” According to you the colonies peacefully and legally seceded, and Great Britain launched an unprovoked invasion. Who’s view differs more from reality.
But I would disagree with you on yet another point. In both rebellions, ‘right’ won out. “
No according to me the British are better people then the folks from the Northern States as they eventually gave up and learned the lesion of the American Revolution which Northern hypocritically disregarded.
“Go ahead and rebel again, nuke a couple of cities, and then we’ll talk about it.”
No, we won’t. You’ll either be dead or I and my countrymen will. Either way millions of Americans will be dead and for what?
To betray our founding beleive that government must have the consent of the governed to be legitimate?
To maintain a union by the sword of the unwilling?
Unlike you I don’t beleive might makes “right”, but I am by no means not above using might to defend right. I don’t wish to see ANYONE die, You only kill a man to save your own life or freedom(practical life) from their unending attempts at usurpation.
If you wish to fight a meaningless and extraordinary bloody war over our freedom I am game, as every freeman must be perpetually game. For there is no object on this Earth of greater significants then our lives and freedom.
But I urge you to think twice before for you force this bloody conflict. To rule others against their will is not that important, nor is it so rewarding a thing as to justify this fight.
“So then what? Ratchet the chains down tighter? Start another war with the U.S. to regain your chattel? Surely you don’t expect us to believe that you would just have sat there and take it? “
Actually the Confederate leaders knew slavery was inevitably doomed, if they were fighting the war over slavery alone they were fools. But they we’re fighting the war over slavery they were fighting it to defend their country form the aggressive northern invasion.
The Southern States left the union because the North was not only failing to honor its Constitutional obligations & limitations it was using the Federal Government to abuses the South thou preferential(protectionist) trade policy.
The North got factories and industry(which fueled their rapid and disproportional growth), while the South footed the bill in both Taxes and Trade losses. (Among other things)
The fact that the political situation was getting worse and worse as more pro-northern States entered the union out of the west made the souths final arduous choice an relativity easy one. Stay and get screwed over even more then you are already getting screw over, or leave and compete among the world as equals.
As for the issue of escaped slaves its possible that the south might have talked the north into an extradition treaty that required the return of slaves, but even so the treaty would have been even less enforceable the the existing Federal Constitutional law.
The south couldn’t military threaten the United States they knew that, even before the war started, which is why all their war plans henge upon getting foreign support. So reclaiming their “chattel” would not have been possible.
The real kicker would have been in the establishment of a stronger more centralized border patrol then already existed in the pre-existing slave patrol system. But even that wouldn’t have worked. Building an “iron curtain” would simply not have been technologically or economically feasible at the time, much less effective.
Most likely what would have happen is that over the next 50 years slavery would have collapsed being economically too costly to be worth it. Many of the existing slaves would probably have feed to the united states.
The United States(northern States) would have had to start paying more attention to the rights and fair treatment of their minion. The Union would have had to be a better deal then independents for all States.
As a result the Federal government would not be able to politically engage in expensive idealistic crusades, to “crush” this or that evil, or otherwise build up this or that industry. The measure of their disparaging policies would be the willingness of the people to secede. In rugged individualist minded America that “balance” could not have afforded to be too far from anarchy at the Federal level.
At the state level of course the story is very different, due to the actual meaning of the insurrection clause of the Constitution, and the clause which prohibits the admission of new states from parts of existing states without the consent of the existing state’s concerned.
But then again in America individuals(as apposed to political majorities) can vote with their feet, so its not so bad.
Bigotry aside, let me point out that you ignored the question entirely. Is it your contention that the colonies peacefully and legally seceded, as you claim the Southern states did? And that the British response to that formed an illegal and unprovoked invasion of a sovereign nation, as you claim Lincoln did?
No, we won’t. You’ll either be dead or I and my countrymen will. Either way millions of Americans will be dead and for what?
For what? For your failed second rebellion, of course. Would it be worth it for you?
If you wish to fight a meaningless and extraordinary bloody war over our freedom I am game, as every freeman must be perpetually game. For there is no object on this Earth of greater significants then our lives and freedom.
The Union fought a bloody war because that was the path the confederacy chose and what they forced on the country.
Actually the Confederate leaders knew slavery was inevitably doomed, if they were fighting the war over slavery alone they were fools.
Give me one quote from one Southern leader prior to or at the start of the rebellion indicating that they thought slavery was doomed to an early extinction.
But they we’re fighting the war over slavery they were fighting it to defend their country form the aggressive northern invasion.
If you start a war then you alone are responsible if that war comes home to you. You can call it 'aggressive northern invasion' all you want. But put the blame where it lies, with those who started the war. Jefferson Davis and his cabal.
The Southern States left the union because the North was not only failing to honor its Constitutional obligations & limitations it was using the Federal Government to abuses the South thou preferential(protectionist) trade policy.
Absolute nonsense. The Southern states rebelled to protect their institution of slavery from what they saw as the threat posed to its expansion by the election of Abraham Lincoln.
The North got factories and industry(which fueled their rapid and disproportional growth), while the South footed the bill in both Taxes and Trade losses. (Among other things)
Again, absolute nonsense. The vast majority of tariffs were paid by Northern consumers. The South actually imported very little. And exported a great deal, regardless of tariffs.
As for the issue of escaped slaves its possible that the south might have talked the north into an extradition treaty that required the return of slaves, but even so the treaty would have been even less enforceable the the existing Federal Constitutional law.
Without the disproportionate representation in Congress enjoyed by the Southern states I have a hard time believing that pro-slavery legislation would have been passed. Nor do I believe that without the slave state senators any such treaty would have been passed. I can see the South launching yet another war to press their case concerning their chattel, given it's importance to the Southern economy and Southern culture.
The south couldn’t military threaten the United States they knew that, even before the war started, which is why all their war plans henge upon getting foreign support. So reclaiming their “chattel” would not have been possible.
And yet that did not stop them from starting their war to begin with.
Most likely what would have happen is that over the next 50 years slavery would have collapsed being economically too costly to be worth it. Many of the existing slaves would probably have feed to the united states.
Hardly. Had slavery been ended in the South, for whatever reason, I can't see the South allowing their former slaves to migrate North. Someone would be needed to do the work the former slaves did. Who else would their be other than the freed blacks? More likely they would sit on their black population in ways that would have made South Africa blush.
But then again in America individuals(as apposed to political majorities) can vote with their feet, so its not so bad.
And yet here you are, with your other pseudo-rebels.
The South exercised her rights, and the North resorted to the sword.
The biggest exercise of diplomacy during Lincoln's tenure was erecting the fiction that "the South started it". That and the Trent Affair -- but in the latter, Lincoln had substantial help from Prince Albert; the Fort Sumter affair he arranged on his own, cards held tightly to his vest.