Posted on 08/01/2022 9:00:05 AM PDT by DiogenesLamp
For some time I have wondered how to explain the cause of the Civil War in simple terms that are easy to understand. I now see that Ayn Rand did it years ago. Laws passed by a Northern controlled Congress routed all the money produced by the South into Northern "elite" pockets.
The fact that the Union warships did not fire on the Confederate batteries firing on Fort Sumter is solid evidence that they were not ordered there to attack the Confederates. Their orders only allowed the use of force to aid the resupply effort, which never took place.
After all these months of discussing this, you post this thing that makes me believe you do not understand what happened?
Captain Mercer was to take command of the fleet and direct it's resources. I think i've even seen an order to that effect sometime back.
The ships that arrived in Charleston were expecting Captain Mercer to sail the Powhatan into their midst, and take charge of the operation. They were instructed to wait for his arrival.
Captain Mercer wasn't coming. Lincoln had made certain he wasn't coming, but also made certain that nobody outside of him, Lieutenant Porter, and that guy in the shipyard, knew he wasn't coming.
The Confederates thought he was coming. The flotilla of ships thought he was coming. They weren't going to do anything until he arrived.
Do you now grasp the situation?
Their orders only allowed the use of force to aid the resupply effort, which never took place.
My recollection is that their orders were conditional on Sumter not having fallen.
Without them showing up, there likely would have been no attack. That is the impression you get from reading Beauregard's messages.
No, *YOUR* ancestors were pawns used by evil men who fought and caused the deaths of 750,000 people directly, perhaps millions indirectly, and subjugated 30 million people under their rule.
You keep forgetting that Lincoln offered up Permanent slavery in the USA forever.
You don't get to play the moral "slavery" high card when your side was deliberately selling out the slaves.
The fact that *YOUR* side was deliberately selling out the slaves ought to be a clue to you that they were actually evil people.
Something that doesn't seem to be getting through to you is the fact they didn't have to fight to keep blacks in bondage. Lincoln and the Northern Republicans were *GIVING* it to them.
Permanent USA slavery is what Lincoln and his cohorts offered them. All they had to do was take the deal.
So spare us the moral outrage. Your side offered permanent bondage. Your side was *NOT* the good guys.
Nope. That's a lie. All the evidence available demonstrates that states had a right to leave.
The *ONLY* evidence you have to the contrary are two letters from James Madison, and one of those was written decades after the fact! Even those letters are contradicted by the fact Madison was on the committee that wrote Virginia's ratification statement, and *THAT* specifically says Virginia has a right to secede.
The constitution has no authority to forbid secession any more than the Magna Carte of England could forbid secession.
Self determination is a human right.
Excellent point. I've long argued it is the same liberal progressive class of wealth and privilege that has always been the problem in this nation.
And they still live in Martha's vineyard and the Hamptons.
The "do-gooders" (like today's progressives) dreaming of an immediate and successful integration of the two different cultures (African-slave vs European-American) were concentrated in small areas of big cities and near the Ivy colleges (Yale, Harvard) or elite old churches in New England. Their uopian fantasies worked about as well as George W. Bush's assurance that the Middle Easterners would embrace democracy if we just went over there and got rid of a few overlords.
This. Exactly right.
Just some critical bits. I have a fair bit of historical knowledge regarding other parts of history, but in the last few years I have been researching and focusing on the lead up to the civil war.
I never study the battles or military engagements because they do not speak to the principles involved.
I regard the ability to separate from a corrupt DC government as a possible necessity in the future.
Have no affinity for the South or slavery, but this principle that people have a right to leave a corrupt and oppressive government is quite important in my opinion.
You poor self-deluded creature.
Do you now grasp the situation?
Do you understand in a naval formation that the senior officer afloat is to Command? Mercer not being there means that the next senior officer assumes command of the formation and carries out the orders for the mission. Since Fox did not order the supply mission to start, the naval forces stood by.
Permanent USA slavery
No. The Corwin Amendment only limited the action of the U.S. Government. Any state in the Union could abolish slavery as it saw fit.
This message appears to be one of those such times. With most people, I can just breeze through the discussion with references from my memory, or the few links I can still remember how to fine, but with you, it's always plodding dog tiring work to give you back a good answer.
You kinda take the fun out of having these arguments. :)
Your response will have to wait till I get bored enough with the replies, and then I will go try to look up the information.
You poor self-deluded creature.
It is slowly becoming fascinating to me why you keep thinking this statement is incorrect. Every single time you see it, you make some sort of objection, and yet you never offer a good explanation as to how you see it as untrue.
Would Fox have seen his orders to administrate the resupply effort as carte blanche to attack? I doubt it. Mercer was chosen for that task, and then very quietly detached from service (by the President) while a little Lieutenant took command of his ship.
As the rest of the ships came up, the fort was already under attack. Wasn't going to be an attempted resupply under those conditions.
But here's the thing. If I go to the trouble of running down the orders and messages i've seen and demonstrate that the intent of the flotilla was to wait for Mercer to take charge and lead them, will this have any effect on your beliefs regarding who started this?
I'm thinking "no", and so it makes me wonder why I should go to the bother.
You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink.
If you know he isn't going to drink, why bother leading him to the water?
No. The Corwin Amendment only limited the action of the U.S. Government. Any state in the Union could abolish slavery as it saw fit.
A quibble. For everyone alive at that time, slavery was likely to remain in at least one of the states for a duration beyond their lifetime.
We all acknowledge that slavery would eventually die out. Anyone with sense can see the natural progression of abolition through the states, and it was only a matter of time before the decline in economic value coupled with the increase of societal disdain, would eventually result in the wealthy plantation owners deciding they didn't need it anymore, because it was making them look bad in front of all their society friends.
But at the time the Corwin Amendment was put forth, and for all the people then alive, "permanent" is a pretty good word.
The point is that these ships did not have orders to attack Charleston as you claim in many of these discussions.
In the days before movies, radio, TV, and the internet people read more than they do today. If you were a farmer and it was winter and you'd done all your work, you might take down a book and read. If you were a shopkeeper and a travelling company came to town once or twice a year, you might got to a show. Factory girls in the early Lowell mills had their own literary magazine. Of course, for many people, life was too hard and work too exhausting to leave much time for reading, but that wasn't the whole picture..
People all over the country may have had little opinion about slavery per se, but many opinions about who would move in to their community, and whether they would be compatible neighbors.
You're making my point for me. People had opinions. Those opinions couldn't all be reduced to "hatred bordering on insanity." You're also contradicting ourself. People that weary from having to work from having to work all day, may not have had the energy to agitate about outsiders and newcomers.
Every individual and all they brought with them either enhanced the community or dragged it down; so the prospect of a dispersal of former slaves was indeed a large concern.
Few Northerners thought large numbers of African-Americans were coming North (those who did were likely to be Democrats and Copperhead Southern sympathizers), but many didn't object to a black family or two living in the neighborhood. People "kept to their own," but they weren't always going to drive out newcomers if the newcomers also "kept to their own."
A lot also depended on where you lived. All sorts of people lived in city neighborhoods, and Eastern states had long established African-American families. Yes, there were incidents. There were also anti-Catholic riots. But racial violence weren't as common as you guys think. There were also times when Northerners mobbed slave catchers trying to take escaped slaves back to bondage.
The "do-gooders" (like today's progressives) dreaming of an immediate and successful integration of the two different cultures (African-slave vs European-American) were concentrated in small areas of big cities and near the Ivy colleges (Yale, Harvard) or elite old churches in New England.
The places where the American Revolution got started? Well, first of all, people who opposed slavery didn't usually envision an integrated society. They just thought slavery was wrong and wanted an end to it. Secondly, what is this idea that that 160 years ago and now are the same? Look back over the whole of our history and you find much variety. It's not like the good guys and bad guys always came from the same part of the country. Some people are fighting an endless war against another part of the country and thinking that everything that comes out of some part of the country is devil and depraved, but when America was successful it worked by bringing people from different regions together, not by making them hate each other.
How you arrive at that conclusion is beyond my ability to comprehend. The orders clearly say force is to be used *if resisted* and "resisted" is baked into the cake.
The ships did indeed have orders to attack them. That's what "use force" means.
And just to clarify, the ships weren't going to attack "Charleston" as your statement above implies, they were going to attack the Confederate forces surrounding Sumter.
It's meaning does not need explanation. People who can read understand it's meaning just by reading it.
It was going to allow any state that wanted slavery to keep it until that state decided to voluntarily get rid of it.
That means "permanently", or "indefinitely" (no defined time limit) if you prefer.
How you can keep denying that I cannot grasp.
Because it is a lie that you pronounce as fact.
Looks pretty much like a fact to me. Can someone else help me out here? X, BroJoeK, Bullsnipe, can any of you tell me what is wrong with saying the Corwin Amendment would make slavery permanent in the United States? (Effectively Permanent.)
If any of you chime in, how about offering a duration for how long the Corwin Amendment would keep slavery in the USA?
You are now weaseling out on, “The North was going to make slavery permanent. They passed an amendment through congress to make slavery permanent (Corwin Amendment) and Lincoln supported this amendment.” How was the “North” going to make Slavery Permanent? Wouldn’t the Amendment also need ratification by the South? So what you really mean is that had the Corwin Amendment passed, the North and South would have made it possible for Slavery to become permanent. Do you not see your own bigotry? Buchanan also supported it. He actually signed it. God knows you try, but if you lived a thousand lifetimes you’d never become as wise as Lincoln.
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