The REAL cause of the Civil War.

Vanity | 1957 | Ayn Rand

[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.

[servantboy777]

Appreciate the input. Interesting to read the perspective of a Northerner. Not being sarcastic. Good debate.

So that it is clear, slavery was repugnant. The U.S. has done more in our own country to right the wrong of this era than any country around the world to this day. Yet there is still this victim mentality among blacks today. Victimhood fomented by guilty white liberals and perpetuated by hapless keystone republicans.

Say what you will, it was the African native that enslaved and sold their own countrymen. It was the spoils of tribal conflict. Conquer rival tribes, take their possessions, choice woman, children, animals and the rest went up for barter/sale.

Northern states enjoyed slavery for many years as well, so not all hands are clean in this regard. To some extent, the policy of recolonization was bred from thoughts of superiority to the black man by those who supported the ideology. The ideology held by Lincoln and President Grant among many others.

As to the start of the civil war, the broader point I make is the federals were back then and are now doing what they do, controlling every single aspect of a citizen’s life.

Southerners had endured the heavy hand of the federals and they’d had had enough.

States’ rights were being trampled. Over taxation and regulation. The federal government’s attempts to thwart the Southern states from trading with European countries for farm needs led to angst in Southerners.

Again, the overwhelming majority of Southerners did not own or hold slaves. They were fighting for their way of life against federal overreach and yes, slave labor was part of that. Many were farming and needed labor to keep these operations going...incidentally agriculture to help feed/cloth the nation.

And so here we are. 160 years later still dealing with federal overreach, over taxation, monumental federal fiscal mismanagement, screwed up foreign policy and all the woke nonsense from both democrats and republicans at the federal level.

The same sorts up in D.C., republican and democrat, from the North and the South still supporting slavery by striking trade deals, sending billions in aid to countries that to this day still enslave their citizens. Some countries very brutally...hint, hint...Communist Chinese.

I find it a bit hypocritical all this talk about “white supremacy” particularly when millions in this country walk around sporting athletic apparel and shoes manufactured with slave labor. lol

Back then until now Aug, 4th 2022....It’s all about STATES RIGHTS. Federalism has been circumvented by unelected, extra constitutional federal bureaucratic agencies with thousands upon thousands of burrowed bureaucrats working night and day to regulate OUR behavior.

My point today lends validity to my ancestor’s contentions of the pre-war era before the beginning of the war of Northern aggression.

Are we as Americans today still supporting slavery with the off shoring of American manufacturing? Here is a link or two that may help answer that question.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/BL-CJB-9896

http://www.endslaverynow.org/act/action-library/learn-about-forced-labor-in-china

https://www.jihadwatch.org/2019/10/slavery-persists-in-saudi-arabia

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/22/signs-of-forced-labor-found-in-chinas-ev-battery-supply-chain-report.html

[Albion Wilde]

Lacking in originality as well. See if you can form a thought without copying others. Or projecting.

By the way, I’m not a southerner; and not on the “side” of either faction of this conflict. But that would have required and open mind to have seen, instead of your prejudice and superior attitudes.

[BroJoeK]

Albion Wilde: "Amen. As many have noted upthread, it was really about the money. The attacks on morality were some of the psy-ops of that particular war."

Our FRiend DiogenesLamp has long argued that for Southern secessionists it was only about money -- the money corrupt Northern politicians & businessmen were illegitimately taking from honest, hard-working Southern slaveholders.
He tells us that all that money flowing through New York or Philadelphia should have flowed through Southern ports like Charleston or New Orleans, and that's the "real reason" for secession.

So,yes, DiogenesLamp's arguments do make at least some sense, but... but I like to think there was more than crass cash at stake.
After all, none of the official "Reasons for Secession" documents of the time mentioned "money flows from Europe" or "Northeastern Power Brokers", and I think we should give those people at least some credit for knowing why they seceded.

As for Union motives, claims that Lincoln was overly focused on tariff revenues from Confederate ports ALL come from Confederate propagandists and are not confirmed by less hostile sources.
And, no doubt one reason is that only about 6% of Federal tariff revenues came from all Southern ports combined.
So revenues from Charleston Harbor cannot have been foremost on Lincoln's mind when he decided to resupply Union troops in Fort Sumter.

Still, it's unrealistic to suppose money had nothing to do with Union motives. On the other hand, money was never emphasised by either Northern or Southern leaders, so it seems a little presumptuous to project our own feelings onto them.

[Albion Wilde]

You have descended into pathos in your borrowed valor from a long-dead relative at a long-gone time.. Live in today’s world, why don’t you. This forum can provide friendship and camaraderie; yet you think making enemies and calling names is somehow a worthy adult pastime. It isn’t. It’s juvenile. You probably voted for Biden.

[Albion Wilde]

it seems a little presumptuous to project our own feelings onto them.

I would say the same to you about your theories. Calm, rational arguments do not resort to fevered subheadlines, bold type, pull quotes and making it personal about the topic at hand. It's nice to debate. It's most unpleasant to be argued against by people with an ego ax to grind. Stick to the topic and debate with civility. It's an art.

[x]

Still, it's unrealistic to suppose money had nothing to do with Union motives. On the other hand, money was never emphasised by either Northern or Southern leaders, so it seems a little presumptuous to project our own feelings onto them.

Very good point. Countries winning wars or staying together or winning independence can have economic consequences, but that doesn't mean that economic reasons were always the main cause of wars. German domination of the world would have changed things for everyone. America's defeat of Germany and Japan made us the world's top country, but that doesn't mean we went to war to become the world's top country.

If we are going to talk about materialistic motives for war, the slaveowners feelings that slavery was threatened by a Republican administration and that the cotton boom was likely to go on forever have to be considered. They can't simply be turned into a desire for freedom. And we can't just pretend that the Confederates were fighting against LGBTQ and today's other modish causes. That's imposing the issues of our own day on the past.

[Albion Wilde]

Interesting, if accurate, about Uncle Tom's Cabin. I'm sure it captivated the masses with its fundamental truths, just like the story of George Floyd did in our times, sparking numerous statue pull-downs, murals, paintings, graphic t-shirts, school holidays, massive donations to the esteemed organization BLM, and saccharine virtue-signalling on every corporate web site. It got a lot of mileage. But then, human beings are so different today from human beings then.

[BroJoeK]

odawg: "Not confirmed by non-hostile original sources??? And I am sure you are familiar with the tons and tons of original sources, hostile and non-hostile. Yep, sure you are."

Well, yes, we have discussed these topics before, many times, and looked at the Lincoln quotes in depth, and, it turns out that all of them do come from pro-Confederate propagandists.

Yes, some have quoted Lincoln's first inaugural address, where he does mention collecting revenues from Confederate ports.
But we also know that Lincoln was willing to make a deal, to trade Fort Sumter in exchange for Virginia's promise not to succeed.
So money cannot have been Lincoln's only concern.

odawg: "By the way, how many “Lost Causes” are you familiar with that you can draw such grandiose summations?
You are so full of crap."

For sure, one of us is, and I've seen nothing yet in the way of fact-based arguments from you, FRiend.

[BroJoeK]

Bull Snipe: "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."

Right, Gustavus Fox was in command of the mission, nobody else.
Fox arrived on the SS Baltic early in the morning of April 12.
Fox attempted to accomplish his mission, which was to launch small boats from the Baltic with supplies for Fort Sumter, during the day of April 12, but his small boats were forced back to the Baltic by rough seas.
So Fox decided to wait for calmer seas, but before they came, Maj. Anderson surrendered Fort Sumter.

So, as it turned out, Capt. Mercer and the Powhattan had nothing to do with anything.
Their presence would have made no difference to Fox or Maj. Anderson in Fort Sumter.
This whole issue is just another Lost Cause red herring.

[BroJoeK]

Albion Wilde: "Lacking in originality as well."

No, but you have been spewing a lot of pompous garbage talk and I merely spit it right back at you.

Albion Wilde: "See if you can form a thought without copying others. Or projecting."

And there's a good example. See if... yourself!

Albion Wilde: "By the way, I’m not a southerner; and not on the “side” of either faction of this conflict.
But that would have required and open mind to have seen, instead of your prejudice and superior attitude."

I've read your posts on this thread and "prejudice and superior attitude" are the very definition of "Albion Wilde".
Pot, meet kettle.

Now I see where you claim a highly superior education at some elite institution, where doubtless you were indoctrinated that there is no sucha thing as "objective truth", only "my truth" or "your truth" and nobody's "truth" is better than anybody else's, right?

So, that's why you are here to convince Union supporters that "our truth" is all nonsense and pro-Confederate "truths" are all just fine & dandy, right?

But in reality, you are just another DiogenesLamp, a self-described Northerner, who years ago sold his very soul to the Lost Cause (and for what??), and over the years it's driven him slowly but certainly insane with hatred for Northerners that he never met & doesn't know a thing about, but somehow believes they are all evil enough to need severe punishment!

Where in the world can such self-loathing come from?
I have no idea, but first learned about it many years ago in relation to some Jews who, it was said, felt guilty for having survived the Holocaust.
All that is utterly incomprehensible to me, but here's what I do know:

DiogenesLamp started this thread using Ayn Rand, of all people, to help justify his own Lost Cause explanations of the Civil War.

The responses that followed are all pretty typical of FR CW threads, and many of the posters are familiar from many previous threads.
Some of us are growing weary of seeing the same Lost Cause lies posted over & over, but we are sustained by our faith that the real truth -- not "your truth" or "my truth" -- must eventually win out, if only its most loyal defenders don't abandon it.

Your Big Lie, Albion Wilde, is to claim that anyone on Free Republic "hates the South" or "hates Southerners".
What we hate is lies, self serving lies, and that is what we too often see from defenders of the Lost Cause.

Does that include you? You are not off to a good start here.

[BroJoeK]

Bull Snipe: "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."

Exactly right. In Lincoln's mind Corwin changed nothing that wasn't already understood about the U.S. Constitution -- slavery could still be abolished by States whenever they wanted to.

By stark contrast, the Confederate constitution did effectively make abolition impossible and that is why seceding States had no interest in Corwin, when they could have guaranteed slavery forever.

[jeffersondem]

“Our Founders believed that what we might call “secession” was morally, legally justified under two, but only two, conditions: From necessity, as they experienced in 1776, when, for examples, the Brits had already a year earlier formally declared war on Americans and waged several major battles against us. Our Founders believed that under such oppression & injuries they had no choice except to declare independence. By mutual consent as our Founders achieved in, for example, their 1788 “secession” from the old Articles of Confederation and ratification of their new Constitution.
Now, it happened that under British laws in 1776, slavery was lawful in all 13 American colonies, and yet our Founders declared independence in the name of “All men are created equal,” so how could that even work? The answer they adopted was to begin gradually abolishing slavery with the Northern-most States, like Massachusetts, then gradually work southward, through Pennsylvania, New York & New Jersey.
And at the time, every Founder, including Southerners, at least gave lip service to abolitionism, and even supported abolition wherever possible — notably in the then Northwest Territories and in international imports of slaves.
Southerners like Thomas Jefferson even proposed Federally funded compensated emancipation & Recolonization of freed slaves. So that was the deal at the time, and it held up until roughly the 1830s, when proposed abolition in Virginia failed, largely due to a recent slave revolt and Virginians’ fears over what harm large numbers of freed slaves might do.
Anyway, that was our Founders’ answer to jeffersondem’s astute question, and I, for one, am not at all sure how toimprove on them.”

At the time of my last communication with Brother jmacusa, he was taking on water.

When the man needs a Type I flotation device, you throw him an anchor.

[Albion Wilde]

You are way, way off base in your guesses about me. It’s sad when a person such as yourself who so desires to be seen as an authority is so threatened by another person’s actual fluency in the English language that he sees some sort of conspiracy.

Again, I’m not a northerner nor a southerner, not a fan nor an admirer of the Democrat Party in any era or region of the United States at any time, not here to refight the CW but to discuss it objectively, and not interested in your emotions.

Learn to debate with civility.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "What would they be "preempting" then? I very greatly doubt you will say "a coming attack." "

My point here remains valid, aggressor nations often use the excuse of "preemptive attack" to justify starting a war -- most recently, we've seen Russians claiming Ukraine was getting ready to attack, and that's why Russia was forced to invade.
And I'll repeat: history normally doesn't look kindly on such claims.

Now it seems you dislike comparison of Fort Sumter & Pearl Harbor, but it's you, FRiend, who used the "preemptive attack" defense.
Pearl Harbor was a Japanese "preemptive attack" while the U.S. waited patiently until after the actual attack before waging war against Japan.
I could list any number of other examples of "preemptive attacks", and show you how they didn't work out so well, if needed?

[Albion Wilde]

Your Big Lie, Albion Wilde, is to claim that anyone on Free Republic "hates the South" or "hates Southerners". What we hate is lies, self serving lies, and that is what we too often see from defenders of the Lost Cause.

At no point am I the one who engaged in "hate" language on this thread.

Once again, I'm not here to take sides in a past war; I'm interested in its lessons and unintended consequences affecting us today. Not guilty of your outlandish claims.

And really, really not interested in your emotions.

[DiogenesLamp]

“... the Federal Government having perverted said powers, not only to the injury of the people of Virginia, but to the oppression of the Southern slaveholding States ...”

Referring to the "Southern slave holding states" is a correct manner of describing who they were talking about, but that does not equate to mean "We are leaving because of slavery." They are leaving because of Tyrannical actions by the Federal government in raising an army to oppress them.

I know you very very badly want to make everything related to the civil war about "slavery", but Virginia has not made a statement to the effect that they are leaving because the Union government is threatening slavery. It has made a statement to the effect that they are leaving because the Union government is threatening states who left. Presumably Virginia would have been just as incensed had the US Government attacked Massachusetts and Connecticut if they attempted to leave, just as they talked about doing at the Hartford convention in 1812.

You may not be aware of this, but *ALL* the Southern states were slave holding, but the Federal government had no problem with that. They offered the "Corwin Amendment" to guarantee the right of states to have slaves.

[DiogenesLamp]

If the South had won the war would it have freed the slaves?

Eventually.

If there had been no war, would the USA have freed the slaves?

[DiogenesLamp]

Those alleged quotes are pro-Confederate propaganda, nothing more.

Only you could conclude that Lincoln's own words spoken in his first inaugural address are somehow "Confederate Propaganda."

[odawg]

“But we also know that Lincoln was willing to make a deal, to trade Fort Sumter in exchange for Virginia’s promise not to succeed.”

Lincoln refused to meet with a Southern peace delegation before Ft. Sumter. He definitely was not willing to make a deal. He wanted war.

[DiogenesLamp]

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."

Their legislators certainly didn't get the word. For some reason they passed all sorts of nasty, horrible, draconian laws meant to keep Black people away.