Posted on 04/24/2010 3:19:30 PM PDT by pissant
True enough, the term “human rights” isn’t in the US Constitution. But then, neither is “states rights”...
The British had a direct and over-riding interest in seeing the Confederacy win independence.
Wool is a great material for clothing but there are only so many sheep to sheer and their fleece only grows so quickly.
Britain was an industrial juggernaut and it was no small sector to their economy to convert cotton grown in India into clothing to sell to the merchants of continental Europe at a steep profit.
By the 1840s, India’s cotton crop was diminishing and Great Britain needed a new source, making cotton grown in the US Southern states a very valuable commodity for Southern plantation owners.
The problem for Southern cotton growers was that the US northern states was beginning to heavily industrialize and did not want the raw cotton going to Britain. They wanted to buy the cotton themselves to make cloth and clothes to sell for export. High Northern tariffs discouraged British textiles industry from buying so much cotton, leaving the Southern growers to have to sell to northern textile factories at a much lower profit than they could have sold direct to Britain.
Great Britain wanted a free Confederacy to trade cotton with directly, tariff free.
Most certainly the British a most “imperative interest” in the fight between north and south, to the point where it would have been worth providing supplies to the Confederacy. Throughout the war, the Confederate supply situation became more dire even as the north was ramping up to produce more and more materiel for their armies.
Great Britain had plenty of manufacturing capacity to supply the Confederacy with guns, ammunition, artillery, and uniforms. They could have provided naval support if they had wanted to intervene directly, but I don’t see any evidence that Britain was considering coming into the Civil war on the side of the south — just supplying them.
However, I can’t see how they could have supplied the Confederacy without Naval support to break the Union Navy blockadess.
Interesting. I had no clue how other European nations viewed the Confederacy. I knew that Great Britain had an interest in trading with a free and independent CSA. I didn’t know that France or any other continental European nations either supported or expected to see a free, independent CSA.
Hey Sibelius, You wish we are venting! We are very very serious. You and your socialism are going to be stopped. And soon!
During the American Revolution,
the active forces in the field against the King’s tyranny
never amounted to more than 3% of the colonists.
They were in turn actively supported by perhaps 10% of the population.
In addition to these revolutionaries were perhaps another 20%
who favored their cause but did little or nothing to support it.
Another one-third of the population sided with the King.
By the end of the war there were actually more Americans
fighting for the King than there were in the field against him.
The final third took no side,
and blew with the wind and took whatever came.
“The Revolution was effected long before the war commenced.
The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people...
This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments,
and affections of the people was the real American Revolution.”
~John Adams in 1818
It took a long time for you to form YOUR OPINION.
England and France was very close and Lincoln knew it and they were the main powers that be back then.
Europe was behind them.
Britaiin sent people over and the confederacy sent over to france and England their people
If those powers had come in Lincoln was in a whole heap of mess then as the navel power would have swung, the south would have got ammunition , guns, etc plus food in exchange for cotton
for over 25 years I have been learning about the war and still do not know all of it , one can never stop learning about it and that is why I like to hear others minds on thew subject
It just pisses me off that the schools do not tell the truth about the war, even technically it was not a civil war as the south had no desire to have power or rule the north.
they just wanted to be free from DC
today is no different in a way
the far left had no idea that their view and agenda of central power was going to be fought, and good for the states
sorry going off topic
I guess we will find out soon.
Florida wants to opt out, and Arizona has passed laws against illegals. We will soon see .
Do you ever wonder why our nation is called the “United States” of American and not the “United Peoples” of America. The sovereign State has been the political and electoral foundation of our nation’s structure, under our system of Federalism.
Any reading of the Constitution shows this, without the use of the actual term “States Rights”. That is just a slang word for what is shown plainly in the Constitution — that the several sovereign states are THE building block of the nation. Not the people. Not the cities. Not the counties. The STATES.
Heck, I don’t even call it the Federal government any more. Power is so completely consolidated in Washington DC, I call them what they are — the US Central government. There is nothing Federal about it and hasn’t been since at least FDR’s reign of terror.
You’re thinking we’re headed into a shooting war?
Far from it.
That may come, but it’s a long way off yet.
We have, in fact, convinced enough people to our side to win this without a shot being fired. Add to that fact the additional fact our side is fired up. They are not, they are on the way to playing defense. And we’re a lot smarter.
Buck up.
I hear you. It has been a similarly small but violently active minority of socialists and communists who have done so much damage to our freedom over the past 100 years. You don’t need the raw numbers, just the high level of activity.
While conservatives have been working our butts off trying to succeed and provide and improve our living standards and get by in the world, the socialists and the communists have been nursing off the government teat, freeing their time up to insure that communists and homosexuals flooded our schools, churches, news networks, newspapers, Hollywood and all branches of government.
Only the military has been effective in resisting the onslaught and even then we have people demanding that women be placed on submarines even while excusing them to a lower standard of PT than the male recruits have to achieve. They can hold up a time-out card if they are too tired or the mean old Drill Sgt. I yelling too loudly.
The revolution came from a moral, informed populace. As you noted, this was a fraction of the population at large. But they were moral and they were very well informed.
Now every jackass gets to vote and most are highly uninformed and sadly, too many are not moral.
This nation cannot survive such an electorate. It just can’t.
Sorry, it is not my opinion that all 7 of the Lincoln-Douglas debates heavily featured the topic of slavery.
It is not my opinion that “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” was the 1st book in United States history to sell 1.5 million copies, at a time when books were still scarce in general possession. Only the Bible sold more volumes than Uncle Tom’s up to that date. That is NOT opinion.
It is not my opinion that the Vice President of the Confederacy declared that slavery was the reason for secession.
So you can pretend that it is only my opinion that slavery was the foremost cause of Southern state cessation that caused the Civll War, but it is a fact, even as the issue of State sovereignty followed closely.
And now for a pet peeve.
The term “Civil War” was a misnomer — a label used by the North to demonize the south, IMHO.
The war was most definitely NOT a civil war. The Confederacy had no desire whatsoever to rule Washington DC and control the people of the United States.
A Civil War is a war between two competing factions for control of a sovereign nation or empire.
The Confederacy wanted no such control over the USA. They wanted the same free, autonomous, sovereign self-rulefrom the USA that the 13 rebelling colonies wanted from Great Britain.
The war was a revolt, a rebellion — it was not a Civil War.
Thanks for the history lesson. I never realized support for the CSA went beyond Great Britain to France. They had been such enemies right through the Napoleonic era.
LOL yes they were and there still is a rivalry between the two countries but the south did bring them together on that issue
LOL
I’ve not been able to get any memoirs from those British who were military watchers in the south so if anyone can direct me I would appreciate that.
Like I have said one can never stop learning it from the war and every day I still learn and find something new .
I think some forget that many in confederacy were from different countries too along with the indians.
I was in cherokee some time ago and was talking to some cherokees about the war and they are proud people who were keen to tell me how they were the last to surrender
Of course not. Not everyone owned slaves.
Perhaps I should have said ‘most countries’ or ‘a lot of countries’, not ‘everyone’.
That is one of the reasons. There will be an equal amount of resistance to other measures they have in mind, like collecting guns, suspending elections, etc..
Right. Got it. I thought you might have meant that.
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