Again, you’ve got to have the first “civil war” before you can have the second one. Technically a civil war involves an attempt to take over the government. The South never attempted that. It attempted to act on the belief that their states were sovereign and had every right to form their own union or confederacy. At no time did they attempt to take over the existing government.
Words are supposed to have meaning. The historians from the side that won the War Between the States termed Civil War because they don’t want people to remember or to know the truth. That it wasn’t a “civil war.””
>>Again, you’ve got to have the first “civil war” before you can have the second one. Technically a civil war involves an attempt to take over the government. The South never attempted that. It attempted to act on the belief that their states were sovereign and had every right to form their own union or confederacy. At no time did they attempt to take over the existing government.
Well said. America has never had a civil war...yet.
This.
Thank you for explaining it accurately and succinctly.
You explanation also covers why the breakaway of the colonies from England is not generally referred to as a “civil war.”
Awesome statement and eloquently put. I liked referring to that episode as the War for Southern Independence, but I could not adequately explain why "Civil War" was inaccurate.
“Again, you’ve got to have the first “civil war” before you can have the second one. Technically a civil war involves an attempt to take over the government”
That would be a Coup. The War Between the States was indeed a Civil War.
That’s going to be a hard sell to most. Words do matter, but people screw them up all the time. Like “decimate”; actually means to destroy every tenth item, but used to mean totally destroy. “Alright” was not a word until so many people butchered it that it made it into the dictionary. Then look at the misuse of “then” (i.e., time) and “than” (i.e., comparison), to, two, too. Even professional journalists, authors, and TV news people will say:
He’s the man that robbed the bank.
when it should be:
He’s the man who robbed the bank.
These are common, everyday mistakes. However, saying there was no Civil War is pretty much going to be like throwing a potato chip against the wind...it’s coming back in your face regardless (or would you prefer irregardless?) of how hard you throw it.
Lee’sGhost wrote:
“Again, you’ve got to have the first “civil war” before you can have the second one. Technically a civil war involves an attempt to take over the government. The South never attempted that. It attempted to act on the belief that their states were sovereign and had every right to form their own union or confederacy. At no time did they attempt to take over the existing government.
Words are supposed to have meaning. The historians from the side that won the War Between the States termed Civil War because they don’t want people to remember or to know the truth. That it wasn’t a “civil war.”””
Very very important post! Many thanks!
“When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another...”
The “Civil War” was actually a war for independence just like the Revolutionary War. Lincoln became the new King George.
Right. And the term “CIVIL war” is a misnomer. It may have been a civic (internal) war but it certainly was not civil.
Technically, the Mueller Inquisition is a soft coup or conspiracy (similar in history to some of the ancient Roman conspiracies (Cataline Conspiracy, etc.). It is also a false conspiracy because the FBI’s goal is to not only protect Hillary, for whom they did their plotting, but to protect themselves from accountability for doing the political bidding of Democrats. Like all cops, they will close ranks and defend themselves against politicians who threaten their careers and perks. The way FBI elites view the issue is that they should not suffer firings for doing the dirty work of politicians.
The ongoing conflict over Trump’s election is a conflict between the two middle classes: the Knowledge Class, dependent on government outlays and regulation for its existence, and the Business Class, dependent on Capitalism. This conflict is an insurrection or mutiny that can lead to revolution if not put down.
Exactly. The North called it a civil war because they won and therefore got to control the historical account. The South called it the War of Northern Aggression. The South had seceded and formed their own separate country. The North invaded that country, crushed it and occupied it. The North also got to say, because of their dominance, that it was all because of slavery. The truth is far more complex than that, just as today’s issues are far more complex than the mainstream media tries to depict them with their race bating.
What we have now really is a cold civil war. We are fighting for the soul of the country, still all in one piece.
I don't know where you get this definition? A civil war is a war between the people of the same nation. It does not really matter what the war is about. If the war is specifically to take over the government that would be a revolution.
We have had the first civil war and it mostly revolved around slavery. We may soon have a second.
That’s a coup. Civil war is a fight between people of the same nation/state - people under the same government. I’m not sure why you are so determined to redefine it.
Your delusion about the civil war in 1860 is not strictly relevant to the rumblings of a civil war now, but since you raise the point, no, a civil war is not necessarily “an attempt to take over the government.” A civil war is an attempt to take control of part or all of a government’s territory, by force, by people who are technically subjects of that government. This can be done either by attempting to take over the existing government, or attempting to transfer control of part of the government’s territory, either to a new government, or to an existing government which did not previously have that sovereignty.
Under the Constitution of the United States, both the states, and the Union, are sovereign. Each has powers which the other may not infringe. The federal power is supreme over state powers, in areas where the federal government has power, but the federal government’s powers are limited to those specifically enumerated. At the start of the civil war, each state had agreed to this. Each state which attempted to secede was welshing on the commitments it had made, to the Union, the other states, and the people of the other states.
Once each state had accepted the Constitution, they each ceded elements of the sovereign power to the Union, and had no right to go back on their promises—but decided to anyway. Since they used force, that was a civil war. Also, the secessionists were in the wrong. The Union acted rightly in crushing the revolt. Every sovereign power has the right to maintain control of its territory by force.
According to the dictionary, a civil war is a war between political factions or regions within the same country. By that definition we've had two: the Revolutionary War, in which the 13 colonies seceded from the British Empire, and the War Between the States, in which the Confederate States failed to secede from the United States. Both of those were wars of secession, in which the goal was to break away from a national government, not to take it over. This new civil war would be a war between political factions, wherein the winning side would presumably take over the national government.
However, you are unlikely to change the narrative 150 years later. I'm currently reading a book on Winston Churchill and even he was referring to the American "Civil War" and this was 75 years ago!
This is similar to people who refer to our form of government as a "democracy" when it is actually a republic. We are technically correct but we aren't going to make much headway.