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 Americans—including, mostly, my fellow Southerners—claim that that the cause was economic or state’s 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, it’s 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 ...
As I'm certain you already know, there was an 1836 South Carolina law:
"Resolved, That this state do cede to the United States, all the right, title and claim of South Carolina to the site of Fort Sumter and the requisite quantity of adjacent territory..."
In a sense, it is equivalent to the treaty with Cuba by which the US leases Guantanamo, a treaty now rejected and denied by the Communist Cubans.
If the Cubans assault US forces in Gitmo, that is an act of war, pure and simple, regardless what the commies say about it.
Same thing with Fort Sumter.
American or British?
No matter how you slice it, it is still a 3rd hand anecdote to an alleged conversation.
It's always a pleasure to see Lost Causers publically supporting Supreme Court rulings.
So, tell us how you feeeeeeeel about, oh, say, Dred Scott or Roe v Wade?
Great rulings, right?
No? So you only support the Supreme Court when you can use its rulings to your own advantage? OK.
The historical truth is, regardless of a Supreme Court ruling in a different context, the Confederacy committed dozens of provocations of war in seizing major Federal instalations -- forts, ships, arsenals, mints, etc.
The Confederacy then physically started war at Fort Sumter, and soon formally declared war, on May 6, 1861.
The first Confederate soldier to die directly in battle was Pvt. Henry Wyatt at the Battle of Big Bethel on June 10, 1861.
By that time, Confederates had taken the lives of dozens of Union troops, wounded over 100 and captured as POWs another 500.
So there is simply no disputing who, in early 1861 was the aggressor force.
In Lamp Boys fever swamp of a mind a war existed. Forget Bro Joe, Lamp Boy’s a loon.
Today's Democrats have changed from their past alright, they've changed for the worse; they want to enslave everyone and are doing it through socialism - bigger government.
Democrats have NEVER apologized for slavery. As the Party of slavery, they owe an apology. But now they want everyone on slave-like dependence to the Federal government.
+1
Because they knew that one Southern boy could beat any ten pasty faced Yankee mechanics, plus that Abe Lincoln was an ignorant uneducated monkey who would never be able to out smart those refined southern gentlemen.
Read the southern press from the day. They actually believed their own propaganda. Seems some around here still buy that nonsense.
+1
;’)
Again, you revert to the old myth. To repeat for the probably millionth time on these threads, There was no Federal tax on exports!
You can try to dodge around that all you want, but you know damn well that line is a lie.
Federal taxes then were import tariffs and excise taxes. On imports, it is without question that the lion's share was paid in Northern ports. You can choose to believe that 20% of the population bought all that stuff sailing into New York or Boston, or Philadelphia if you choose, but you must also think the buyers and sellers of all those goods were idiots.
Considering the previous 40 years of contention before the civil war, the argument was not so much about slavery itself, but the expansion of slavery. The money to be made from slavery by 1860 was only partly from the labor they could provide. It was also from the slaves themselves. They became very valuable, and they reproduced at a much faster rate than the white population.
To maintain that value for a rapidly growing population of slaves required opening new markets to sell "excess" inventory. Without new markets, the slave states would have in a generation or so been drowning in excess slaves. Their market value would have collapsed, fortunes would be lost, and the odds of slave uprisings would increase.
Lincoln, and the Free Soil Republicans, whose only promise was to stop the expansion of slavery to the territories, was indeed a dagger to the heart of the slave powers.
Sorry guy, you guessed wrong. To the best of my understanding, "American Union" is a luggage company.
Both Democrat President Buchanan and Republican President Lincoln expressed THEIR VIEWS that secession “at pleasure” was not constitutional or lawful.
THEIR VIEWS is a poor defense for preventing states to do what those state had the rightful and legal guarantee to do.
Lincoln destroyed states rights and little to nothing remains of the once great protection of the Constitution.
Both Democrat President Buchanan and Republican President Lincoln expressed THEIR VIEWS that secession “at pleasure” was not constitutional or lawful.
THEIR VIEWS is a poor defense for preventing states to do what those state had the rightful and legal guarantee to do.
Lincoln destroyed states rights and little to nothing remains of the once great protection of the Constitution.
No "misrepresentation" there, of course Lincoln's resupply mission was innocent -- just as innocent as any resupply mission the US sends to our troops in Guantanamo Bay, regardless of what the Communist Cubans may think, say or do about it.
So the act of war at Fort Sumter was not Lincoln's, it was Jefferson Davis' choice, followed soon after by the Confederacy's formal declaration of war on the United States.
Sorry if the facts of history don't fit your Lost-Causer mythology, FRiend.
Ha! You wish, right?
Sadly, I'm often called away, for days at a time -- it has nothing to do with you or any "put into his place".
Some of us still work for a living, donchaknow?
But never fear, when time permits, I'm back.
And despite repeated instructions in the truth, you are just as devoted to your Lost-Causer mythology as ever.
What's up with that?
Sorry FRiend, but you have no real comprehension at all -- none.
Instead you are utterly blind to the truth because your super-overheated imagination has glommed onto a Lost-Causer mythology whose very purpose in life is to obfuscate, deny and where possible destroy the real history of those times.
Your language here makes me think you need serious professional help with that, and I urge you to seek it out.
Once again: we have other examples of nations who maintain forts, resupply and reinforce them at will, without those actions ever becoming a casus belli:
So the choice for war was made by Jefferson Davis, period, and he bears ultimate responsibility for all death & destruction which followed, especially since he refused to end the war short of utter, complete defeated.
And up to that point, but no further, you are still a rational human being, a conservative and a member in good standing of the Free Republic, imho.
But when you go beyond that to claim that framers of the 14th Amendment are to blame for today's insanities, and then blame Abraham Lincoln for todays use of a constitutional amendment which was not even proposed in Congress until several months after his death, that is pure Lost-Causer mythology & overheated imagination unrestrained by any serious love for facts & reason.
Bottom line: Lincoln -- like George Washington before him -- deserves full credit for all the good things he did, and some credit for good that came later.
He does not deserve blame for all the bad things people have done "in his name", especially when there's no evidence Lincoln would have supported any of it.
To think otherwise is to drive yourself nuts, for which you should be seeking professional help, FRiend.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.