Posted on 03/10/2013 8:19:44 AM PDT by BroJoeK
Yes sir! Go ahead and try!
Also like to see a square cut connecticut pizza be folded. Gonna be messy!
“In contrast there is one known civilian casualty due to Confederate forces (a farmer at Gettysburg). “
Think about this a bit, with the numbers killed that is simply impossible. Can you name a source for that conclusion? Give me some time and I can give you civilian casualties due to Confederate forces. It was war, it happened.
So, you’re having a slow day?
Something that people always ignore when they open up these discussions are the economies involved and the reasons events occur. In the 19th Century, the north was a manufacturing economy. They had the raw materials necessary and the factories that enabled them to produce as much as they needed.
The south had an agricultural economy. Unlike the north, when the south needed to produce more food, they had to plant more land or obtain more cattle. If they plant more land, they need more hands to work the land.
Since there were no federal crop subsidies to enable farmers to be paid for crop losses, etc., southern farmers had few options to increase production and increase revenue.
We also forget that wages were incredibly low in those days. It was common that the average wage was around $10 to $20 per month. The farmers in those days lived on the edge of poverty. Any bad crop or bad season could spell the end for them. Without crop subsidies from the government (as they have today) and crop insurance, things were pretty tight.
The same was not true for the north. Manufacturers could increase production when necessary and, if the price of the raw materials increased, that price increase got passed along to the consumer, just as today.
But, there is another piece that the anti-slavery crowd ignores and that is that farmers were largely prohibited from raising prices without government permision. So, their hands were tied. To increase production they had to plant more land which took more hands. To increase prices, they had to get government permission.
In order to meet these requirements, they couldn’t afford to pay their field hands. If they did, the price of produce, even bread, would have skyrocketed beyond what anyone could afford.
So the only other option was slaves. Before I go any further, allow me to explain that I am neither condoning nor justifying slavery. My point is to explain why they were needed and why, when notherners began pushing for the abolition of slavery, the south felt threatened. Their very way of life and livelihood was being threatened. This is what brought us to secession and the whole Civil War.
It is also important to note that the Founders established the Constitution on the basis of the balance of power. The balance of power is visible throughout the Constitution including the 3 branches, different responsibilities, etc. While secession was not codified in the Constitution, it was acknowledged by several of the Founders in the Federalist Papers as another measure available to the states to maintain the balance of power against a strong central government.
The Second Amendment was about both defending the country as well as maintaining the balance of power so that the government would not be the only entity with the means to either defend the country or wage war. And, secession was another part of that balance of power.
History is great and I love history because it teaches us so much. However, you cannot study historical records in a vacuum, nor can you ignore the various stresses present on a society. When we read historical documents, we must read them in the context of the day, not as abstract things that say “x and such”. The documents often shed light on the WHAT of an historical event, but not the WHY. The WHY of an event is the reason that the historical document exists.
So, you may want to re- re- re- re- re-fight the Civil War ad infinitum on the basis of the historical records but, if you fail to understand the prevailing pressures of the day, you fail to understand what history has to teach us.
The north was fighting for a principle that history teaches us was, ultimately, the right one. However, they way they chose to go about it was the wrong approach. The south was fighting for its very life and, as biologists have long told us, the will to survive is the strongest will we have.
If you get to this point, you will undoubtedly blather on about how I am actually defending slavery and the south was just trying to maintain slavery because all southerners are inherently evil bastids. And, if you respond that way, we will not have had a civil discourse and, once again, another individual will have failed to learn what history has to teach us by taking events out of context.
What's your point? (as if I have a damned thing to do with slavery, having been born in Texas in 1967, NOT 1847) It's a done deal and has been for almost 150 years.
As to "how" they were freed, well, millions of white guys died to free them.
It would be ignorant to say that there were no anti-slavery people in the South or any pro-slavery people in the North.
Generalities and stupid stereotypes on this subject are grossly wearisome, y'all.
All this talk about pizza and now THIS!
Good article. Maybe it’s the “all” and “only” that sets some people off. The problem is that some states didn’t secede when it was all about slavery, but waited until war had already begun. I’d just say secession was about slavery and leave it at that.
Nice post.
Instead, secession (or "disunion") is always seen as a last resort, requiring mutual consent or material usurpations and oppression.
In other words, the Federal Government was not created as compact or contract between the states, but a legal framework ratified "by the people."
This claim will always seem absurd, since:
1. the constitution was ratified by the states 2. later states were not represented in it's formation
3. "the people" is an abstraction
4. Most important, it closes the door to secession in the future-- perhaps not that distantwhen it--or more practically its implicit threat--might be the last measure to forestall tyranny.
In other words, this reading will make it possible for the Federal Government to imprison or assassinate citizens it deems seditious, or mobilize the army against its own citizens-- (a violation of its own constitution.)
First of all, you sound like one of those "low information voters", who sort of walk around in a daze, don't really understand anything, and randomly pick up a lot of false information, right?
Second, "good" and "evil" in this case hugely depend on your views toward slavery.
If you consider slavery evil, then those who declare war to defend it should have a pretty hard time proving they are somehow "good", right?
In historical fact, the Confederacy was formed precisely to modify the Constitution to add clauses which protected the "rights" of owners of human "property" -- yes, "forever".
miliantnutcase: "The more I studied the civil war and compared it to modern day politics the more I see parallels happening.
I’ve grown to question my belief of Lincoln, and who was really 'right' regarding the war."
But you haven't studied the civil war, you really know nothing about it.
Instead, you've absorbed some propaganda from Neo-Confederates, and now can't separate their nonsense from what really happened.
That's why you're so confused.
miliantnutcase: "As I see states rights continue to erode to this day, I believe we are doomed to repeat history."
It's true that states rights continue to erode, but the reason is not Abraham Lincoln, it began with the 16th and 17th Amendments, both ratified just 100 years ago, under Progressive Southern Democrat President Woodrow Wilson.
As for "doomed to repeat history", it's just not going to happen, so long as good people obey the laws and act peacefully to achieve their political goals.
Funny, but I'm pretty sure that delis and pastrami aren't native Southern flora or fauna.
If they were flocking for grits and hamhocks you might have just grounds for complaint, but it looks to me like they're just reclaiming and enjoying their own contribution.
Oh, well. Southerners will do what we always do when confronted with Yankees who think they know it all. We’ll laugh at you and make fun of you behind your backs.
And they laugh at you behind your backs, so I guess everybody's even.
I do have to wonder if the Yankees aren't a scapegoat. Maybe upcountry and downcountry would get on each other's nerves a lot more if there weren't convenient newcomers to blame.
Those are total casualty numbers.
Killed in action on June 10, 1861 were 18 Federals and one Confederate -- Private Henry L. Wyatt of the 1st North Carolina Volunteers.
This first Confederate battle-death came two months after the Confederate assault on Fort Sumter, and one month after the Confederacy's formal declaration of war on the United States, May 6, 1861.
Lot of words - but you avoided answering...Why?
Well considering as I observed it isn’t the one that has vanquished tyrannies throughout our nations history, the one defended since the Civil War,WW1 and WW2 and in peace time by members of my family and the one our troops are defending today yeah, it gets my “Irish’’ up. I don’t wear ‘’knickers’’ dude.
There are many for whom racism is a business.
Thanks for making my point. One of those ‘’white guys’’happened to be my great-great-grandfather.
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