Posted on 10/14/2007 7:14:10 AM PDT by proudofthesouth
I'm curious as to what FReepers have to say on this topic. Did our (America) go downhill with the start of Abraham Lincoln being elected and the South loosing the Civil War?
Granted it has gotten progressively worse since then.
Please don't flame! I'm posting this to learn and to find out what (better informed) FReepers think.
America needed unity then just as it needs unity now.
Your thesis proves you are no historian. “I am no historian” is the only thing you wrote that makes a modicum of sense.
I think it was Shay’s rebellion that was the downfall of this nation.
Don’t ask me why. Just tossing some lighter fluid on the fire so we can get the popcorn ready.
There’s no way we would’ve won the wars we won. Our enemies would have used the South against the North repetitively. The South needed the industries of the North and the North needed the staples of the South.
” Did our (America) go downhill with the start of Abraham Lincoln being elected and the South loosing the Civil War”
Depends on your definintion of going downhill.
The US is the most wealthy and powerful empire the world has seen since Rome. A union of states would not have become so powerful.
And I prefer to call the Civil War the Second Revolutionary War. The first brought forth a great experiment of Constitutional government by the people, mostly at a state and local level. The second ended that experiment and brought forth a great empire.
[1rudeboy looks out the window]
This issue is debated repeatedly in the hallowed halls of Freeper University.
No, Lincoln did not detroy the U.S.A.
The nation’s founding itself, while grand in many ways, was tainted by the injustice of the institution of slavery.
Therefore, as states inevitably disagreed over the issue of slavery for a variety of reasons, there were basically five “options”: (1) attempt to maintain a delicate balance of power between slave and free states; (2) limit slavery’s power by preventing new states from becoming slave states; (3) allow new slave states to enter the union, thereby allowing more power to the slave states; (4) fight a war to keep the union together on terms that would limit the slave states’ power; or (5) simply allow the union to break apart.
Lincoln initially wanted (2), but the immediate succession of slave states limited the options to (4) or (5). He chose to keep the union together instead of letting it fall apart. Thus, he PREVENTED the destruction of the USA.
Had the South not taken the secessionist path and instead decided to discuss the issues in the political arena, much might have been achieved concerning the strength of state’s rights. Lincoln being elected hardly meant the end of the South’s political clout.
Slavery had to go away, and its grave moral affliction easily trumped any other merit of the case. By staking state’s rights to slavery, the South greatly wounded state’s rights. It would be like staking parental rights to incest.
That is VERY well stated and absolutely accurate as to what has happened.
10th Amendment was bypassed, setting the precedent for 150 yrs of federal malignancy. This is undeniable, no matter how the “Civil” War was dressed up at the time (very quickly after the decision to break the 10th amendment) and ever since with revisionism.....however good that revisionism feels to subscribers.
I would say that the downhill trend that you observe can be more directly linked to allowing women to vote .... and thus became politically acceptable “the nanny state”.
Holy mackerel.
The short answer is “no” President Lincoln did not destroy the US with his War of Northern Aggression.
The Reconstruction Era Congress did a thorough job of destroying the Founder’s Vision of a Constitutional Republic with a clear delineation of powers and restrictions on Both the Federal Govt and the Several States Governments.
In 1865 the Republic was not fundamentally altered, by 1868, the Republic was a completed and discarded experiment.
Actually, I believe he preserved The Union and destroyed The Republic.
He told the South, “Do what we tell you or we’ll come down there and kill you.” Which he then did.
Now, all power resides in Washington D.C. (And the courts, but that’s another story.) The War Of Northern Aggression was not about slavery, it was about the consolidation of power and you can see where that has gotten us.
If you read any of the numerous accounts of what went on in Kansas prior to the breakout of the Civil War you’ll likely be convinced that THE ONLY WAY the issue of slavery was going to be decided was war.
In Kansas during the 1850s there were two legislatures, one pro-slavery, one pro-abolitionist. Pro-slavers and abolitionists routinely killed each other on sight for nothing more than differing political views.
In short, the atmosphere in the late 1850s and early 1860s was so poisonous and intractable, the issue could only be resolved the way it was.
I just wish that after almot 150 years we could admit to ourselves the change.
The States are the equivalent of our tailbone. It’s still there but is of little use.
Think of all the money we could save if we abandoned state and local government. All those buildings, all that electricity, all that grass to cut.
The Civil War was about slavery, but it was also about the question of whether we were going to have the national economic policy which would allow our own industrial base to develop or, as the southerners and other bluebloods elsewhere would have preferred, allow England to dump manufactured goods here and remain in effect a colony. If Lincoln had not won the Civil War, Hitler would likely have won WW-II.
That was a good post.
I would like to add that I think the Civil War did ultimately bring about the destruction of federalism in America but certainly not the destruction of America. I’m not blaming Lincoln because the Union needed to be preserved and he did what he had to to keep it together.
It makes for interesting conversation and debate but even as a hard-core Southerner I would have to say, “No, Lincoln did far more good than harm.” All people deserve to be free and we all know that freedom tends to come at a high price.
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