Posted on 11/03/2015 6:52:26 AM PST by don-o
Let me know if your feet ever touch the ground.
It is just as accurate to say the war was fought because Davis chose to begin it. Had he chosen not to begin it, it would not have been fought.
No, it was you who made the claim post 149 that Lincoln paved the way for our national decline. If you wish to withdraw that claim and limit it instead to a claim that Lincoln has caused you to suffer a decline in your personal liberties, the claim is still extravagant.
Maybe we should prepare a list of the personal liberties that Lincoln destroyed for you. I will start the list with number 1:
1) Lincoln destroyed your personal liberty to own slaves.
See if you can find anything else to put on the list as number 2. Maybe you can find a railroad regulation or something that is limiting you in a personal liberty that you would have enjoyed prior to 1860.
I suspect that the list ends at number 1, Boogieman. No wonder you are unhappy.
But there was disagreement about whether states could unilaterally secede, and disagreement about what would become of federal property in the states in question. Under those circumstances it was not out of place for the federal government to hold onto the forts until a resolution could be achieved.
That was as much of a reality as anything the secessionist wanted or believed. If you want to find a resolution of the conflict you have to take the beliefs of both sides into account -- not simply dismiss one side of the argument and start shooting and put all the blame on the other guys.
But you knew that from the beginning, didn't you? Shay's Rebellion, the Whiskey Rebellion, Aaron Burr. Not to mention Indian and slave uprisings.
The idea that Americans would be rising up all the time against big government if it weren't for Lincoln, just won't fly. We get big government because half the country is willing to vote for it. Very few people are going to take up arms over that.
And what if half the country were rising up every time it had a grievance with the way an election went? What would the country look like now? Would we seriously be freer?
And what was the "unconstitutional overreach" that the secessionist were resisting? What was it that the federal government did that made mad enough to revolt? Not what happened later, after the first secessions, but what happened before South Carolina took down the American flag?
It sort of sounds like somebody made a massive blunder -- wasting the right of legitimate rebellion -- over an unworthy issue. But who's to say we don't still have the right of rebellion, if we feel it's necessary and choose to exercise it (this time perhaps over a more worthwhile matter)?
So many questions.
“But you knew that from the beginning, didn’t you? Shay’s Rebellion, the Whiskey Rebellion, Aaron Burr. Not to mention Indian and slave uprisings.”
None of those were peaceful attempts at secession, led by the state legislative bodies, so they aren’t really relevant.
“The idea that Americans would be rising up all the time against big government if it weren’t for Lincoln, just won’t fly.”
No, not rising up, but they very well may have pursued the peaceful option of secession, which has now become an impossibility, thanks to Lincoln.
“And what was the “unconstitutional overreach” that the secessionist were resisting?”
The biggest overreach was trying to force them back into the union without their consent.
“What was it that the federal government did that made mad enough to revolt?”
There was no revolt, they seceding by legislative action. I know you really want to equate secession with rebellion, because then it’s easier for you to paint them as villains who deserved to be abused by the government, but the facts don’t back up that characterization.
“But there was disagreement about whether states could unilaterally secede, and disagreement about what would become of federal property in the states in question. Under those circumstances it was not out of place for the federal government to hold onto the forts until a resolution could be achieved.”
Nonsense. There was no disagreement amongst those who seceded, so it was absolutely predictable what the consequences would be of trying to station troops in their borders. I guess you could say doing that was “not out of place”, if you really wanted to start a war, because that is the only foreseeable outcome from that action.
You can argue all you want whether they had a right to secede (they did, as confirmed by the Declaration and natural law), but the fact is that they already had done it, so it’s pointless to argue theoreticals in the face of practical reality. You do that, and reality will bite you in the butt every time.
“If you want to find a resolution of the conflict you have to take the beliefs of both sides into account — not simply dismiss one side of the argument and start shooting and put all the blame on the other guys.”
No, not really, because only one side made aggressive moves against the other side which led to the war. Do you think we should take Germany’s view of things into account when we consider whether the invasion of Poland was justified? I don’t. They were the aggressor, and the Poles had no choice but to defend themselves. Neither did the Confederates.
People knew that at the time. There were plenty of predictions that unilateral secession would mean civil war. Davis and the other secessionist leaders were willing to risk war -- indeed, to start war -- to get what they wanted.
So you wasted whatever option of disunion may have existed on an unworthy cause and hot-headed, irresponsible leaders.
The US had as least as good a claim to Fort Sumter as it has to Guantanamo or as Britain had to Hong Kong or Gibraltar or Portugal had to Macao or Goa or West Germany had to West Berlin.
Unilaterally declaring that an existing enclave is an invasion or an aggression and beginning shooting is itself an aggression and the beginning of a war.
It's stupid, irresponsible, and won't stand up in court.
Guess again.
(*sigh*) Where do they all come from?
If you understand history and the 40 years that lead to the civil war, it would not have been fought if the Fire Eaters had been content to keep their slaves in their own states and not insisted on spreading them everywhere.
Lincoln posed no threat to states rights. Those who thought states rights somehow empowered them to impose their 'peculiar institution' upon the rest of the states, and the nation, against popular will are who caused the war.
BTW. Tell us Sir. What’s the name of that 5th Union Slave state?
As I recall, a deal was reached on new territories coming in that half went slave and half did not. Doesn’t sound like the south was trying to force slavery anywhere. Besides, did the north not also have slaves at the time already?
No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.
The US Constitution spread it everywhere. Some people just refused to accept it. They wanted to change the deal agreed upon by all parties in 1787 without going through the trouble of the amendment process.
West Virginia.
So the North should have been disallowed to ban slavery in their boundaries but the South should have been allowed to secede. This is the sort of have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too logic (on both sides) that made a breach between states inevitable. Slavery was not an issue that could be reasoned away or compromised on. We rail against sharia law that permits honor killings yet would defend slavery because it was in the constitution originally? Injustice was injustice, whether it baked into the original recipe or not.
One cannot be pro-freedom and simultaneously feel they are entitled to enslave others. They are mutually exclusive. That just means "I am for freedom, my own. Everyone else's is negotiable."
Well when you put it that way it sounds.... absolutely correct. Yes, the right to leave is God given, and no civil authority may gain say it, whereas the right to have slaves returned was agreed too by all parties.
Slavery was not an issue that could be reasoned away or compromised on.
The Northern states breached the contract and insisted on breaching it further as time went on. How do you reason with a group of states that will not keep their word on what they agreed to?
yet would defend slavery because it was in the constitution originally? Injustice was injustice, whether it baked into the original recipe or not.
If your position is that the constitution should be ignored when moral issues are at stake, then why do you object to states leaving? The Declaration of Independence established the principle that States had a right to leave, and so then why would you regard the constitution as binding on remaining in the Union when you don't regard it as binding on slavery?
One cannot be pro-freedom and simultaneously feel they are entitled to enslave others.
Your quibble is not with me, but is instead with the founders who did exactly that. Jefferson himself, the man who wrote that mischief into the Declaration, had hundreds of slaves all during the time he was writing it.
He apparently thought he could be pro freedom and simultaneously feel he was entitled to enslave others.
They are mutually exclusive.
The thirteen slave holding states who broke away from the English Union did not think so.
You’ve noticed that DegenerateLamp fervently believes that anyone (if he’s from the south) can leave at any time, and for any reason (or no reason at all) irregardless of consequence, and no one else is entitled to even object, much less lift a finger.
Pretty slick deal, isn’t it? LOL
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