Posted on 01/11/2014 11:16:07 AM PST by 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 . . .
(Excerpt) Read more at oldvirginiablog.blogspot.com ...
The states were no longer united, thus the United States had ceased to exist, except in the aggressive minds of Lincoln and his staff. How you figure Washington DC is an entity that owns things is beyond me. Collective property is not by definition the sole property of on party. The North was already way ahead on possession of the collective property, but they claimed a right to all of it. Very aggressive and hostile.
What is belligerent about asking to be left alone?
Another silly canard. The slavers had no - zero, zip, nada desire to be “left alone”. They demanded that the other states hew the line with whatever bullsnot that the slavers came up with and routinely threatened to “take their ball and go home” whenever they didn’t get their way.
Once they declared their pretended secession they started stealing everything that wasn’t nailed down - and much that was. They forced the governments of Arizona, New Mexico, and California into puppet states. They conducted guerrilla warfare in all of the border states. He had no desire to be “left alone”.
Since its inception the United States has never “ceased to exist”. There was that one short period of southron temper tantrums but we fixed that ;’)
Treating what until recently they'd thought of as their country now as an enemy or as some nothing to be despoiled at will produces bad blood and an inevitably hostile reaction from the rest of the country.
If you want to learn from experience, look at recent arrangements in Canada and the UK where both sides worked together to create conditions for possible Quebec or Scottish independence.
But I suspect the point of all these arguments is precisely not to learn anything. It's to go around with the same "f-you" attitude that worked out so poorly for everyone the last go-around.
It's not the goal of independence that some people actually want. It's all the adolescent drama of slamming the door on the way out and shouting parting obscenities. It's not the actual change in one's status that's valued, but the feeling that one was right and justified all along in whatever one does.
Antietam was a counter attack after Lincoln sent an army to take Richmond, but point taken.
Actually the point was that a war was not inevitable. Had Lincoln opted to negotiate vs dominate, there would have been no war. I point you to Czechoslovakia, where neither side demanded a union.
Self-determination is a very basic and fundamental right. It is also a difficult one to define and be logical/fair about. It is not at all clear that the Constitution bars a state from leaving the union. Indeed, the organization of the federal government reads like a confederation.
Yea, Sherman fixed the hell out of it. Cromwell did likewise with Ireland.
First , taking ones ball and going home is by definition wanting to be left alone. Only a bully then chases the kid home and forces them to play.
The border states fought amongst themselves with plenty of bad players on both sides. Lincoln made this worse by using force to pressure states like Missouri to fight.
How do those claiming that secession is unacceptable explain the creation of West Virginia by the defenders of the sacred undividable union?
He didn't have to, it is historical fact that the South sent a peace delegation to DC that Lincoln totally ignored.
In Lincoln’s second inaugural he talked about Southern peace agents. The South sent many to DC and all were ignored.
They weren’t “peace agents”. They were demand agents.
More nonsense. You most certainly accepted all the propaganda at face value.
I was raised up north and learned the same nonsense, but the facts don’t support it. The Southern states just wanted the Northern states to let them be. The North decided it was worth decimating both peoples to force a union on the unwilling.
The North, like the Russians, had enough men and material to ultimately overcome superior fighters.
Now, as a personal moral matter, had I had to choose a country in 1861, I would have chosen the North, not the CSA. The things I am pointing out are the facts, not the way I’d like them to be.
I forget....who fired the first shot?
The North was the first to take hostile action. That is quite clear. That South Carolina responded doesn’t change that fact.
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