Posted on 03/05/2008 6:38:02 PM PST by Rebeleye
That's a big part of the reason -- the bulk of it, imho -- for the war in the first place.
Whiggery won the contest for the country's agenda, at a cost of a million lives.
Nobody else fought a civil war "to end slavery". Another clue that it wasn't about the slaves, or slavery. It was about wrecking the South to move them out of the way.
When Southerners gave teeth to Manifest Destiny, they went to war with Mexico. The Northerners objected to that war, but they had no problem making war on the South for their own manifest destiny, which was to grab control of the empire that Presidents Jackson and Polk had created.
Anyone who wants to say I'm wrong, needs to explain all those fine Victorian townhouses and apartment buildings around Central Park and up and down Park Avenue and the Chicago Loop. People died, so the Four Hundred could live like gods. So did the Founders' republic.
I apologize for inappropriately presuming the blessing of living in the south. Your tagline threw me off, knowing that area quite well I assumed you were part of the efforts to preserve battlefields around Fredericksburg.
The South is indeed home, and it’s history - American history, is awe inspiring. The customs, the love of America, the above average rate of military service, and the independent people that insist on the freedom-deferring governance that is predominant here is a source of pride, an incubator of great leaders, and an excellent model for the rest of America to follow.
I’m sure Kansas is ok, too.
Only in Confederate wet dreams. Sure, there was a lot of grumbling and a few regiments were sent to Canada, but all that really happened is that the British issued a demand for the release of their agents and the US released them. End of story. And the US had made its point. Britain never came as close to recognizing the confederacy again as they had before the Trent affair.
Is that like "free association"? lol
Couldn't resist, sorry.
And in Prince Albert's coffin.
Read some history, dude. The good prince wrecked his health over those diplomatic contortions and exertions to avoid war with the United States.
If anyone "made a point" it was Great Britain.
Albert had been sickly for months by the time the Trent affair came along and was likely already suffering from the typhoid fever that would kill him by that time. All he appears to have done is to write a letter telling Palmerston to tone down his response a bit. Blaming his death on the Trent affair is absurd. Blame it on poor sanitation.
The almost went to war, but they didn't. They came that close to recognizing the confederacy but they didn't. You build your history on might-have-beens and almost-happens.
It'll have to remain a matter of historical conjecture, whether your statement of Palmerston's determination is valid. A Confederate victory at Gettysburg, or a series of them -- Meade would have been expected to wreck his army, to keep the Confederates off Philadelphia -- might have clarified Lord Palmerston's view of the practical side of things.
The British came closest to recognizing the confederacy in the summer of 1862 after Second Bull Run. They were waiting for one more victory, one more sign that the confederacy was a going concern and would probably win their struggle. Then came Antietam and an end to the campaign in the North, and talk was put on hold. Next came Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation and the chance of recognition ended completely so long as the war continued. Roy Jenkins covers the discussions that occured in his biography of Gladstone. Once Lincoln made slavery an issue then Palmerston made it clear that recognition of a government so closely tied to slavery was impossible. So the confederacy could have won at Gettysburg. They could have racked up several wins after that and British recognition would not have been forthcoming. Not until they actually won their rebellion and forced the Union to recognize them would any recognition every have come from the Palmerston government. And that confederate victory never happened, and would never have happened so long as Lincoln was president.
And when your cohorts like lentulusgracchus haul out their commie references and liberal label and direct them towards those who's only crime is opposing the Southern rebellion, what are they trying to say?
Nobody but the South launched a civil war to protect slavery.
Anyone who wants to say I'm wrong, needs to explain all those fine Victorian townhouses and apartment buildings around Central Park and up and down Park Avenue and the Chicago Loop.
I'm from Chicago. The Loop is a business district. No townhouses.
Let's look at some of the larger import figures for the Port of New York in 1863 (Source: The American Annual Cyclopedia and Register of Important Events of the Year 1863, D. Appleton & Co., New York, pages 192 and 193, published in 1868). Values below are in 1863 dollars, I believe. New York, as you'll remember, was the largest American port for imports by far.
Cotton $13,153,314
Coffee $7,796,635
Drugs, etc. $8,524,030
Guns $2,975,418
Sugars (bbls, boxes) $14,534,552
Tea $6,796,802
Wool $8,538,021
Out of $117,328,929 total
The North was importing cotton and sugar, two products of the South.
From your post 137: "They got little other than agricultural products, mainly cotton, and there was no other source that they could replace it with.
Wool was imported by the Northern mills when they couldn't get enough cotton [Link].
When the Civil War in the 1860s cut the amount of cotton reaching New England mills, the textile companies turned more and more to wool-cloth manufacturing.
Score cotton, sugar and wool as replacement imports for materials that had largely come previously from the South. Those three items total about 30% of the New York imports for 1863. I'm guessing that most of the sugar used by the North had previously come from the South, but don't know for sure. There were 100,000 slaves used by Southern sugar plantations in 1849.
FYI, the drugs, etc., item was mainly drugs and chemicals. It included various medicines and medical treatments of the times (e.g., quinine, iodine, bicarbonate of soda, caster oil, morphine, opium, leeches, Peruvian bark, blue gall, bismuth, camphor). Chemicals included acids, alkali, alum, ammonia, arsenic, potash, saltpeter, phosphorus, sulfur, etc.) The medicines were items blocked from the South by the Northern blockade. The South offered to buy those medicines to use on Northern prisoners in Confederate prisons, but the North refused.
“And when your cohorts like lentulusgracchus haul out their commie references and liberal label and direct them towards those who’s only crime is opposing the Southern rebellion, what are they trying to say?”
Ask him. I can only speak for myself, and I didn’t say that. Independent thought, word, and deed is a trait often found in Southerners. He’ll probably even take responsibility for his words. Taking responsibility is another trait oft found in Southerners in general (and certain Northern governors - but only when caught red-handed).
But at levels which could come nowhere close to accounting for the increase in tariff revenue. Even at the Morrill rates we're talking about less than $5 million. Total duties were over $100 million.
Score cotton, sugar and wool as replacement imports for materials that had largely come previously from the South.
Wool? From the South?
Assuming that any of those medicines would have made it to the Union POWS, they were dying of starvation, exposure, dysentery, and scuvy. All the quinine, iodine, bicarbonate of soda, caster oil, morphine, opium, leeches, Peruvian bark, blue gall, bismuth, and camphor in the world would not have helped them. The South could have cut their death rate by providing food, shelter, and clean water. They didn't.
“My only regret about the Civil War outcome is the gradual loss of the 10th Amendment - which has allowed the government to grow unchecked ever since the Civil War. I suspect it will take something every bit as traumatic as the Civil War to eventually restore the 10th amendment to it’s original intent, if it were to ever happen at all.”
I had posted much the same thing in an earlier comment. The 10th Amendment made clear the states were at loeast equals to the national government, and in some respects, superior to it. The Civil War (a label I think is wholly inaccurate for what transpired) set the stage for the amendments and laws immediately subsequent to it that so emasculated the 10th Amendment as to render it practically meaningless. The Civil War put the blindfold on the 10th Amendment and the 14th Amendment fired the volley that executed it. Since the 14th Amendment the national governemnt and the courts have been poking the corpse with sticks, in further torment. One of the clearest examples of how the 14th Amendment killed the 10th Amendment is Roe v. Wade. Prior to 1973 it was up to the individual states as to how they wanted to address the abortion issue. Roe v. Wade, and the “right of privacy” it pulled out of thin air, held that the states had no say in the matter at all, that abortion was a national right that superseded and trumped any state decisions.
“Lee, as head of the buffoon army is one of the greatest of Americans. Soldiers the world over study his generalship to this day. So if he was a buffoon, he was OUR buffoon (the big ‘our’ that includes you and me and the rest of America).”
I guess Lincoln thought Lee was a buffoon, as well, which was probably why he had General Scott offer Lee command of all the Union forces. But, Lee believed in the Constitution, and the sanctity of the 10th Amendment, and he declined Scott’s offer, saying he could not take up the sword against his home state of Virginia.
“The South is indeed home, and it’s history - American history, is awe inspiring. The customs, the love of America, the above average rate of military service, and the independent people that insist on the freedom-deferring governance that is predominant here is a source of pride, an incubator of great leaders, and an excellent model for the rest of America to follow.”
Amen, brother!
“Wool? From the South?”
Oh, for God’s sake. He didn’t say “wool from the South.” Northern textile mills imported wool from Europe and Canada as a replacement for the cotton they were no longer getting from the South.
“Since the 14th Amendment the national governemnt and the courts have been poking the corpse with sticks, in further torment.”
I think the country thirsts for the return of the primacy of states rights except for the specific federal functions enumerated in the Constitution.
This might start to happen when the government defaults on all the promises and obligations it has made to the citizenry. I think this way is possibly the road back to Constitutional sanity. Of course it will take government default on a massive scale and an ensuing economic depression. I used to think this would be highly unlikely, but watching the government interfering in financial markets after causing the problem in the first place - I see this as more possible than ever before.
Once the citizenry realizes the federal government checks aren’t coming anymore, they’ll look to their states and local governments to lead them. If they have selected leaders wisely and don’t depend on someone else to take care of them, they will grow to enjoy the minimalist role of the federal government.
I think the South will fare better than most states in this scenario. The North in general is not as independent minded as a matter of culture - it will be tougher for them.
Don't go throwing a hissy fit.
Which is why Lee said he following, "But I can anticipate no greater calamity for the country than a dissolution of the Union. It would be an accumulation of all the evils we complain of, and I am willing to sacrifice everything but honor for its preservation. I hope therefore, that all constitutional means will be exhausted before there is a recourse to force. Secession is nothing but revolution. The framers of our Constitution never exhausted so much labor, wisdom and forbearance in its formation, and surrounded it with so many guards and securities, if it was intended to be broken by every member of the Confederacy at will. It was intended for 'perpetual union' so expressed in the preamble, and for the establishment of a government, not a compact, which can only be dissolved by revolution, or the consent of all the people in convention assembled. It is idle to talk of secession. Anarchy would have been established, and not a government by Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison, and the other patriots of the Revolution. . . ."
Lee knew the Southern actions were illegal. But he chose loyalty to state over loyalty to country and when Virginia joined the rebellion, so did he.
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