I thought the standard narrative was:
1. The South didn’t like the elected President.
2. The South pretended unilateral secession, a power not belonging to the states to mask their insurrection.
3. The Southern rebels began a war on the United States.
4. The South lost.
Not true. Our politicians and media spout lies, nonsense and propaganda all the time and get away with it because a large percentage of the people have been brainwashed and dumbed down. The only thing that will change perception on a wide scale is a high level of economic pain.
At the link:
“You do not have permission to preview drafts”
What, no mention of the Whiskey Rebellion?
Funkhouser, Funkhouser, what planet are you living on?
Your statements are all distortions of one side of the debate, but the other side has been quite well represented online.
There are plenty of neo-Confederate (and I suppose paleo-confederate sites around).
I propose that from now on we call such an obviously false opening gambit a "funkhouser" from now on.
Check my tagline.
Rebellion? Did the Southerners try to take over the federal government? I did not know that.
No matter how many articles like this that have appeared on FR, the argument goes on. No matter haow many hundred comments appaer, the argument rages. No matter what is said, not one single opinion is changed.
Those who argue for the North are convinced that ANY action to preserve the Union is justified. Those who argue for the South claim it is the States that have the ultimate power. The sad truth is that BOTH sides were wrong!
Does preservation of the Union include warrentless searches, imposition of laws that have never been voted on, forcing citizens to engage in commerce, usurpation of powers not granted by the Constitution or bureaucrats stealing children’s lunches? This is the Union today.
Does the State have the right to enslave people based on their color or take up arms against fellow states? That is history.
Whatever side you may be on, many brave men fought and died for what they believed. Whatever the merit of their cause, their bravery is beyond reproach. Let them rest in peace.
But for us, do not repeat the past. Our Union today is in dire peril; more so, I venture to say, than it was in 1861. Today, we are faced with a President who openly defies the Constitution and WANTS a CW2, the better to impose his will on us. He would return us to a slavery worse than pre-1861. He must not succeed.
“Ohio never attacked Kentucky. No State from the North considered the South to be a threat, and no State from the North ever attacked the South. The Civil War could never have happened under the Articles of Confederation, because the nexus for war came from Washington.”
But the War Between the States was fought mostly by volunteers from the states. (Yes, I know about the draft, but that was later.) The Regular Army of the United States was a comparatively minor player. To my recollection, the Union side at First Manassas was roughly the same size as the entire Regular Army and the entire Regular Army wasn’t there. Those were volunteers from the states. Did the nexus for war come from Washington DC, or was Washington DC trying to accomplish the will of the Northern States? The Presidency was much weaker then, does anyone really think Lincoln, as a new President, could have begun (or even finished) what he did without the backing of the Northern States?
“The Declaration of Independence was not a demand for perpetual political bands.”
But the States eventually agreed to perpetual Union. Which side eventually had a legitimate grievance is up for debate.
“It has been rightly argued that there were no more free people in the world than the Colonists living in America before the American Revolution...”
That’s a suspiciously broad statement considering the size of the world and the number of different peoples in it. I’m not acquainted with all the peoples living in the world at the time so I can’t argue against it and I guess I just have to assume that the author’s acquaintance is sufficient to support the contention. But what about the American Indian tribes living further west of the Colonies? Were they less free than the Colonists?
“The federal government of King George...”
Federal government? Federation of what?
“Conservatives need to realize that arguing for Union, or federal supremacy in all cases past and present, gives big-government proponents ammunition.”
What Conservative argues “...for Union, or federal supremacy in all cases past and present...”?
“One, the difficulty in getting traction arguing for Tenth Amendment solutions...”
I think a major difficulty in getting traction arguing for Tenth Amendment solutions is that modern folks have forgotten the role of the States. The States established two general governments, one under the Articles of Confederation and one under the Constitution. Then they allowed more States to enter their Union. The States could establish a third general government if they were able to reach agreement to do so.
“It’s impossible to dislike Lincoln.”
A number of folks seem to dislike and seem to have disliked Lincoln.
And:
Lately, I wonder if the War Between The States was instigated because the Democrats didn’t like the outcome of the 1860 Presidential election, and had a hissy fit. As I recall, the South was pretty much run by the Democrats, and the Democrats in the North were against the war.
The problem here is the author has lined up what are pretty much six straw men arguments. Let's look at them one at a time.
1. Lincoln was a god among men.
Classic straw man logical fallacy. I don't know a single person who actually holds this belief. Lincoln was by no means perfect. He was undoubtedly coarse and could be quite devious in his dealings. But many, like myself, have come to the conclusion he was quite literally the indispensable man for the Union at the time. Nobody else could have held the Union together.
2. The South was evil.
Little less straw in this man. A good many want to demonize the entire South and all it stood for, then and now, because of slavery. Yet I think most conservatives do not do this. Certainly Lincoln didn't. I honor the bravery of the men of the South, though I believe with Grant that the cause for which they fought was based on lies and was at its core an evil one. And those southerners, the fire-eaters, who strove for many years to bring about secession and therefore probably war, were absolutely in my opinion evil and un-American (indeed anti-American) by definition. But that doesn't make the South as a whole evil anymore than a recognition that the USA has done evil things means our country is defined by the evil it has done.
3. Union is the ultimate goal of the American experiment.
Back to the straw man. I know of nobody who really holds this position. Union is good not in and of itself but rather because it is more likely to promote the ultimate goals of the American experiment, which I believe have been defined as the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
4. The Federal government’s design trumps the rights of the People, and the States.
Straw man again. While I'm sure there are liberals and statists who hold this belief, I'm sure few conservatives do. Certainly I don't. We just believe that the States did not, and do not, have the right to violently secede and wage war against the Federal government. I believe firmly in States' rights, but those rights are themselves limited by the Constitution, as are (or should be) the rights and powers of the federal government.
5. Political bands are eternal, and must be preserved at all costs.
Straw. Nobody really believes this.
6. The ends justify the means.
The dumbest argument of all. Everybody believes this. The entire question is one of what ends justify what means. Some ends are of themselves evil, and justify no means at all. Some ends are so critically important they justify most but not all means. Otherwise a just war could never be fought, because war is by definition the use of evil means, death and destruction. Yet everybody but true pacifists recognize that some wars are necessary, that the end of preservation of freedom is so important that it justifies even such evil means. (Though many will still differ on which wars are justified.)
The phrase is really trying to say that a particular end, whatever it may be, justifies any means whatsoever. There are indeed people who believe this. Inquisitors, radical Islamic fundamentalist, commie and Nazi true believers all spring to mind. Yet I believe there are very few American conservatives who would agree that the "end" of keeping American united would have justified any means whatsoever. And the means used were not unlimited. When compared with other great civil wars (English, French, Spanish, Chinese, Russian, etc.) ours had by far the fewest atrocities and the lowest civilian death toll. Very bad things were done by both sides, but when compared to the only logical thing to compare it against, other civil wars, ours was considerably kinder and gentler.
From the first legal treatise written after Constitutional Ratification by the man later appointed to the Supreme Court by President James Madison:
But the seceding states were certainly justified upon that principle; and from the duty which every state is acknowledged to owe to itself, and its own citizens by doing whatsoever may best contribute to advance its own happiness and prosperity; and much more, what may be necessary to the preservation of its existence as a state.30 Nor must we forget that solemn declaration to which every one of the confederate states assented . … that whenever any form of government is destructive of the ends of its institution, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government. Consequently whenever the people of any state, or number of states, discovered the inadequacy of the first form of federal government to promote or preserve their independence, happiness, and union, they only exerted that natural right in rejecting it, and adopting another, which all had unanimously assented to, and of which no force or compact can deprive the people of any state, whenever they see the necessity, and possess the power to do it. And since the seceding states, by establishing a new constitution and form of federal government among themselves, without the consent of the rest, have shown that they consider the right to do so whenever the occasion may, in their opinion require it, as unquestionable, we may infer that that right has not been diminished by any new compact which they may since have entered into, since none could be more solemn or explicit than the first, nor more binding upon the contracting parties. Their obligation, therefore, to preserve the present constitution, is not greater than their former obligations were, to adhere to the articles of confederation; each state possessing the same right of withdrawing itself from the confederacy without the consent of the rest, as any number of them do, or ever did, possess. Prudence, indeed, will dictate, that governments established by compact should not be changed for light or transient causes; but should a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evince a design in any one of the confederates to usurp a dominion over the rest; or, if those who are entrusted to administer the government, which the confederates have for their mutual convenience established, should manifest a design to invade their sovereignty, and extend their own power beyond the terms of compact, to the detriment of the states respectively, and to reduce them to a state of obedience, and finally to establish themselves in a state of permanent superiority, it then becomes not only the right, but the duty of the states respectively, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.
Of the Several Forms of Government, St. George Tucker, View of the Constitution of the United States, Section XIII
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[emphasis mine]
The South had every Right to leave the Compact, and the Union had NO right to attack them for it.