Why America lost the "Civil War"

http://calltodecision.com/Civil%20War.html ^ | October 30, 2002 | Nat G. Rudulph

[Aurelius]

Stop posting false or misleading statements on threads that I initiate and you'll never hear from me again. I don't want anything to do with you, I only added your name on the post to Walt as a courtesy because in my post to him I had referred to your practise of setting up straw men.

[Aurelius]

"What a dirt bag that guy was."

It appears then that I think more of him than you do!

[Non-Sequitur]

You keep referring to these strawmen that I set up. Yet looking back on your posts I see a lot of opinion but very little conclusive proof so whatever strawmen that were there are still standing. And stop posting nonsense like this stuff from Rudulph and I won't have anything to respond to, will I?

[WhiskeyPapa]

"What a dirt bag that guy was."

It appears then that I think more of him than you do!

But he supported the Union and you want it destroyed.

Walt

[breakem]

you're answer presoposes that most of the people wanted to overthrow the government. That's my point, if the people want it it will happen, if they don't it won't. But they, the people, are responsible for what they have.

[Aurelius]

"But they, the people, are responsible for what they have."

I continue to disagree.

[Aurelius]

"But he supported the Union and you want it destroyed."

I wish you would read and consider more carefully what I post. I do not "want the Union destroyed" and have never said anything to suggest that. What I do strongly believe is that it was/is/would be the grossest evil to maintain a federation by force. I don't believe that Washington or his contemporaries would have countenanced that. Madison is on record in strong opposition to the possible use of such an action.

[Non-Sequitur]

What I do strongly believe is that it was/is/would be the grossest evil to maintain a federation by force.

Is it any less evil to resort to force in order to break that federation up?

[Aurelius]

"Is it any less evil to resort to force in order to break that federation up?"

That is a problem which should not arise. A party wishing to withdraw from the federation would have no need for the use of force unless aggressive force were used against them to prevent their withdrawal. If that happens, they are certainly within their rights to use force in self-defense. We have been through this before too.

[Non-Sequitur]

A party wishing to withdraw from the federation would have no need for the use of force unless aggressive force were used against them to prevent their withdrawal. If that happens, they are certainly within their rights to use force in self-defense.

Lincoln's attempt at resupplying Sumter with food only should not have started a war and would not have started the war except Davis wanted the war. Had Lincoln landed supplies then the status quo would have continued. Had Lincoln landed weapons then the status quo could also have continued since that would not have placed the confederacy in any danger. Instead Davis chose to use force to sieze a piece of property that the confederacy had absolutely no legal claim to. The aggression was on the part of Davis. Toombs recognized it and warned Davis to no avail. If Toombs could recognize that firing on Sumter would place the confederacy in the wrong then why couldn't Davis? Why can't you?

[x]

That is a problem which should not arise. A party wishing to withdraw from the federation would have no need for the use of force unless aggressive force were used against them to prevent their withdrawal.

That's an example of the overly rationalistic arguments of today's Confederate apologists. By "rationalistic" I mean arguing from abstract premises to logical conclusions without giving actual historical experience much weight.

The real world experience of secession all too often involves the desire of the seceeding group to get as much territory as they can, either by outright conquest or by provoking other secessions and rebellions. Of course it's possible that a country could peacefully split in two or states could peacefully negotiate their withdrawal, but that wasn't what happened in 1860/1.

When the secessionists moved to unite their states in a confederated national government of their own, war between the two powers was probably inevitable. And the secessionists recognized that, early war fervor being stronger in the South than in the North. Webster, Clay, and other statesmen of the previous generation predicted that secession would most likely mean war. Given the passions of the day, the country wasn't going to be neatly and evenly divided.

[Commander8]

The Democrat and Republican Parties were a lot different in 1862. For example, the Republicans in those days supported protective tarriffs, central banking and a graduated income tax. Democrats were for States' Rights, local autonomy and a Gold Standard. Parties change ideologies like I change socks.

[x]

The parties have changed their views a lot, but it's worth noting that the income tax was only a temporary war measure in the 1860s (in the South as well as in the North). There was no desire to make it permanent, and the tax was repealed at the war's end. The income tax came back in the 1890s, but more as a concession to populist discontent, rather than a Republican measure. It was declared unconstitutional, and a bipartisan effort gave us the Constitutional amendment authorizing it in 1913.

The Republicans favored national, rather than state, bank charters. I suppose that counts as centralization, but nowhere near on the 20th century scale. Seen in the context of the 19th century they were the national or centralizing party, but there was a big difference between what they intended and what, say, Lyndon Johnson, Teddy Kennedy or Walter Mondale wanted. The Democrats were the localist, state's rights party, but when one looks at what "state's rights" involved after Reconstruction, one can understand why lovers of liberty might still prefer the Republicans. Along the same lines, some will attack the Republicans for creating an empire, rather than a republic, but this ignores the expansionism of antebellum Democrats. Before the war, opponents of empire might well have been Whigs or Republicans.

Where the Confederacy fits in is another question. Their history ended in 1865. Had the Confederacy lasted, it would surely have had its own centralists and imperialists.

[Ditto]

"Democrats were for States' Rights, local autonomy and a Gold Standard."

If the Dems of that day were so in favor of States Rights, why did they push through legislation like the Fugitive Slave Act which trampled not only states rights, but individual rights? Why did they favor Dred Scott which for the first time in history told states who could and couldn't be a citizen of a state and effectively nullified equal protection under state constitutions?

The Slave Power (Democrat Party) didn't give a damn about states rights.

[Aurelius]

"Lincoln's attempt at resupplying Sumter with food only should not have started a war and would not have started the war except Davis wanted the war."

As I said we have been through this before and you are presenting the same argument as before. I simply do not find it credible that Davis wanted war. The Confederacy would have been at a disadvantage and he knew it. So I don't believe your claim. I do believe that very likely it was Lincoln's intention to provoke the Confederacy to fire the first shot to give him an excuse and to help raise popular support for his suppression of secession. However, that can probably no more be proved than can your contention that Davis wanted war. However, if Davis actually provoked the war he should be condemned for it; it would have been needless, Lincoln would have done it any case.

[Aurelius]

"That's an example of the overly rationalistic arguments of today's Confederate apologists. By "rationalistic" I mean arguing from abstract premises to logical conclusions without giving actual historical experience much weight."

If I have been unrealistic I would say it was in assuming that the leaders of the parties seceding and the parties remaining were moral statesmen, not out to keep or acquire that to which they have no moral right, rather than gangsters out to get whatever they can acquire by whatever means. Perhaps that can be characterized as not "giving actual historical experience much weight".

However valid your characterization of my statement as "overly rationalistic" may be, you leave open the question: when some parties to a federation feel that their continued membership would be impossible for them and to their distinct disadvantage, what is to be done to achieve a just, and one would hope peaceful, resolution?

[Non-Sequitur]

Your premise seems to be that Lincoln set the trap and the poor dumb confederates fell into it. That doesn't say much about the southern leadership, does it? At least one member of the government, Robert Toombs, apparently knew better and tried to warn Davis but was ignored. Davis needed a war to fill out his confederacy. He knew it couldn't survive otherwise.

[Aurelius]

And I would add: I once saw a characterization of the main purpose of political science as determining what constitutes a legitimate government. Now, I would say that in attempting to make that determination one should, at least initially, argue from abstract principles to logical conclusions. Then it would be time to consider whether "historical experience" made those conclusions unrealistic. The question that I posed at the end of my last post is essentially relevent to the determination of what makes a federal government legitimate. (It is my contention that one which does not allow or provide for the possibility of unilateral peaceful secession cannot be legitimate.)

[Aurelius]

"Your premise seems to be that Lincoln set the trap and the poor dumb confederates fell into it."

Are you working from notes from the last time we were through this? It would appear so. Yes, some hot-head Confederates were provoked into firing. Of course, it is widely conjectured that there may have been some aggressive actions by the "resupply" ship that history has not recorded. In any case, I think it would be possible to document that Jefferson Davis was elsewhere that day.

[4CJ]

It was, in fact, perfectly legal for a southern slave owner to murder any slave at any time and then collect full compensation for his 'property loss' from the state.

ROTF! Do you have any documentary proof of that assertion? I can cite at least one case where a slave-owner was sentenced to life in prison for killing a slave. Yet Yankee slaveship captains murdered hundreds of thousands of slaves with impunity during the "middle" passage - by starvation, lack of proper medicines, by casting them overboard (weighted down by chains) to drown, and other means.