Posted on 11/27/2018 3:32:30 PM PST by C19fan
“You’ve found something you agree with and nothing’s going to change your mind, “
Have you tried applying that to yourself? Asking for a friend.
“Nobody would mistake it for a serious legal or historical study.”
That sure beats dealing with what he wrote. Just wave it off with an Appeal To Authority. In this case you’re appealing to an authority with the unusual name of “Nobody”.
But it really doesn’t matter because you’ve been repeating your real argument against Adams, which is to dismiss what he says by calling him a racist who became too friendly with the people he had previously been trying to kill on the battlefield. Sic Transit Gloria New England Yankeedom
I have to laugh. Y'all are always posting quotes from Abraham Lincoln in order to prove he was a racist and therefore a bad man. Straight out of the left-wing playbook.
But Team Confederate also digs up some Northern racist or British Imperialist who supports their side and then says that their views on other races or the Irish or the Indians are irrelevant after the facts come to light.
Just wave it off with an Appeal To Authority. In this case you’re appealing to an authority with the unusual name of “Nobody”.
Appeal to authority? You found this Adams and his highly emotional speech and cited it as if it were some kind of conclusive examination of the secession question. Now that it's been pointed out that it's nothing of the sort, you don't know how to deal with that. Your authority Adams is nothing of the kind.
But it really doesn’t matter because you’ve been repeating your real argument against Adams, which is to dismiss what he says by calling him a racist who became too friendly with the people he had previously been trying to kill on the battlefield.
One argument doesn't exclude the other. Adams's speech is not a compelling argument for secession. It's not really even an argument for secession. It's more personal and emotional than that. And Adams made the speech because he found common cause with "Lost Cause" ex-Confederates and became friendly with them because they shared similar views on "superior" and "inferior" races. That doesn't in itself mean that Adams was wrong, but it might make people more suspicious of what he was saying.
> Avoid confiscatory import taxes.
Import taxes (tariffs) were quite low between 1846 and 1861.
The laws had been written by Democrats who did all they could to oblige Southern agricultural interests.
Tariffs were going to go up after Lincoln was elected but Southerners in Congress would have been able to resist large increases if they wished to.
What the secessionists could do (or thought they could do) in the Confederacy that they couldn't do in the Union was secure the survival of slavery.
They may have been wrong about that, but that doesn't justify your being even more glaringly wrong in writing about what was at stake in 1861.
Did we wage war on iraq to give their people freedom or was it to protect oil trade?
It is ALWAYS about money.
“Y’all are always posting quotes from Abraham Lincoln in order to prove he was a racist and therefore a bad man. “
“I’all” haven’t done that. But nice try.
“Appeal to authority?”
From your previous post: “ Nobody would mistake it for a serious legal or historical study. “
“And Adams made the speech because he found common cause with “Lost Cause” ex-Confederates and became friendly with them because they shared similar views on “superior” and “inferior” races.”
As I said, that’s your real argument; you don’t address what he says in the essay, you just accuse him of being a racist and collaborating with his former enemies.
“It is ALWAYS about money. “
Exactly. It’s an economic decision made by the powers that be. But the fighting man is told it’s about freeing people from tyranny.
Translate to the war between the states. The powers that be in the South relied on slavery for their economic prosperity. But the fighting man was fed the line it’s about state’s rights.
As with anything, following the money leads to the truth.
Address what? That Cromwell should have a statue? That Lee should have a statue? That Lee was a traitor but wasn't a traitor? That the Boers and Filipinos were right to fight Britain or America? That the US was an experiment that some thought states could secede from? That Southern secessionists were justified in their own minds? That peaceful secession was impossible by 1860? That Robert E. Lee was a great gentleman? That he had local pride as a Virginian? That Virginia was different from the Deep South? That Adams (and his grandfather) would choose the union over state and region, but that Lee was right to choose state and region over nation? That Grant and Lee rose to greatness at Appomattox?
Pick something and make that your argument, but don't pretend that Adams's rambling address is a well-reasoned argument that proves anything. Don't ask people to argue with an emotional outburst like it's a legal brief or geometrical proof of anything. You wave around Adams's speech like it's some great overpowering authority that proves your case while it's in fact nothing of the sort. You act like this one guy is somehow above all criticism because he was a New Englander who came (in some ways) to sympathize with the Southern view of things, when he obviously isn't immune from the kinds of criticism that one can make of anyone's views in light of what they've said and written on other occasions.
“Tariffs were going to go up after Lincoln was elected but Southerners in Congress would have been able to resist large increases if they wished to. What the secessionists could do (or thought they could do) in the Confederacy that they couldn’t do in the Union was secure the survival of slavery.”
Your comments are interesting.
You argue that the South could not secure the survival of slavery in the Union even though a constitutional amendment requires a vote of two thirds of both houses of Congress and ratification by three fourths of the states (similar percentages if Convention used.)
At the same time you argue the South could have stopped confiscatory taxation where tariff proponents needed just a majority.
Your arithmetic does not add up.
The South was not going to fight a war. They left and wanted to be left alone. The South was going to get to form it's own trade relations with Europe and was going to be able to keep more of the wealth it had been generating rather than have the North continue to steal 40%. In addition, manufactured goods that tariffs made too expensive to purchase from Europe would be better for the South instead of the high priced Northern manufactured goods.
The North had a really nice arrangement going for itself at the expense of the South and did not want to give it up. They also feared that losing the South as a customer for their over priced products as well as having the South arrange new trade deals in IT'S OWN BEST INTEREST would bankrupt the North. Money, Money, Money. All of it going to the North. They couldn't shake the habit so they provoked war and invaded the South. What was the South or it's citizens do other than fight to protect themselves? To the average Confederate soldier, slavery was non-existent as they had none and in many ways were victimized by the institution of slavery itself as it took thousands of farm jobs away from them. Many in the North feared for their jobs as well if slaves were freed and moved north. These folks were lied to when they were told the war was to preserve the union when in reality it was to preserve the profits of the fat cats in the Northeast who were making tons of money off of the South and it's cheap labor force.
Don't put words in my mouth. I say that the secessionist firebrands thought that secession would secure the survival of slavery, though they may have been wrong about that. They thought the election of "Black Republican" would undermine the institution of slavery. That was their thinking, not mine. Maybe it was the blow to their collective ego that the election of a Republican involved, or maybe it was just blind panic, but concern about the future of slavery was the reason they wanted out - whether or not their thinking made sense.
At the same time you argue the South could have stopped confiscatory taxation where tariff proponents needed just a majority.
Stop putting words into my mouth. "Confiscatory taxation" is your term not mine, or one anybody without an axe to grind would apply to the tariff of the 1850s, or even the original Morrill tariff.
Your arithmetic does not add up.
Had all the Southern Senators remained in Congress they could have blocked or held up legislation with the filibuster. Even today it takes more than a simple majority to put major legislation through Congress.
If the slave state delegations in Congress were resourceful enough they could have used other tactics to frustrate the other side. Not splitting the party in 1860 probably would have guaranteed more Democratic Senators and Representatives in Washington.
“Had all the Southern Senators remained in Congress they could have blocked or held up legislation with the filibuster.”
The filibuster is not a constitutional provision. The number of votes required to bring a matter to a vote in the Senate is determined by Senate rules. And Senate rules change.
Do you remember back in 2018 when a simple Senate majority was able to place a justice on the Supreme Court although not too long ago it required 60?
Senate rules change slowly. If I understand correctly, it took 80 years between the first filibuster and the introduction of a cloture procedure (or 111 years between the rules that made filibusters possible and rules that made ending filibusters possible). And those early cloture rules didn’t do much to stop filibusters. It took another fifty years for cloture to become easier and filibusters to become rarer. Realistically, Southerners didn’t have much to fear, but in those days the country (and slaveowners in particular) cultivated wild and unrealistic fears.
I am afraid your private assurances would not have completely resolved the issues.
Nor do they now.
A clever analogy which might be valid if, for example, Hitler was known as an ardent anti-segregationists and was feared by US soldiers as someone who would force integration on them.
But such is not even remotely the case.
By stark contrast, Lincoln was thought an ardent abolitionist by Confederates and was feared by them as someone who would impose it on them, if possible.
And indeed, turns out their fears were 100% justified.
Uncle Sham: "Self determination.
In addition, the largest contributing factor was ending the north raping them financially.
This is why the north wanted to "preserve the union".
They had a cash cow that they were taking advantage of and didn't want to give it up."
Nooooo, the truth is there wasn't one Southerner in 1,000 who believed in 1860 that the North's financial "raping" was cause for secession.
The simple reason is that until secession in 1861 Southerners effectively controlled government in Washington, DC, and set policies & rates where they wanted them.
What certainly was cause for secession in 1860 was the same thing threatened in 1856 -- potential Republican election victory, especially of the presidency.
In 1856 Northern & Southern Democrats united to defeat the Republican threat and secession was tabled, until the next time.
So in 1860 secessionist Fire Eaters made d*mn certain that could not happen again -- they split apart their national Democrats, running a separate ticket of Southern Democrat candidates.
The result was minority "Black Republican" victory, thus giving Fire Eaters the excuse they wanted in 1856 but were denied.
For the 99% of Southerners, secession in 1860 had nothing to do with "financial raping" and everything to do with preventing a Republican administration hostile to the South's "peculiar institution" from taking power over them.
Uncle Sham: "The South had a right to chart it's own coarse and had decided to do so."
Only a "right" by their own, and your, declarations.
In fact no Founding Father ever supported unilateral unapproved declaration of secession at pleasure, which is what happened in 1860.
Instead, all Founders supported independence from necessity as in 1776 or "disunion" from mutual consent as they did in 1788 adopting their new Constitution.
Uncle Sham: "They had no plans to invade the North or tell the North what to do."
Of course they did -- secessionists immediately began attacking & seizing Union properties, threatening Union officials, firing on Union ships and waging war in Union states!
In the Civil War's first year more battles were fought in Union states & territories than Confederate and more Confederate soldiers died in Union state battles than in Confederate states.
Even into the fall of 1864 Confederates were still fighting in Union Maryland, Kansas, West Virginia, Vermont, Kentucky & Missouri.
So all such claims that the South "just wanted to be left alone" are total, complete rubbish.
Uncle Sham: "The North forced it's will upon the South through the provocation at Ft. Sumter and the following military invasion and 12 year occupation.
Those are the facts.
North good, South Bad.
Yea, right."
Sorry, but months before the first Battle of Fort Sumter both Lincoln and Jefferson Davis publicly announced what they intended to do.
Davis said he would start war if he felt Confederate "integrity" was "assailed".
Lincoln responded that he would not "assail" Confederates and they could only have war if they themselves started it.
But Davis did not wait for Lincoln's "war fleet" to order his assaults on both Forts Sumter and Pickens in Florida.
The reason was, in his own words, "other considerations", namely Virginians had promises they would only secede in the event of war with the Union, and Virginians effectively lead secessionists in North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas.
So there was simply no possible way Davis could refuse to double the size of his little "rump Confederacy" by keeping the peace at Fort Sumter in April 1861.
Uncle Sham: "The vast majority of the Confederate Army were everyday people who did not own slaves but they were brave and courageous enough to DEFEND their homeland against foreign invaders. "
Virtually 100% of Confederate leaders did own slaves and considered their "peculiar institution" the heart & soul of Confederate raison d'etre.
Among average troops, depending on their home states, at least 1/4 came from slave-owning families.
No Confederate soldier considered slavery "negotiable".
Uncle Sham: "That their children would wish to honor their courage on a plaque is a noble act of remembrance.
The true cowards are those who would today deny them that right."
But those "children" honor lies which not even Confederates themselves were shameless enough to tell at the time.
Only decades of reflection and selective "forgetting" of key facts allowed the creation of the pack of lies we know as "Lost Cause Myths".
Revisionist history is the pack of Lost Cause lies that not even Confederates themselves were shameless enough to tell at the time.
Part of the preparation of the Democrats for Civil War 2.0 is erasure of the reminders of history that they started the first.
Critical to their next moves-
jeffersondem: "I am afraid your private assurances would not have completely resolved the issues."
The fact is that Southerners had nothing to fear after the 1856 election, when Democrats united to defeat the "Black Republican" threat and then won, as a bonus, the SCOTUS Dred Scott ruling, only one step away from declaring abolition unconstitutional.
So Fire Eaters "fixed that" in 1860, split apart their national Democrat party thus engineering victory by the minority Republicans.
Why did Southern Democrats split from their Northern Democrat brethren?
Was it over "money flows from Europe" or "Northeastern power brokers" or Northerners "raping" the South economically or "confiscatory tariffs"??
Naw, it was none of that because not one Southerner in a thousand understood or cared about such things.
But all leading Southerners did understand and care about the threats to slavery from "Black Republicans" and even their own Northern Democrat allies, such as Illinois Democrat Senator Stephen Douglas.
For the vast majority it was "all about" slavery, and everything else was a specialized boutique side issue.
As to the issue of whether or not secession was legal or illegal at the time, the North deemed it so by allowing West Virginia to remain a state after the war. You can’t have it both ways. Anyway, who gave the north ownership of what was legal or illegal as it pertained to secession? That they claim ownership of it’s viability is a good window into how they claimed ownership of everything the South wanted for itself at the time. It is no wonder why the South wanted to end the relationship.
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