Posted on 06/05/2023 8:59:33 PM PDT by grundle
Say a LOT of people, not just Marx. LOL! Nice try though to pass this all off as being Marxist.
Correctly stated -- every war has an economic dimension, but pure economics is almost never the root cause, or the trigger.
In the end, it usually comes down to money one way or the other - despite the claims of it being about something else.
One reason is because economics is all about free markets, where supply and demand set negotiated prices. If we don't like the price, we don't go to war over it, we simply substitute something else.
Overly simplistic. Wars over taxes, over access to the sea, over trading rights, over control of a valuable piece of land, over control of certain valuable resources, etc etc are ultimately about money. Money is what it boils down to.
Sorry, but that is the exact opposite of reality. In fact, by 1860 slavery had never been more productive or profitable in the Deep Cotton South. Both the numbers of slaves and prices for slaves were growing rapidly in 1860 -- the Deep South had never been more prosperous. Yes, in some Border Slave States, like Delaware and Maryland, where cotton was not grown and slaves could more easily escape via the Underground Railroad, slavery itself was struggling and more than half of African Americans had already been emancipated. But in the Deep Cotton South, in 1860 slavery was prospering and growing like never before.
Slavery was in retreat in places that were industrializing. The more industrial they were, the higher the percentage of freedmen, the few the slave owners, etc. It was the same pattern than had played out everywhere else that had industrialized. The Upper South - Maryland, Virginia, Tennessee - were already seeing slavery noticeably in retreat.
When you worship at the feet of Karl Marx, then economics and class warfare become the be-all and end-all of life, the one explanation which answers every question. When you reject Marx as your god, then you can begin to see that human beings are very often motivated by factors other than economic. Words that are meaningless and arcane to Karl Marx can become more important again, words like patriotism, love of God and country & Constitution, morality and ethics, commitment to the just cause, legal obligations, honor, the truth as opposed to lies, honesty as opposed to deception, family, friends and community, the list goes on and on. For good people such words mean a lot more than the price of gas or bread, or tariff percents on French wine. Short of starvation, we are not going to war over those, but we will go to war if you threaten our highest values.
Blah Blah Blah. A lot of people have noticed throughout history that most wars are about money - not just Marx. Nor is such an observation tied to Marxist political thought.
"All wars are undertaken for the acquisition of wealth" - Socrates
Lemme guess, he was a Marxist too.
A meaningless exercise. Who gets to determine necessity?
Each sovereign state by itself.
the 9th and 10th amendments reserve to the states the right to unilaterally secede. 3 states expressly reserved the right to unilaterally secede at the time that they ratified the constitution. Every state understood itself to have that right.
No, unfortunately not. I'd have to do some digging to see if I can find just Charleston Mercury articles aside from the famous one I posted.
Its the opposite. Had they intended that each state not have the right to do exactly what they had just done 8 years earlier when each unilaterally seceded from the British Empire, they would have noted it. Yet they did not. They even added one amendment to the constitution laying out that the rights listed in the Bill of Rights did not encompass all the rights there were (so nobody could argue silence = consent for the federal government to grab for more power) and they added another amendment which made clear any powers not delegated to the federal government by the states were reserved by the states.
No they didn't. Slavery was not threatened in the US.
So your argument is that the Confederacy itself *lied* about why they seceded and about why they started the Civil War? They lied in their official legislation they wrote and passed, their leaders lied in their public statements, etc.?
The information is readily available for people to look up and read. Takes all of a few seconds to find.
This argument does not hold water. It does not make sense to argue that the Confederate States *lied* in their own legislation that they wrote themselves and passed about why they were seceding and in their stump speeches, public speeches, editorials, etc. about why they seceded and about why they started the Civil War. Merely look up the raw material - read the secession resolutions. Read the editorials. Read the speeches. This information is not from a history book someone else wrote years later, some academic's claimed interpretation, etc. - these is their own words that they wrote, said, published, etc. themselves. And I believe them.
The information is readily available for people to look up and read. Takes all of a few seconds to find.
This argument does not hold water. It does not make sense to argue that the Confederate States *lied* in their own legislation that they wrote themselves and passed about why they were seceding and in their stump speeches, public speeches, editorials, etc. about why they seceded and about why they started the Civil War. Merely look up the raw material - read the secession resolutions. Read the editorials. Read the speeches. This information is not from a history book someone else wrote years later, some academic's claimed interpretation, etc. - these are their own words that they wrote, said, published, etc. themselves. And I believe them.
They didn't "lie". The Northern states really had violated the fugitive slave clause of the Constitution. They had also supported or at the very least refused to prosecute people in their states who financed or committed acts of terrorism against Southerners. That was all true as the historical record shows. Its just that that was not the reason why they seceded.
Read about Lincoln starting the war deliberately by sending a fleet of heavily armed warships to invade South Carolina's sovereign territory and read his letter of congratulation to his naval commander for getting the war that he wanted to begin.
Read the editorials. Read the speeches. Read the comments from political leaders. Read the declarations themselves and the speeches sent out along with them. Read the Corwin Amendment and Lincoln's first Inaugural Address in which he endorsed it. I have provided a lot of this information in this thread.
You clearly have not been reading all of this thread.
The CORWIN AMENDMENT proves that slavery was not threatened in the US.
And if that isn't enough for you, the UNION had slave states all through the war. In fact the UNION didn't get rid of slavery until about 8 months AFTER it was abolished in the Confederacy.
A big reason why they didn't want to be a part of the US was because they didn't trust the Republicans to respect slavery. As I've said over and over -- and as historians have said -- they feared that Lincoln could use his appointment power to build up an anti-slavery Republican Party in the South.
I can't think of any where there was a great deal of separation between New York and the Great Lakes states.
Even in the maps you show, the elections of 1960, 1968, 1976, and 1988 do show some of the Great Lakes States voting differently from the Midatlantic Tristate area. The same was true in 2016. Maps from the FDR era (say, 1928-1948) reveal a variety of different patterns. New York's FDR was a hero to the South and not that popular in the Midwest. Going back further into the late 19th century, the South voted as a solid bloc, and the North voted almost as a bloc. People remembered which side they fought on in the Civil War. But when Democrats did win, it's because of the swing states: New Jersey, Indiana, sometimes Connecticut, and New York above all. New York City's real electoral alliance was with the South. That started with Jefferson and Burr in 1800 and ended with Carter and McGovern in the 1970s.
There is some overlap in the voting between the Northeast and the Midwest. They were early industrializers and now they are old industrial/urban states. They had similar ancestry. They both fought for the union. But there were also serious rifts between the two. It's folly to think that Illinois or Wisconsin or Michigan were only singing New York City's tune in 1860. Such states were mostly agricultural then and no more beholden to New York City than the Southern states. In fact, a good deal less. Twenty or thirty years before, Michigan and Wisconsin had been the West. Cities there were small, and the largely agricultural population was quite independent minded.
But if you just want one big idea to explain everything, details don't matter.
The class aspect of secession is well-established. Oddly, in that respect you decline an economic interpretation, but it was widely commented on at the time, with the war being described as "a rich man's war but a poor man's fight." Smaller property holders, even non-slave owners, usually tended to have a major stake in the preservation of slavery because it was the foundation of the Southern economy and defined the Southern way of life.
The two major exceptions are notable, being the hill country of Alabama and West Virginia. In both cases, the poor quality of the land made it unsuitable for plantation agriculture, which mostly kept slavery out. They were mostly hostile to secession.
(2) The precipitating cause of the Civil War was the South's firing on Fort Sumter, which was ordered by Jefferson Davis directly to P. T. Beauregard in order to press forward with enough state secessions to make the Confederacy viable.
(3) Sectional animosities over slavery were so advanced by 1861 that the South did not find Northern promises to preserve slavery credible. Indeed, many in the South recognized, correctly, that slavery was not sustainable in the long run due to the fugitive slave problem and the need for constant territorial expansion to maintain slave prices.
Rejecting the work of historians in the field as biased and wrong-minded and rummaging about for supposed support in original sources is obsessive crankery.
Except they didn't either secede or go to war over slavery. Slavery was not threatened in the US. Unionist propaganda late in the war was that it was "all about slavery" because the Lincoln administration needed some kind of political cover for starting what he thought was going to be a walkover but what turned out to be a bloodbath.
After the war, this wartime propaganda and attendant hysteria was soon forgotten. It was only a century later when the 1960s Leftists came along and started their "long march through the institutions" that the all about slavery myth was revived in order to serve their political purposes. Only Yankees desperate to cling to their false sense of superiority and ignorant Leftists actually believe it.
This is both false, and directly contrary to the conclusions of economic historians. The Southern states focused on producing cash crops because that was the most profitable enterprise to invest in for a long time. That was starting to change and the Upper South was starting to industrialize by 1860.
(2) The precipitating cause of the Civil War was the South's firing on Fort Sumter, which was ordered by Jefferson Davis directly to P. T. Beauregard in order to press forward with enough state secessions to make the Confederacy viable.
Also false. The precipitating cause was the heavily armed flotilla of warships Lincoln sent to invade South Carolina's sovereign territory. The Confederacy would have been perfectly viable with just the original 7 seceding states.
(3) Sectional animosities over slavery were so advanced by 1861 that the South did not find Northern promises to preserve slavery credible. Indeed, many in the South recognized, correctly, that slavery was not sustainable in the long run due to the fugitive slave problem and the need for constant territorial expansion to maintain slave prices.
Also false. There simply was no real threat of slavery ending due to outside pressure in the states that still had it. The entire struggle over the western states was a power struggle over votes in the Senate as was pointed out numerous times by Southerners.
“What do you propose, gentlemen of the free soil party? Do you propose to better the condition of the slave? Not at all. What then do you propose? You say you are opposed to the expansion of slavery. Is the slave to be benefited by it? Not at all. What then do you propose? It is not humanity that influences you in the position which you now occupy before the country. It is that you may have an opportunity of cheating us that you want to limit slave territory within circumscribed bounds. It is that you may have a majority in the Congress of the United States and convert the government into an engine of Northern aggrandizement. It is that your section may grow in power and prosperity upon treasures unjustly taken from the South, like the vampire bloated and gorged with the blood which it has secretly sucked from its victim. You desire to weaken the political power of the Southern states, - and why? Because you want, by an unjust system of legislation, to promote the industry of the New England States, at the expense of the people of the South and their industry.” Jefferson Davis 1860 speech in the US Senate
in 1860, in the New Mexico Territory, an area which encompassed the area presently occupied by the States of New Mexico and Arizona, that there were a grand total of 22 slaves, only 12 of whom were actually domiciled there. If the South intended to be a “Slave Power,” spreading its labor system across the entire continent, it was doing a pretty poor job of it. Commenting on this fact, an English publication in 1861 said, “When, therefore, so little pains are taken to propagate slavery outside the circle of the existing slave states, it cannot be that the extension of slavery is desired by the South on social or commercial grounds directly, and still less from any love for the thing itself for its own sake. But the value of New Mexico and Arizona politically is very great! In the Senate they would count as 4 votes with the South or with the North according as they ranked in the category of slave holding or Free soil states”.
That is why the Southern states were perfectly happy to secede and not make any claim to the western territories of the US. They didn't need to spread slavery to a region which did not have the climate to produce anything that would have made it profitable anyway. Their only interest before was in votes in the Senate to protect themselves against ever more rapacious economic policies being passed by the North. Once they were out of the US, they no longer needed votes in the Senate and no longer cared about the western territories.
Perhaps, but I think it is a big mistake to dismiss the financial angle in any effort to understand what is happening in any sort of political issue.
As I've said over and over -- and as historians have said -- they feared that Lincoln could use his appointment power to build up an anti-slavery Republican Party in the South.
I understand the concept of allowing unelected federal bureaucrats to "regulate" something they don't like to death, so this is not an idle fear, but again I think the financial end of this would have created pushback from the people making their wealth as a result of slavery (and I mean people in the North as well as the South) and it would not likely have materialized as anything significant.
Even in the maps you show, the elections of 1960, 1968, 1976, and 1988 do show some of the Great Lakes States voting differently from the Midatlantic Tristate area.
I noticed that, but those would appear to me to be special cases, and the map doesn't provide the details of how significantly they differed. It may have only been a few percentage points.
The same was true in 2016.
Trump made heavy inroads into the working class "rust belt" Union members, and that's why he won Michigan, etc.
Maps from the FDR era (say, 1928-1948) reveal a variety of different patterns.
I looked at those. FDR was a phenomena, and of course he was going to get reelected to a 3rd and 4th term. Did you look at the maps from 1900?
Going back further into the late 19th century, the South voted as a solid bloc, and the North voted almost as a bloc.
Yes they did and I suspect a lot of that was just keeping up the hatred for the other side. I think remnants of that pattern have been affecting elections perhaps even to the present day.
New York City's real electoral alliance was with the South. That started with Jefferson and Burr in 1800 and ended with Carter and McGovern in the 1970s.
New York was making a lot of money off of the South, but they were also making a lot of money from the industrialized great lakes states. (Midwest) They wanted both of those sources of money to keep flowing.
It's folly to think that Illinois or Wisconsin or Michigan were only singing New York City's tune in 1860. Such states were mostly agricultural then and no more beholden to New York
Look up the "Graingers."
But if you just want one big idea to explain everything, details don't matter.
There is a lot of noise in the data, but there is also what I see as a pretty strong "signal" if you understand how those references apply.
New York is a concentration of economic and political power and it always has been. It exerts outsized influence on the rest of the nation and especially on states that use it or rely on it for revenue.
So if New York votes to keep slavery, there is a fair chance that it will convince it's economic allies to do so as well.
Because that's what the government has told us over and over again for the last 160 years. Therefore it must be true.
You are aping propaganda rather than looking at the actual data. You are also putting forth an argument that is logically absurd. You've been presented with the evidence that slavery was going to *BE* preserved in the Union, yet still you want to believe the propaganda that they left because they feared slavery would be destroyed.
This was clear in the debates and in the secession articles themselves if read honestly.
3, perhaps 4 secession articles, and reading it honestly is just swallowing *THEIR* propaganda. Of course they aren't going to talk about the money because they don't want people to notice that.
Virginia, for example, which you count as not seceding because of slavery, referred to "oppression" but the context matters, with Virginia declaring: "the Federal Government having perverted said powers not only to the injury of the people of Virginia, but to the oppression of the Southern slave-holding States."
Your problem in understanding Virginia is your assumption that they would not have objected to the Federal government attacking another state that wasn't a slave state.
Do you grasp what Virginia said, or can your mind only focus on the word "Slave"?
Virginia is objecting to the Federal government raising an army to subjugate states. That these states are slave states is incidental to the problem put forth.
THE GOVERNMENT IS ATTACKING STATES.
Did you not learn how to diagram sentences in high school or college? "slave-holding" is an adjective. It is not the Noun. It is not the target of the verb.
The class aspect of secession is well-established.
"Well established" means nothing to me. It was "well established" that Trump colluded with Russia and that he orchestrated an "Insurrection" at the capitol. Please spare me any arguments that rely on "experts said" or "everybody knows." Experts lie. "Authorities" lie.
Oddly, in that respect you decline an economic interpretation, but it was widely commented on at the time, with the war being described as "a rich man's war but a poor man's fight."
Which was referring to the fact that in the Union, a wealthy man could pay 300 dollars and could avoid service in the Army while a poor man could not.
Smaller property holders, even non-slave owners, usually tended to have a major stake in the preservation of slavery because it was the foundation of the Southern economy and defined the Southern way of life.
And you believe that because "experts" told you so.
How does a wealthy neighbor owning slaves help a man who doesn't? How are their economic interests aligned?
The two major exceptions are notable, being the hill country of Alabama and West Virginia. In both cases, the poor quality of the land made it unsuitable for plantation agriculture, which mostly kept slavery out.
Which is *EXACTLY* the case in the "territories" and is exactly why there never was going to be any significant slave presence in the "territories", and why it was therefore a lie to provoke fears of "expansion of slavery."
You could not grow cotton in the territories, therefore there was not going to be any significant slave presence in the territories. That was just a lie.
Back to letting other people do your thinking for you, eh?
Moreover, slavery depressed the wages and opportunities for low skilled factory labor needed for the development of manufacturing. Blaming the tariff for that is simply foolish, then and now.
Accepting those assertions as "true" is what is foolish. This is what you get when you let other people steer you toward what they wish for you to believe.
(2) The precipitating cause of the Civil War was the South's firing on Fort Sumter, which was ordered by Jefferson Davis directly to P. T. Beauregard in order to press forward with enough state secessions to make the Confederacy viable.
This is factually wrong. It was ordered by Secretary of War Walker, and it was a consequence of the arrival of the warships Lincoln sent to attack them. I have read the actual telegrams. Davis' name isn't on any of them. The exchange of messages was between Walker and Beauregard.
Did you know about the warships triggering the attack on Sumter?
Indeed, many in the South recognized, correctly, that slavery was not sustainable in the long run due to the fugitive slave problem
That's the funniest thing i've read all day. :)
Just how many fugitive slaves would render slavery unsustainable from the losses with a population of several million slaves? How often did they have slaves escape and why was this a mortal blow to the institution?
And now is a good time to inform you that the US constitution required the return of escaped slaves. It is in Article IV, section 2.
...and the need for constant territorial expansion to maintain slave prices.
Which I have demonstrated to you is a lie. There could never bee an "expansion." The territories couldn't grow cotton, and that was that.
The people warning of "expansion" were liars, and they were lying, and they were lying precisely to keep power in Congress.
The primary organization responsible for putting forth this allegation was the "Free Soil Party", located in New York New York. *THEY* are the ones telling everyone that "slavery was going to expand."
They were astroturf meant to make voters fear this so that they would vote in support of the Northeastern power block which already had control of congress.
They were like the "Black Lives Matter" political organization that went around spreading lies about the police and about Republicans just to help their political allies win more seats in congress.
It's the same playbook, it's just a century and a half later. The liberals are still lying and still using astroturf organizations to promote their political lies.
You might like for every election to be each half the country voting solidly against the other, but elections where the two parties appealed to the same audience helped to hold the country together.
Did you look at the maps from 1900?
William Jennings Bryan was the voice of the Plains and a spokesman for the troubled farmers. He was also the first candidate (apart from Fremont in 1856) from a state west of the Mississippi. He had massive support from the West because of his silver policy (more in 1896 than in 1900). And massive opposition in the East and Great Lakes States because of they saw his silver policy as funny money. And of course, the South was solidly Democratic. 1896 (and 1900) weren't typical elections.
New York was making a lot of money off of the South, but they were also making a lot of money from the industrialized great lakes states. (Midwest) They wanted both of those sources of money to keep flowing.
New York was an industrial state and NYC was still an industrial city in those days. Policies that benefited Ohio or Michigan benefited New York. It might have been fashionable to think of NYC as a blood-sucking exploiter, but that wasn't the reality.
So if New York votes to keep slavery, there is a fair chance that it will convince it's economic allies to do so as well.
But it didn't. And the states that did ratify the amendment did so on their own, not at the behest of New York City or New York state.
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.