Posted on 10/31/2001 4:13:33 AM PST by 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.
ahh - yeahh. Right. Whatever you say there ddude.
But it was Andy Jackson who crushed Calhoun's first stab at states' rights, when the two clashed over the Bank of the United States. At a fancy state dinner, Calhoun sought to embarrass Ole Hick, so he made a toast that celebrated a state's sovereignty. Andrew Jackson rose, and proposed "The Union. It SHALL be preserved." The guests raised their glasses and the battle lines were drawn.
Northerners would have simply moved the diversity further North to Canada, like they did anyway during that era.
Northerners are far more against cohabitation with American-Africans than are Southerners.
RTFM!!! When you're finished your mission in the past, you don't come back to point in future where you would have been if you never left. You come back to the point where you left!!! (Some of the older Westinghouse models had a bug that brought you back before you left, but if you don't run into yourself leaving you don't have one of those.) Got it? So go finish you mission and when you're done you can lend your time machine to Smolensk right now.
Bring me back some Creme Brule', porfavor.
You're right LD, it doesn't really have much to do with the secession conventions that you didn't think the South held. I just kind of like it anyway. It shows how the Southerners were patriotic to the essence of the US - the States.
I know I might be a couple of years late about the responses but I had to comment on your response.
Surely the slavery was not the only issue in the civil war but it was the main cause of the Civil War.
How about you go back to the history books and get back to us!
The Civil War was not only about the issue of slavery. The South realized that it was a dying way of life. They were currently trying to abolish it themselves. It may have been slower than what the North had wanted, but they were trying. The North had pushed for immediate action, but the South felt threatened, especially since enormous amounts of tax was enforced upon products coming from slave-owning plantations. The South not only was attacked that way, they had less of a say in the government. There were far more states that didn’t have slaves than there were that owned slaves. They were out-numbered. And thusly, a cornered rat will eventually show fight. They threatened secession, which did occur not because of slavery itself but because of the lack of say in the government, so your post is incorrect. Research first, next time. The Civil War is over. Get over it!
“lack of say in the government”
Which is what our current situation is about. We have more Takers than Makers and the Makers are tired of paying for everyone else. We have Taxation Without Representation.
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