Posted on 01/11/2014 11:16:07 AM PST by Davy Buck
However if one truly wants to make such a big deal out of what we call the armed conflict which occurred in America from 1861 to 1865 , and if its historical accuracy and honesty that one truly seeks, then I think Douglas Southall Freeman is, perhaps, the truest to historical accuracy in coining the proper term . . .
(Excerpt) Read more at oldvirginiablog.blogspot.com ...
Korea used to have a large caste of state slaves
“Although the states had seceded the fort was still a sovereign territory of the US.”
The US government didn’t have the right to any territory. That got DC, 10 square miles. The land belongs to the respective States, and since SC left the union, the USA no longer had any claim to it. They had an obligation to leave, not fortify it. Fortifying a fort in a foreign land that has requested that you leave is an act of war.
“Ignores the fact that the north supported slavery and denied freedom to white Southerners.
Factually inaccurate - but you knew that.
“
Factually correct, but you knew that. You’re off your game with that liberal donmeaker here.
What’s the name of the book? Like to check it out
Hey with guys line Grant, Sheridan and you namesake in the west, I’m not surprised.
“Just a reminder. There were thousands of blacks who were slave owners.”
More importantly, a black man started slavery in the new World by owning another black man. Anthony Johnson sued to enslave John Casor.
http://www.amazon.com/Gettysburg-Invasion-Allen-C-Guelzo/dp/0307594084
Do NOT get me started on the title. It's inaccurate.
Sterling Price led an invasion of Union states well over a year later, penetrating a great deal farther into MO and KS than Lee did into MD and PA. Wasn't turned decisively back till the Battle of Westport in October of 1864.
To be fair, the CSA claimed MO as one of their states, while they didn't claim MD. But both PA and KS were indisputably Union and free states.
Rant off. :)
To address your actual question, good book. Lots of diagrams.
I have read a number of books about this battle and campaign, but had not previously realized how many times Lee almost broke the Union Army. Or how disorganized the fighting was on both sides. Very little effective coordinating was done by either Lee or Meade. The battle played out as it did mostly due to decisions made at corps and even division level.
War of Northern Aggression
That is true. However, you’re not allowed to just state that a claim isn’t true. You have to post counter-evidence if you want to be taken seriously.
That war’s over Toad. Let ‘er go. (I would tend to agree with much Of what you say but one thing bothers me. There was a significant part of the population who had no say as to how the states made decisions)
We have bigger fish to fry as our personal liberties are being destroyed on all fronts now.
>>the colonies had no legal right to present the Declaration of Independence to the legal ruler of those colonies.
>>Of course they had no legal right to declare independence.
I worded that poorly. My point was that the Confederacy had AS MUCH right to rebel as the colonists: legal, moral, or otherwise. We never speak of the American Revolution as a civil war (even though it was from April 1775 to July 1776) and the failed Second Revolution was no civil war either.
So true...
And much later. Many brave Americans remained loyal to and fought for their King.
My point was that the Confederacy had AS MUCH right to rebel as the colonists: legal, moral, or otherwise.
I will cheerfully agree with you on the legal and otherwise parts. Moral, not so much.
The DoI is pretty clear that it is the right of the people to alter or abolish their government when it becomes destructive of the ends for which governments are properly set up: protection of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
You simply cannot extract from the DoI a right of revolution whenever you feel like it.
Since I do not believe the South was in any way being deprived in 1860 of their rights to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," I think they had no right at all to revolt, under the criteria specified in the DoI. Particularly since their revolt was specifically and explicitly to protect an institution which deprived other men of their right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
The DoI is at bottom a moral document, making a moral cause to justify revolution. IMO the seceding states failed to meet that standard.
We call it the “Act of Northern Aggression” or “That Unpleasantness” down here in the south.
In sharp contrast with VA, none of the commanding CSA generals in the West were very effective. Some truly excellent second-level officers, like Taylor, Cleburne and Forrest, but the commanders, no.
Never sure why. Possibly they just were faced with an enormously more difficult task than Lee, who only had to defend (or attack) on a front only about 200 miles wide. That’s very different from one over 1000 miles wide, plus naval attacks on the coasts and Mississippi.
Sure, citizens have a right to rebel against an unjust government. But was the South being treated unfairly enough to justify a rebellion is the question. Most Northerners say no, while most Southerners say yes. Under the constitution, the South had no right to secession. There’s no statement or words in the constitution that explicitly gives the right of secession to any state. Any dissolution of the union would have to be agreed upon by all participants i.e. the states. That obviously didn’t happen. So it was a rebellion....not some sort of legal secession.
“. Under the constitution, the South had no right to secession. “
Nothing in the Constitution says so one way or the other. It is your personal opinion that you state. Common sense and many founding father’s statements, including those of Lincoln, say the people have the right to determine for themselves who will govern them.
“You simply cannot extract from the DoI a right of revolution whenever you feel like it.”
Actually, we do as the DoI says. We have the right to say who will govern us, and if the opposing side doesn’t like it and attempts to use force to prevent it, well, you’ve got yourself a revolution.
“Of course till Lee’s worse than mediocre showing at Gettysburg, the south was winning. “
Yes, but, the north had all the numbers: The men, machines, money, etc. It was only a matter of time before the South lost. I am a southerner and damned proud they stood in the face of tyranny, but they were out gunned in every way 3:1 and had exhausted the majority of what they had before the war was over.
That said, that isn’t the case today. The south has all the men, machinery, and money.
Well, yes… if you discount reconstruction (fedgov-appointed governors) and the shenanigans of the 14th Amendment (also here).
If you were around at the time, the prospect of the old country falling apart and being replaced by something new, most likely two countries hostile to each other, would be more apparent than anything about who would have the upperhand in a country that might not exist any more.
“No one is an unjust villain in his own mind. Even - perhaps even especially - those who are the worst of us. Some of the cruelest tyrants in history were motivated by noble ideals, or made choices that they would call 'hard but necessary steps' for the good of their nation. We're all the hero of our own story.”In essence this: expedience is often the sword of the tyrant, exigence and exceptions his armor and shield.
― Jim Butcher, Turn Coat
“Society can and does execute its own mandates: and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself.”
― John Stuart Mill, On Liberty
“It is cold anarchy to say that all men are to meddle in all men's marriages. It is cold anarchy to say that any doctor may seize and segregate anyone he likes. But it is not anarchy to say that a few great hygienists might enclose or limit the life of all citizens, as nurses do with a family of children. It is not anarchy, it is tyranny; but tyranny is a workable thing.”
― G.K. Chesterton
If that were true, that would mean any state today could secede if it felt like it. That means some nuts could take over my state of Wisconsin and set up some phony baloney "independent" nation. What we would have then is utter chaos. Because at some point some nuts in any state could do the same thing. All Americans would be held hostage to the lunatics.
And just imagine trying to live in this new nation. You'd have to have new currency, new passports, new everything. In short, the idea of unilateral secession is lunacy. It was lunacy then, it would be lunacy now.
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