Why do you ask questions to which you do not really wish to know the answer?
Posted on 11/23/2016 6:01:04 PM PST by Loud Mime
I am studying our Civil War; anybody have any recommendations for reading?
I would very much like to see the Coastal part of California leave the Union. As I mentioned in another thread, we would all feel as did former Reagan official Charles M. Lichenstein, who said about the U.N.:
"The members of the U.S. mission to the United Nations will be down at the dockside waving you a fond farewell as you sail off into the sunset."
I have no quibble with California's right to secede, and I do in fact want them to secede. If we could send New York and Oregon after them, so much the better!
The *ONLY* issue, and I do mean the only issue, is the Debt they have created for the rest of us, which we will have to pay if they do not. Seeing as how the National Debt stands near 20 trillion, and how the National unfunded obligations stand closer to 100 trillion, there is the small matter of making them pay for their bills before they leave.
Now here is where I expect you to seize on this statement and attempt to apply it to the Southern States which seceded. The only problem with this is that the Southern states tried to pay their obligations, but Lincoln was having none of it, because the moment he accepted the notion that they can pay their bills and leave, his entire argument to force them to remain in the Union collapses.
I also doubt California can pay their bills to the Nation. Hell, they can't even balance their own state budget.
Sorry, but you'll have to find somebody other than Seward to defend your "Sumter didn't count" argument.
In fact, like everyone else, north and south, Seward understood that the Confederate assault on Fort Sumter was the beginning of Civil War.
Just as the Japanese assault on Pearl Harbor was the beginning of WWII for Americans.
Relatively speaking, the US Army force in Fort Sumter in early 1861 was roughly the same size, compared to the total US Army, as US forces in Hawaii in 1941, compared to the then total military.
Yes, casualties at Fort Sumter were relatively fewer, but on the other hand: the US kept Pearl Harbor after the attack, so the loss of Sumter was relatively more important.
The personal rancor reflected in that remark I don't intend to dignify with comment. - Ulysses Everett McGill
Sumter served as an excuse. It provided no better service than as a Casus belli. Like I said, what is it now, a park?
I hear Pearl Harbor is still in use though.
You’ve adequately proven that it isn’t independence you want - it is chaos and anarchy. You wouldn’t know reality if it bit you on the....
Then Deep South Fire Eaters in early 1861 were deliberate liars, since all of their "Reasons for Secession" documents focused exclusively on their need to protect slavery.
Unlike our Founders in 1776, who fully understood the evils of slavery, Secessionists in 1861 acted specifically in defense of their "peculiar institution", slavery.
That's a fact, deny it all wish.
DiogenesLamp: "The founders were all slave owners, yet they asserted a God granted right to independence.
The legitimacy of the USA is based on the idea that independence is an inherent right."
Our Founders never claimed a right to independence "at pleasure", only from necessity, which they fully documented.
And US legitimacy is based on the mutual consent of states' ratifications of the US Constitution and its amendments.
So your arguments here are pure rubbish, FRiend.
"Necessity" at least requires some material breach of contract that can be pointed to, and demonstrated true.
But no such breach existed in November 1860 when Deep South Fire Eaters began organizing for secession.
Indeed, the full government they elected in 1856 was still in power, nothing had changed.
That's why their declarations of secession were "at pleasure" and therefore not constitutionally legitimate.
Totally irrelevant, since what matters is the ability and capacity of Southerners to build, own and operate their own shipping if they wanted to.
SS Planter proves they could, and makes your claims a lie.
The fact is that you have no idea how many ships were owned and/or operated by Southerners, and it doesn't matter, so long as some were, because those some prove it could be done, if they wanted to do it.
True. But I have spent considerably time setting the record straight about his theories. I don't expect to influence his thinking but I am concerned someone new to the study of Lincoln's war might read something of his and take him seriously.
The notion that "order" needs to be imposed is Fascist. If the people of a state want anarchy, let them have anarchy. This is why I support California's right to leave. I have little doubt that they will achieve nothing but Anarchy, but that is their right if they so wish it.
It is arrogant to believe you have the right to tell me what is "necessary."
I decide for myself what is "necessary", not you.
Constitutionally, all such issues belonged, then and now, with Congress.
Jefferson Davis knew that, which is why he never approached Congress about paying its debts & bills.
Who determined it was a necessity?
(Full disclosure: this is a trick question. If you choose to invoke the 5th amendment, I will not think less of you.)
You keep trying to arrogantly define "necessary." *YOU* don't get to decide what is "necessary" and what isn't. Conditions satisfactory to you might be intolerable to someone else.
People decide for themselves what constitutes "necessary", and this is why your constant efforts to add the words "at pleasure" are so intentionally misleading.
You are defining it as "at pleasure" from your perspective, and ignoring that the people who live under the conditions may very well regard it as a "necessary" reason for leaving.
When?
It does no such thing. You simply extrapolate a ridiculous conclusion from a data point of "one."
Likewise that ship was not an ocean transiting vessel, it was a coastal vessel meant to engage in port to port packet shipping. Southern Shipbuilders could make ocean going vessels too, but with an economic monopoly in place for New England based ships and subsidized by the FedGov, it was not a viable economic plan.
SS Planter proves they could, and makes your claims a lie.
It makes you a presenter of a straw man, which is in fact a form of lying.
Here I quote Reagan.
"The problem with our opponents is not that they are ignorant... It's that they know so much which isn't so."
I know of no Foreign ambassadors that deal with congress. They have always dealt with the State Department. Congress simply approves or disapproves of deals the executive branch makes.
So, now I get it, you're not a "he", you're the "her".
Usually on CW threads we get a snow-flake southern belle who comes on with strong assertions then hollers the equivalent of "rape!" when someone answers her too strongly.
She usually leaves us sputtering and befuddled, an effective tactic often repeated.
So, is that you aunte-belle?
Are you the one here to get her feeeeeeeeeeeelings hurt?
Well, if so, them I'm so so so so sorry about your hurt feeeeeeelings.
But aunte-belle, you disguised yourself sooooo cleverly behind the name "Jeffersondem" that I didn't recognize you this time.
Oh well... I'll try to do better next time, aunte-belle.
</sarc>
Why do you ask questions to which you do not really wish to know the answer?
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