You are still asserting that the South “went to war over slavery.” For reasons I set forth previously, as well as those given by other posters in this thread, this is not the case. Again, slavery was a factor, but not the factor. Please read Mr. Scruggs’ article on the Morrill Tariff which I previously cited. The vast majority of Confederate soldiers didn’t own slaves; most of them were farmers or laborers. Why would they “go to the trouble,” as you call it, to risk their lives for an issue in which they had no stake? No, they went “to the trouble” to defend their country and to stand up for an honorable cause in which they believed.
The Confederate government was not illegitimate, nor was it more evil than that of Lincoln’s. I’m sure you wouldn’t make this claim if the seceding states had stayed in the Union and continued to pay extortion, or rather the oppressive tariffs, imposed upon them by the federal government to keep it running. As long as the money kept flowing from the south to the north, the north wasn’t concerned about the manner in which it was generated – Lincoln repeatedly said that he had no intention of interfering with the institution of slavery. And of course the seceding states would create an entity to govern their free and voluntary association of states – this is what you call illegitimate. I suppose you would make the same claim if the secession threatened by Massachusetts and others at the Hartford Convention were accomplished.
As I said, I was not born in the South, and growing up, I had the same revisionist history crammed down my throat which was written by the victors in the WBTS. As a kid in school, I didn’t know any better and so of course bought into the same slavery propaganda. It’s only within about the last 7 years, since I became involved in researching for a book in progress, that I sought out books and other materials published either during or immediately after the WBTS that set forth accurate accounts, written by people who were “there”, that I reached the intellectual conclusion that the South’s position was correct and that the Confederate states should have been allowed to secede and form their own government – and realized that much I had been taught was wrong. But I’m just a researcher; the South certainly has more capable advocates and defenders than me.
Proponents of both sides can debate these issues forever and neither will convince the other side otherwise. Even if those of you in the pro-north position are not persuaded, perhaps you may wish to investigate the truth further, if for no other reason than to satisfy your curiosity or expand your knowledge.
Please let us know when your book is published. I'm sure it will be very entertaining.
Your intimation that we come to the table ignorant - or even worse somehow suffering from propagandists brainwashing is laughingly presumptuous and condescending. From the "off the shelf" southron revisionism you've offered thus far it is you who is seriously in a fact-deficit position.
Are you seriously contending that there is some sort of conspiracy among every public school instructor (and nearly every private school instructor) to teach a consistently across the board alternate history? Really?! When you urge us to "open our minds" do you seriously believe that we haven't also researched your resources - and rejected them?
Slavery was the sine qua non (without which not) factor in the southron rebellion. If not for the Particular Institution there would never have been the insurrection or the Civil War. That fact is simply irrefutable.
Sure, there were extenuating and mitigating circumstances but they take a distant 2nd place to slavery. And none of those circumstances ever rose to the necessary degree if intolerability necessary to establish a legitimate claim of tyranny.
That is a very long sentence, and deserves a considered response.
First of all, it is interesting to note that on many, if not most, Civil War threads we consistently find certain "stock characters" of the neo-Confederate side.
One is a female neo-con whose stock-in-trade is taking offense at some real-or-imagined insult.
Today that role is played unambiguously by texgal, whose very first post (#26) says:
Another "stock character", like Fast Moving Angel, always claims to be northern-born and educated, but has now miraculously stumbled onto the "real truth" about the War Between The States.
Strangely, as a "new convert" to neo-Confederatism, he never remembers any of his original education, and can only regurgitate the buckets full of neo-con koolaid he so "recently" drank.
If, Fast Moving Angel, you had read any real history, you would already know that:
Indeed, even after seceding state Congressmen and Senators resigned and left Washington, no military actions were taken against the Confederacy.
No resistance of any kind was offered the Confederacy, except in two places: Forts Sumter and Pickens.
These had loyal US troops to defend them and so President Buchanan decided not to hand them over, despite repeated unlawful threats against them.
Buchanan also attempted to resupply those forts, successfully at Pickens, unsuccessfully at Sumter.
And that is where things stood at Lincoln's inauguration (March 4, 1861), in which he publicly told secessionists they could not have a war unless they themselves started it.
So the Confederacy did just that -- by first assaulting and seizing Fort Sumter (April 14, 1861), then soon after formally declaring war on the United States (May 6, 1861).
Until the time of the Confederacy's formal declaration of war, there had not been a single Confederate soldier killed directly in battle with Union forces, nor had there been any Union "invasion" of the Confederacy.
So the entire Civil War took place after the Confederacy first started then formally declared war on the United States.
That's why there was a war, and the rest of it is just neo-Confederate koolaid drinking nonsense, FRiend.
That is the truth of the matter, and if all the neo-Con koolaid prevents you from seeing it, then it won't matter how much "research" you do for your book -- you'll never get anywhere close to the reality of it.
The Morrill Tariff was not passed until the southern represenatives withdrew from the Congress. The idea that the tariff was a cause of secession founders on the shoal of time.
Yes, the southern government was illegitimate, and its acts were of no legal force, per Texas v. White. No state has a right to unilaterally secede, so the pretense that a state could do so, and then with other states form a government is illegal and illegitimate.
That is why the southern pretend government wanted a war right away. That was the only way they could get a legal result, by treaty after successful war.
That failed too.
Dude, you’re delusional.
I have never understood the CSA-apologist notion that somehow seceding and fighting over the minimal taxes imposed is more morally justifiable than fighting in defense of slaver.
Actually, I have to agree it is less indefensible, but that doesn't make it justified.
The entire federal government budget for 1860 was $60M. And of course some significant percentage of that was spent in the South, especially since by prewar standards DC was in the South.
This "intolerable extortion," assuming the CSA states paid the entire expense of the government, would have come to about $6 per capita if slaves were included, and roughly $10 per person if only white people are counted.
So this war that killed 600k men was completely justified to avoid the expense of $10 per person? I don't buy it.
Also, tariffs were imposed on imports. Anybody throughout the entire country who bought imported goods paid more. Given the much larger population of the northern states, they probably paid a roughly equivalent proportion of the tariffs.
Protective tariffs were imposed to protect certain industries, which were mostly located in northern states. The South, being almost entirely agricultural, got little benefit from them.
But the net transfer of wealth was not south to north, it was agriculture to industry. Most northerners were also farmers.
Also, the Morill tariff passed only after the first states seceded, and could not have passed unless they had, removing their votes from Congress. The Morill tariff was a result of secession, not a cause.
Interestingly, Catholics in the North were the group most opposed to abolition and the Union war effort.
The vast majority of southern soldiers were conscripted, aka, enslaved to serve the slave power. They were accustomed to being so used, being required by law to act as slave catchers slave patrols. Often the wealthiest slave owners, almost always one of the wealthiest slave owners in a district was the militia captain. He assigned southern members of the militia to their duties as slave patrol, and they called it militia training.
The southern soldiers were enslaved. The slave power thought enslaving people to their “betters” was a positive thing.