Is There Something Wrong With The Term: "War Between the States?"

Old Virginia Blog ^ | 01-06-2014 | Richard G. Williams, Jr.

[Davy Buck]

However if one truly wants to make such a big deal out of what we call the armed conflict which occurred in America from 1861 to 1865 , and if its historical accuracy and honesty that one truly seeks, then I think Douglas Southall Freeman is, perhaps, the truest to historical accuracy in coining the proper term . . .

[SampleMan]

Please explain which part of the North the South was trying to control. No Northern aggression toward the South would have resulted in no war. That is the clear history of events.

[SampleMan]

Forget about “shot”, the North was fortifying a Southern position that they had been repeatedly asked to leave. And not a single person was killed when Charleston was liberated. Continuing to occupy strategic positions was clearly a hostile Northern act. What purpose did it serve except to attack the a South?

[SampleMan]

See my #182. If someone was fortifying a fighting position in your living room, you would consider that an aggressive act. The North desired war, the South desired to be left alone, i.e. War of Northern Aggression.

[driftless2]

What does the term “union” mean to you? What kind of country is it where at any time a section can declare itself a separate country and leave? Doesn’t that sound like chaos to you?

[driftless2]

What does the term “union” mean to you? What kind of country is it where at any time a section can declare itself a separate country and leave? Doesn’t that sound like chaos to you?

[trebb]

The War Between Big Government and Small Government

[central_va]

And just imagine trying to live in this new nation. You'd have to have new currency, new passports, new everything. In short, the idea of unilateral secession is lunacy. It was lunacy then, it would be lunacy now.

Just WOW - what thoroughly depressing post. You epitomize the Federal boot licker. May you forever live in tyranny for you cannot even imagine living with hooks to uncle sugar and DC. You are a joke.

[central_va]

Nowhere in the constitution does it give them the right.

Show me the article/section prohibiting secession. The USC would not have been ratified if their was a "roach motel" clause - states go in the union but can't get out.

[central_va]

Doesn’t that sound like chaos to you?

Sounds like freedom. Why does freedom scare you so?

[central_va]

“The question of treason is distinct from that of slavery; and is the same that it would have been, if free States, instead of slave States, had seceded. On the part of the North, the war was carried on, not to liberate the slaves, but by a government that had always perverted and violated the Constitution, to keep the slaves in bondage; and was still willing to do so, if the slaveholders could thereby induced to stay in the Union. The principle, on which the war was waged by the North, was simply this: That men may rightfully be compelled to submit to, and support, a government that they do not want; and that resistance, on their part, makes them traitors and criminals”[5]

-- Abolishionist Lysander Spooner

[Vaquero]

Lawyers make up their own jargon then foist it upon the populace.

I would have much less of a problem with it, if it wasn’t for the slime factor.

Ps. My favorite scene in Jurassic park was when the lawyer gets eaten while he cowers (a good word to describe many liars...err lawyers) on the toilet.

[St_Thomas_Aquinas]

-— What does the term “union” mean to you? -—

A loose federation of states that can secede at will. Remember that states have been joining the federation up to the fifties. Why is it a one-way street?

In principle, escape is important in mitigating an overly powerful central government, like the one we have now.

[Altura Ct.]

One thing is certain. The Constitution was never meant to be a suicide pact. What we have now is just that...

[driftless2]

And you think you’re not free now?

[driftless2]

Show me the one allowing it. The constitution also doesn't say anything about private citizens having their own nuclear missiles. It doesn't mention many things. That doesn't give citizens or states the right to anything they want because it's not specifically mentioned in the constitution. Why do you think they call it a union? What kind of nutty country would it be if any state could leave at any time?

But I've had this discussion with you before. And we both know why. If you want to call it a rebellion, fine. But by definition, you can't secede from a union unless all sides agree. As much as I like to see many liberal areas secede from the union, I can't find a constitutional clause allowing it.

[driftless2]

You’re talking about rebellion. If you want to call it that, fine. But you can’t legally secede from the union. There’s no provision for it. I don’t like centralized gov. either. But the solution is not to secede, it’s to throw out the commies trying to take over.

[gitmo]

It’s Mayland, not Maryland.

[central_va]

But the solution is not to secede, it’s to throw out the commies trying to take over.

That is not going to work, you know it and I know it.

I hope one day a group of states secedes, and I hope a bunch of statist like you join the Fed Army to "put down the rebellion".. That way the Feds can be taught a lesson once and for all and make up for past unpleasantness.

[MikefromOhio]

And the colonialists never tried to split hairs by calling theirs a secession. They knew it was rebellion plain and simple.

That would require the wannabe Confederates to be intellectually honest about the causes of the Civil War.

Instead I'm sure we'll get nothing but keyboard warrior wannabe and never do anything about it flames and that's about it. Such is life on FR.

[KrisKrinkle]

The USC would not have been ratified if their was a "roach motel" clause - states go in the union but can't get out.

Why not? They signed up to the "Articles of Confederation and perpetual Union between the states of New Hampshire, Massachusetts-bay Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia."

That "perpetual Union" part seems like the "roach motel" clause you write about, although it seems to me more like the "till death do us part" clause in the marriage union, which is another union you can't just unilaterally walk out on when you feel like it and expect no repercussions.