Posted on 05/01/2017 1:52:30 PM PDT by detective
Yes, but unless one was clairvoyant they had no idea that their secession would lead to starting a war which would result in losing the war.
Thanks for the discussion. You are very knowledgeable about American history.
“Yes, but unless one was clairvoyant they had no idea that their secession would lead to starting a war which would result in losing the war.”
I think they had to realize that firing on Fort Sumter would lead to a war.
As are you. It's been very thought-provoking.
True, but nobody enters into a war expecting to lose it. If countries thought that far ahead then war would have become obsolete centuries ago.
I appreciate many of your insights.
I do agree that the secession effort was not a unified movement with a sole cause but rather some politicians with various motives who gained leverage. Yet, the same can be said of the northern opposition and most human events.
When I say slavery was a blight on our history, I do not mean we are uniquely guilty. I mean human history. The fact that it was in the bible does not justify it - humans should not enslave one another.
My whole rant was intended to make the opposite point. Slavery was/is wrong wherever it existed/exists, but pointing the finger at the south is ridiculous and sad. The reason the south continues to get blamed and shamed for it (and for the war) is because they LOST the war, and the North as the winner gets to write their self-serving version of history.
If the South had won, a completely different version of history would be taught to our children - probably one that placed less emphasis on the platitude of “preserving the union” and more emphasis on the founding principle of limiting the authority of a central government. Meanwhile, slavery would be long gone, the South’s legitimate economic grievances would have been addressed and secession would have been avoided.
Perhaps then, with the Southern version of history being taught to our children we wouldn’t have been so stupid as to grow the federal government into the monstrosity it is today.
I didn't say that only a small minority favored secession. I said that secession going through had much to do with tactics and timing, propaganda and panic. It wasn't the overwhelming "will of the people" but a product of circumstances and events.
In the South in 1860, there were some who wanted secession and had wanted it for some time. There were others who wanted secession after Lincoln was elected. Then there was a critical group that didn't really want secession, but went along with the vote and didn't oppose it.
Lincoln and others in the North assumed that they were unionist and anti-secession. They weren't, and once the war got started they weren't going to take the "Northern" side. Still, it was a natural assumption for those who cared about the union to make.
BTW, if we count the slaves and what they may have wanted, maybe secession really was only the choice of a small minority in some states.
Secession was not a legally defined process, so there was no precedent about how it was “supposed to” happen, save perhaps the American Revolution, which was initiated by legislatures and not referendums.
Exactly. Since there was "no legally defined process" it was open to question whether any given vote was a legitimate act of secession. If there was "no legally defined process" secession looked a lot like revolution.
If a state convention -- and it was conventions in some states that voted on secession resolutions -- rejected secession one hundred times, secession was still an open question, but if it voted for secession once, the secession was a done deal.
Or I guess it was -- since there was no constitutional procedure for secession. Was it fair that all those earlier (and possible later) votes counted for nothing? Did one vote of one body at one time speak for the whole state?
If a state convention promised to hold a popular vote referendum on secession but didn't -- as happened in Arkansas -- if it broke its promise and the rules it pledged itself to be bound by, then in what sense was the secession legitimate? Could they really change their own rules halfway through the process and claim that it was legitimately completed?
You need a 2/3 vote of Congress to amend the Constitution (plus ratification by 3/4 of state legislatures). Can a state really break all ties with the union because of one simple majority vote of one body at one time? That goes against the spirit of checks and balances in the Constitution.
“I didn’t say that only a small minority favored secession.”
That’s the argument of the poster I was originally responding to before you jumped in. If you’re not supporting that argument, then I don’t know why you are bothering to get involved.
“BTW, if we count the slaves and what they may have wanted, maybe secession really was only the choice of a small minority in some states.”
If we count the women, maybe the north would have wanted to secede too. Of course, nobody knows because it’s just wild speculation and it has nothing to do with the legal realities at the time.
“Can a state really break all ties with the union because of one simple majority vote of one body at one time? That goes against the spirit of checks and balances in the Constitution.”
The states formed the union and the constitution, and not the other way around. They are not chained permanently to an agreement they freely entered into, or held hostage to it by the will of other states. If that were true, then they had no legal sovereignty to enter the union in the first place, and we are still technically subjects of the British crown.
Meh. If anybody formed the union and the constitution it was the people of the country. That's why it wasn't state legislatures that ratified the Constitution but special conventions in each state.
They are not chained permanently to an agreement they freely entered into, or held hostage to it by the will of other states. If that were true, then they had no legal sovereignty to enter the union in the first place, and we are still technically subjects of the British crown.
We had a revolution in the 1770s. If you wanted a revolution in the 1860s, fine, but don't pretend like there was a clear legal process of secession. Force and power and pressure were involved from the beginning.
If you’re not supporting that argument, then I don’t know why you are bothering to get involved.
I thought this was an open forum and thought I had something to contribute. If you only want to read what you already think, that's your loss.
How could secession have been avoided if the South had won? If the South had won, secession would have been an accomplished fact.
If the South had won and the Confederacy became independent, either they'd eventually develop their own powerful central government, different in its activities than what we have today perhaps, but equally controlling and domineering, or they'd have entrenched local oligarchies which would also be controlling and domineering.
Because the South lost and was subjugated, Southerners were critical of big government. If they'd won and Southern elites had nothing to stand in their way, they'd throw their weight around just as any victorious elite does.
If you go to Shiloh battlefield today; the Bloody Pond has
faded into just a sort of unnatural dark brownish color. -
Over 60 yrs. ago, when my parents took me there (more than
once) - the Pond was a dark, dark old blood color where the
wounded & dying from both sides crawled down to wash their
wounds in the waters. - It was a mess.
If the war was waged by the North against the south. A win for the South would have been the North ceasing military hostilities. The South would still have moved forward with secession, if the North continued with the abusive price controls and tarrif legislation and other political and economic coercion. If the North had then backed off and let the South be as per the constitution, the South would have no reason to secede.
Whether or not the Confederacy, if it did secede, would have devolved into a corrupt over-centralized government is anyone’s guess, but you have no reason to assume they would have.
The idea of the Confederates was that they'd already seceded. If they won the war, they'd be an independent country. After people had died, they weren't going to say that they hadn't seceded.
Whether or not the Confederacy, if it did secede, would have devolved into a corrupt over-centralized government is anyone’s guess, but you have no reason to assume they would have.
I say that because some people think that the Confederate government was a bunch of guys sitting around in a garage complaining about the government. No. They were a government (or wanted to be considered a government). They were an elite. They were used to having power and wanted to have more.
It's likely that victorious Confederate leaders would make use of as much power as they could get once they became independent. That might not have happened right after the war, but over the course of years, decades, centuries -- does anybody seriously think that the CSA wouldn't have problems as bad as we do now in the USA?
It seems almost to be a law of history that revolutionary leaders complain about the power of a faraway government and then when they get power themselves they use as much of it as they can -- even more than those they overthrew did. It may not be inevitable and a law, but it's a good bet.
FWIW: You got some strange ideas about 19th century America. I don't know what price controls you're talking about, but slavery really was a very big issue.
Well, your version of history is far more common than mine, I’ll grant you that.
Do you think the nearly universal acceptance of your views might possibly have something to do with the fact that it is the only point of view taught in schools?
The North won, they get to write the history in a self serving way. It was all the fault of the South’s perverse love of enslaving people. Thank god for the North putting an end to it.
Think what you want. You’re certainly in good company.
enumerated: “ The Confederacy was not the aggressor...”
That’s an article of faith among pro-Confederates, but like so much else, it’s myth not fact.
In fact, secessionists began aggressing against the Union in November 1860 and never stopped.
Over time the only limiting factors were Confederate capabilities and imaginations.
From Day One Confederates threatened or attacked union officials, seized Union properties in Union states, fired on Union ships, killed Unionists in Union states, invaded Union states with Confederate armies which “lived off the land”, seized any “contraband” they could for return South including African-Americans and destroyed anything not movable, i.e., railroad bridges.
By my count, in addition to the eleven Confederate states, by war’s end Confederate military invaded or operated in 14 of the remaining 30 Union states & territories.
Sure *most* of the Civil War was fought in Confederate States, but Confederates took the battle to Union regions whenever they could.
It helped make them existential threats against the United States which had to be defeated until Unconditional Surrender.
And myths are written by the losers, again never more the case than with the War of Southern Rebellion. As you so aptly demonstrate.
Working with this limited tablet I’ll have to take smaller bite-sized pieces at a time.
enumerated: ** “Secession was the South’s only remaining peaceful response to the economic tyranny the North imposed on the southern states at every turn.” **
Total Lost Cause myth.
In fact, from Day One of our republic in 1788, Southern Democrats dominated Federal government, controlling both houses of Congress, the Presidency and Supreme Court almost continuously until the end of 1860.
So, whatever the Slave Power wanted, it got, whatever seriously opposed to didn’t happen.
The **only** thing new in November 1860 was the election of “Honest Old Ape” and his Black Republicans.
They scared the be*esus out of Deep South Fire Eaters driving them to immediately declare secessions before Lincoln even took office.
enumerated: ** “So the North used legislation to coerce the south through tariffs, price controls and other political mechanisms.” **
Total nonsense, since Southern Democrats effectively controlled Congress and set tariffs where they wanted them.
That’s why, in 1860 US tariffs were low not just by world standards but also by historical US standards.
Yes, Republican wanted higher protective tariffs, to “make America great again,” but Southern Democrats effectively blocked that until the day they seceded and walked out of Congress.
Also, any tariffs protected ALL US manufacturers — North, South, East & West — not just “the North.
enumerated: ** “The northern states schemed to finance a transcontinental railway with the proceeds from tariffs on Southern exports.” **
Complete rubbish, since first there never were any tariffs on US exports, Southern or otherwise.
Second, about 1/3 of US railroads were then being built in the South.
The Northern transcontinental railroad was started long after secession and did not use US government moneys.
However, in 1854, Secretary of War Jefferson Davis helped negotiate the $10 million Gadsen Purchase from Mexico to be used for the Southern Transcontinental Railroad, completed in 1882.
Yea, I don’t know if I’ll be able to play today like I did yesterday. I’m blown away by the rank stupidity I saw on these boards yesterday - I really thought that FReepers were better educated than that.
And the klown speaking in glowing terms about how efficient the slavers were at their craft - disgusting and repellent.
But I did find one nugget among all the turds and that was a quote from John S. Mosby:
“While I think as badly of slavery as Horace Greeley did I am not ashamed that my family were slaveholders, it was our inheritance—neither am I ashamed that my ancestors were pirates and cattle thieves,” Mosby wrote to Chapman in 1907. “People must be judged by the standard of their own age.”
This is what I believe to be an essential approach to dealing with past, present, and future - Recognizing errors, taking responsibility, placing things in their proper perspective, and moving forward.
enumerated: ** “The North refused to accept the South’s secession and chose to wage war. 600k lives were lost... “ **
No, the Union totally accepted Deep SOuth declarations of secession.
But then for months in early 1861, secessionists provoked war by seizing Federal properties, threatening Federal officials and firing on Union ships.
In April 1861 Jefferson Davis started Civil War by ordering military assault on Union troops in Union Fort Sumter.
Then on May 6, 1861 Confederates formally declared war against the United States.
At the same time Confederates killed Union troops in Union Maryland and sent military aid to Confederates fighting in Union Missouri.
All that happened weeks & months before a single Confederate soldier was killed in battle with any Union force and before any Union Army invaded a single Confederate state.
Moreover, Confederates could have ended their war on any given day before April 1865 on ** much better terms ** than “Unconditional Surrender”, but refused.
So Civil War was started & waged by Confederates, its cost in lives & treasure are on them.
enumerated: ** “The War of Northern Agression proved once and for all that the States were not willing partners joined by mutual consent, but were subjects yet again.” **
Total rubbish & myth.
Secession, peaceful, lawful constitutional secession remains today as ever, by mutual consent & approval.
What you never could do, from Day One, was declare unilateral secession and then war on the United States.
Such unlawful secessions will get you Unconditional Surrender as always.
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