Victor Davis Hanson: [‘Response to Readership’] Why did the South start the Civil War?

VDH Private Papers ^ | February 17, 2005 | Victor Davis Hanson

[quidnunc]

Q: After having read many accounts of the Civil War, I still don’t understand why South Carolina fired on Ft. Sumter, galvanizing the North into war.  What do you think might have happened had the South continued to let these coastal forts be manned by the Union for a longer time?

Hanson: I think conflict was inevitable, because the South had little appreciation of Northern industrial power nor of the competence of a number of formerly nondescript Union officers. The best officers of the Mexican War had joined the Confederacy and there was an erroneous general impression that all superior commanders had left the Union, and with vaunted Southern courage, a big victory or two would teach the Yankees that going into the Confederacy was simply not worth the trouble, especially for the increasingly controversial idea of emancipation. …

-snip-

[stand watie]

the statue of lincoln, the tyrant & war criminal, in Richmond is an ATROCITY against the southland & her people.

otoh, i've suggested that the lincoln memorial would/should be dismantled & moved to damnyankeeland OR submerged into the Chesapeake Bay as a fish haven. (fyi, because something is popular, does not mean it is right/good/correct. ABORTION/prostitution/gambling/narcotic is popular, too.)

free dixie,sw

[Modernman]

You'll get an apology when YOU apologize for what you did to MY ancestors.

In SW's mind, Gone With the Wind is an accurate portrayal of what slave life was like in the South. Happy, singing slaves treated gently and humanely by their masters. Then, the evil Lincoln came along and ruined this utopia.

The South should have been grateful that the Union army prevented freed slaves from exacting revenge on their masters.

[4CJ]

"Captain W. A. Goodman, Chalmers' adjutant general and bearer of the (surrender) note, said later he clearly remembered the offer to treat the entire garrison as prisoners of war 'because when the note was handed to me, there was discussion about it among the officers present, and it was asked whether it was intended to include Negro soldiers as well as the white; to which both General Forrest and General Chalmers (one of Forrest's brigade commanders) replied that it was so intended.'"
Jack Hurst, Nathan Bedford Forrest, A Biography, New York, NY: Vintage Books (1994), p. 169

[LauraleeBraswell]

PLEASE stay on the RIGHT side. I read your profile, your 17. I'm 18, and I am so happy you joined Free Republic. I am so sick of the Racism of low expectations and that you are seeing the truth.

[Chef Dajuan]

Who cares about them? I'm a Browns fan.

Too bad the REAL browns are in B'more now.......

Maybe we could focus on a REAl ebnemy of the people, like Art Modell.

[Modernman]

the statue of lincoln, the tyrant & war criminal, in Richmond is an ATROCITY against the southland & her people.

I love how it pisses you off. I think we need to put statues of Lincoln everywhere in the South, just to give people like you conniption fits.

otoh, i've suggested that the lincoln memorial would/should be dismantled & moved to damnyankeeland OR submerged into the Chesapeake Bay as a fish haven.

Good for you. Remember, though, that DC and Northern Virginia are pretty much Yankee territory now, as is much of the New South.

(fyi, because something is popular, does not mean it is right/good/correct. ABORTION/prostitution/gambling/narcotic is popular, too.)

Exactly. Rebelling agains the USA was popular in the South during the Civil War, and nobody in their right mind would say that was right/good/correct.

[Chef Dajuan]

What's wrong with gambling?

[LauraleeBraswell]

My great great Grandfather lived in the South. He was a tenent farmer indebted to the company store. That means it would cost you an your family 25 dollars a week, but you only got paid 20. So they OWNED you. He and his family were owned by the company store. They weren't allowed to have guns much like your ancestors.

So one day, my great great grandfather and his son my great grandfather took a shotgun pointed it in the Company store owners face and said Let my family go or I'll blow your brains out.

Let's not accuse eachother of being Racist. Everyone knows that Slavery and servitude was EVIL. not just wrong but evil.

Some people are just convinced it was about States rights, most Southern farmers were very very poor. It was a few elitists who owned other people and convinced the rest to fight.

I AM SO HAPPY you are at Free Republic.

[stand watie]

did my people MURDER/rape/rob 92 of your FAMILY, just because the "weren't WHITE"?????

PLEASE keep posting your NONSENSE! your IGNORANT responses will convert neutrals into SOUTHRONS!

free dixie,sw

[stand watie]

are you REALLY that all-around DUMB??? or are you just a TROLL???

RAVE ON!

free dixie,sw

[stand watie]

yet another DUMB post!

RAVE ON!

free dixie,sw

[Modernman]

are you REALLY that all-around DUMB??? or are you just a TROLL???

I know you are but what am I?

I'm rubber, you're glue. Whatever you say bounces off me and sticks on you.

See, I can argue on your level, too.

In the English language, sentences start with a capital letter and only one question mark is used.

[stand watie]

another DUMB post.

when you have something of IMPORT to say, please get back to me.

free diixe,sw

[Modernman]

another DUMB post.

Considering the source....

when you have something of IMPORT to say, please get back to me

Why bother? Every time someone presents you with fact that you don't like, you stick your fingers in your ears and go "LALALALALALALALLALALALALALA"

[Badeye]

the statue of lincoln, the tyrant & war criminal, in Richmond is an ATROCITY against the southland & her people.
I love how it pisses you off. I think we need to put statues of Lincoln everywhere in the South, just to give people like you conniption fits.


Pssssst. If you feed them, they keep coming back....(grin)

[LauraleeBraswell]

Oh my god, Stand Watie, please shut up. Please for God's Sake PLEASE shut up.

think Condoleeza Rice. PLEASE JUST think of her. OH GOD.

[Heyworth]

did my people MURDER/rape/rob 92 of your FAMILY, just because the "weren't WHITE"?????

You know, this is another one of those stories you trot out all the time. What is this massacre called? Where did it occur? What Union units were involved? I'd think this would be a well-known event, but I can't find any mention of it in Cherokee tribal histories.

[WindOracle]

I think you nailed it pretty good. As one post pointed out, slavery did not become a major factor in the war until after Gettysburg. Northern support for the war was not wholehearted, and many northerners felt sympathetic to the idea that a state which voluntarily entered into a union had a right to voluntarily withdraw from it. Early in the war, freeing the slaves was bandied around as a way to gain support in the North, but Lincoln thought it would look like an act of desperation so long as the north was losing battles.

Someone posted that slaves were owned by the wealthy and middle class, but the fact is the vast majority were owned by the wealthy. And while abuses did exist, it was nowhere near as bad as shown in fiction like Roots. Another fact is that more free blacks fought under the Confederate flag than under the Union flag.

The Emancipation Proclamation was more of a political/propaganda move than anything else, at the time. It did not free ALL slaves, such as those in Missouri, but only in states that were in rebellion.

[Modernman]

Pssssst. If you feed them, they keep coming back....(grin)

I can't help myself. I was the type of kid who would kick over anthills just to see the bugs freak out.

[stand watie]

when you've read something besides self-serving damnyankee propaganda, dressed up as facts,PLEASE get back to me.

you seem to be yet another victim of a "publick screwl edumakashun" & seem to believe believe the most simplistic, self-serving LIES out of the "poison ivy league" LEFTIST/REVISIONIST schools.

OR you are a TROLL.