Did some responses get ugly? It was a very factual conversation. Any ideas?
Where did the civil war thread go?
- Thread starter PotimusWillie
- Start date
Yeah there are a bunch of doo-doo heads here, Maybe you should try the remedial made for children site.
You talking about funerals or discussions about history?
Those who provide no common courtesy to others should expect none from others. But those whom the fool calls dumb is usually the ones who provide support in time of need.
The fool ceases to be a human being, only something to be propped up by others.
I don't know if this is why it was nuked but someone tagged Radi and Dash because he felt that some of the posts in the thread would be offensive to certain members of our football team.
The Reotch or what ever his name is complained like the baby he is to mgt. He tried to hide behind "what would our players think of your statement" To deflect from his ignorance. I Replied " WGAS" it doesn't change the point, and considering we have ppl like the Professor around shows they aren't learning anything"
So he cried and whined until it was taken down. Its what liberals do.
So a factual conversation about our history is offensive..... really?
So what you are saying is that we should discuss nothing but the latest reality show news?
We have become the joy joy people in the movie Demolition Man. Honestly
Heck no! Hate the reality shows. But the previous thread had become pages of "did not", "did too", name calling, nastiness and nobody's opinion was ever going to change on either side. People could argue who's right on history for days on end, it's not going to change and neither are minds.
It didn't start out that way. I posed historical factual information. The problem is that historical facts get in the way of opinion. The issue of why the civil war started isn't a racist or bigoted discussion.
It might not fit a revisionist agenda, but factual truth doesn't fit the liberal mantra.
So when facts are presented, opinion is really silly to bring to the table. Again, in our society today, truth no longer exists.
Sure, you posted plenty of facts. There are plenty of other facts that you didn't post which wouldn't have supported your point.
Actually, what I posted was factual info, not opinion. If one seeks the truth, it can be found. And it usually isn't laced with a tint of agenda. No matter how bad you want it to be true, the truth stands alone as fact.
Most of your posts are simple jibberish fabrications. So it makes us even.
What was my point? Why the civil war started? What facts would you have to introduce to dispel my point that you have honed in on?
I won't get into a agenda reasoning, but I am definitely open for discussion. As long as discussing our nations history is still legal to do.
Your point seemed to be to diminish the primacy of slavery as the reason for Southern secession, which is what ultimately led to the Civil War. Every possible reason for the war stemmed from the South's intransigence in giving up slavery. Slavery is why there was a "North" and "South" to begin with. Yancy's "Alabama Platform" of 1848, which was endorsed by the legislatures of Alabama and Georgia and by Democratic state conventions in Florida and Virginia, was about nothing but slavery. The very first sentence of Calhoun's "Southern Address" in 1850 was, "I have, Senators, believed from the first that the agitation of the subject of slavery would, if not prevented by some timely and effective measure, end in disunion." It goes on to mention slavery over a dozen more times. Slavery is what tore the Democratic Party apart. Everybody of that time knew the reason for the tension between North and South was slavery. It's amazing that 150 years later people still try to find ways to make the South look like the victim of a Northern campaign to destroy it and not slavery.
I respect your point but contend that your theory of slavery being the issue is a way, way oversimplification of the tension between the stays.
I contend that the civil war would have occured without slavery. Federalist control politically and economically would have driven the same result, war wise.
The north didn't start the war, but fueled the conflict through political and economic intimidation.
The north did not rally to send soldiers south to free slaves. The north was blocking southern commerce at Fort Sumter. The general tone of the feds was to deny state rights, raise price of goods sold to southern states, and monopolize the country politically.
At that point in time, as Fredrick Douglass stated in his own words, the Constitution did not give the Fed authority of the sovereign states. The fed was overstepping it's legal authority.
Many decisions were made to collapse the southern economy.
Slavery was going to go away. Neither side had the stomach for it long term. But slave labor was the machine of southern commerce at the time. Abolishion by wipe of fed pen would have collapsed the southern states. And the southern states needed assurance that increased costs in labor could be absorbed. The northern states would not make those assurances.
Slavery was a part of the issue, but not the issue. It was sovereignty.
I think you should mention industrialization would have ended slavery. Then I could agree with something in your post.
I would also add that slavery caused the Whig Party to dissolve in the 1850s and led many northern Whigs to found the Republican Party.
There's no point to arguing over what did not happen.
Of course the United States government "fueled the conflict"! The southern states had committed treason by making war against the US government. There is no legal argument to the contrary. The US Constitution is very clear about what constitutes treason. Every confederate, from president to private, was a traitor.
Again, the mission of the United States military was to put down a rebellion by southern states who had chosen to make war on the United States government.
Did you ever take a history class taught by Bill McFeely at UGA? I did, and here's what the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian had to say about Frederick Douglass and states' rights: "Douglass' view of states' rights was of course different from that of 'treacherous' President Johnson, who saw them as a means to perpetuate white supremacy. What Douglass contended was that the shadow of slavery was so strong that 'when you add the ignorance and servility of the ex-slave to the intelligence and authority of the master' it becomes 'impossible for the federal government to wholly destroy' the supremacy of the latter 'unless the federal government be armed with despotic power, to blot out state authority, and to station a federal officer at every crossroad.' The answer, he contended, was 'to give every loyal citizen the elective franchise, ---a right and power that will be ever present, and will form a wall of fire for his protection.'" Very different meaning when you look at the context for Douglass' remarks.
WRONG. Southerners did not believe slavery was going to go away, and that can easily be proven by letting them speak for themselves: South Carolina senator James Henry Hammond, speech in the Senate, 1858:
"The difference between us is, that our slaves are hired for life and well compensated; there is no starvation, no begging, no want of employment among our people, and not too much employment either. Yours are hired by the day, not cared for, and scantily compensated, which may be proved in the most painful manner, at any hour in any street of your large towns. Why, you meet more beggars in one day, in any single street of the city of New York, than you would meet in a lifetime in the whole South.
We do not think that whites should be slaves either by law or necessity. Our slaves are black, of another and inferior race. The status in which we have placed them is an elevation. They are elevated from the condition in which God first created them, by being made our slaves. None of that race on the whole face of the globe can be compared with the slaves of the South. They are happy, content, unaspiring, and utterly incapable, from intellectual weakness, ever to give us any trouble by their aspirations. Yours are white, of your own race; you are brothers of one blood. They are your equals in natural endowment of intellect, and they feel galled by their degradation."
Mississippi senator Albert Gallatin Brown, 1858, on the EXPANSION OF SLAVERY:
"I want Cuba, and I know that sooner or later we must have it. If the worm-eaten throne of Spain is willing to give it for a fair equivalent, well—if not, we must take it. I want Tamaulipas, Potosi, and one or two other Mexican Stats; and I want them all for the same reason—for the planting and spreading of slavery.
And a footing in Central America will powerfully aid us in acquiring those other states. It will render them less valuable to the other powers of the earth, and thereby diminish competition with us. Yes, I want these countries for the spread of slavery. I would spread the blessings of slavery, like the religion of our Divine Master, to the uttermost ends of the earth, and rebellious and wicked as the Yankees have been, I would even extend it to them.
I would not force it upon them, as I would not force religion upon them, but I would preach it to them, as I would preach the gospel. They are a stiff-necked and rebellious race, and I have little hope that they will receive the blessing, and I would therefore prepare for its spread to other more favored lands."
OK - the main issue was sovereignty---Sovereignty to protect, perpetuate, and expand the institution of slavery. As President Lincoln said, "It is the same tyrannical principle."
You and I will not agree on this, so we'll move on. There will be quotes from certain individuals who will show racist and hatred tendencies. Louis Farakan, an African American living now advised his followers to kill white people. Now, do I think all black people want to kill white people?
I do not quote history teachers as I believe that is as much of a problem as anything. I read the transcripts directly from the mouths of the participants. This is where my opinion was formed. I found great respect for Frederick Douglass in doing that. He was an awesome man who understood the task at hand. His writings have been cliff noted away to read much different than what the man was truly about.
There will always be racists and bigots, both black and white. But the legal and ethical machine in Washington, represented by both north and south, was aimed at ending it. The mechanization of the south would end most of it.
The quest for freedom for the slaves was not why northern mothers sent their sons to war. Actually, at that time, while the north ended slavery, the North held the black race in contempt and would not mix the races. In the south, you actually had black women raising white children. The "mammies" were common in the south and not the north.
I still contend that the pressure, both economically and politically, would have ignited regardless of slavery.
We have no concept of states rights now, so the average citizen can't even fathom it. We have given it all away now.
Enjoyed the conversation. It has been good. Great points and gave me some research ideas.
I do not quote history teachers as I believe that is as much of a problem as anything. I read the transcripts directly from the mouths of the participants. This is where my opinion was formed. I found great respect for Frederick Douglass in doing that. He was an awesome man who understood the task at hand. His writings have been cliff noted away to read much different than what the man was truly about.
There will always be racists and bigots, both black and white. But the legal and ethical machine in Washington, represented by both north and south, was aimed at ending it. The mechanization of the south would end most of it.
The quest for freedom for the slaves was not why northern mothers sent their sons to war. Actually, at that time, while the north ended slavery, the North held the black race in contempt and would not mix the races. In the south, you actually had black women raising white children. The "mammies" were common in the south and not the north.
I still contend that the pressure, both economically and politically, would have ignited regardless of slavery.
We have no concept of states rights now, so the average citizen can't even fathom it. We have given it all away now.
Enjoyed the conversation. It has been good. Great points and gave me some research ideas.
You act like sovereignty and slavery were separate issues, but they weren't. With the election of Lincoln, the South was sure that slavery would be abolished, so secession pre-emptively began. At the convention at which South Carolina seceded, on Dec. 17, 1860, John Elmore, Alabama's commissioner to South Carolina, said the following:
Lincoln's election was an avowed declaration of war upon the institutions, the rights and the interests of the South.
What do you think is the primary institution to which he was referring?
You know who else were traitors? Everyone who signed the Declaration of Independence, everyone who took up arms against England...
So using your logic, the slaves themselves were traitors because they fought and killed white U.S. citizens while involved in illegal actions against the country to gain freedom?
You know, since we are using the term so loosely.
You know, since we are using the term so loosely.
Slavery was a bi product of the economic issue. The Norther wanted the South to sell though then instead of directly to the rest of the world (60% of the worlds cotton) If the North cared so much about black ppl, why did they argue that they were 2/3 a person?
As I've pointed out in a few examples, the burning issue was slavery. Everything was a by-product of that.
Who said the North cared about Southern slaves? Counting slaves as 2/3 of a person was a compromise between the North and South - the South wanted all slaves counted for purposes of representation and the North didn't want them counted at all (which made perfect sense).
No, the burning issue was economics. End of Story. Slavery was the crutch the North used to justifiy their economic aggression.
Pretty much all the politicians at the time would disagree with you. Economic aggression is the crutch people use these days to make the South look like the victim in the Civil War rather than the primary instigator.
I think direct quotes from the politicians themselves are good indications of what they were thinking. Scroll up in this thread if you missed the ones I posted.
You can quote any single politician of any era. One Must UNDERSTAND The Overall Tone of the political duscussion. Al ok ng with the fact that most white northerners were not willing to die for the freedom of slaves. It wasn't some nobel social cause at the time leading up to the war.
The war was not started as northern correction and control of the south. It started as a response to the attack at Fort sumter.
The north was not prepared for it.
It wasn't a noble crusade to save the slaves. It really wasn't to stop states from seceding. It was survival and response to southern aggression.
Lincoln injected the noble cause to connect the northern citizens to rally.
I have certainly never said that the North was fighting to end slavery. However, that doesn't change the fact that, for all intents and purposes, the South was fighting to preserve slavery. There was no "Just Cause" on either side.
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