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Is There Something Wrong With The Term: "War Between the States?"
Old Virginia Blog ^ | 01-06-2014 | Richard G. Williams, Jr.

Posted on 01/11/2014 11:16:07 AM PST by Davy Buck

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To: Vaquero
I agree with the rights of the states.

States don’t have “rights.” They have powers.

101 posted on 01/11/2014 12:51:19 PM PST by YHAOS
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To: Lee'sGhost
The north denied freedom of self determination to white Southerners, you know, like slave owners.

Of course, Marse Bob, you are correct. However, the spiritual impetus behind Abolition justified everything in the Yankee mind.

There were many southerners who were against slavery, too. Most on moral grounds, and a perceptive few on economic grounds.

102 posted on 01/11/2014 12:53:30 PM PST by Kenny Bunk (This GOP is dead. What do we do now?)
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To: YHAOS

General police powers, which have been patently ignored.


103 posted on 01/11/2014 12:53:52 PM PST by Wyrd bið ful aræd (Gone Galt, 11/07/12----No king but Christ! Don't tread on me!)
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To: Pollster1

I shall forever remain, Unreconstructed.


104 posted on 01/11/2014 12:56:38 PM PST by Patriot365
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To: Kenny Bunk
...self determination to white Southerners, you know, like slave owners.

Just a reminder. There were thousands of blacks who were slave owners.

105 posted on 01/11/2014 12:56:46 PM PST by ladyjane
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To: CodeToad

Although the states had seceded the fort was still a sovereign territory of the US. This could have been negotiated but to block the supply of food to US soldiers was a provocative act. And the south paid with a horrible loss.

Of course till Lee’s worse than mediocre showing at Gettysburg, the south was winning. So it all looked good for Dixie till that time. And it could have easily have gone the souths way had they played it right. In the North McClellan was a fifth columnist and generals like Burnside were buffoons. Lincoln, a non military trained person, was doing a crummy job of being a general, via telegraph, from behind the lines.

Lee of course had his subordinates like J.E.B. Stuart who weren’t where they needed to be. But then Lee did not listen to superior tacticians like Longstreet who cautioned against Pickett’s charge.

Shoulda Woulda Coulda. But all over human bondage which still plagues us today(the aftermath not the bondage....think Holder, new Black Panthers, and the knockout game).

Cest la vie.


106 posted on 01/11/2014 12:57:09 PM PST by Vaquero (Don't pick a fight with an old guy. If he is too old to fight, he'll just kill you.)
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To: YHAOS
“I agree with the rights of the states.”
States don’t have “rights.” They have powers.

Another lawyer eh? That's the whole problem. Lawyers.

107 posted on 01/11/2014 1:00:42 PM PST by Vaquero (Don't pick a fight with an old guy. If he is too old to fight, he'll just kill you.)
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To: Kenny Bunk
Further South, Kentucky and Missouri remained in the Union, but held onto their slaves, past the Emancipation Proclamation, which only applied to slaves in the Confederacy.

It should be noted that MD, MO, WV and various other states excluded from the Emancipation Proclamation freed their slaves by state action befoe the end of the War. The 13th Amendment freed slaves only in DE (a couple hundred) and KY (around 50k).

While this is all interesting history, all of the slave-holding Union States had emancipation plans, held in abeyance until after the war.

If you are going to make such an astonishing assertion, you need to be able to prove it.

For it to be true, one would have to assume southerners were all really, really stupid.

Any intelligent person of the time knew that the South's best hope for independence was foreign, particularly British, recognition. British public opinion was unaminously anti-slavery. As long as the War was between a pro-slave Union and a pro-slave CSA, British recognition was conceivable. Which was precisely why Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. At a single stroke, it ended the possibility of UK recognition.

Intelligent southerners knew that passing laws for emancipation, even very gradual emancipation, would immediately revive the chance for foreign assistance. Yet it was never seriously considered.

IOW, given the choice between slavery and independence, the South could not choose, since the reason they insisted on independence was to protect slavery.

I'll await your evidence of state plans to abolish slavery after the war. I suspect I'll be waiting a very long time.

108 posted on 01/11/2014 1:05:00 PM PST by Sherman Logan
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To: Davy Buck

It’s a great phrase.

We have one helluva war between the states of New York and New Jersey going on right now over Bridgegate.

Which will be the first to secede?


109 posted on 01/11/2014 1:05:02 PM PST by miserare (2014--The Year We Fight Back!)
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To: GeronL
Absent Africa there were still slaves, slaves existed long before anyone in Europe met an African.

Quite true. Slavery in all likelihood goes back to Neolithic times.

But what made African slavery in America so intractable was its combination of the ancient institution of slavery with the newly invented ideology of racism. Slaves who could run away and just disappear into the general population would have quickly undermined the institution, just as slavery of whites disappeared in (western) Europe during the Middle Ages.

But the idea that this visually distinct group was somehow not fully human and therefore fair game to be enslaved was somehow more compatible with democracy, freedom, etc. In the minds of confused people, anyway.

110 posted on 01/11/2014 1:10:14 PM PST by Sherman Logan
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To: rockrr
Slavery wasn't just for blacks; "They Were White and They Were Slaves". My Momma's family got a free government sea cruise with a life-time vacation to Georgia in the 1600s.
111 posted on 01/11/2014 1:11:04 PM PST by fella ("As it was before Noah so shall it be again,")
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To: Bryanw92
the colonies had no legal right to present the Declaration of Independence to the legal ruler of those colonies.

Of course they had no legal right to declare independence.

They nowhere claimed they did. In colonial America, all Law flowed from the King in Parliament.

The Founders based their declaration not on Law, but on moral principles, overriding Law by Revolution, which is by definition the abandonment of Law for more direct action. (Hopefully with Law to be reinstated at some later date on a more sound footing.)

As Lee and other southern leaders recognized, the South had a similar moral right to revolution, although weakened by their revolution being for the purpose of denying independence to others.

But legality? Nonsense. When the southern states seceded, they rejected the legal procedures set up by the Constitution to settle differences. That's an act of Revolution, not one of Legality.

I eagerly await anybody who can prove the Founders ever claimed a Legal right for what they did, except insofar as they justified Revolution by an appeal to unwritten Natural Law.

112 posted on 01/11/2014 1:18:45 PM PST by Sherman Logan
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To: Vaquero
Of course till Lee’s worse than mediocre showing at Gettysburg, the south was winning.

Only if you focus exclusively on the VA front.

In the West the South was consistently in retreat mode, with immense tracts of the CSA having been conquered and occupied by the time of Gettysburg.

In fact, the USA won in the West just about as consistently as Lee did in the East.

BTW, just finished a darn good book about Gettysburg. I had no idea what a near thing it was. Pickett's Charge gets all the press, but there were half a dozen almost-disasters for the Union on Day 2 that were a much closer call.

113 posted on 01/11/2014 1:24:00 PM PST by Sherman Logan
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To: Sherman Logan

exactly, I have seen somewhere that Roman slaves could actually own slaves.

Which seems strange now.


114 posted on 01/11/2014 1:25:05 PM PST by GeronL (Extra Large Cheesy Over-Stuffed Hobbit)
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To: SampleMan

“Without Northern aggression, there would have been no war.”

Without Southern aggression, there would have been no Northern aggression. The South shot first. The North was looking for an excuse, yes, but nonetheless the South shot first.


115 posted on 01/11/2014 1:32:01 PM PST by ctdonath2 (Making good people helpless doesn't make bad people harmless.)
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To: fella

Thanks for the link. No revelations there, and no relevance to my comment but (marginally) interesting nonetheless.


116 posted on 01/11/2014 1:33:43 PM PST by rockrr (Everything is different now...)
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To: Sherman Logan

What’s the title? Do you recommend it?


117 posted on 01/11/2014 1:35:12 PM PST by rockrr (Everything is different now...)
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To: Davy Buck

The first secession war of 1861-1865. When the red states secede again and there is another war, that will be the second secession war.


118 posted on 01/11/2014 1:35:44 PM PST by mjp ((pro-{God, reality, reason, egoism, individualism, natural rights, limited government, capitalism}))
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To: GeronL

Slavery is historically a very diverse institution.

Under the Ottoman Empire, most important political and military offices were held by slaves of the Sultan. This was VERY common in the Muslim world. In fact, one of the Delhi Muslim sultanates was called the Slave Dynasty.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamluk_Sultanate_(Delhi)

In the early Roman Empire, freedmen and slaves formed the staff of the Emperor and essentially ran everything. Freedmen were still clients, not really free in the sense we would use the term.

Under the Persians and other Oriental Empires, all, even the nobles, referred to themselves as slaves of the King, and not just in a figurative sense.

For most of human history, there was a spectrum of human status and legal position. Various categories of slaves, serfs, freedmen, various levels of nobles, all the way up to the King. The difference between gradations on this spectrum were slight and therefore not that important.

Along comes the Declaration of Independence. All men are created equal, except of course for the slaves. Well then they must not really be men, creating probably a harsher separating line between slavery and freedom than had ever existed before.

This can be seen by the situation in Latin America, where nobody ever proclaimed all men were equal. Slavery declined and eventually disappeared, for the most part, more easily. Perhaps largely because there was less difference between a slave and a low-status “free” person in these countries, where class still reigned supreme.


119 posted on 01/11/2014 1:38:08 PM PST by Sherman Logan
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To: Sherman Logan

He can claim it but that doesn’t mean it is true.


120 posted on 01/11/2014 1:40:25 PM PST by CodeToad (When ignorance rules a person's decision they are resorting to superstition.)
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