How the Civil War Could Have Been Avoided

vanity | 10/31/01 | vanity

[smolensk]

Being one who definitely thinks that our Civil War was an unnecessary loss of life and property, I have finally figured out how the South could have averted war, and stopped Northern aggression in its tracks.

You see the South possessed a 'secret weapon' that it didn't realize it had. What the South should have done, in the late 1850's, is to have realized that slavery was a dying institution anyway and that it could get by for the time being with half or a third less slaves than it had.

The South could have granted immediate freedom to half of its slave population with the condition that after manumission they couldn't remain in the South, but would have to move up North. If politically astute, the South could have 'spun' this relocation requirement as simply a way of spreading 'diversity' to the North.

With this, the abolitionist movement up North would have stopped 'dead in its tracks', in my opinion, and over 700,000 lives would have been saved, and all slaves would have been gained freedom anyway before 1900 due to international pressure.

[smolensk]

To tpaine...

charlatan - A person who makes elaborate, fraudulent, and often voluble claims to skill or knowledge; a quack or fraud.

I stand by my correct usage of the word.

I may be an illiterate and ignorant southerner whose ancestors narrowly avoided genocide by the north, but I do know the proper definition.

[smolensk]

Non-sequitur... I might behove you to completely read my posts. As a southerner, I am totally aware of the wrongs done in the south and surely don't need any 'education' from you to remind me.

You accuse me of being on a 'moral high horse', but even after you describe with a 'broad brush' some of the discriminations in the north, you still come back to accuse me of being on a moral high horse. Amazing. Sir, it is YOU who are on the moral high horse (along with your compatriot LLAN_DDEUSANT).

For example, LLAN_DDEUSANT totally blames the South above for 'making' northerners conduct the slave trading business because, he says, the Southerners were willing buyers who created this market. He once again attributes no moral responsibility to the north. You people's logic is beyond comprehension by this 'illiterate' southerner.

But, you and I have corresponded before, and we both are fully aware, I'm sure, of the disgusting opinion we have of each other.

[tpaine]

You have a strange view of debate. - We must believe your unsupported opinions, or be branded 'charlatans'.

[Which is an odd, almost paranoid charge. Who has tried to con or swindle you?] - Weird. #173

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charlatan - A person who makes elaborate, fraudulent, and often voluble claims to skill or knowledge; a quack or fraud.

I stand by my correct usage of the word. I may be an illiterate and ignorant southerner whose ancestors narrowly avoided genocide by the north, but I do know the proper definition.

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Now you're begging the question & nit picking.

- I made NO such 'fraudulant' claims, I merely gave you my opinions on how the south could [& should] have avoided the war.

You [being unable it refute my reason], have flipped out, making silly, paranoid charges and are now claiming a false humility. -- Whatta bizarre way to argue.

[smolensk]

Yes, tpaine, I refuted it. You just can't admit and started backpeddling when I had you in a corner.

But, for the sack of fairness, please explain to all on the list what logic you use to explain how someone (in this case the several northeastern states who held a secession convention) can get what they want by threatening to do something that can't be done because it is illegal and groundless (according to your own words)? My logic says that this would be like threatening to shot someone with a rubber band and expecting this 'show of force' to get you what you want.

You can't have it both ways. Either secession was an accepted doctrine by even this northeastern states as well as the other states, in which case they truly had something to threaten Jefferson with to end the war of 1812 - and this would prove that there really was the right to secede.

Or, there was no right to secede, and their threats had absolutely nothing to do with when and how the war was brought to a close. You strongly insinuated that it was this threat of secession that prompted Jefferson to bring the war to a speedy halt (which is not the case).

When, I called you on this, you stated that they could threaten secession even though there was no such thing which makes absolutely no logical sense except that you are in a corner and had to say something to backpeddle.

[Savage Beast]

Maybe you should try to get interested in something other than beer, pretzels, and football.

I've never had the time or inclination for them, and, maybe for that reason, I did very well in the business world and never had to depend on the kindness of strangers. You might be able to follow my example.

Those "arrogant sons of the Southern aristocracy" must have been a hell of a lot more successful at reforming the national education system than winning the Civil War, if what you say is true.

If they had applied themselves earlier, who knows? Maybe they would have won the war too.

If you start applying yourself right away, you might be able to overcome that football, beer, and pretzels mindset.

Good luck!

[tpaine]

A state can threaten to do any number of things that it is unable, in fact, or in constitutional law, to do.

In the 1812 instance, the bluff worked. In 1860, it didn't. -- But I repeat myself.

We a going in circles here. You are welcome to your delusions of triumph in our 'debate'.

[Savage Beast]

What surrender?

[Savage Beast]

You're going to try to get past that beer, football, and pretzels thing?

I hope so.

I'm pulling for you! You can do it! Good luck! Go, Llan, go!

[Savage Beast]

Yours has always been nonsense. It still is.

[smolensk]

You are welcome to your delusions of triumph in our 'debate'.

The South also won 3 or more previous political battles by threatening or mentioning 'secession'. There was the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, I know, and the idea of popular sovereignty for territories. And if the Democrats hadn't been split by Douglas (mainly by his Freeport Doctrine), it would have worked again in the election of 1860.

So, it seems that the threat of secession was a pretty powerful weapon to say that it was widely known as unconstitutional, wouldn't you say?

And be honest, and tell me this, have you read ANY of the ratifying resolutions of the states when they ratified the Constitution? If so, please give your interpretation - I'd love to hear it.

The ideology that secession wasn't allowed was propagated by Webster, H.C. Lodge, and Story with their eloquent speech, that is all. The meaning and intent of the people who founded this country was changed by them, not the Constitution.

And you never told me what changed, between the time of those ratifying resolutions and 1814. You, if I understand you correctly, are asserting that secession was illegal even then and that the northeastern states were threatening to do something unconstitutional and illegal. Where in the constitution is it illegal, especially in light of all the ratifying resolutions? Where? And you are welcome to your delusions everywhere else, and especially of northern 'perfection' and northern 'high moral' thinking.

Good Day.

[tpaine]

The 'straw man' methods you use to make your points invalidates them. - You are not addressing MY arguments, you are claiming, falsely, that I either have made, or should make, answers to your suppositions that prove your points.

This is not debate, it's a circle jerk joke. -- Find someone else to play your silly games with.

[Savage Beast]

In your post #80 vide supra your words were ridiculous. I said so in my post #84. Now I'm saying that everything you have posted here is ridiculous. It is. Sorry to have to tell you this.

[tort_feasor]

To give Cleburne command he would have have had to pass over Hardee, Stewart and Hood all of whom out ranked him. Cleburne though was a great general.

[lavaroise]

The South was allied with England, their attack on the North was paid for by the British. Southern agression was unavoidable, the evil was in our midst.