How the Civil War Could Have Been Avoided

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.

Congratulations, Ranger. You post is the biggest conglomoration of crap I've ever seen in one place on the subject of the Civil War. I can't see a single thing that you got right.

As the war criminal Gen. Wm T. Sherman was rampaging through Georgia, his wife was back home in Ohio, looking after THE FAMILY SLAVES.

In the first place William Sherman never owned a slave in his life. Not one. Not ever. You would have known that if you had bothered to do any research. I've seen that bogus quote about 'good help is hard to find' attributed to Grant but nobody can ever point to a source. If you say that Sherman said it then it is further proof that nobody said it.

In fact, Gen. Sherman kept his slaves until he was forced to free them by Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1867.

The 13th Amendment to the Constitution outlawing slavery took effect in December 1865 not in 1867. You would know that if you ever bothered to read the Constitution.

In 1860, almost 50% of all blacks in the South were free already

According to the census of 1860 there were 132,405 free black persons of all ages in the southern states. The census says that there were 3,521,110 slaves in the southern states. Now I realize that southern schools tend towards the bottom of national rankings but even you should be able to realize that 132,405 is nowhere near 50% of all Black people in the south. So where did you come up with that insane figure? I assume that it was the same place you got your statistics on Black Slave ownership. There is no doubt that some Blacks were slave owners but your figure is assinine.

The Black Codes which returned Blacks to a state of near slavery were passed in all the southern states in 1865 and 1866. The Reconstruction that you blame them on didn't begin until 1867. The Jim Crowe laws that you blame on the north were passed after reconstruction ended. The 'friendly relations that White Southrons had enjoyed with Black Southrons' didn't exist anywhere other than in your fertile imagination.

You advise me to learn the truth? From your post it is plain that you wouldn't know the truth if it bit you on your southron butt.

Oh, I know the real reasons behind the Civil War and slavery was but one of them.

It was the anti-slavery drum that was beat loudly in the North to mind-control the Northerners to turn on their Southern brothers. Without Slavery, I don't think they could have found enough support to turn on the South.

One of the main reasons for the war was to centralize "Federalize" government power to control what was then considered rogue factions of the Union. With the Feds becoming all powerful, they could accomplish bigger graff and corruption then could be accomplished on a local level. Moreover, to re-establish a central bank to enrich the Elite, the Constitution had to be subverted to allow them to control US economic, monetary and fiscal policies. The puppets in DC, including Lincoln, and those to follow, would be easy to control and corrupt.

The Irish Imigrants who were poor and uneducated understood the reality of the situation being foisted on the country. That is why during the battle of Gettysburg, the Draft Riots began and NYC was nearly burnt to the ground. They turned on the Blacks because the blamed them for giving the Government an excuse to draft them and for taking their low paying jobs. Of course, the Elite were given an out from the draft, they could buy their way out of it.

Slavery was a plague on this country that has far reaching effects even until now. It is too bad the Founding Fathers couldn't have been a little brighter and realized this, but they again had their Elitist agendas to fulfill.

Don't misunderstand me, I think there were a lot of sick degenerates in the South who IMHO were more evil than Lincoln ever was. Lincoln was just a fool for how he dealt with the situation. Perverting the Constitution was his first mistake. He fell right into the hands of the Elite, or maybe he was there all along.....

We hold these truths to be self evident-, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving just powers from the consent of the governed.

Actually, if the Founding Fathers (ie Jefferson) really felt that this was true, why did they continue and expand slavery after they won their Revolution against the British??

Furthermore, would you not consider Jefferson at least a hypocrite for owning slaves, even having sex with one of his slaves (Sally Hemings) and producing mixed children?? Especially since Jefferson was uncomfortable with slavery, and did not want a racially mixed society. If slaves were freed, they would have to live among white people, which he did want outside the "protection" of slavery and control. He wrote about sending all the blacks to some other country to live. Also, neighbors didn't like it when slaves were freed. He didn't have the strength to act on his beliefs, nor did he have the lack of racism one might expect from the person who wrote the Declaration of Independance. He never really meant everyone was created equal though-he only meant that white men were given equal opportunity.

Here are his quotes that destroy everything that you have been so misguided in stating:

Thomas Jefferson Condemns Slavery But Asserts Racial Difference, Notes on the State of Virginia (1794)

Slaves pass by descent and dower as lands do. Where the descent is from a parent, the heir is bound to pay an equal share of their value in money to each of his brothers and sisters. To make slaves distributable among the next of kin, as other moveables.

Slaves, as well as lands, were entailable during the monarchy: but, by an act of the first republican assembly, all donees in tail, present and future, were vested with the absolute dominion of the entailed subject.

They (Free Slaves) should be colonized to such place as the circumstances of the time should render most proper, sending them out with arms, implements of houshold and of the handicraft arts, feeds, pairs of the useful domestic animals, &c. to declare them a free and independant people, and extend to them our alliance and protection, till they shall have acquired strength; and to send vessels at the same time to other parts of the world for an equal number of white inhabitants; to induce whom to migrate hither, proper encouragements were to be proposed. It will probably be asked, Why not retain and incorporate the blacks into the state, and thus save the expence of supplying, by importation of white settlers, the vacancies they will leave? Deep rooted prejudices entertained by the whites; ten thousand recollections, by the blacks, of the injuries they have sustained; new provocations; the real distinctions which nature has made; and many other circumstances, will divide us into parties, and produce convulsions which will probably never end but in the extermination of the one or the other race. To these objections, which are political,may be added others, which are physical and moral. The first difference which strikes us is that of colour.

They secrete less by the kidnies, and more by the glands of the skin, which gives them a very strong and disagreeable odour.

In general, their existence appears to participate more of sensation than reflection.

Comparing them by their faculties of memory, reason, and imagination, it appears to me, that in memory they are equal to the whites; in reason much inferior, as I think one could scarcely be found capable of tracing and comprehending the investigations of Euclid; and that in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous.

The improvement of the blacks in body and mind, in the first instance of their mixture with the whites, has been observed by every one, and proves that their inferiority is not the effect merely of their condition of life.

I advance it therefore as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind

As you can see, Jefferson clearly felt that Blacks were inferior to Whites and should be not be allowed to be US citizens following being set free. Jefferson's accommodation and dependence upon slavery as well as his frequent smugness, the covert vindictiveness I believe led to his hand-washing and downright hypocrisy.

What about his very un-patriotic performance as governor of Virginia during the American Revolution, when he failed to mobilize the militia and had to flee Monticello on horseback ahead of the marauding British army? What about the fiasco of his American Embargo in 1807, when he clung to the illusion that economic sanctions would keep us out of war with England, even after it was clear that they only devastated the American economy?

As you can see my dear Frenchman, I have studied history and is not the revised Pastuerized version that you are trying to make fly....put that in your pipe and smoke it!

This FACT was reported in the Savannah Daily Morning News x16 Feb 1866 edition. Look it up yourself.

I tried to look this FACT up in Sherman's autobiography and two other biographies, "Citizen Sherman" by Michael Fellman and "Sherman: a Soldier's Passion for Order" by John Marszalek. Neither mentions Sherman ever owning a slave in his life, much less during the Civil War. Both mention Mrs. Sherman's strong dislike of slavery. A search of the web didn't bring any sites that claimed he ever owned a slave, either. I can't accept a source I can't substantiate.

Most historical revisionists EXCLUDE border states, where most of the freed blacks lived.

Fair enough. According to the census of 1860 there were 118,027 free Blacks in the border states and 429,401 slaves. Add those to my earlier totals and you have 250, 432 free Blacks and 3,950,511 slaves. Hell, let's look at the country at a whole. In the entire country, north and south, there were 476,478 free Blacks and 3,950,528 slaves. That is STILL nowhere near the figures you quoted. It means 9 out of 10 blacks were slaves, not 1 out of 2. Your source for your claim is flat incorrect. My source for my information is located here .

Slavery was unquestionably dying a natural death.

I don't even see how you can say that. Looking at the period you mentioned, 1850 to 1860, the number of free Blacks grew from 424,183 to 476,748 or an icrease of about 12%. The slave population grew from 3,200,600 to 3,950,528 or an increase of about 23.5%. How you can look at those statistics and proclaim slavery a dying institution based on that is beyond me. Again, my numbers come from the University of Virginia website mentioned previously.

Finally, if military service is a requirement for this discussion, I spent 22 years in the Navy, active and reserve, and finished up an O-5. I was NROTC at an excellent Northern Big 10 university instead of Canoe U., and my graduate degree is in business instead of history, but it is also from another excellent Northern Big 10 University. And on this subject I'll match my knowledge and understanding against your's any time.

By the same reasoning, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, New York, et al., were also Southern states. There were lots of copperheads throughout the North.

Furthermore, the concept of Southern states and Northern states was relatively recent. The prior distinction had been between the New England states and "The Papist States", i.e. eveything else. This makes some sense. The basic division between the American states was--and still is--based on the difference between New England and Virginia--between puritan and cavalier. This ultimately developed into a distinction between North and South. It is a direct descendant of the English Civil War. The American Civil War was, in this sense, a continuation of the English Civil War.

"In Massachusetts, the blacks before the Civil War were better educated than Southern Senators, and most of those were still better educated than most southerners today. Sadly our southern dominated government has spread the southern model of bad education throughout the Northeast."

Some blacks were no doubt better educated than some Southern Senators--and vice versa--but that statement is silly.

Southern Senators, before the Civil War, were not better educated than most Southerners today. The level of education--and the schools, colleges, and universities--throughout the United States--including the South--though there is much to be desired--are at a high level almost unprecedented in history. Furthermore, in the Age of Information, such a statement is downright ridiculous.

If the U.S. government is Southern dominated, this can only be of great benefit to the nation. Though it is true that there has always been a current of disdain for education--an aristocratic disdain--in the South, the healthiness and wisdom of this disdain is becoming more and more obvious and important. It is more a respect for "common sense" than a rejection of the value of education. It is in fact a recognition of the importance of not loosing site of the forest in one's search for the trees.

Today's college campuses--mired in decadence and political correctness--shouting down free speach--lost in foolishness--paralysed by confusion--could use a good dose of "the southern model of bad education"--vide supra. The Liberal dominated sections of the U.S., including the Northeast, could. These Liberal dominated enclaves tend be "well educated", yes, but the dominating influence has pressed something good--essentially education--past the point of wisdom, and it has become a nemesis.

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