[razorbak]

The South had become too dependent on slavery. I say that as an urepentant Southerner. Slavery would have eventually ended, but it has forever tarnished the South's claims of the moral high ground. And yes I am fully aware of the absolute duplicity, cynicism and hypocrisy of the exploitation of the issue by many Northerners with ulterior motives. The shame of it is that had the South been successful, one positive by-product would be a weaker central government, and the country would not be as far down the road toward socialism and the radical liberal agenda that has been so efficiently applied by corrupt national courts and politicians. This nation has paid a bitter price for slavery, and continues to today with the rampant welfare system and anti-constitutional minority voting block.

[Media Insurgent]

I'm going to start a bunch of threads making the case that Carthage was right during the Punic Wars and start pi$$ing and moaning about the "War of Roman Aggression" and generally playing woulda, shoulda, coulda about the whole thing. I figure if so many people are excited to play Monday Morning Quarterback over a war that ender almost 140 years ago, then there's got to be a ton of pent up demand over something that was over 2,000 years ago! Any "Neo-Carthaginians" out there care to join me?

[FreedomNotSafety]

Great post. Not irrelevant at all if you look geographically at the last election's electorial college results. WHAT IF today a state decided to seceed? Would we really take up arms again? Walter Williams believes we are already two countries. We are certainly developing a very harsh ideological split. Now we just need for geography and ideology to line up a little better, so that those of us that love freedom and detest heavy handed government, can part with those that would impose via government fiat their will on us. It may be a stretch, but with all levels of government taking 60% or more of our income, we are fighting slavery.

[capitan_refugio]

"Fellow-Countrymen:

"At this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.

"On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, urgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war—seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.

"One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."

A. Lincoln
March 4, 1865

[pttttt]

Jefferson Davis bump.

See http://www.state.ky.us/agencies/parks/wkyframes/jefdav2-body.htm, also http://jeffersondavis.rice.edu.

[SolidSupplySide]

The North didn't dare give him a trial, knowing that a trial would establish that secession was not unconstitutional, that there had been no 'rebellion' and that the South had got a raw deal."

This makes no sense. A trial would have established that secession was not unconstitutional? Then why did Texas v. White determine that secession *was* unconstitutional?

[SolidSupplySide]

Although this was the way the federal government planned to proceed, that prolific South-hater, Thaddeus Stevens, couldn't keep his mouth shut and he let the cat out of the bag. Stevens said: "The Southerners should be treated as a conquered alien enemy...This can be done without violence to the established principles only on the theory that the Southern states were severed from the Union and were an independent government de facto and an alien enemy to be dealt with according to the laws of war...No reform can be effected in the Southern States if they have never left the Union..." And, although he did not plainly say it, what Stevens really desired was that the Christian culture of the Old South be 'reformed' into something more compatible with his beliefs. No matter how you look at it, the feds tried to have it both ways - they claimed the South was in rebellion and had never been out of the Union, but then it had to do certain things to 'get back' into the Union it had never been out of. Strange, is it not, that the 'history' books never seem to pick up on this?

Even the Radical Republicans refused to accept Stevens' arguments. Even Radical Republicans claimed that secession was illegal. Reconstruction was justified on the grounds that the federal government had the responsibility to ensure republican forms of government in the southern states. After the war, the federal government found no state governments (the officials had fled) and created a military government. To suggest Stevens' viewpoints were mainstream is absurd. To do that would be like quoting Ron Paul (R-TX) today and say he speaks for the dominant faction of today's Republican Party.

The author of this essay needs to brush up on history.

[PatrioticAmerican]

This has been hashed out already.

[MissAmericanPie]

Some freepers are obviously enjoying dreams of leaving the union tonight given some of the threads.

[sandydipper]

Lets do it!

[Spok]

"Political power comes from the barrels of guns." Chairman Mao
The republic has been on a slippery slope since Appamatox. The rule of law is a fiction. As recently as the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, congress cited it's jurisdiction by basing it on the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. Now laws are passed without a second's thought of Constitutional authority-they're legitimized by the power to compel obedience. Mao was right.
Having said that, this country wouldn't be what it is today if it had fragmented into feifdoms-the division between North and South wouldn't have been the last fracture in the Union. As a practical matter, Lincoln was right. He just didn't happen to have the law on his side. That's why the war was so hard fought-from their perspectives, both sides were right.

[quadrant]

As a southerner, I consider the secession of South one of the more foolish political acts of the last two hundred years. It is an act comparable to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor or the German declaration of war on the United States in 1941.
Secession, by its nature, was a political and not a legal question. Had the South attempted to leave the Union through an act of Congress, it is possible that the North might have been amenable to sort of separation, especially since by 1860 many abolitionists had concluded that slavery would never be abolished except by force, a step that few in the North were willing to take. In fact, many Northerners, and not only the abolitionists, damned union with the slaveholding South, and thought it better to rend the Union than to continue the relationship.
Linclon would have been averse to legal separation, but he was elected by only a minority of votes and in a weak political position. But if the South were to have been reasonable and willing to solve the crisis peacefully, Linclon might have forced to accept a compromise that went against his desire to perserve the Union.

[fightu4it]

To a student of early US history the very idea that the people and politicans of a territory, in the time period of the early 1800's, would sign a monument for statehood that forbad their leaving the union is laughable, at best.

[ZULU]

Right again Aurelius. There is NOTHING in the Constitution addressing Seccession of a state. The Tenth Amendment clearly states that any powers not delegated to the Federal Government are reserved to the people and the states.

[MEGoody]

I suppose that, if the south wanted to secede from the union, they should have been allowed to do so. But we would have missed so much if they had - sweet iced tea, great barbeque, some of the prettiest music in the world.

And of course, I would have missed marrying my wonderful husband.

[jwh_Denver]

bt

[Burr5]

Is it just me, or didn't the unjustly-dealt-with confederacy fire on Fort Sumter FIRST, starting the war?

God, I don't care to re-fight this.

Where individual human beings have no rights, "state's rights" are laughably irrelevant.