US Civil War reading Recommendations?

Free Republic ^ | 11/23/2016 | Loud Mime

[Loud Mime]

I am studying our Civil War; anybody have any recommendations for reading?

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: " 'The plan succeeded.
They attacked Sumter – it fell, and thus, did more service than it otherwise could.'
Abraham Lincoln to Orville Browning."

Unlike the letter from Lincoln to Fox, these are not Lincoln's words.
They are Browning's words, and Browning was not a Lincoln loyalist, far from it.
So we would not necessarily expect Browning to report accurately on what Lincoln said, or meant by it.

In this case, Lincoln's actual words to Fox make it clear Lincoln considered his Fort Sumter resupply mission a failure, but consoles himself that at least war began because Confederates started it.

Browning was simply the DiogenesLamp of his day, twisting & distorting everything he touched to make Lincoln, and Republicans in general, look bad.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "Run the numbers and then get back to me. Always and in all things, Follow the money."

Unlike 1861 Confederates, who made no secret of their primary concern to protect slavery, no Union official -- none, zero, nada -- no Union official ever said they were motivated to war by the money New Yorkers had lost.
Their stated reasons were just as we were taught in grade school -- to restore the Union and then free the slaves.

And even if, somehow, you did find & verify the odd quote from some Union official, economics alone cannot be the major factor, just as they were not at Pearl Harbor in 1941.
The issues were much bigger than mere money.

[DiogenesLamp]

Not going to bother with you. You have achieved “out there” status, and it is not worth my trouble to argue with a religious nut.

[DiogenesLamp]

Yes if you want the facts of the matter go directly to a novelist who had last been to the U.S. almost 20 years before.

You mean someone without a dog in the fight who hated slavery but could see the bigger picture objectively?

Absolutely.

[BroJoeK]

HandyDandy on DiogenesLamp's amusing and irrelevant post #518: "More false equivalence (aka bad analogies)."

And yet, this seems to me the very heart and soul of where DiogenesLamp is coming from.
He seems to have no real concern with actual facts or reasons of history, except as they may support his arguments.
His entire elaborate ruse is built to support the grand conclusion: that 1860 Republicans were the same as today's Big City Democrats.

That's it.
That's what DiogenesLamp really, really cares about.
It's the single point he keeps driving home, every few posts, regardless of what any specific issue may be.

And of course, like everything else, it's total rubbish.
Republicans in 1860 were the same people we are today, and so are, for the most part, Democrats:

• Republicans then & now represent rural, small town and suburban Americans.
  
• Democrats then & now represent big city immigrants allied in the past with Southern Slave Power Democrats.

DiogenesLamp wants to turn history on its head and make it look like Conservative Republicans were actually Liberal Democrats, and Southern Democrats were the real Republicans.

Like I said, total rubbish and nonsense.

[x]

Yes if you want the facts of the matter go directly to a novelist who had last been to the U.S. almost 20 years before.

Good one.

Dickens was an interesting case.

His writing inspired British socialists, but he wasn't any great friend of democracy or racial equality.

Maybe "but" isn't the right word, since plenty of early socialists had no great love for democracy or racial equality either.

[BroJoeK]

PeaRidge: "The [Southern Democrat controlled] federal government spent millions to subsidize New York City based and owned companies that took control of transoceanic trade."

Just so we're clear.

So why would Southern Democrats do such a thing?
They ran the show in Washington, could have subsidized anybody they wanted, so why just New York City shippers?

I'd be certain the answers include:

1. They had no objections to New Yorkers carrying transatlantic freight.
   
2. Other substantial "subsidies" went to their own Southern constituents based on the long established political principle of: "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours."

So any suggestions that Southern politicians got nothing in return for their support of New York shippers beggars all credulity.

[DiogenesLamp]

Neoconfederates say over and over again that slavery was on its way out in the 1860s.

I don't know what they say, but I say it was on the way out eventually. Not only was the social pressure building, but so were the circumstances that would create mechanical replacements. I think it would have continued for probably another generation, but after that I think it would wane rapidly.

Was that worth the lives of 750,000 people? Wouldn't matter anyway, the real goal of the North was economic dominance, their invasion had pretty much nothing to do with slavery, and everything to do with collecting money and smashing challenges to their economic ascendency.

for your beloved plantation masters

Here you go again, making accusations which ought to be beneath your dignity and intellect.

Later wars for independence in South America brought freedom for the slaves. In retrospect it's surprising that North America, so much more devoted to individual liberty and self-government didn't pave the way in regard to slavery as well.

Abolition was set into motion by Jefferson's cleverly worded Declaration. Had he not put the words "All men are created equal" (A specifically Christian teaching) into it, Slavery would have persisted at least a generation longer in all of the states.

Massachusetts would have been deprived of the verbiage which the Liberal activists courts used to overturn existing law at the time, and the entire movement would have been set back decades if not longer.

In 1776, no one was intending to make a social statement about slavery. That it was seen in that light was a double entendre consequence of what they wanted said about themselves.

In 1776, the founders would have all agreed that all Englishmen were created equal, but they would have probably come to blows had anyone suggested that this meant the Slaves were equal to them. Whether Jefferson was just incredibly clever or just lucky is still not readily apparent, but there can be no denying that his choice of words was the spark that began the Abolition movement in the USA. (And which is also what screwed up "Natural Born Citizen.")

But focusing on Slavery in the context of the Civil War is a red herring. The willingness of the North to adopt the Corwin amendment, and statements by Lincoln himself indicate that they would have completely tolerated slavery so long as they could maintain that economic control of the Money stream emanating from the South.

Money was the meat of the war. "Slavery" was a side dish.

[BroJoeK]

Thanks for helping out, FRiend.

[jeffersondem]

“But it is true that the secession movement in the Deep South was motivated by a desire to preserve slavery.”

Slavery was built into the constitution. The slave states - New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland made sure of that. Oh, and the states of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia too.

You might say that in 1861 the Deep South was motivated by a desire to preserve the Constitution.

[DiogenesLamp]

If members of some group are entitled to declare that they are oppressed and in justifiable revolution against their oppressors just because they feel like it, others are free to argue that from their point of view, members of the first group aren't oppressed and aren't entitled to rebel and may even be oppressors themselves -- and then where are we?

You mean the position taken by King George III? When we succeeded in winning our independence, we changed the Paradigm.

Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

"Consent of the Governed" pretty much means "Whatever they damned well please." Governing against the consent of the people is tyranny. It doesn't matter if the people want something foolish, it is their choice to make. "Big Brother" may have their best interests at heart, but if we accept the premise that others should be ruled against their will, then how can we bitch about slavery?

You should read this book. Early on it says that slavery is necessary because otherwise these people will sit on their @$$e$ and do nothing all day long. It presumes to dictate what is best for people who would prefer to sit on their asses rather than accomplish anything. I.E. Forced Work.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "Not going to bother with you.
You have achieved “out there” status, and it is not worth my trouble to argue with a religious nut."

If you look up the word "DiogenesLamp" in any dictionary, it says: "insane fantasizer of anti-historical nonsense."

Seriously.

[DiogenesLamp]

The federal government spent millions to subsidize New York City based and owned companies that took control of transoceanic trade.

The Ocean Steam Navigation Company, The United States Mail Steamship Company, The Pacific Mail Steamship Company, and the Collins Line to name a few.

Somewhere I saw some numbers regarding payments to the various Northern Shipping industries. They were quite substantial for that time period.

So the short answer as to why Southern shipping couldn't compete with Northern shipping is monopoly and subsidy.

[DiogenesLamp]

DegenerateLamp doesn’t appear to be very contented, and added up, he doesn’t appear to care for America at all.

I don't care for the parts of it that presume to lecture me on proper morality, such as Transgenders in the bathrooms and the military, and third world barbarians being fed and clothed with our collective taxes.

Yes, if New York, Hollywood, Seattle, Boston and Chicago would shut up about telling me what to think and how much of my money should be spent on their colossally stupid ideas, perhaps I could put up with them, but if I had my druthers, I'd rather see them having no influence on the Nation in which I wish to live.

How about you? Do you like having a faggot Secretary of Defense

and transgender "soldiers" in the ranks?

Do you think Dearbornistan is progress?

Do you like third world Hell hole Detroit?

Would love to separate from the people who created those messes.

[jeffersondem]

“His writing inspired British socialists, but he wasn’t any great friend of democracy or racial equality.”

Racial equality? Is that now the standard for judging people who lived in the 1800s?

Just for the tally book, what was Lincoln’s position on fair housing laws?

[x]

"Consent of the Governed" pretty much means "Whatever they damned well please."

Read further: "To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world."

Jefferson and the Continental Congress recognized that they had to make a case, to prove that they were indeed oppressed and that there was no available avenue of redress for their grievances.

They weren't saying "FU We do what we like" to Britain or to the rest of the world.

You can read even further:

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.

The Founders recognized that it was necessary to work within established legal processes, but in their day the necessary processes either didn't exist or had broken down. Fighting had already begun. It was different in 1861. Constitutional and democratic processes for the redress of grievances existed but were ignored by the secessionists.

You should read this book.

Thomas Prentice Kettell's book was refuted by Stephen Colwell's The Five Cotton States and New York, a pamphlet of 1861. You can find the text on line or look up my many posts here about the two books.

Early on it says that slavery is necessary because otherwise these people will sit on their @$$e$ and do nothing all day long. It presumes to dictate what is best for people who would prefer to sit on their asses rather than accomplish anything. I.E. Forced Work.

Like people didn't work hard after slavery was abolished? You are off your meds again and revealing things that hurt your case and your reputation.

[x]

You might say that in 1861 the Deep South was motivated by a desire to preserve the Constitution.

Only if you were exceptionally stupid or biased or deceptive.

Racial equality? Is that now the standard for judging people who lived in the 1800s?

Maybe "racial equality" isn't the right word, but Dickens, who showed great compassion and love of justice in some cases had some real blind spots. He shared an anti-democratic streak with Thomas Carlyle, and that probably surprises a lot of people now who are familiar with his most famous works.

[x]

But focusing on Slavery in the context of the Civil War is a red herring.

...

Money was the meat of the war. "Slavery" was a side dish.

...

Does Diogenes know anything at all about the arguments of the 1850s?

Did he sleep through all that when he was in school?

[rockrr]

I’m sure you’ve seen the mockumentary “C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exnwTWfFRM8

It does a pretty good job of illustrating what would have happened if jeff davis had defied every law of probability and prevailed in the WBTS.

I’m also reminded of “The Man In The High Castle” for another take on “alternate history”. Though not about a confederate win in the WBTS it nonetheless captures the flavor of what it would be like in contemporary America under a confederate regime.

[rockrr]

FWIW: I appreciated your contributions. Take care.