Posted on 08/11/2015 1:11:21 PM PDT by iowamark
What caused the Civil War? That seems like the sort of simple, straightforward question that any elementary school child should be able to answer. Yet many Americansincluding, mostly, my fellow Southernersclaim that that the cause was economic or states rights or just about anything other than slavery.
But slavery was indisputably the primary cause, explains Colonel Ty Seidule, Professor of History at the United States Military Academy at West Point.
The abolition of slavery was the single greatest act of liberty-promotion in the history of America. Because of that fact, its natural for people who love freedom, love tradition, and love the South to want to believe that the continued enslavement of our neighbors could not have possibly been the motivation for succession. But we should love truth even more than liberty and heritage, which is why we should not only acknowledge the truth about the cause of the war but be thankful that the Confederacy lost and that freedom won.
(Excerpt) Read more at blog.acton.org ...
April 6, 1861
Lt. Porter took the Powhatan and sailed.
Seward sent a telegram to Porter: "Give the Powhatan up to Captain Mercer."
A dispatch boat caught up with Powhatan and delivered Seward's message.
Lt. Porter responded to Seward: "I received my orders from the President, and shall proceed and execute them.
Before leaving, Lt. Porter instructed the Navy Yard officials, "Detain all letters for five days."
Storms and boiler problems delayed Powhatan, but she arrived disguised and flying English colors.
Porter filed this report:
I had disguised the ship, so that she deceived those who had known her, and was standing in (unnoticed), when the Wyandotte commenced making signals, which I did not answer, but stood on.
The steamer then put herself in my way and Captain Meigs, who was aboard, hailed me and I stopped.
In twenty minutes more I should have been inside (Pensacola harbor) or sunk.
Signed: D.D. Porter
So then, we agree that the motivation of Lincoln was to preserve the Union. From the beginning, through the middle and right up to the end of the Civil War.
If you are arguing that they were getting gouged on both ends of the exchange, I would think they would find that even more objectionable, don't you?
Those merchants then took on the expense and risk of shipping and warehousing that cotton and selling it on the global market. When they sold that cotton to foreign buyers, they got the foreign currency which they used to purchase foreign goods, while also paying the tariff on imports. That is why the lion's share of tariffs were collected in New York.
So you are arguing that the New Yorkers were making more money off of Cotton than were the Southern producers? Why would anyone object to that?
That is my understanding. Yes, we agree on that.
How many locations would you like?
I'd say you see only what you want to see. You always have.
That presumes you were getting gouged to begin with.
So you are arguing that the New Yorkers were making more money off of Cotton than were the Southern producers? Why would anyone object to that?
Isn't that what business is? Buying something for one price, selling it for another, and profiting off the difference?
12/12/1860 In an unprecedented action, Mr. Lincoln sent a secret message to his future subordinate Commander of the Army, General Winfield Scott.
From the Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln , vol. 4
To Elihu B. Washburne
Confidential
Hon. E. B. Washburne Springfield, Ills., Dec. 21. 1860
My dear Sir:
Last night I received your letter giving an account of your interview with Gen. Scott, and for which I thank you. Please present my respects to the General, and tell him, confidentially, I shall be obliged to him to be as well prepared as he can to either hold, or retake, the forts, as the case may require, at, and after the inauguration.
Yours as ever
A. LINCOLN
Lincoln had begun to formulate a plan to seize Ft. Sumter and Ft. Barranas even before his inauguration, and was interfering with the current administration.
I always thought that was why most people didn't respond to you general.
Not to seize it but to retake it from hostile insurrectionists. Ft Sumter was a federal installation.
Ok I ‘ll take your previous response as a non response. LOL.
There’s that Gabby Johnson gibberish bit again. First time is funny. After that not so much.
When you undertake a war that is lost to you even before you undertake it you can’t be thought of as a genius M’Lady.
You mean my pal ‘’The General’’? (aka ‘’central va’’) Yeah. But I took no more notice than I would the noise of a gnat.
Pretty telling Lamp Boy that you couldn’t put an adult woman up there to make you pointless and rather salacious point. Not cool dude, not cool at all.
Boy, irony lost on you isn’t? Democrats created the Confederacy, Republicans defeated it and 150 years on you’re still venerating Dixiecrats on a conservative Republican website.
I thought a little girl was much more representative of his behavior, beside the fact that she was wearing stars and stripes, which I thought punctuated the point of "Childish Union Cheerleader".
It seems apparent that he was planning to fight a long time before hostilities actually manifested.
People just don't want to believe that someone they were taught to admire was actually a deceitful manipulator.
I would expect that you and a gnat would have a lot in common... brainpower for example.
The South lost the war the moment it made up it’s mind to start it. For every one cannon foundry the South had, the North had ten. The South’s railway system was a hodgepodge of different gage tracks which meant freight trains had to be stopped and cumbersomely unloaded and reload back on to different trains, the North had a single gage railway system. The South had no navy to speak of. One of the first things the very powerful Union Navy did was blockade Southern ports. Lee should have realized after Vicksburg fell the game was over but as I said he led the slaughter for another two years. The idea of interjecting Nazis vs Poles is ridiculous. Poland’s Army put up a valiant defense at first but it was not the modern army Germanys was. It also didn’t help that three weeks after the Nazis invaded the Russians invaded. Polish resistance was a constant thorn in Germany’s side but Nazi Germany was eventually defeated by a coalition of Allied nations.
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