Your thinking is as lost a cause as The Pre-war South's was.
Keep throwing out those tired old dying deceits, for what they're worth.
Re: Black Confederates. Yes, black men fired at men in Blue
- Thread starter oletex
- Start date
Your thinking is as lost a cause as The Pre-war South's was.
Keep throwing out those tired old dying deceits, for what they're worth.
Neo? So you mean I was once a Unionist until I decided I wanted more war? WTF? LOL Oh my, I've always said libs were just.....well they depend on stupid ppl.
1. Let us say that the war was not fought over slavery: that it was neither the motivation of the south to secede or the north to attack. What does that change, really?
2. As the Confederate Constitution made no provision for the ending of slavery and the vast majority of the economic, political, legal, social and religious leadership of the Confederate population was pro-slavery, how long do you believe that slavery would have lasted? (The "slavery would have soon died out because it was economically unsustainable" argument is A. factually dubious and B. not a good one anyway if you are trying to determine which side was morally superior ... or even if the two sides were more or less morally equal.)
3. Presuming that slavery ended in the Confederacy at some point - for economic, political or moral reasons - what would the status of blacks been? Keep in mind: the primary justification for slavery in the first place was the idea of inherent black inferiority to whites. Pointing out that northerners such as Lincoln had a similar lack of esteem for blacks does little good when one considers that the Union imposed the 14th and 15th amendments on freedmen at the point of a gun, and that the former Confederacy quickly essentially abolished both as soon as Reconstruction was over, frequently employing violent means to do so (please do some quick research on the Hamburg Massacre, for instance).
Add it all up and while it may be true that some blacks fought for the Confederacy, it is difficult to sustain the claim that the triumph of the Confederacy - either through their defeat of the Union in the Civil War, the refusal of the Union to fight the war, or even had Lincoln lost the presidency to a pro-slavery politician - would have been in the interests of black slaves, freedmen, their family members, descendants, or even of blacks who sought to emigrate to America from Africa, the Caribbean/Latin America, Europe or Canada in the decades following. Even black slave owners - which despite legends otherwise actually consisted of only a very few people - benefited, as they were completely politically enfranchised and had no legal rights that any citizen possessing such rights was bound to respect, meaning that there was pretty much nothing protecting such a person of being disposessed of his family and property and himself winding up a slave under any number of very realistic scenarios (incidents such as that which happened to Solomon Northup were not by a long shot unheard of, and most did not end nearly so happily).
Add it all up and one comes to the conclusion that indicting the north for its flaws and defending the Confederacy (on all matters beyond their legal right to secede as they saw fit) are two different things. Simply put, the Union, abolitionists and Lincoln being wrong comes far short of making the Confederacy right. Because of this, it is very easy for one to take the position that since the war did happen after all - and that neither side was anything close to blameless in bringing the war about - the speedy ending of slavery and the passage of the 14th and 15th amendments was about the best possible outcome of that conflict, because it is difficult to imagine either general abolition or constitutionally enshrined equal rights/protection laws (which were needed despite what any libertarian type might protest) was the best possible outcome to bad situation.
The Confederacy going along would have ended badly. The slave population would have grown, the Confederacy was going to be increasingly isolated economically and politically by the Union and Great Britain, and the Confederacy's leaders showed no interests in things like providing general education, building infrastructure or transitioning to a manufacturing economy. (Quite the contrary, some of the most scathing indictments of free market capitalism came not from socialists, communists and other leftists but rather were the rhetorical devices of southerners who sought to claim that the antebellum economy was morally superior to the northern industrialists and bankers.) Allowing the Confederate states to remain in the Union would have had a similar result: both sides trying to manipulate the process of allowing slave and free states' admission into the country to maximize the advantage for their side, and the free states were going to retain a population/wealth/infrastructure/education over the slave ones. So as horrible as the great war was, we have to consider the possibility that it prevented even greater bloodshed down the line, especially considering that the Civil War ended a mere few decades before weapons capable of producing even greater carnage - weapons that were used in World War 1, but on European battlefields and not our own for instance - came on the scene shortly afterwards.
Scenario 1: the Civil War happens anyway, but involving a Confederacy that had a bigger population that was less geographically centralized due to the expansion of slavery out west - making it impossible for the Union to wall them in and sustain a naval blockade and easier for the Confederacy to obtain support from larger numbers of Native Americans who were less threatened by an agricultural slave economy that they could and often did join by becoming slave owners themselves than by industrialization - and both sides having tanks, fighter planes and submarines.
Scenario 2: the Civil War doesn't happen but a race war incited by socialist and communist infiltrators and agitators does. Look, imagine the trouble that was already caused by abolitionists like John Brown and increase it by several orders of magnitude. Keep in mind: Karl Marx died a couple decades after the Civil War before his views took any traction. And while there were some slave revolts, they were brief and localized thanks to poor organizing and resources, and the aversion of many slaves - lots of whom had been heavily influenced by some form of Christianity over generations - to the murderous violence against innocents that a successful slave rebellion would have needed to occur. (Many radicals despite Christianity to this day and regard it as a hindrance to social change for precisely that reason. Or should I say that Marx himself stated that Christianity should be suppressed because it was counter-revolutionary, and the refusal of most slaves to take up arms to liberate themselves served as exhibit A. of Marx being right.) Well, Marxists would have provided the slaves with a lot better planning and organization, far more guns as well as provided an ideology that would have justified the large scale slaughter of innocents.
Add it all up and there was no good, easy way out of the slave problem, which included both ending slavery and dealing with the emancipated slaves. It is a lot easier to find motes in the eyes of Lincoln, the abolitionists, the union and modern liberals who defame southern heritage than admitting that reality, but being unable to admit that reality doesn't change it.
2. As the Confederate Constitution made no provision for the ending of slavery and the vast majority of the economic, political, legal, social and religious leadership of the Confederate population was pro-slavery, how long do you believe that slavery would have lasted? (The "slavery would have soon died out because it was economically unsustainable" argument is A. factually dubious and B. not a good one anyway if you are trying to determine which side was morally superior ... or even if the two sides were more or less morally equal.)
3. Presuming that slavery ended in the Confederacy at some point - for economic, political or moral reasons - what would the status of blacks been? Keep in mind: the primary justification for slavery in the first place was the idea of inherent black inferiority to whites. Pointing out that northerners such as Lincoln had a similar lack of esteem for blacks does little good when one considers that the Union imposed the 14th and 15th amendments on freedmen at the point of a gun, and that the former Confederacy quickly essentially abolished both as soon as Reconstruction was over, frequently employing violent means to do so (please do some quick research on the Hamburg Massacre, for instance).
Add it all up and while it may be true that some blacks fought for the Confederacy, it is difficult to sustain the claim that the triumph of the Confederacy - either through their defeat of the Union in the Civil War, the refusal of the Union to fight the war, or even had Lincoln lost the presidency to a pro-slavery politician - would have been in the interests of black slaves, freedmen, their family members, descendants, or even of blacks who sought to emigrate to America from Africa, the Caribbean/Latin America, Europe or Canada in the decades following. Even black slave owners - which despite legends otherwise actually consisted of only a very few people - benefited, as they were completely politically enfranchised and had no legal rights that any citizen possessing such rights was bound to respect, meaning that there was pretty much nothing protecting such a person of being disposessed of his family and property and himself winding up a slave under any number of very realistic scenarios (incidents such as that which happened to Solomon Northup were not by a long shot unheard of, and most did not end nearly so happily).
Add it all up and one comes to the conclusion that indicting the north for its flaws and defending the Confederacy (on all matters beyond their legal right to secede as they saw fit) are two different things. Simply put, the Union, abolitionists and Lincoln being wrong comes far short of making the Confederacy right. Because of this, it is very easy for one to take the position that since the war did happen after all - and that neither side was anything close to blameless in bringing the war about - the speedy ending of slavery and the passage of the 14th and 15th amendments was about the best possible outcome of that conflict, because it is difficult to imagine either general abolition or constitutionally enshrined equal rights/protection laws (which were needed despite what any libertarian type might protest) was the best possible outcome to bad situation.
The Confederacy going along would have ended badly. The slave population would have grown, the Confederacy was going to be increasingly isolated economically and politically by the Union and Great Britain, and the Confederacy's leaders showed no interests in things like providing general education, building infrastructure or transitioning to a manufacturing economy. (Quite the contrary, some of the most scathing indictments of free market capitalism came not from socialists, communists and other leftists but rather were the rhetorical devices of southerners who sought to claim that the antebellum economy was morally superior to the northern industrialists and bankers.) Allowing the Confederate states to remain in the Union would have had a similar result: both sides trying to manipulate the process of allowing slave and free states' admission into the country to maximize the advantage for their side, and the free states were going to retain a population/wealth/infrastructure/education over the slave ones. So as horrible as the great war was, we have to consider the possibility that it prevented even greater bloodshed down the line, especially considering that the Civil War ended a mere few decades before weapons capable of producing even greater carnage - weapons that were used in World War 1, but on European battlefields and not our own for instance - came on the scene shortly afterwards.
Scenario 1: the Civil War happens anyway, but involving a Confederacy that had a bigger population that was less geographically centralized due to the expansion of slavery out west - making it impossible for the Union to wall them in and sustain a naval blockade and easier for the Confederacy to obtain support from larger numbers of Native Americans who were less threatened by an agricultural slave economy that they could and often did join by becoming slave owners themselves than by industrialization - and both sides having tanks, fighter planes and submarines.
Scenario 2: the Civil War doesn't happen but a race war incited by socialist and communist infiltrators and agitators does. Look, imagine the trouble that was already caused by abolitionists like John Brown and increase it by several orders of magnitude. Keep in mind: Karl Marx died a couple decades after the Civil War before his views took any traction. And while there were some slave revolts, they were brief and localized thanks to poor organizing and resources, and the aversion of many slaves - lots of whom had been heavily influenced by some form of Christianity over generations - to the murderous violence against innocents that a successful slave rebellion would have needed to occur. (Many radicals despite Christianity to this day and regard it as a hindrance to social change for precisely that reason. Or should I say that Marx himself stated that Christianity should be suppressed because it was counter-revolutionary, and the refusal of most slaves to take up arms to liberate themselves served as exhibit A. of Marx being right.) Well, Marxists would have provided the slaves with a lot better planning and organization, far more guns as well as provided an ideology that would have justified the large scale slaughter of innocents.
Add it all up and there was no good, easy way out of the slave problem, which included both ending slavery and dealing with the emancipated slaves. It is a lot easier to find motes in the eyes of Lincoln, the abolitionists, the union and modern liberals who defame southern heritage than admitting that reality, but being unable to admit that reality doesn't change it.
Not much, but it would prove Abe to be a Tyrant
Um, yes it would have died out on its own. It was very expensive. How do I know. It ended in South America on its own and a million ppl didn't die.
I don't know if it would have been much different. Might have even sped up the process. Most southerns didn't own slave, and most that did worked in the fields side by side with them. More blacks settled in the South...so no reason to believe anything would change.
The only point is....Its true. As much as you try and pretend the North cared about blacks and giving them rights etc...They didn't. They were treated awful in the north also. The North formed them into units and used them as cannon fodder .
Sorry, not true. As flawed as the Confederacy was, they had an absolute right to leave the union. The States were intentionally written to have more power than the Fed Government. Had the North not needed the cash from the South the war would not have happened, and like the Union would have been reformed at some point.
I think that's a big stretch. It sounds good and supports your argument, but its pure speculation. If the south learned one thing about the war, it was technology and the need to modify. The Cotton gin itself make slaves obsolete. Na, can't stop progress.....Unless you're a liberal democrat.
Geez Rolo, have You ever read a book on the subject of slavery in The South ? The idea the cotton gin would have helped end slavery is beyond ludicrous.
The cotton gin is what made slavery so profitable. Before it came along the process of cleaning cotton was so slow a tedious planters usually only planted a portion of Their lands in it.
After the gin came along the slave population in the South quadrupled and the price of a good field hand went from $300 to $400 to $2000 to $2500.
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You're right it was a bad example. The point being technology made slavery increasingly less profitable. Slavery was a dying industry and would have ended on its own.
Slavery might have eventually ended because of a lack of profit/need, but not for many years, probably generations.
The market for cotton certainly didn't fall off till the invention of nylon and other synthetic fabrics in the 1930s and 1940s.
The economics and politics were very different down yonder.
There would have been nothing to spur Southern leaders to end slavery that soon. That is anything other than really intense external pressure.
