[BroJoeK]: 'Sure, but similar could be said of other wars, wars we don't usually blame on Marxist class warfare reasoning.'<.I>
rustbucket: "I'm sorry, you absolutely lost me there.
Marx supported the North in this war [Link].
If cotton supplies became limited during the war, wouldn't you look to see if there was an effect on the cotton mills that Appleton's said there was?
But instead you see Marxest class warfare rather than a confirmation that Appleton's was right?
You fellows are all hiding behind the skirts of your mother Marx's dialectical materialism, instead of standing up and confessing basic historical facts.
Remember, Marx was the one who eliminated all idealistic or spiritual motives in history, replacing them with materialistic class warfare as the be-all & end-all of reasons.
And that's just what you do here.
Certainly you demand that Northern motives can have nothing but crass economic class warfare reasons.
At the same time you claim that Confederate motives had nothing, "nothing I tell you", to do with protecting slavery, but rather Confederates were inspired only by Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, especially the part where, "all men are created equal".
So, in you minds, it's Marxism for the North, liberty & constitution for the Confederacy, and I'm saying: that's pure ahistorical fantasy.
Northern newspapers were talking about how their Northern economy would be ruined by the Morrill Tariff that the North passed after much of the South had left. Which side was the materialistic one exactly? The North wanted protection for their industries and increased revenue extracted from Southerners. That isn't "materialistic class warfare" to use your own words? And by the way, despite your flame war style slur, Marx isn't my philosophical mother.
Certainly you demand that Northern motives can have nothing but crass economic class warfare reasons.
Where did I say something like that? I believe that Lincoln plotted to instigate war because without a war, he had no Constitutional power or justification for blockading Southern ports to prevent the Northern economy from being ruined. Similarly, without a war he would have insufficient tariff revenue to run his government.
It was Lincoln in his first inaugural address who said, "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so." But in that speech he also said he would use his designated power "to collect the duties and imposts ..." In other words, he wouldn't do anything about slavery, but he would collect the duties. So, no high moral principles there in Lincoln's speech; he was after the loot to run his government.
It was Seward, I think, that talked Lincoln into emphasizing the preservation of the Union, rather than emphasizing slavery. I believe that Lincoln did have the ultimate intention of freeing the slaves and that many Republican politicians wanted to do away with slavery in the country too.
Remember, of course, that this was the same Lincoln who believed that a Fugitive Slave Law was required by the Constitution, and when he was when in the House of Representatives in the 1840s wrote his own fugitive slave law into his proposed bill outlawing slavery in Washington, D.C.
At the same time you claim that Confederate motives had nothing, "nothing I tell you", to do with protecting slavery, but rather Confederates were inspired only by Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, especially the part where, "all men are created equal".
Where did I "claim" that Confederate motives had "nothing" to do with protecting slavery? I have argued on these threads that slavery was the primary issue (but not the only issue) that prompted the South to secede. IMO, slavery was a more effective issue for motivating the Southern people and Southern states to secede than the inequities of the tariff. Lincoln's call for 75,000 troops to invade the South was enough to prompt four more states to secede. Don't forget that as a cause for secession.
I have noted that, in seceding, the South was also protecting their economy, just as Lincoln was protecting the Northern economy. Were they both being Marxists in your opinion or only the South? (/sarc) I don't think either were Marxist; both sides were both working in their own self interests.
With respect to the Declaration of Independence, I prefer the words in Jefferson's original rough draft [Link] to the final version. Here are Jefferson's words about King George III's offenses that did not make it to the final version of the DOI:
"He has incited treasonable insurrections of our fellow-citizens, with the allurements of forfeiture & confiscation of our property.
He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it's most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobium of INFIDEL Powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he also obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed against the LIBERTIES of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the LIVES of another."
Jefferson's words above were not included in the final version, but the committee charged with writing the Declaration changed them to:
"He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions."
That changed version dropped Jefferson's "fellow citizens." The changed version refers to Lord Dunmore's Proclamation that promised freedom to indentured servants and Negroes who were willing to fight for the British cause against the rebels.
And I hereby further declare all indented servants, Negroes, or others (appertaining to Rebels) free, that are able and willing to bear arms, they joining His Majesty's Troops, as soon as may be, for the more speedily reducing the Colony to a proper sense of their duty, to this Majesty's crown and dignity. [Source: Lord Dunmore's Proclamation as British Governor of Virginia, November 14, 1775]
Didn't Lincoln do something similar in the Civil War with the Emancipation Proclamation freeing the opposition's slaves, but not the North's?
So, in you minds, it's Marxism for the North, liberty & constitution for the Confederacy, and I'm saying: that's pure ahistorical fantasy.
I didn't know I had more than one mind. The South certainly had the more accurate understanding of the Constitution.
Why are you flinging unfounded accusations against me about Marx? It is stunts like that that make you unworthy of a response. Are you trolling for a flame war? You won't get it from me.
My only reason for mentioning Marx in my immediate posts to you above was in response to your strange argument trying to tie the arguments of the Southern posters here to Marxism. Marx was in favor of freeing the slaves. Freeing the slaves was the only good thing that came out of the war. I don't think Marx's praise of Lincoln and/or the North makes the North or Lincoln Marxist.