America’s Next Civil War Will Be Worse Than Our Last

The American Spectator ^ | 07/26/18 | H. W. Crocker III

[Enlightened1]

Of that we can be sure.

In the summer of 1862, just weeks before the Battle of Sharpsburg (or Antietam) — the bloodiest single day of fighting in American history — Union Captain George Armstrong Custer attended the wedding of Confederate Captain John “Gimlet” Lea at Bassett Hall in Williamsburg, Virginia, as best man. The Union officer was dressed in blue, the Confederate officer in grey, and Custer being Custer spent the next two weeks flirting with the Southern belle cousin of the bride, even joining her in singing “Dixie.”

At one point she told him, “You ought to be in our army.”

“What would you give me if I resigned my commission in the Northern army and joined the Southern?”

“You are not in earnest, are you?”

 

He wasn’t, of course. Custer was nothing if not loyal, and he believed that he was bound to the Union by the oath he had sworn at West Point, whatever his affection for Southern officers and their ladies.

Such gallantry seems unthinkable today, when members of the Trump administration are hounded from restaurants and theatres, and Confederate officers like John Lea, if they are remembered at all, are considered precursors of the German National Socialists, and their once famous and respected commanders like Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and Jeb Stuart have their statues toppled and banished from public squares, their names stripped from public schools, and their memories spat upon and disgraced.

[DiogenesLamp]

Lincoln believed that slavery could not be touched where it existed as it would require a constitutional amendment. On this he was certainly correct.

And then he did so on his authority alone, and in direct contravention of an explicit clause in the constitution which prevented him from doing this.

As far as secession being settled in your mind, what about West Virginia?

Another blatant violation of a very explicit constitutional clause. Yes, he and his government broke a lot of them. He even admits it in one of his letters.

So he attacked the South because they broke the unwritten Constitutional requirement to remain forever in the Union, but he broke explicit and written constitutional laws at will?

Sounds like a despot unbridled by law.

[DiogenesLamp]

I have seriously never heard anyone say that Lincoln started the war at Fort Sumter to prevent secession.

He started the war at Fort Sumter (By sending a fleet of warships to bombard the confederates surrounding the place) because he needed an excuse to stop the South from removing Washington DC's economic control of their trade with Europe.

Washington DC and New York would have faced dire economic circumstances had the South established direct trade with Europe because laws had been created which caused the vast bulk of all Southern output (which was 75% of all US Trade with Europe) to funnel through New York.

New York was siphoning off about 40% of all the money the South earned through their exports, and Washington DC was collecting the vast bulk of it's Federal revenue from the New York port of Entry for European imports in payment for Southern produced exports.

The Financial danger to the Power Barons of New York was actually greater than just the loss of 75% of the European trade income, but I won't get into that just yet, because it takes a bit to describe the threat. Just be assured the astute business men of New York were capable of seeing the monetary threat a free trade south posed to their own industries.

[DiogenesLamp]

"Well, HE started it!" is playground talk, and does not bear on either side's moral argument.

Years ago when I was teaching myself to think logically I ran across a list of examples of fallacy arguments. I realized these examples explained the fallacy in thinking behind various common arguments, and I embraced the idea that these examples constituted bad reasoning.

Years later I ran across the experiments conducted on Chimpanzees with Grapes and Cucumbers. I also ran across a book called "The Lucifer Principle" which made me aware of the irrationality of people.

I realized that Fallacy arguments are in fact the best arguments for convincing the general population of something, because most people do not make decisions based on reason or rationality, they make their decisions based on emotion and feelings. The heart really does lead the head for most people.

Therefore, the "You Started it!" argument may seem childish and silly to someone who is a thinking person, but to the vast majority of people who are susceptible to manipulation, it is the fulcrum by which they can be moved to action.

Lincoln was a master at manipulating the gullible. His efforts to present the South as having "started it!" was a master stroke of public manipulation, and without it, he could not possibly have convinced states to send men to conquer other states.

Lincoln knew the minds of people, and he knew how to pull the right emotional strings to get them to do what he wanted. This is also what made him a good lawyer.

I would love to spend an afternoon with you over this.

BroJoeK is the sort of fellow, that if you ask him for the time, he will give you long and tedious instructions on building a clock, and his instructions will contain a great deal of information which is factually incorrect or misleading.

If you want to know how seriously to take him, just ask him about how he believes Ft. Sumter to be the equivalent of Pearl Harbor.

[DiogenesLamp]

What do you think, DiogenesLamp, did I state your views accurately?

You have oversimplified and left out significant portions of it. It was not just about the European trade, it was about the capitalization of Southern Industry and the creation of direct competition with Northern industry through cheaper European goods flooding the American market then being served by Northern manufacturers.

It was also about the economic interests of the Territories and the wavering border states aligning with the South, eventually causing a cascade secession of those states and territories to the Confederacy.

In other words, it was about who was going to control the financial destiny of the larger portion of the North American continent.

The topic is complex and extensive, and you give my argument short shrift, I think partially because you don't understand it, and partially because you really really really don't want it to be correct.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "Years ago when I was teaching myself to think logically I ran across a list of examples of fallacy arguments."

I hope the teacher gave his student the F- he so richly deserved.

DiogenesLamp: "I realized that Fallacy arguments are in fact the best arguments for convincing the general population of something, because most people do not make decisions based on reason or rationality,"

In my experience virtually any argument can be declared a "fallacy" of some sort or another, and therefore we should look more carefully at each argument on its own merits, or lack of, rather than find some academic term -- i.e., "conjunction fallacy".

Let's consider this example: "Lincoln started war at Fort Sumter by sending a 'war fleet' to attack Confederates."
What fallacy name would we give such arguments?
I don't know, but let's evaluate:

1. Did Lincoln send a "war fleet"?
   Well, when Confederates opened fire on Union troops in Union Fort Sumter, in the dark of April 12, there were two Union ships standing by, in the dark: a transport (Baltic, 2,700 tons) and a revenue cutter (Harriet Lane, 600 tons).
   No report on SS Baltic's armaments, but USRC Harriet Lane was lightly armed and did fire a warning shot at the civilian merchantman Nashville the night of April 11.
   Nashville responded by raising its Union flag.

2. Does sending naval ships to resupply Union troops in a Union fort constitute an "act of war"?
   No.

3. Did Lincoln order his alleged "war fleet" to fire on Confederates at Charleston harbor?
   No, Lincoln's orders were, in effect, "no first use of force".

4. Did Lincoln realize his "war fleet" would start Civil War?
   Not necessarily, since Lincoln advised SC Governor Pickens there would be no use of force if resupplying Fort Sumter was not resisted.
   It could have gone peacefully.

5. Does threatening Union troops in a Union fort and demanding their surrender constitute an "act of war".
   Yes, of course.

6. Does launching a military assault on Union troops in a Union fort constitute an "act of war"?
   Obviously.

7. Did Jefferson Davis know he was starting war at Fort Sumter?
   Yes and he didn't care:
   "There would be to us an advantage in so placing them that an attack by them would be a necessity, but when we are ready to relieve our territory and jurisdiction of the presence of a foreign garrison that advantage is overbalanced by other considerations."
   Davis to Bragg, April 3, 1961
   
   
8. Was Davis warned not to fire on Fort Sumter?
   Yes, by his Secretary of State Toombs:
   "Mr. President, at this time it is suicide, murder, and will lose us every friend at the North.
   You will wantonly strike a hornet's nest which extends from mountain to ocean, and legions now quiet will swarm out and sting us to death.
   It is unnecessary; it puts us in the wrong; it is fatal."[15]

So who really started war at Fort Sumter -- the one who said he would start war if Sumter didn't surrender and then did, or the one who sent ships to resupply his own troops there, ships with orders, in effect, "no first use of force"?

Does it even matter?
Well, Lost Cause orthodoxy demands Lincoln be fully blamed for 700,000 soldiers and "millions" of civilian deaths, plus $billions in property destruction, and to be fully blamed, Lincoln must have started war at Fort Sumter by sending a "war fleet" to "attack" Confederates.
No "war fleet", no "attack", no blame, right?

So the logical fallacy names I'd give DiogenesLamp's arguments here are "rubbish" and "nonsense".
Does anyone disagree?

Lincoln's "war fleet", SS Baltic and USRC Harriet Lane:

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "BroJoeK is the sort of fellow, that if you ask him for the time, he will give you long and tedious instructions on building a clock..."

Your analogy is less than perfect, since what DiogenesLamp invariably does in not ask for the time, but rather constantly announces the wrong and contradictory times.
For example, when the sun is long set and it's dark outside, DiogenesLamp will announce for all to hear, "it's now high noon", and when questioned will say, "see, my clock says 12:00".
So an explanation of how clocks work would seem to be in order except that DiogenesLamp considers all such corrections "long and tedious" and so pays them no attention.
Further, since he requires it be "high noon" for his own purposes, any evidence to the contrary he simply dismisses.

DiogenesLamp: "...and his instructions will contain a great deal of information which is factually incorrect or misleading."

Those words certainly describe Diogeneslamp's "long and tedious" posts but we can verify that they are inaccurate regarding mine by noting that by his own numerous admissions, DiogenesLamp refuses to read my posts.

DiogenesLamp: "If you want to know how seriously to take him, just ask him about how he believes Ft. Sumter to be the equivalent of Pearl Harbor."

Lost Causers always claim 1861 was analogous to 1776 and 1861 Declarations of Secession equivalent to the 1776 Declaration of Independence.
I judge that analog to be far less credible than Fort Sumter and Pearl Harbor.

But after careful consideration, I do agree there were significant differences, for examples:

1. In 1940 President Roosevelt was warned not to send the US Navy ships to Pearl Harbor from San Diego because it might provoke Japanese to attack.
   Roosevelt ignored such warnings.

   In 1861 President Lincoln was, in effect, warned not to send US Navy ships to Fort Sumter from New York because it might provoke Confederates to attack.
   Lincoln ignored such warnings.

   So anybody can see these are two very different situations with no real analog between them.

2. After Pearl Harbor it was claimed that President Roosevelt knew in advance of the Japanese attack, not just theoretical possibility but specifics.
   However, no direct evidence of that has ever been found.

   After Fort Sumter it was claimed that President Lincoln knew in advance of the Confederate attack, not just theoretical possibility, but specifics.
   However, no direct evidence of that has ever been found.

   So anybody can see these are two very different situations with no real analog between them.

3. Pearl Harbor was the US most important military base near the Japanese.
   Fort Sumter was the US most important military base near the Confederates.

   So anybody can see these are two very different situations with no real analog between them.

4. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor it was strictly an air assault, air artillery, with no landing forces.
   When Confederates attacked Fort Sumter it was strictly an artillery assault, bombardment with no landing forces.

   So anybody can see these are two very different situations with no real analog between them.

5. US military people & facilities in & around Pearl Harbor in December 1941 represented about 4% of all US forces at the time.
   US military people & facilities in & around Fort Sumter in April 1861 represented about 4% of all US forces at the time.

   So anybody can see these are two very different situations with no real analog between them.

6. Killed on December 7, 1941 represented about 2% of US forces in & around Pearl Harbor.
   Killed on April 13, 1861 represented about 2% of US forces in & around Fort Sumter.

   So anybody can see these are two very different situations with no real analog between them.

7. Finally and most important, Pearl Harbor ended US internal debate and drove the US into the Second World War.
   Fort Sumter ended US internal debate and drove the US into the Civil War.

   So anybody can see these are two very different situations with no real analog between them.

Pearl Harbor and Fort Sumter: no comparisons, none, zero, nada:

</sarcasm>