the Constitution is secession mentioned?
Much less prohibited?
I don't see it.

And they did it so that they could hold people as slaves.

Nope, I don't think so. Unionists pretended that the War of Northern Aggression was about rescuing black people, just like Christianists pretended that the Invasion of Iraq was about rescuing Iraqis from Muslim tyranny.
Nope, I don't think so.
Tom

 

[Jarhyn]

They did break their oaths to uphold the constitution. This is unequivocally the truth.

Where, exactly, in the Constitution is secession mentioned?
Much less prohibited?
I don't see it.

And they did it so that they could hold people as slaves.

Nope, I don't think so. Unionists pretended that the War of Northern Aggression was about rescuing black people, just like Christianists pretended that the Invasion of Iraq was about rescuing Iraqis from Muslim tyranny.
Nope, I don't think so.
Tom

It doesn't matter. Their oath was to uphold it. It doesn't matter whether the contract specifically says "breaking the contract is a breach of contract" inside it. That part is tautological. They swore to uphold the constitution, and it is the oath they took, and the breaking of it, that put them on the wrong side of the parts in the constitution that explicitly states what a traitor is.

 

[TomC]

Where, exactly, in the Constitution is secession mentioned?
Much less prohibited?
I don't see it.


Nope, I don't think so. Unionists pretended that the War of Northern Aggression was about rescuing black people, just like Christianists pretended that the Invasion of Iraq was about rescuing Iraqis from Muslim tyranny.
Nope, I don't think so.
Tom

It doesn't matter. Their oath was to uphold it. It doesn't matter whether the contract specifically says "breaking the contract is a breach of contract" inside it. That part is tautological. They swore to uphold the constitution, and it is the oath they took, and the breaking of it, that put them on the wrong side of the parts in the constitution that explicitly states what a traitor is.

"It doesn't matter" is the main point of your argument.

According to British law of the day, Ben Franklin was a traitor. But you don't care about law, unless it suits you. If it does suit you, you consider law the ultimate moral code.


We didn't just meet.

BLM supporters regularly break the law.
Tom

 

[Jarhyn]

Where, exactly, in the Constitution is secession mentioned?
Much less prohibited?
I don't see it.


Nope, I don't think so. Unionists pretended that the War of Northern Aggression was about rescuing black people, just like Christianists pretended that the Invasion of Iraq was about rescuing Iraqis from Muslim tyranny.
Nope, I don't think so.
Tom

It doesn't matter. Their oath was to uphold it. It doesn't matter whether the contract specifically says "breaking the contract is a breach of contract" inside it. That part is tautological. They swore to uphold the constitution, and it is the oath they took, and the breaking of it, that put them on the wrong side of the parts in the constitution that explicitly states what a traitor is.

"It doesn't matter" is the main point of your argument.

According to British law of the day, Ben Franklin was a traitor. But you don't care about law, unless it suits you. If it does suit you, you consider law the ultimate moral code.


We didn't just meet.

BLM supporters regularly break the law.
Tom

No, I don't consider the law an ethical authority in any way. But some of y'all pretend to, so I'm going to show both the argument from law that is being leaned on by Emily, and the argument from ethics that you fall back on, which still fails, because it still hinges on the acceptability of holding humans as slaves in the face of ethical considerations such as "love thy neighbor".

 

[TomC]

"It doesn't matter" is the main point of your argument.

According to British law of the day, Ben Franklin was a traitor. But you don't care about law, unless it suits you. If it does suit you, you consider law the ultimate moral code.


We didn't just meet.

BLM supporters regularly break the law.
Tom

No, I don't consider the law an ethical authority in any way. But some of y'all pretend to, so I'm going to show both the argument from law that is being leaned on by Emily, and the argument from ethics that you fall back on, which still fails, because it still hinges on the acceptability of holding humans as slaves in the face of ethical considerations such as "love thy neighbor".

That's bull shit.
You keep insisting that the Secession was about slavery, when it wasn't.

Get over your modern self. Lots more was going on in 19th century America than what you prefer to know about and understand.
Tom

 

[Toni]

They did break their oaths to uphold the constitution. This is unequivocally the truth.

Where, exactly, in the Constitution is secession mentioned?
Much less prohibited?
I don't see it.

And they did it so that they could hold people as slaves.

Nope, I don't think so. Unionists pretended that the War of Northern Aggression was about rescuing black people, just like Christianists pretended that the Invasion of Iraq was about rescuing Iraqis from Muslim tyranny.
Nope, I don't think so.
Tom

Nope. Utter bullshit.

https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/declaration-causes-seceding-states

Georgia:

The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery. They have endeavored to weaken our security, to disturb our domestic peace and tranquility, and persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property, and by the use of their power in the Federal Government have striven to deprive us of an equal enjoyment of the common Territories of the Republic. This hostile policy of our confederates has been pursued with every circumstance of aggravation which could arouse the passions and excite the hatred of our people, and has placed the two sections of the Union for many years past in the condition of virtual civil war. Our people, still attached to the Union from habit and national traditions, and averse to change, hoped that time, reason, and argument would bring, if not redress, at least exemption from further insults, injuries, and dangers. Recent events have fully dissipated all such hopes and demonstrated the necessity of separation.

Mississippi

A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union.

In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin. That we do not overstate the dangers to our institution, a reference to a few facts will sufficiently prove.

The hostility to this institution commenced before the adoption of the Constitution, and was manifested in the well-known Ordinance of 1787, in regard to the Northwestern Territory.

The feeling increased, until, in 1819-20, it deprived the South of more than half the vast territory acquired from France.

The same hostility dismembered Texas and seized upon all the territory acquired from Mexico.

It has grown until it denies the right of property in slaves, and refuses protection to that right on the high seas, in the Territories, and wherever the government of the United States had jurisdiction.

It refuses the admission of new slave States into the Union, and seeks to extinguish it by confining it within its present limits, denying the power of expansion.

Texas

A Declaration of the Causes which Impel the State of Texas to Secede from the Federal Union.

The government of the United States, by certain joint resolutions, bearing date the 1st day of March, in the year A.D. 1845, proposed to the Republic of Texas, then *a free, sovereign and independent nation* [emphasis in the original], the annexation of the latter to the former, as one of the co-equal states thereof,

The people of Texas, by deputies in convention assembled, on the fourth day of July of the same year, assented to and accepted said proposals and formed a constitution for the proposed State, upon which on the 29th day of December in the same year, said State was formally admitted into the Confederated Union.

Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one of the Confederated Union to promote her welfare, insure domestic tranquility and secure more substantially the blessings of peace and liberty to her people. She was received into the confederacy with her own constitution, under the guarantee of the federal constitution and the compact of annexation, that she should enjoy these blessings. She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery-- the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits-- a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time. Her institutions and geographical position established the strongest ties between her and other slave-holding States of the confederacy. Those ties have been strengthened by association. But what has been the course of the government of the United States, and of the people and authorities of the non-slave-holding States, since our connection with them?

Texas

A Declaration of the Causes which Impel the State of Texas to Secede from the Federal Union.

The government of the United States, by certain joint resolutions, bearing date the 1st day of March, in the year A.D. 1845, proposed to the Republic of Texas, then *a free, sovereign and independent nation* [emphasis in the original], the annexation of the latter to the former, as one of the co-equal states thereof,

The people of Texas, by deputies in convention assembled, on the fourth day of July of the same year, assented to and accepted said proposals and formed a constitution for the proposed State, upon which on the 29th day of December in the same year, said State was formally admitted into the Confederated Union.

Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one of the Confederated Union to promote her welfare, insure domestic tranquility and secure more substantially the blessings of peace and liberty to her people. She was received into the confederacy with her own constitution, under the guarantee of the federal constitution and the compact of annexation, that she should enjoy these blessings. She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery-- the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits-- a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time. Her institutions and geographical position established the strongest ties between her and other slave-holding States of the confederacy. Those ties have been strengthened by association. But what has been the course of the government of the United States, and of the people and authorities of the non-slave-holding States, since our connection with them?

The above are only quotes from the article linked, which contains original documents--what the states who succeeded had to say for themselves. Sure does seem to be a lot about slavery and their rights to hold some human beings as property in the same way they might hold cattle or pigs or chickens. Maybe draft horses would be a better analogy as they didn't actually eat enslaved peoples, as far as I know.

I'm sure you don't care much for the Washington Post but this is a nice, concise article dispelling myths about why the south attempted to succeed from the United States:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outl...e-south-seceded/2011/01/03/ABHr6jD_story.html

On Dec. 24, 1860, delegates at South Carolina’s secession convention adopted a “Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union.” It noted “an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery” and protested that Northern states had failed to “fulfill their constitutional obligations” by interfering with the return of fugitive slaves to bondage. Slavery, not states’ rights, birthed the Civil War.

South Carolina was further upset that New York no longer allowed “slavery transit.” In the past, if Charleston gentry wanted to spend August in the Hamptons, they could bring their cook along. No longer — and South Carolina’s delegates were outraged. In addition, they objected that New England states let black men vote and tolerated abolitionist societies. According to South Carolina, states should not have the right to let their citizens assemble and speak freely when what they said threatened slavery.

Here is this which attempts to balance the two prevalent views about why the south seceded (States Rights or Slavery)
https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/reasons-secession

I think we've already established that we grew up in the same state at about the same time. It is very likely that although you attended Catholic schools and I attended public schools that we were both taught that the south seceded because of their desire to preserve states' rights. The silent, unacknowledged part that becomes very, very clear when one actually reads the articles is that the states' right they were most interested in preserving was, in fact, the right to enslave people, to hold black people as slaves, as livestock, actually.

It's ugly and it's disgusting and it is supremely disappointing that our forefathers went for pragmaticism over idealism when they allowed slavery to continue to exist in the United States. It was a profound wrong that we've been trying to right ever since. The very least we can do now is to acknowledge that was what the South really wanted: they wanted slaves because it made the lives of rich people so much easier. It allowed rich people to be rich, in fact, as most southerners did not hold slaves at all. In fact, the Confederacy had to station troops in some states in order to keep them from re-joining the Union and Virginia permanently lost West Virginia over the issue of slavery.

So get off it. Southerners were slave holders or at the very least, agreed to allow slavery. By definition, they held an extremely racist viewpoint with regards to Africans--that they were not truly human beings who had anything remotely close to human rights much less equal rights.

 

[Jarhyn]

"It doesn't matter" is the main point of your argument.

According to British law of the day, Ben Franklin was a traitor. But you don't care about law, unless it suits you. If it does suit you, you consider law the ultimate moral code.


We didn't just meet.

BLM supporters regularly break the law.
Tom

No, I don't consider the law an ethical authority in any way. But some of y'all pretend to, so I'm going to show both the argument from law that is being leaned on by Emily, and the argument from ethics that you fall back on, which still fails, because it still hinges on the acceptability of holding humans as slaves in the face of ethical considerations such as "love thy neighbor".

That's bull shit.
You keep insisting that the Secession was about slavery, when it wasn't.

Get over your modern self. Lots more was going on in 19th century America than what you prefer to know about and understand.
Tom

Cessation was about slavery.

 

[Alcoholic Actuary]

Ty Siedule was my Military History Professor at West Point (He was a Major back then). Excellent perspective and happy to give a free plug for his book Robert E Lee and Me.

https://youtu.be/f523GDjKBAg

"The South was pre-occupied with States' Rights, because it was pre-occupied first and foremost with retaining slavery"

No actual military historian outside of these costumed reenactment losers believes in the myth of the "Lost Cause"

aa