White House website deluged with secession petitions from 20 states

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**BaronIveagh**

KalashnikovMarine wrote:

I don't recall any treaties to deal with Syria. Sure Turkey can do the whole NATO thing but that's really about it.

So far there have been cross boarder attacks in Turkey, Israel, Lebanon, and Jordan, AFAIK. Of those, Lebanon is, I believe, the only one without some form of military agreement with the US.

KalashnikovMarine wrote:

Yes the Israelis CAN and WILL handle ANYTHING the rest of the middle east can throw at them. They've done it before with a smaller army and worse equipment so I don't think it's outrageous to think that the IDF can take care of business.

You'll pardon me if I take a little less sunny and a little more realistic view that a region wide war might end badly for Israel. Particularly if their policy of 'strike first' blows up in their face. Using the six day war as an example, the Israeli airforce was able to launch preemptive strikes at aircraft on the ground, quickly neutralizing Egypt's airpower. They also, for all their assertions they had inferior tanks, actually had much superior tanks to the T-34/85 and Panzer 4 in the form of US M48A3 Patton, British Centurions upgraded to 105mm, M-50/51 'Super Sherman', and French AMX 13's. (Btw: the volume of fire those last two can generate is fething insane, depending on the Super Sherman's gun loadout). Egypt had a handful of 'modern' Soviet tanks at the time (T-54 export 'monkey' models with all the electronics stripped out).

While all sides outnumbered Israel 5 to 1, they only ever deployed 2 to 1. Further, Israel, like Syria now, received arms shipments despite being under embargo, from the US and Britain.

I might point to the Yom Kippur War which was only won because, again, the US bailed Israel out after massive material losses, and only because Israel was threatening to nuke Damascus, and start World War 3 with the Russians. So, no, they didn't handle 'anything' the rest of the middle east could throw at them without the US bailing them out.

KalashnikovMarine wrote:

As to Syria spreading, isn't it what was spread to? Part of the Arab Spring or whatever the media's calling it now?

facepalm. I'm talking about actual combat spreading to other countries, not a vague call to tare down tyrants. Both Israel and Turkey have been exchanging fire with Syria in cross boarder 'events' already.

KalashnikovMarine wrote:
The French keep acting like they want to sack up and be a real world power again, they can handle this one.

Yeah, the US did say something similar to that once before. "Why should Americans die to help defend places like Czechoslovakia and Poland? Let France and England handle it. We'll sell them all the guns they need in the meantime."

**TheHammer**

Frazzled wrote:
LordofHats wrote:
TheHammer wrote:
Or should we continue talking about the civil war and the South's treasonous secession as though it was done for anything more than to perpetuate violence upon those they had cruelly and grotesquely exploited?

They pretend it wasn't about slavery. Some states rights nonsense. That way they can scream 'For the Confederacy!" and "But I'm not Racist" at the same time.

See thats a Yankee misnomer. It wasn't about slavery.

It was about rich people and slavery. The average Joe Blow didn't have slaves. The average Joe Blow couldn't legally buy his way out of the draft.
On boths dies it was Rich man's war, Poor man's fight.

It's not a misnomer, just an understanding of history: while the vast majority of southern whites did not own slaves, they were not opposed to slavery nor did they have much political power. Those that owned slaves had all the power in the South, so when we speak of secession and the Civil War being the result of the South's desire to continue slavery we do not do so out of some misunderstanding of history, but out of a lack of pedantry one requires to frame the debate as anything but what it actually was.

In short, yes, few owned slaves but those few called the shots. Even if the rest of the society was able to affect change they likely would not have changed much because it isn't like economically disadvantaged whites (who were economically disadvantaged in large part due to slavery (similar to today's rural whites who constantly vote against their self interest)) were in favor of abolition or anything.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Seaward wrote:
LordofHats wrote:
Your lack of historical knowledge is showing.

I'm as big a fan of irony as anybody, but c'mon, buddy.

Everything about the Southern secession was NOT peaceful. They wanted to fight and they wanted a war. They took the first chance they had to start a fight which was nothing more than a mere supply run to a fort. Go read the speeches and news paper articles from across the South of the time period. They wanted a war so they could win it, assure their independence, and gain international support. Their entire plan was built around having a war.

Think there would have been a war had Lincoln let them go? We'll never know, but I doubt it. No point. They didn't want to destroy the North, they wanted to form their own country.

A willingness to use force = aggressive party? Lincoln was still open to negotiation. It was Republicans and Democrats in the Senate, and Southern governors and political machines that were unwilling to work together. Lincoln was a moderate in the political conflicts leading up to the war. He was the best friend the South had in the North.

"Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States that by the accession of a Republican Administration their property and their peace and personal security are to be endangered. There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed and been open to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that "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."

These are not the words of a man who is trying to start a war. The South wanted to fight, and they took the first chance they got. Even a basic analysis of Southern Secession produces a lack of justifiability for secession or aggression at Fort Sumter. The South started the war. They started it over petty senseless fears that make absolutely no sense, and worse they started it to protect an institution that less than a quarter of the South's (white) population had any stake in! Pretending otherwise is a flight of fancy.

I understand you talked yourself into a corner earlier, but trying to inch deeper into it isn't going to help. To suggest that the North was willing to allow the South to secede is absolutely ludicrous. Either you believe the North was indeed willing to let the South secede, in contravention of all established historical record, or else you do not. If you do not, then you're making my point for me; had the South been allowed to go, they would have gone.

You seem to miss his point completely. The very act of secession was violent. The South knew it, and that is why they struck when they did: they believed that secession was violent and the only way to guarantee its success was to do so on the battlefield. At a certain point you have to acknowledge the very act of secession is violence, especially when they were seceding to protect an inherently violent system.

**Testify**

Frazzled wrote:

It was about rich people and slavery. The average Joe Blow didn't have slaves. The average Joe Blow couldn't legally buy his way out of the draft.
On boths dies it was Rich man's war, Poor man's fight.

The average Joe Blow was in danger of having his job taken by ex-slaves who'd do the same job for less money. Support for slavery was if anything stronger amongst the white working poor than it was amongst the slave owners themselves.

**labmouse42**

Frazzled wrote:
It was about rich people and slavery. The average Joe Blow didn't have slaves. The average Joe Blow couldn't legally buy his way out of the draft.
On boths dies it was Rich man's war, Poor man's fight.

This.

The main reason for the US civil war was economics. Slavery was brought up halfway through the war. While its a noble benifit, its was a side-effect of the war, not the cause.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Testify wrote:
The average Joe Blow was in danger of having his job taken by ex-slaves who'd do the same job for less money. Support for slavery was if anything stronger amongst the white working poor than it was amongst the slave owners themselves.

I was not aware of a large anti-slavery movement in the south.

Northerners were not hiring slaves to work in factories. In Joe Blow was a new englander, he was not worried about an unskilled slave taking his job in a factory.

**codemonkey**

labmouse42 wrote:

The main reason for the US civil war was economics. Slavery was brought up halfway through the war. While its a noble benifit, its was a side-effect of the war, not the cause.

But the economy in question was slavery. Southern slaveowners, increasingly frightened by the growing abolitionist movement in the North and perceiving the North in general and Northern politicians specifically to be working as a single entity to eradicate slavery (entirely false), they began the war to establish once and for all their right to own human beings.

**Testify**

labmouse42 wrote:
Frazzled wrote:
It was about rich people and slavery. The average Joe Blow didn't have slaves. The average Joe Blow couldn't legally buy his way out of the draft.
On boths dies it was Rich man's war, Poor man's fight.
This.

The main reason for the US civil war was economics. Slavery was brought up halfway through the war. While its a noble benifit, its was a side-effect of the war, not the cause.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Testify wrote:
The average Joe Blow was in danger of having his job taken by ex-slaves who'd do the same job for less money. Support for slavery was if anything stronger amongst the white working poor than it was amongst the slave owners themselves.
I was not aware of a large anti-slavery movement in the south.

Northerners were not hiring slaves to work in factories. In Joe Blow was a new englander, he was not worried about an unskilled slave taking his job in a factory.

I meant the southern poor, i quoted frazzled.

**Ratbarf**

Northerners were not hiring slaves to work in factories. In Joe Blow was a new englander, he was not worried about an unskilled slave taking his job in a factory.

But he was worried about them living in his neighbourhood. As they frequently wouldn't let the freed slaves move to the North.

**LordofHats**

Seaward wrote:

Think there would have been a war had Lincoln let them go? We'll never know, but I doubt it. No point. They didn't want to destroy the North, they wanted to form their own country.

Yes actually. Once the South took off, a war would happen sooner or later. I doubt under Lincoln, but eventually they'd have started fighting each other. Especially over the territories.

I understand you talked yourself into a corner earlier, but trying to inch deeper into it isn't going to help. To suggest that the North was willing to allow the South to secede is absolutely ludicrous.

Your position is false because it ignores reconciliation. The North and Lincoln were still at the bargaining table when the South fired the first shot. It's the South that gave up peaceful exit, not the North.

I'm not talking about why the South fought the war, why the South wanted to secede, whether it was legal, or anything else but whether or not the South would have left the Union without a fight had they been allowed to. You're welcome to continue railing against the evils of an institution that hasn't shown its face in this country for over a century if you like, I guess. Good luck?

Then your arguing for nothing. There's not much point debating if there'd be a Civil War if we aren't talking about the legitimacy of secession. If secession is illegitimate it's very execution is an act of aggression on the part of the South.

**Seaward**

LordofHats wrote:
Yes actually. Once the South took off, a war would happen sooner or later. I doubt under Lincoln, but eventually they'd have started fighting each other. Especially over the territories.

So if the South had been allowed to secede, they would not have attacked the North anyway. Got it.

Wait a second, I'm pretty sure that's exactly what I said to start us on this odyssey exploring the deficiencies of public education in America!

Your position is false because it ignores reconciliation. The North and Lincoln were still at the bargaining table when the South fired the first shot. It's the South that gave up peaceful exit, not the North.

It doesn't, actually. I believe I was the one who mentioned that talks had been ongoing for quite a while before Ft. Sumter, though admittedly it was mostly to contradict the "golly, they blinsided us, who could've seen this coming?!" narrative you were weaving.

The South didn't "give up on peaceful exit," Lincoln told them there would be no peaceful exit. If you want to continue this discussion, I'm afraid I'm going to require that you stick within the bounds of fact rather than revisionism.

Then your arguing for nothing. There's not much point debating if there'd be a Civil War if we aren't talking about the legitimacy of secession. If secession is illegitimate it's very execution is an act of aggression on the part of the South.

Yeah, not so much, no.

There have been both peaceful secessions and violent ones throughout history. Whether they're "legitimate" is irrelevant to the fact that they actually occurred.

**TheHammer**

LordofHats wrote:
Seaward wrote:

I'm not talking about why the South fought the war, why the South wanted to secede, whether it was legal, or anything else but whether or not the South would have left the Union without a fight had they been allowed to. You're welcome to continue railing against the evils of an institution that hasn't shown its face in this country for over a century if you like, I guess. Good luck?

Then your arguing for nothing. There's not much point debating if there'd be a Civil War if we aren't talking about the legitimacy of secession. If secession is illegitimate it's very execution is an act of aggression on the part of the South.

Exactly, the South only seceded after Lincoln was elected because they tried to argue their cause in legitimate and legal methods (an election) and lost. Any discussion about the legitimacy or right to secession, or state's rights, would be best done using an example other than the American Civil War as it was fought because childish Southern slave owners wanted to take their ball and go home after they lost an election.

Side note: When did it become the "intelligent and reasoned" argument that the Civil War started because of everything else but slavery? I'm serious, all the issues people bring up for causes of the Civil War stemmed very directly from slavery. Why not just say it? Yes, the economies were different, but that was because of slavery. Yes, the cultures were different, but again that was because of slavery (and an agrarian society that perpetuated itself because of slavery). Why are people trying to make slave owning traitors something heroic or noble, when in reality they were just filthy traitors who owned slaves?

**BaronIveagh**

LordofHats wrote:

They pretend it wasn't about slavery. Some states rights nonsense. That way they can scream 'For the Confederacy!" and "But I'm not Racist" at the same time.

Actually it really wasn't for most of them. Slavery was barely an issue, indeed, several Union states permitted slavery, until Lincoln decided that it was a good idea to keep France and England out of the war, and making it a war on slavery was the best way to go about it.

The battle of Fort Sumter was...complicated at best. One of the things that gets left out a great deal is that the Secretary of War issued orders to Anderson contrary to the wishes of then-President Buchanan, to occupy the otherwise empty Sumter, which Governor Pickens had (possibly correctly) understood to be being drawn down by the President to meet his demands that the US withdraw from Charleston Harbor. The real first shots of the war were actually fired by the cadets from the Citadel who had opened fire on the Star of the West, which was operating under a 'false flag' in an attempt to run supplies to Sumter.

The South then actually offered to buy Sumter and enter into a peace treaty with the US, which Lincoln refused, though Secretary of State Seward entered into under the table negotiations with them anyway.

In the mean time, the officers under PT Beauregard were playing games of their own. Beauregard offered Anderson the following terms: "If you will state the time which you will evacuate Fort Sumter, and agree in the meantime that you will not use your guns against us unless ours shall be employed against Fort Sumter, we will abstain from opening fire upon you." Anderson stated that unless he received supplies or orders by April 15th, he would withdraw. However, Chestnut, the Colonel in charge on site, decided that was too conditional an answer, and without awaiting orders, took it open himself to issue the order to open fire.

**Frazzled**

Testify wrote:
Frazzled wrote:

It was about rich people and slavery. The average Joe Blow didn't have slaves. The average Joe Blow couldn't legally buy his way out of the draft.
On boths dies it was Rich man's war, Poor man's fight.

The average Joe Blow was in danger of having his job taken by ex-slaves who'd do the same job for less money. Support for slavery was if anything stronger amongst the white working poor than it was amongst the slave owners themselves.

Vs. doing it for free as a slave?

**codemonkey**

BaronIveagh wrote:
LordofHats wrote:

They pretend it wasn't about slavery. Some states rights nonsense. That way they can scream 'For the Confederacy!" and "But I'm not Racist" at the same time.

Actually it really wasn't for most of them. Slavery was barely an issue, indeed, several Union states permitted slavery, until Lincoln decided that it was a good idea to keep France and England out of the war, and making it a war on slavery was the best way to go about it.

Then what was the issue? States' rights? I've already highlighted examples of how Southern politicians abandoned that position at the drop of a hat to defend slavery. Northern oppression? Give an example. The election of Abraham Lincoln? Wasn't a cause for war, unless the South perceived it as a threat to slavery, which they did.

You can circle around it all you want, slavery was the cause of the war. Claiming it was otherwise may sound smart to people who don't know any better, but that does not make it true.

**Testify**

Frazzled wrote:
Testify wrote:
Frazzled wrote:

It was about rich people and slavery. The average Joe Blow didn't have slaves. The average Joe Blow couldn't legally buy his way out of the draft.
On boths dies it was Rich man's war, Poor man's fight.

The average Joe Blow was in danger of having his job taken by ex-slaves who'd do the same job for less money. Support for slavery was if anything stronger amongst the white working poor than it was amongst the slave owners themselves.

Vs. doing it for free as a slave?

Where do you think the money to pay them is going to come from?

**Frazzled**

Testify wrote:
Frazzled wrote:
Testify wrote:
Frazzled wrote:

It was about rich people and slavery. The average Joe Blow didn't have slaves. The average Joe Blow couldn't legally buy his way out of the draft.
On boths dies it was Rich man's war, Poor man's fight.

The average Joe Blow was in danger of having his job taken by ex-slaves who'd do the same job for less money. Support for slavery was if anything stronger amongst the white working poor than it was amongst the slave owners themselves.

Vs. doing it for free as a slave?

Where do you think the money to pay them is going to come from?

???

**Testify**

Frazzled wrote:
Testify wrote:
Frazzled wrote:
Testify wrote:
Frazzled wrote:

It was about rich people and slavery. The average Joe Blow didn't have slaves. The average Joe Blow couldn't legally buy his way out of the draft.
On boths dies it was Rich man's war, Poor man's fight.

The average Joe Blow was in danger of having his job taken by ex-slaves who'd do the same job for less money. Support for slavery was if anything stronger amongst the white working poor than it was amongst the slave owners themselves.

Vs. doing it for free as a slave?

Where do you think the money to pay them is going to come from?

???

Well if the slaves go from having no wages to having to be paid for their labour, that money will have to come from somewhere. They may be more efficient if they're free, but that's not going to offset all of the cost of their labour.

You're basically producing the same amount of goods, but have an increase in wage costs of x%. The only way to balance this is by a reduction in wages of everyone else.

**Kilkrazy**

It isn't a zero sum game.

Bear in mind that ex-slaves being paid a decent wage will want to spend that money, thus increasing demand and producing faster economic growth.

Of course they probably didn't understand that in the mid 19th century, because economics wasn't far enough advanced.

**LordofHats**

Seaward wrote:
So if the South had been allowed to secede, they would not have attacked the North anyway. Got it.

No the point is there is no peaceful secession in this case. Arguing that the war wouldn't have happened once the South seceeded shows a fundamental lack of understanding of why it happened like it did. Arguing Lincoln was an aggressor is equally absurdist.

Wait a second, I'm pretty sure that's exactly what I said to start us on this odyssey exploring the deficiencies of public education in America!

I'm from the South. I know plenty about the deficiencies.

It doesn't, actually. I believe I was the one who mentioned that talks had been ongoing for quite a while before Ft. Sumter, though admittedly it was mostly to contradict the "golly, they blinsided us, who could've seen this coming?!" narrative you were weaving.

That narrative only exists in your head. He who throws the first punch starts the fight. Prior to that punch its just a disagreement.

The South didn't "give up on peaceful exit," Lincoln told them there would be no peaceful exit.

And again. That narrative only exists in your head.

If you want to continue this discussion, I'm afraid I'm going to require that you stick within the bounds of fact rather than revisionism.

Wait wait wait wait. I'm arguing that the act of secession constitutes an act of aggression on the part of the South as a violation of the Consitution (as ruled by the Supreme Court) and that the South further initiated hostilities by firing on Fort Sumter and I'm the revisionist? You're right. Your schooling has clearly been deficient. That's the text book narrative of the Civil War. The exact opposite of revisionism (ignoring that using revisionism as a negative term is as absurdist as your narrative ).

Whether they're "legitimate" is irrelevant to the fact that they actually occurred.

You're side stepping. Either a secession is legitimate or illegitimate. An illegitimate secession is inherently an aggressive act on the part of the secessionist when no right to secede exists (properly this isn't even secession but rebellion). Probably one of the greatest flaws in the Civil War narrative is that we continue to call it the Southern Secession. A state cannot secede. They have no legal right to do so. To then do it isn't properly secession its rebellion which is an act of war.

Side note: When did it become the "intelligent and reasoned" argument that the Civil War started because of everything else but slavery?

After the war when asked most veterans would say they fought for the South to protect their homes not to protect slavery (which is true). Later on in the early 20th century Gone With the Wind and similar tales idealized the South and romanticized the conflict. In order to be supporters of the Confederacy but not racists later in the the later 20th century, some people have created a false narrative where 'states rights' was what the war is about ignoring nearly every speech made, newspaper printed, and nearly all primary source material from the era that makes it clear the war was centered around the peculiar institution.

Actually it really wasn't for most of them.

For the soldiers and the common Southerner no, but they didn't start the war. The land/slave owning elites did. And they started it for very stupid reasons.

Slavery was barely an issue, indeed, several Union states permitted slavery, until Lincoln decided that it was a good idea to keep France and England out of the war, and making it a war on slavery was the best way to go about it.

Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclimation for two reason. prior to the war he was against abolition. He wanted to contain slavery not destroy it and prior to the war this remained the dominant line of thought in Republican politics (the war itself radicalized the party). Lincoln issued the Emancipation to dead stop involvement by Britain and France and because he needed to motivate the North. Many in the North didn't care. Support for the war was wanning (draft riots anyone). However Lincoln turned a political conflict into an idealogical one by making Emancipation the goal of the war which both mobilized his reelection and Northerns for the war effort.

It was really a brilliant political move by one of the most brilliant politicians in US history.

The battle of Fort Sumter was...complicated at best.

Its complicated in that the events surrounding it might as well be from a spy thriller (a good one) but its not that complicated as to who started the fight.

**Testify**

The same amount of money spread out differently won't increase demand. In that day and age the spending habbits of poor whites and poor blacks would not have been radically different. It's not like poor white people were investing all their money in property.

**Frazzled**

Testify wrote:
Frazzled wrote:
Testify wrote:
Frazzled wrote:
Testify wrote:
Frazzled wrote:

It was about rich people and slavery. The average Joe Blow didn't have slaves. The average Joe Blow couldn't legally buy his way out of the draft.
On boths dies it was Rich man's war, Poor man's fight.

The average Joe Blow was in danger of having his job taken by ex-slaves who'd do the same job for less money. Support for slavery was if anything stronger amongst the white working poor than it was amongst the slave owners themselves.

Vs. doing it for free as a slave?

Where do you think the money to pay them is going to come from?

???

Well if the slaves go from having no wages to having to be paid for their labour, that money will have to come from somewhere. They may be more efficient if they're free, but that's not going to offset all of the cost of their labour.

You're basically producing the same amount of goods, but have an increase in wage costs of x%. The only way to balance this is by a reduction in wages of everyone else.

This is way OT but
compete with forced literally slave labor
or compete with labor that is at least paid a wage.
Which to choose which to choose....

Actually this argument has been about both the Irish and poor whites but more of a social thing for the poor whites vs. an actual economic argument for the Irish immigrants.

Considering a draft was quickly required I don't think the poor folks were particularly up in arms.

**Testify**

Frazzled wrote:

This is way OT but
compete with forced literally slave labor
or compete with labor that is at least paid a wage.
Which to choose which to choose....

Actually this argument has been about both the Irish and poor whites but more of a social thing for the poor whites vs. an actual economic argument for the Irish immigrants.

Considering a draft was quickly required I don't think the poor folks were particularly up in arms.

Say I have a cotton factory. 75 of my workers are free and 25 are slaves.

My cotton factory produces £110 worth of cotton a year. I pay my workers £1.3 each and pocket £10 for myself.

Suddenly those slaves are freed. I need to pay them for their labour too. Where am I going to get the money from? My margin isn't big enough to take the hit. Even if I do choose to reduce profit it won't be enough. Clearly, those free men are going to have to take a pay cut.

Imagine that but on a huge scale.

**Frazzled**

Testify wrote:
Frazzled wrote:

This is way OT but
compete with forced literally slave labor
or compete with labor that is at least paid a wage.
Which to choose which to choose....

Actually this argument has been about both the Irish and poor whites but more of a social thing for the poor whites vs. an actual economic argument for the Irish immigrants.

Considering a draft was quickly required I don't think the poor folks were particularly up in arms.

Say I have a cotton factory. 75 of my workers are free and 25 are slaves.

My cotton factory produces £110 worth of cotton a year. I pay my workers £1.3 each and pocket £10 for myself.

Suddenly those slaves are freed. I need to pay them for their labour too. Where am I going to get the money from? My margin isn't big enough to take the hit. Even if I do choose to reduce profit it won't be enough. Clearly, those free men are going to have to take a pay cut.

Imagine that but on a huge scale.

Then you're paying below market wages which you would have done anyway with more slaves if you could have. Your mill falls apart and your house is burned down in a fit of Southern Honor.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

labmouse42 wrote:
Frazzled wrote:
It was about rich people and slavery. The average Joe Blow didn't have slaves. The average Joe Blow couldn't legally buy his way out of the draft.
On boths dies it was Rich man's war, Poor man's fight.
This.

The main reason for the US civil war was economics. Slavery was brought up halfway through the war. While its a noble benifit, its was a side-effect of the war, not the cause.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Testify wrote:
The average Joe Blow was in danger of having his job taken by ex-slaves who'd do the same job for less money. Support for slavery was if anything stronger amongst the white working poor than it was amongst the slave owners themselves.
I was not aware of a large anti-slavery movement in the south.

Northerners were not hiring slaves to work in factories. In Joe Blow was a new englander, he was not worried about an unskilled slave taking his job in a factory.

NO NO NO. Look at the declarations of independence/secession whatever from the states that bailed. Its all about slavery.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

labmouse42 wrote:
[Northerners were not hiring slaves to work in factories. In Joe Blow was a new englander, he was not worried about an unskilled slave taking his job in a factory.

The poor Irish coming over however, were.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Ratbarf wrote:
Northerners were not hiring slaves to work in factories. In Joe Blow was a new englander, he was not worried about an unskilled slave taking his job in a factory.

But he was worried about them living in his neighbourhood. As they frequently wouldn't let the freed slaves move to the North.

True dat,

**labmouse42**

**BaronIveagh**

codemonkey wrote:
Then what was the issue? States' rights? I've already highlighted examples of how Southern politicians abandoned that position at the drop of a hat to defend slavery. Northern oppression? Give an example. The election of Abraham Lincoln? Wasn't a cause for war, unless the South perceived it as a threat to slavery, which they did.

You can circle around it all you want, slavery was the cause of the war. Claiming it was otherwise may sound smart to people who don't know any better, but that does not make it true.

Actually it was very true. The real root causes were a combination of economics, modernization, southern and northern nationalism, and the marginalization of the South politically. Remember that Lincoln had won the election without even being on the ballot in 11 states.

"the tariff was only the pretext, and disunion and southern confederacy the real object. The next pretext will be the negro, or slavery question." - Andrew Jackson, 1833, on the Nullification Crisis, which was the first occasion that the South threatened to seceded.

The fact was that the Northern and Southern states had never really seen eye to eye and had very different cultures. What the politicians were about was power, regardless of the face they put on it, be it states rights or something else. The fact that there was a growing perception in the population that the Federal government no longer represented them or cared about their concerns was a rallying point, which Lincoln's election drove home with a sledge hammer.

In the end, slavery was just a pretext for a war a long time in coming.

LordofHats wrote:
No the point is there is no peaceful secession in this case. Arguing that the war wouldn't have happened once the South seceeded shows a fundamental lack of understanding of why it happened like it did. Arguing Lincoln was an aggressor is equally absurdist.

Absurdist, but historically accurate. One of the very first acts of the Confederate government was to offer the North a peace treaty and mutual defense agreement where in the South offered to purchase all the Federal lands in the South. Despite the urgings of his own cabinet, Lincoln refused to sign a peace treaty, as to do so, he felt, would legitimize the Confederacy. While neither side was willing to be the one to fire the first shot, Lincoln very deliberately closed the possibility of peaceful negotiation.

LordofHats wrote:
Wait wait wait wait. I'm arguing that the act of secession constitutes an act of aggression on the part of the South as a violation of the Consitution (as ruled by the Supreme Court) and that the South further initiated hostilities by firing on Fort Sumter and I'm the revisionist? You're right. Your schooling has clearly been deficient. That's the text book narrative of the Civil War. The exact opposite of revisionism (ignoring that using revisionism as a negative term is as absurdist as your narrative ).

Um, The Supreme Court ruled no such thing until after the war was over, and many view the ruling to this day to be more about legitimizing the war ex post facto then anything to do with the legal realities of the time. Further, the Court also ruled that, while unilateral secession was not permitted, a state could secede with the agreement of the other states. How exactly this would happen has never really been addressed.

LordofHats wrote:
Its complicated in that the events surrounding it might as well be from a spy thriller (a good one) but its not that complicated as to who started the fight.

Actually it's quite possible to argue that Colonel Chestnut exceeded his authority to open fire, or that the use of a 'false flag' ship (highly illegal under international law, even at the time) in an attempt to resupply Sumter was the cause of it. However, the end result was that, indeed, the Fort was fired upon.

**LordofHats**

Actually it was very true. The real root causes were a combination of economics, modernization, southern and northern nationalism, and the marginalization of the South politically. Remember that Lincoln had won the election without even being on the ballot in 11 states.

First off, the south was not marginalized politically. Leading up the 1860 elections the Democratic party and the South in particular held a strangle hold of near absolute power in federal government. That tariff South Caronlina got up in arms about? The democratic controlled congresses of the 1840's pretty much destroyed it, reducing it by 1860 to essentially nothing. Northern steel industrialists had more to complain about over the tariff than southerners. The Fugitive Slave law was passed by a Democratic congress against objections by the North and was one of the most obvious triggers for the conflict. The South was not marginalized. If anything it marginalized the North.

Economics? The North made almost all its money in agriculture and so did the south. Both were self sufficient for food. The North exported grains and the south exported cotton, rice, and tobacco. Forgive me. I don't think the plant a farmer grows is going to drive him to war with his neighbor. The only differences between these two in this respect is slaves and their use in the South being larger than in the North.

Modernization is a false category as it ultimately stems back to economic interests. Northern and Southern economic interests supported each other. Southern luxury goods went to the north for common goods and vice versa. Northern shipping was vital to Southern trade and the Northern shipping needed southern goods to trade. This isn't a system that fosters conflict it fosters cooperation. The states benefited much more from working together than from separating (and industrialists in the 1850's and 1860's were saying this very loudly as tensions rouse). What industry grew stronger in the north, like steel working, was a direct result of labor practices. Steel working requires skilled labor. Its not something a capitalist wants a slave doing.

There was only 1 truly significant difference between the North and the South. The widespread use and ownership of slaves. Every method of analysis ultimately stems back to slavery as a root cause of difference. And even then there are very few differences to be pointed out. Nothing significant enough to suggest the North and South should be fighting.

In the end, slavery was just a pretext for a war a long time in coming.

I've heard this theory before and its crap and always will be crap. Everything about the Civil War's origins is entrenched in slavery. The ongoing conflict between free soilers and slave owners is at the very heart of why it happened. The average southerner did not have a significantly different life from the average northerner. The elites of both regions had near identical interests baring slavery.

It really is about slavery. How the myth that it isn't and that the North and South were somehow widely different creatures has continued to persist baffles me. I blame Charles Beard. Damn fool should have kept his mouth shut.

One of the very first acts of the Confederate government was to offer the North a peace treaty and mutual defense agreement where in the South offered to purchase all the Federal lands in the South. Despite the urgings of his own cabinet, Lincoln refused to sign a peace treaty, as to do so, he felt, would legitimize the Confederacy. While neither side was willing to be the one to fire the first shot, Lincoln very deliberately closed the possibility of peaceful negotiation.

South offers deal. Lincoln refuses. That's not ending peaceful negotiation that's rejecting what he saw as unrealistic and asinine demands. Negotiations continued all the way until Fort Sumter was fired on.

Um, The Supreme Court ruled no such thing until after the war was over, and many view the ruling to this day to be more about legitimizing the war ex post facto then anything to do with the legal realities of the time.

There's no need to legitimize what was from the start a legitimate war. Protecting territorial sovereignty is the definition of a war of self defense. If the South sought to illegitimately break off from the sovereign authority of the United States, the United States is justified under any basic understanding of Just War to force their compliance.

**sebster**

BaronIveagh wrote:
The diary of William McCarter (published, available for purchase), the papers of the Landis brothers of Lancaster PA (publication forthcoming, originals in the library of Congress), the papers of Senator Daniel Sturgeon from PA, take your pick the debates that surrounded the sixteenth and seventeenth amendments...

Cheers.

No, it can be a lot more subtle than that. What you're describing is the brute force approach to brainwashing that the government tried at Carlyle. The result was a staggering number of dead and damaged children. You say 'well, they can go read the truth, somewhere.' First, how many school students do you know that are going to go to the library and pick up a history book. Second...

Yeah, brainwashing can be more subtle. But 'read chapter 3 about how America is awesome and won WWII there'll be a test on Friday' is not brainwashing.

That we can sit here discussing this without anything freaking out and smashing their head against a wall to protect their conditioning tells you that no-one here is brainwashed.

And seriously, mentioning the Caryle thing... you're sounding like a nut.

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Seaward wrote:
Virginia would be in, save for the godawful counties around DC.

"Would be" is for losers.

And the point was the word 'hopefully'. Which carries a heavy 'hopeful' element that this actually happened. Which sounds a bit nutty, so I was looking for a comment from Ratbarf that he didn't actually want this to happen.

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Easy E wrote:
Minnesota and Wisconsin are big losers in that list too. They have paid out way more than they have brought in.

Delaware is actually the biggest, which I'd forgotten about last time I looked up the list.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_taxation_and_spending_by_state

AustonT wrote:
Of course, some one will need to tell me why these two concepts are mutually exclusive.

Yes, I will. Because they're not fething exclusive. fething feth feth feth feth.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

AustonT wrote:
It didn't really come up, I've just decided that response is what sebster gets when he quotes me out of context.

What? I wasn't quoting you out of context, I was agreeing with you.

You asked a rhetorical question about Scotland and Wales not being able to leave the union, and I added to the point saying that if there was a right to secede formally recognised then it wouldn't really be a country, but an alliance or a free economic zone, or something like that.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Ratbarf wrote:
My fathers family has deep roots in Virginia. Got a decent number of relatives living there.

Oh, okay, I'm with you now. I read the word 'hopefully' in a totally different context.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Frazzled wrote:
See thats a Yankee misnomer. It wasn't about slavery.

It was about rich people and slavery. The average Joe Blow didn't have slaves. The average Joe Blow couldn't legally buy his way out of the draft.
On boths dies it was Rich man's war, Poor man's fight.

Slavery was broadly supported among the poorer, non-slave owning Southerners. This was because many of them believed they would one day become wealthy and own slaves. It was because it meant someone else was at the bottom of the totem pole - 'I might not be rich but I'm not a n*****'. And it was because there was considerable fear about what the slaves would do if they were released - many believed they would take vengeance on the white population.

In this sense the situation is much like South African apartheid. Very few white people benefitted directly from the cheap labour and easy access to natural resources allowed by the apartheid regime, but the regime as a whole was quite popular.

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whembly wrote:
In addition to slavery, I thought one of the biggest reason why the south wanted to fight was what they thought were unfair taxes/tariffs on the textile industry imposed by the "North"??

It was an issue, but it wasn't a primary issue in the way slavery was.

The major cause people don't talk about is how different society was in the South - a slave based agricultural society is entirely unlike the industrial North. The South was okay with being attached to the very different North... as long as it maintained a dominant position in Federal politics, but then Lincoln was elected without carrying a single state in the South. Add in the decades long debate over slavery and you have a region that feels it is entirely unlike the states to the North, no longer able to dictate Federal policy... and so the writing was on the wall for slavery, which was not only a key social institution but a key economic institution as well.

And so you get secession, and then war. Taxes were one of a range of minor issue to all that.

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TheHammer wrote:
You seem to miss his point completely. The very act of secession was violent. The South knew it, and that is why they struck when they did: they believed that secession was violent and the only way to guarantee its success was to do so on the battlefield. At a certain point you have to acknowledge the very act of secession is violence, especially when they were seceding to protect an inherently violent system.

Well, there is such a thing as peaceful secession. Hard to pull of in practice, but certainly possible.

Not that I think Seaward is even slightly right on this, mind you. Had the South wanted peace they could have delayed the call for secession until they reached an agreement for peaceful secession. Or they could have seceded, and stated that they want peace but will respond with force if attacked - when faced with Fort Sumter they could have allowed resupply while negotiating the removal of Union troops as part of a peaceful negotiation of secession.

If all that failed, as it likely would have, well then you still get war, but you could say the South did what it could to avoid it. But given what actually happened, any claim the South didn't want war is a nonsense.

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Seaward wrote:
So if the South had been allowed to secede, they would not have attacked the North anyway. Got it.

So, what exactly is the point of arguing 'if they us do everything we want then we wouldn't have started a fight'. I mean, sure, its true, but isn't the whole point how much you're willing to give up before taking the measure to go to war?

It's a bit like saying 'if the South had just stayed part of the Union there never would have been a war'. I mean, once again the point is that when push came to shove, for the North war was preferable to letting the South secede. Just like war was preferable to continuing to remain in the Union, even to continuing to remain in the Union while pushing for secession.

**whembly**

WTH!

Someone is a smart ass:
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/recognize-america%E2%80%99s-first-native-american-woman-color-us-senate-anniversary-sitting-bulls-death/P7GTKDN2?utm_source=wh.gov&utm_medium=shorturl&utm_campaign=shorturl

**SagesStone**

whembly wrote:
WTH!

Someone is a smart ass:
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/recognize-america%E2%80%99s-first-native-american-woman-color-us-senate-anniversary-sitting-bulls-death/P7GTKDN2?utm_source=wh.gov&utm_medium=shorturl&utm_campaign=shorturl

WHEREAS WHEREAS WHEREAS WHEREAS WHEREAS WHEREAS WHEREAS WHEREAS WHEREAS

**Ratbarf**

Actually it was very true. The real root causes were a combination of economics, modernization, southern and northern nationalism, and the marginalization of the South politically. Remember that Lincoln had won the election without even being on the ballot in 11 states.

First off, the south was not marginalized politically. Leading up the 1860 elections the Democratic party and the South in particular held a strangle hold of near absolute power in federal government. That tariff South Caronlina got up in arms about? The democratic controlled congresses of the 1840's pretty much destroyed it, reducing it by 1860 to essentially nothing. Northern steel industrialists had more to complain about over the tariff than southerners. The Fugitive Slave law was passed by a Democratic congress against objections by the North and was one of the most obvious triggers for the conflict. The South was not marginalized. If anything it marginalized the North.

Economics? The North made almost all its money in agriculture and so did the south. Both were self sufficient for food. The North exported grains and the south exported cotton, rice, and tobacco. Forgive me. I don't think the plant a farmer grows is going to drive him to war with his neighbor. The only differences between these two in this respect is slaves and their use in the South being larger than in the North.

Modernization is a false category as it ultimately stems back to economic interests. Northern and Southern economic interests supported each other. Southern luxury goods went to the north for common goods and vice versa. Northern shipping was vital to Southern trade and the Northern shipping needed southern goods to trade. This isn't a system that fosters conflict it fosters cooperation. The states benefited much more from working together than from separating (and industrialists in the 1850's and 1860's were saying this very loudly as tensions rouse). What industry grew stronger in the north, like steel working, was a direct result of labor practices. Steel working requires skilled labor. Its not something a capitalist wants a slave doing.

There was only 1 truly significant difference between the North and the South. The widespread use and ownership of slaves. Every method of analysis ultimately stems back to slavery as a root cause of difference. And even then there are very few differences to be pointed out. Nothing significant enough to suggest the North and South should be fighting.

In the end, slavery was just a pretext for a war a long time in coming.

I've heard this theory before and its crap and always will be crap. Everything about the Civil War's origins is entrenched in slavery. The ongoing conflict between free soilers and slave owners is at the very heart of why it happened. The average southerner did not have a significantly different life from the average northerner. The elites of both regions had near identical interests baring slavery.

It really is about slavery. How the myth that it isn't and that the North and South were somehow widely different creatures has continued to persist baffles me. I blame Charles Beard. Damn fool should have kept his mouth shut.

One of the very first acts of the Confederate government was to offer the North a peace treaty and mutual defense agreement where in the South offered to purchase all the Federal lands in the South. Despite the urgings of his own cabinet, Lincoln refused to sign a peace treaty, as to do so, he felt, would legitimize the Confederacy. While neither side was willing to be the one to fire the first shot, Lincoln very deliberately closed the possibility of peaceful negotiation.

South offers deal. Lincoln refuses. That's not ending peaceful negotiation that's rejecting what he saw as unrealistic and asinine demands. Negotiations continued all the way until Fort Sumter was fired on.

Um, The Supreme Court ruled no such thing until after the war was over, and many view the ruling to this day to be more about legitimizing the war ex post facto then anything to do with the legal realities of the time.

There's no need to legitimize what was from the start a legitimate war. Protecting territorial sovereignty is the definition of a war of self defense. If the South sought to illegitimately break off from the sovereign authority of the United States, the United States is justified under any basic understanding of Just War to force their compliance.

So lets say it was about slavery? Does that make any difference as to the fact that it was Northern Aggression? And I'll respond to your "Secession is violence." With the response that "Abolition is theft." They would have abolished slavery and likely offered no compensation for would have essentially been a massive confiscation of property. Property that, at the time of purchase, had been legally obtained and paid for. Owning a slave was more expensive than owning a car is today iirc, if a President stated that he was going to confiscate every truck in america, and the North voted him in while the south didn't, there would be another attempt at secession because the impact is huge. All of those truck related businesses would be out of business, or would have to foot the bill for an overhaul of their entire truck fleet. So now their back's up against the wall the same as if you said you wanted to steal everything they own, because you're taking their livelihood from them. So they fight.

Plus, yes, the South took Fort Sumter, but it was in the South, that's like Ottawa declaring war on Quebec (if Quebec actually did manage to seperate) because Ottawa wanted to keep the Citadel and Quebec considered it theirs, because, you know, it's in Quebec.

**AustonT**

sebster wrote:

AustonT wrote:
It didn't really come up, I've just decided that response is what sebster gets when he quotes me out of context.

What? I wasn't quoting you out of context, I was agreeing with you.

You asked a rhetorical question about Scotland and Wales not being able to leave the union, and I added to the point saying that if there was a right to secede formally recognised then it wouldn't really be a country, but an alliance or a free economic zone, or something like that.

I might have scanned it with a mildly biased eye.