To paraphrase a famous American: I'm having more fun than a man should allowed to have. ;-)
DustyMoment: "Something that people always ignore when they open up these discussions are the economies involved and the reasons events occur."
Ante-bellum economics have been much discussed on these Free Republic Civil War threads.
On this I follow the work of James Huston's book "Calculating the Value of the Union".
Huston presents data from the 1860 census and argues that the South in general, and the Deep South especially, was far more prosperous on average than were their Northern cousins, or than most histories portray.
The reason is simple: the dollar value of slaves had increased steadily all during the 1800s, and by 1860 represented nearly half of all Southern wealth, and about 20% of all wealth in the United States.
So, in minds of average ante-bellum Southerners slavery was not just a way of life, it was also the greatest economic wealth creator ever invented.
So, in especially the Deep-South, where half of all families owned slaves, they were not even going to allow discussion of topics like abolition.
DustyMoment: "The farmers in those days lived on the edge of poverty."
That is true of all farmers at all times in history.
Even today, with all sorts of government give-away programs, every year there are fewer and fewer farmers, with bigger and bigger farms operating on smaller and smaller margins.
That's life.
DustyMoment: "The same was not true for the north."
At the time of the US Civil War, between 25% and 50% of all northerners (depending on which state) lived on small subsistence farms, with substantially lower standards of living than a typical Deep-South farmer.
Northerners who lived in cities and worked in factories also endured living conditions certainly no better than average white Southerners.
Of course, if you wish to compare large Northern factory owners to large Southern plantation owners and ask which was better off... the answer is, there were far more plantation owners than large factory owners.
DustyMoment: "But, there is another piece that the anti-slavery crowd ignores and that is that farmers were largely prohibited from raising prices without government permision."
Whoever told you that was seriously pulling your leg, FRiend.
There were no Federal price controls in the 1850s, and any state rules were certainly intended to benefit the ruling slave-holders.
DustyMoment: "Before I go any further, allow me to explain that I am neither condoning nor justifying slavery."
Perish the thought!
DustyMoment: "While secession was not codified in the Constitution, it was acknowledged by several of the Founders in the Federalist Papers as another measure available to the states to maintain the balance of power against a strong central government."
All Founders' documents, without exception, treat their new Union as a "compact" like a good marriage, to be "perpetual", "more perfect" and dissolved only under conditions of mutual consent, or from "oppression" and "usurpations" amounting to the same thing.
None wrote that secession "at pleasure" (meaning for no material reason) was acceptable.
DustyMoment: "...secession was another part of that balance of power."
But only as a result of mutual consent or some material breach of contract like "oppression" and "usurpation", neither of which happened in 1860.
DustyMoment: "The north was fighting for a principle that history teaches us was, ultimately, the right one. However, they way they chose to go about it was the wrong approach."
The Union slowly geared up for war in 1861 because the Confederacy provoked, then started and formally declared war on the United States, on May 6, 1861.
The Confederate President Jefferson Davis was a brilliant military leader (certainly in his own mind), who had graduated from West Point, served in the Mexican War and as US Secretary of War.
In 1861 the Confederacy could find nobody better trained to lead them to military victory.
By stark contrast President Lincoln had no serious military experience, and for years could not find Union generals up to the task of fighting and winning battles.
So Union armies often floundered under poor leadership, before Lincoln could slowly, slowly sort out real generals from the pretenders.
DustyMoment: "If you get to this point, you will undoubtedly blather on about how I am actually defending slavery and the south was just trying to maintain slavery because all southerners are inherently evil bastids."
Nobody here defending Abraham Lincoln and the United States Constitution understand where all such cr*ppola comes from.
We're not putting it out.
All we're hoping to do is keep the facts straight, and let the chips fall wherever they may, FRiend.
An asset that holds a value is not the same as liquid wealth. Assume that a wealthy plantation owner has 400 slaves at the outbreak of the Civil War. When the fighting was over, the dead were buried, the dust had settled and the carpetbaggers moved in, the presumed value of those 400 slaves had plummeted from their pre-war level and the plantation owner had nothing to show for all of the assessed value of his former slaves. Today, we all recognize that Donald Trump is wealthy. But the majority of his wealth is tied up in assets such as real estate. If Trump Tower (for example) goes up in flames or collapses due to natural causes, is his wealth the same, or is it diminshed as the result of the loss of the Trump Tower? One is only really wealthy when they can capitalize on an asset as opposed to having the asset but losing it due to any number of causes. A plantation owner may have been "wealthy" prior to the Civil War when his wealth was comprised of both liquid and non-liquid assets. However, afterward, when he was forced to release much of the non-liquid asets (the slaves), how much wealth did he really have? I think the estimated value of the slaves in general, particularly as it applies in the years prior to 1860, is a red herring.
At the time of the US Civil War, between 25% and 50% of all northerners (depending on which state) lived on small subsistence farms, with substantially lower standards of living than a typical Deep-South farmer. Northerners who lived in cities and worked in factories also endured living conditions certainly no better than average white Southerners.
Again, this is a misdirection. 25 - 50% is not the same as upwards of ~80% in the south. The reason that so many northern cities, today, are so large is because the factories attracted those people who couldn't or didn't want to farm. In addition, most major transportation routes were in the north. Trains were used to move both raw and manufactured goods across the northern tier of states whereas most agricultutal goods from the south were move by sailing ship, riverboat or river barge.
Whoever told you that was seriously pulling your leg, FRiend. There were no Federal price controls in the 1850s, and any state rules were certainly intended to benefit the ruling slave-holders.
My professor, a PHD in an Economic History class. In addition, the economies of both the north and the south were such that an increase in the cost of agricultural products would have been both inflationary and ill-advised. Given the economics of the period, agricultural products were priced at a level the market would bear. Northern cities always had the option of purchasing agricultural produce from Canada or Europe, an option that was less available to the south due to the costs involved.
All Founders' documents, without exception, treat their new Union as a "compact" like a good marriage, to be "perpetual", "more perfect" and dissolved only under conditions of mutual consent, or from "oppression" and "usurpations" amounting to the same thing. None wrote that secession "at pleasure" (meaning for no material reason) was acceptable.
Again, not true. Following the failure of the Articles of Confederation under which the newly formed U.S. of A. operated for ~the first 10 years after the Revolutionary War, the Founders were particularly sensitive to the issue of a functional government that would work FOR the people without becoming either a slave of the people or a tyrant over the people. The Founders knew too well the ills of a monarchy such as that found in western Europe of the day. As they began to create the Constitution, the assembled group knew only too well of the need to establish and maintain a careful balance, not only between the branches of government, but between the government and those who consented to be governed. Thus, the balance of power was woven throughout the articles of the Constitution as well as the Bill of Rights. When the question of secession was initially broached, several of the Founders acknowledged that secession by the states was always implied as part of the balance of power and they mentioned it in the Federalist Papers.
But only as a result of mutual consent or some material breach of contract like "oppression" and "usurpation", neither of which happened in 1860.
From the southern perspective, that breach of contract and usurpation was exactly what Lincoln was doing when he issued the Emancipation Proclamation. The grounds were met to justify the south's secession.
The Union slowly geared up for war in 1861 because the Confederacy provoked, then started and formally declared war on the United States, on May 6, 1861.
At the time the Confederates fired on Ft. Sumter, South Carolina had seceeded and joined the Confederacy. They asked the fort's commander to abandon ALL federal facilities in Charleston Harbor, which he refused to do. Given that SC no longer had any ties to the Union of the United States, the request was proper and appropriate. When the Union army refused to abandon its facilities, the Confederate army fired on them, particularly after a stealth effort by Lincoln to re-supply the fort using a merchant cargo ship.
While I am enjoying this discussion, we are clearly not going to change each other's opinions. I believe that there are two sides to the story and both sides believed that they had justification for the actions they took. The result is a chapter in American history that will always be embroiled in controversy because the very nature of the conflict pitted us against each other, just as it continues to do today.