For What is the Confederacy to be Blamed?

Self | 8/16/17 | Self

[PeaRidge]

"History, by apprising [citizens] of the past will enable them to judge of the future; it will avail them of the experience of other times and other nations; it will qualify them as judges of the actions and designs of men; it will enable them to know ambition under every disguise it may assume; and knowing it, to defeat its views." ---Thomas Jefferson

From the time of the middle of the 19th Century, the deep Southern States’ governments and the Southern people have been depicted as being totally preoccupied with the survival of slavery, while Northern people were to become the defenders of universal freedom.

Those reading many of the dominant post-era authors of the history of this period are often led to the absolute conclusion that the controversies which arose between the states, and the war in which they culminated, were caused largely by efforts on the one side to extend and perpetuate human slavery, and on the other side to resist it and establish human liberty.

Generations of Southern people and many historians would vigorously disagree with these views. Based on records of the time, that construct is substantially devoid of important historical facts, and fails to include the issues, which produced the secession, and those that caused President Lincoln to send Federal troops to the harbors in Charleston and Pensacola to initiate war.

This is a great disservice to generations of Americans who have not been urged to study the records of the period produced by authors writing at the actual time of the events. However, having been consistently presented in modern schoolbook, film, and television media accounts of the American Civil War, these notions have now spread to become the commonly accepted thesis of that era in US history.

The prevailing views of the practice of slavery in the US have been fashioned by authors and historians primarily from the accounts of first and second-hand observers of the slave South. Since such observers lacked the hard data needed to determine the scope and nature of this relationship, they could only convey their impressions. Unfortunately, these impressions are far from uniform, and incorrectly stereotype the people of the time.

With the acceptance of the media driven concept of slavery, it has then become logical to argue that it was necessary for the US government to wage a four-year war to abolish slavery in the United and Confederate States, one that ravaged half of the country and destroyed a generation of American men.

At the beginning of the history of the country, the founding fathers were opponents to empire, a policy that Lincoln and the incoming Republican Party’s platform turned on its head less than 150 years later. In 1860 Southern economic interests understood the effects of these policies and decided to leave the union.

The war was clearly tied to slavery, but in the sense that Republican tariffs would have squeezed the profitability out of the slave-based cotton plantation economy to the benefit of Northern industry, especially Union textiles and iron manufacturing.

Lincoln claimed the war was to "save" the Union, but this was only true in a geographic sense. The country ceased being a Union, as it was originally conceived, of separate and sovereign states, and sovereign people bound together by common interests and a Constitutional republican form of government.

Instead, America became an "amalgam" of states dominated by a powerful and centralized federal government. Although the war freed four million slaves into poverty, it did not bring about a new birth of freedom, as Lincoln later claimed in the Gettysburg Address.

As the thirteen colonies, did when they seceded from Britain, the South sought separation to attain peace and security, not warfare among the people. The Confederacy had no intent to occupy or attack the Union states.

Violence was brought to the soil of the South by the only human being of the time that had the power to do so, Abraham Lincoln.

It is happening all over again.

[IrishBrigade]

They were illegal in the Southern states in July of 1865, but the Union wanted to keep slavery for another six months longer.

Haven’t you finished the bottle yet I urged you to put down the other night...? The North wanted to keep the slaves that they didn’t have...?

[WVMnteer]

And France, Greece, and Italy would have fallen to Communists before 1930.

And also, North America would still have had slavery in the 20th Century.

Life is full of trade-offs.

[I want the USA back]

They are trashing something that no longer exists. For them, it is a symbol of the whole USA being racist. When they have destroyed all Confederate symbols, they move on to the USA. The goal is to destroy the USA. This is their moment. They are orgasmic over it.

It doesn’t stop at Charlottesburg. Their next step is to provoke a violent riot, with firebombs and people killed. It will be in a democrat-run town, such as Baltimore. The media will make it about Trump within about 3 seconds. They will do the same thing to him that they are doing now, but worse.

I hate these people.

[x]

And "Mercantilism" (The official philosophy of the Corporate Railroad Lawyer who became President) assisted these "corporations" in every manner possible to become more powerful and more plutocratic.

There is something to that argument (though you really don't know what "mercantilism" really was, do you?), but the typical conflicts between interest groups were peanuts compared to the conflict over slavery. If one had to choose between the oppression of the slavers and the usual cronyism of business and politics, it wasn't a hard choice, especially since slavers and secessionists had their own forms of cronyism.

The Fed Gov was subsidizing Northern Shipping and Fishing Industries, and building Railroads in the North that served no practical purpose other than lining the pockets of the railroad Barons.

Not so much. There were plenty of subsidies to Southerners as well. How much could subsidies to fishermen really amount to, anyway? And how could mines, factories, and consumers be tied together in the days before trucking if not by railroads?

Farmers in the Midwest were prevented from shipping their grain on river barges, but instead were required to pay exorbitant fees for them to be carried by railroads.

Jeez, consider the technology of the time. River barges then weren't much anything compared to what they've since become. They were smaller and probably slower. There weren't large container ships in the ports. And when most of the grain was destined for big cities back east, railroads were by far the more convenient choice.

The problem for the farmers, if I'm not mistaken, was that there wasn't much traffic or competition on the short, out of the way lines, so rates were higher on them, than over longer distances where there were competing lines. For farmers who lived far from navigable rivers, that would still have been a problem, even if they didn't use the railways for the whole way.

[Nero Germanicus]

Excerpt From: Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union

“The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as follows: “No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.”
This stipulation was so material to the compact, that without it that compact would not have been made. The greater number of the contracting parties held slaves, and they had previously evinced their estimate of the value of such a stipulation by making it a condition in the Ordinance for the government of the territory ceded by Virginia, which now composes the States north of the Ohio River.

The same article of the Constitution stipulates also for rendition by the several States of fugitives from justice from the other States.
The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution. The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia. Thus the constituted compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation.

The ends for which the Constitution was framed are declared by itself to be “to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.”

These ends it endeavored to accomplish by a Federal Government, in which each State was recognized as an equal, and had separate control over its own institutions. The right of property in slaves was recognized by giving to free persons distinct political rights, by giving them the right to represent, and burthening them with direct taxes for three-fifths of their slaves; by authorizing the importation of slaves for twenty years; and by stipulating for the rendition of fugitives from labor.

We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.”
(Excerpt) https://www.civilwar.org/learn/primary-sources/declaration-causes-seceding-states#Mississippi

[WVMnteer]

The interesting question is whether a Confederacy that was allowed to go peacefully would it have really poked the bear in the West and fought the US.....or if it would have turned its attention to the Carribean, Mexico, and Central America.

It’s impossible to imagine any US president convincing the public that people needed to fight and die to prevent slavery from spreading in Cuba or what have you.

[ALongRoadAhead]

Beat me to it.

Also the moron who thinks no Hitler = lives saved hasn’t bothered to take a look at Europe’s LOOOONG history of beating on each other on a regular basis. Hitler just got made into this super boogeyman by liberals because he led a white nation with traditional gender values carved in stone and beat the snot out of all their precious Euro-pee-in bungholes.

[WVMnteer]

And, you know, killing 6 million Jews.

I think at the end of the day, it’s the Holocaust that gives Hitler the Evil Dude Championship Belt.

[wyowolf]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_the_Immediate_Causes_Which_Induce_and_Justify_the_Secession_of_South_Carolina_from_the_Federal_Union

The declaration stated the primary reasoning behind South Carolina’s declaring of secession from the U.S., which was described as “increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the Institution of Slavery”.

im just gonna go with slavery alex...however you want to sugar coat it.

[x]

Tens of Millions of people who were murdered in the subsequent conflicts would likely not have died in this alternate timeline.

I get that artificial timelines are your specialty, but German oppression would have provoked a major reaction by the French. There definitely would have been another European war. Maybe no Holocaust, but the Germans would be very brutal and the French quite savage.

The Russian Communists (whom the Germans helped put in power) and the Japanese would be waiting for the next European war and the opportunity to pick up territory. Things could have been very bloody indeed.

But if you don't agree with me, your quarrel is more with Woodrow Wilson, who actually made the decision to intervene than with people upstream who had nothing to do with Wilson's choice.

[DiogenesLamp]

Nonsense. They were sent to relieve a siege. A siege is an act of war.

Congress of the time did not agree with you. They had plenty of time to declare war, but instead they offered the Confederates the "Corwin Amendment" to make slavery virtually permanent, in an effort to lure them back.

Lincoln deliberately waited until Congress adjourned before he sent those ships, and the orders he gave them virtually guaranteed an attack on the Confederates there.

According to one account I read, "Then, on April 8, the Lincoln administration suddenly announced to Governor Pickens that a force of 285 guns and 2,444 men had already sailed for Fort Sumter. "

The Ships were the Pawnee, the Pocahontas, the Powhatan, the Yankee, the Baltic, the Nashville, the Uncle Ben, and several other ships of which I don't recall the name.

The orders of these ships, which the Confederates easily obtained, made it clear that they were going to attack when they arrived if the Confederates did not cooperate with them reinforcing that Fort which was constructed to defend Charleston, not attack it.

Facing the possibility of getting attacked by the guns of the fort and the guns of those Warships at the same time, the Military Commander did the only reasonable thing possible. He took out the one force before the other could bring their weapons to bear on his forces.

If Lincoln didn't want a war, he shouldn't have sent that force of Warships to attack them. Even Major Anderson said it would cause an attack.

"“I ought to have been informed that this expedition was to come. Colonel Lamon’s remarks convinced me that the idea…would not be carried out. We shall strive to do our duty, though I frankly say that my heart is not in the war which I see is thus to be commenced. That God will still avert it, and cause us to resort to pacific measures to maintain our rights, is my ardent prayer.”

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Their orders were to do so peacefully, but respond with force if they were opposed. In any case the South intitiated hostilities before they got there.

Because of the attack orders sent by Lincoln.

When the British came to seize the Arsenal at Concord, who attacked first? The Yanks or the Brits?

[DiogenesLamp]

Except that the colonies won.

No they didn't. The British just decided the bloodshed wasn't worth it.

King George III could have utterly crushed the USA had he been as vicious as Lincoln.

[ALongRoadAhead]

Honestly that estimate of 6 million doesn’t even hold a damn candle to the numbers that Communist leaders like Stalin and Mao slaughtered. Nevermind the ideology of Communism overall.

And you know as well as i do that liberals don’t give a rats fanny about Jews dying, heck half the time they’re pulling the trigger! Their concern over Mr. Funny Mustache’s empire is for other reasons.

[DiogenesLamp]

“Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. “

Same sort of stuff that Lincoln believed, but he had better PR.

[WVMnteer]

So, um, where are we going with this?

[canalabamian]

Good summary. I think people get emotionally wrapped up in South bad / North good and forget to look around.

The encroachment of a centralized government was solidified in the aftermath of TWBS. If you think one was exclusively right you are missing by half. Same issues then are issues now. Slaves are no longer "legal", but if one thinks that there is no slavery then one is ignoring reality. Slavery is just more subtle today, and more insidious.

Think about that. What "free stuff" is driving the actors? Who is doing the promising? Universal wage? In return for what? The subtlest form of slavery is being indebted. Dance with the Devil and he picks the tune.

One can't legislate the human heart, but one can legislate control of freedom. Which side would be which today? Lines are blurred, much by propaganda and lies, but human nature has remained the same. Fail to learn from the past and all that...

Governments are no better than the people who seek to govern. We're seeing some trying to hang on to power.

[ALongRoadAhead]

Only at the cost of a Phyrric victory. His war-induced taxes were badly straining the British economy by that point and the French would have loved an opportunity to settle some old scores across the Channel if he overextended himself in America.

[DiogenesLamp]

Also no USA. The continent would have remained 1/3rd USA, 1/3rd Confed, and 1/3rd divided between various European powers. That’s best case.

That's a silly claim. What more likely would have happened was this:

I've been studying this. 200 million of additional capitalization caused by free trade with Europe would have boosted Southern investments in Industry, and they would have started supplying the Midwest with products and services shipped in through the Mississippi river chain. This would have brought these states into their economic sphere of influence and eventually the political orbit of the less overbearing Confederacy.

The Other slave states would have joined the Confederacy, and the Midwest states would have eventually joined it as well. It would have eventually outgrown the remaining Rump of the Union and might have even absorbed it at some point in the future.

If you will notice, the regions of the nation still have various natural affinities that existed in the 1860s. Those states with similar interests still vote mostly the same way in Presidential elections. The Northern Unionized states (as in Workers Unions) still demand protectionism and vote heavily Liberal, and the rest of the states prefer more free trade and oppose Liberalism.

Modern America still echos Civil War era America in it's voting patterns.

[WVMnteer]

I know you sort of hate America, and apparently wish it had died at several points, but King George didn’t have a ton of great options during the Revolution.

The British military simply wasn’t big enough to occupy the entirety of the colonies AND fight Washington in the north AND try to control the South AND deal with Spain and France on the continent.

At least he could not have done so without a major impressment, which would have gone over like a fart in church.

[WVMnteer]

So, Iowa would have become a slave state?