Could the Civil War Have Been Avoided?

Discovery News ^ | October 15, 2002 | Jennifer Viegas

[Non-Sequitur]

I've been led toward the suspicion that the Southern force situated on the shore was purposely mislead into aggressive action by a purposeful feint from the Union.

Wrong, Davis fired on the fort knowing full well what his actions would bring about. Robert Toombs, his own secretary of state, tried to warn him, "The firing on that fort will inaugurate a civil war greater than any the world has ever seen. It is suicide, murder...You will wantonly strike a hornet's nest which extends from mountain to ocean; legions, now quiet, will swarm out and sting us to death; It is unnecessary; it puts us in the wrong; it is fatal." As it turns out, it did initiate a war, it was fatal, and Davis knew exactly what he was doing.

[Non-Sequitur]

All the mistreatment of blacks is rooted in the unconstitutional tyranny of Reconstruction and Yankee military rule.

All you have to do is look at the laws and constitutions in place down south prior to and during the Civil War to know that that is ridiculous. Mistreatment was continuous and to blame it on the war and Reconstruction is a convenient excuse, but completely false. Southern society had made sure that blacks, free and slave, knew their place before the war. The Memphis and New Orleans Race Riots, as well as the Black Codes instituted by souther state legislatures, all occured prior to Reconstruction. Not that it was much better up North, mind. Racism up there was almost as bad as it was down south.

[LexBaird]

Slavery wasn't solely a Southern institution.

It was at the time of the Civil War. I believe it was refered to at the time as their "peculiar institution."

In any case, I was replying to H. Akston's implication that blacks have been mistreated due to Reconstruction and Yankee presence in Dixie. Southerners were mistreating blacks long before then. As were others.

[x]

Good point. My assumption was always that the desire to win over foreign powers would eventually prevail. But that was not necessarily the case. And the difficulty of amending the constitution might have been too great.

The idea that slavery would have eventually created some sort of Civil War in our country is also worth considering. The examples of European powers that abolished slavery peacefully don't really apply to a situation like ours.

Gradual emancipation in New Jersey and other states left some slaveowners with slaves for a very long time. So one could well imagine, even if some act of emancipation was passed, that slaves born before it would still be owned by masters well into the twentieth century.

[Aurelius]

"Slavery was not going to die in America without bloodshed,...

Why? It ended almost everywhere else without bloodshed.

[Non-Sequitur]

The long and short of it is that any end to slavery in an independent confederacy would have required the government to initiate it and enforce it. Our southron bretheren like to point out that slavery ended peacefully in almost every country but the United States and Haiti. But what they fail to point out is that in every case it took the intervention of the government to end it, and in every case it was over the opposition, sometimes the violent opposition of the slave owners themselves. That would have required changes to most state constitutions down south, changes to the confederate constitution, and the political willpower to do both. There is no evidence that that was there.

[rustbucket]

RB: Slavery wasn't solely a Southern institution.

LB: It was at the time of the Civil War.

There were slaves at the time of war in some of the northern states, NJ, for example. Not a large number, but still there were some.

I've not looked at the 1860 census myself but am relying on various posts on previous threads.

[Non-Sequitur]

Slavery was legal in four Northern states - Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri.

[rustbucket]

I do agree with your comment about blacks being mistreated for reasons other than Reconstruction and Yankee presence. See my posts 41 and 46. I saw plenty of evidence of mistreatment while growing up in the Deep South. The North was not that much better than the South. Look up race riots on the web sometime.

[H.Akston]

Not just "Southern", you sidestepping tap dancer, the "Union". Slavery was a US Institution.

Today, we hire illegals to do our manual labor, and pretend we can exist without slavery.

[H.Akston]

Perhaps the slave ships should have never left Boston Harbor.

[x]

The latest biography of Jesse James, is fascinating and I recommend it. The Civil War didn't end in 1865. Reconstruction was a very turbulent time with the former slaveholders largely winning the upper hand in their states. The author makes the case that Jesse James was the last Confederate. He chose Northfield, Minnesota for his raid, because the the Reconstruction egalitarian "carpetbag" governor of Mississippi was a principal in the bank there. One can't underestimate the strength and persistence of Confederate sentiments, and if one takes the pre-war and post-war situations into account it's hard to maintain the view of the rebels as libertarians.

[H.Akston]

Reconstruction was devastating to your local interests. Your State Legislature was neutered.

and if one takes the pre-war and post-war situations into account it's hard to maintain the view of the rebels as libertarians.

"Rebels", as you call people like me, are in fact Constitutionalists, not "rebels". A State can't rebel. There's no constitutional basis for believing so. Libertarians, are not constitutionalists, if you look at their philosophy on immigration. The following essay on the 14th Amendment would be helpful to your understanding:

http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a38ae1fc86628.htm

"Political decentralization and individual liberty: the two are intertwined, but the former doesn't guarantee the latter. As Americans discover every day, the government that's closest to you is often in the best position to put the screws to you. How should libertarian political theory deal with the problem of oppression by local sovereigns? In the American context, this question translates to: What should libertarians think of the Fourteenth Amendment?..."

[Non-Sequitur]

Perhaps the Charleston plantation owners shouldn't have bought their product?

[Garth Rockett]

Interesting. I have a German language Atlas of World History that uses the term Sezessionskrieg (War of Secession) rather than Burgerkrieg, which would be the literal translation of "Civil War".

I assume that this is the standard German term for the American war, unless the compilers of the atlas were Bavarian separatists...

[H.Akston]

Perhaps it takes a seller, to enable a buyer. They were just doing what the Constitution allowed them to do. See how you scoff at the Constitution, along with lincolon.

[Non-Sequitur]

They were just doing what the Constitution allowed them to do.

Crap. They were doing what you think that the Constitution allowed them to do. In fact, the Supreme Court later determined that unilateral secession was not allowed under the Constitution, in Texas v. White in 1869.

[H.Akston]

Crap. They were doing what you think that the Constitution allowed them to do. In fact, the Supreme Court later determined that unilateral secession was not allowed under the Constitution, in Texas v. White in 1869.

"Crap. They were doing what you think that the Constitution allowed them to do."
Besides, it's funny how the Supreme Court wasn't consulted in 1861, by Lincoln, before the War. Texas V. White is a drastically flawed decision. Military (unconstitutional) rule of the South was still the order of the day in the South,

all the Supreme Court Justices that decided that case had not been reviewed by a properly constituted Senate, with Southern State representation, and

it is downright laughable, that Texas wasn't even in the Union when that decision was handed down, because its representatives in Congress were not even re-admitted until the year after that decision.

You're quite full of "crap", and so is that decision.

[H.Akston]

Slavery and secession were constitutional. The folks in Boston Harbor were just profiting from the constitutional trade in Negro slaves.

[Non-Sequitur]

Slavery and secession were constitutional. The folks in Boston Harbor were just profiting from the constitutional trade in Negro slaves.

Slavery was, until the passage of the 13th Amendment. But unilateral secession was not and never has been Constitutional.