Quote from: elmerfudd on September 05, 2011, 06:09:21 PM
Could very well be.  The governor of Mississippi at the time, John Pettus, predicted there would be no war.  Just a relative few months after saying that, he was driven from the capital city by heavily armed union troops. 

I have long thought that if a "do over" was possible, in April of 1865, if not earlier, both sides would have called time out and gone back to 1860.  At the election of Lincoln, they would have looked at their recent 5 year experience, the one they just were granted a "do over" on, and decided to go another route.  That route would have ended slavery and preserved the union at far less cost than the alternative.

Most of the impressions I have about the war come from the individual troops who fought in the trenches on both sides had to say in letters, diaries and journals, something I've put a lot of research into.

Most of them were in a rush to get to Washington or Richmond to join up before the thing was over...to a lot of them it was a picnic...sort of like a football game between rivals or something.

It just escalated and escalated.

Interesting to note, most of them do NOT mention slavery as an issue.

For the Rebs it was "States Rights" or "Southern Rights"
for the Feds it was "preserving the Union" or punishing a
traitor whom many had a grudge against to begin with.

Billy


Billy

Quote from: BILLY-bONNEY on September 05, 2011, 06:15:38 PM


Most of the impressions I have about the war come from the individual troops who fought in the trenches on both sides had to say in letters, diaries and journals, something I've put a lot of research into.

Most of them were in a rush to get to Washington or Richmond to join up before the thing was over...to a lot of them it was a picnic...sort of like a football game between rivals or something.

It just escalated and escalated.

Interesting to note, most of them do NOT mention slavery as an issue.

For the Rebs it was "States Rights" or "Southern Rights"
for the Feds it was "preserving the Union" or punishing a
traitor whom many had a grudge against to begin with.

Billy


Billy

Slavery was not an issue to the troops.  But it was to the leaders who led the states to secession.  The perceived threat to it was, in fact, the ONLY reason cited for secession in any of the secession convention speeches for which we have transcripts. 

Soemthing else I forgot to mention, given time, I think the South would have ended slavery and accepted Industrialism

But they wanted to do it on their own terms and in their own way in their own time....not be "forced" or cajoled into it.

Quote from: BILLY-bONNEY on September 05, 2011, 06:18:33 PM
Soemthing else I forgot to mention, given time, I think the South would have ended slavery and accepted Industrialism

But they wanted to do it on their own terms and in their own way in their own time....not be "forced" or cajoled into it.

I think you're 100% right on that. 

Quote from: elmerfudd on September 05, 2011, 06:19:59 PM
I think you're 100% right on that. 

Some of the Major CSA Players stated as much. Almost to a man they dispised Slavery.

Billy

Quote from: BILLY-bONNEY on September 05, 2011, 06:25:40 PM


Some of the Major CSA Players stated as much. Almost to a man they dispised Slavery.

Billy

Some who owned slaves were a little torn, too.  They just had too much invested in it.  If there had been a labor source to hire, no slaves would have been imported.  But nobody was coming voluntarily to furnish that labor source.  Once that labor source was here, and basically had few other options, they could have been hired.  But by then, they were "bought and paid for."  And the "toothpaste was out of the tube" so to speak.  It boiled down to money, as you said earlier.  Had there been some way to reasonably compensate slave owners for their loss of "property," they would have finally gone along with it.  Maybe a state at a time to see how it worked.  I dunno.  But it always does boil down to money.  It's what is known as Feldstein's rule: "No matter what they say they're talkin' about, what they're really talkin' about is money."  And this one: "Blood is thicker than water, but money is thicker than blood."

Quote from: elmerfudd on September 05, 2011, 06:31:02 PM
Some who owned slaves were a little torn, too.  They just had too much invested in it.  If there had been a labor source to hire, no slaves would have been imported.  But nobody was coming voluntarily to furnish that labor source.  Once that labor source was here, and basically had few other options, they could have been hired.  But by then, they were "bought and paid for."  And the "toothpaste was out of the tube" so to speak.  It boiled down to money, as you said earlier.  Had there been some way to reasonably compensate slave owners for their loss of "property," they would have finally gone along with it.  Maybe a state at a time to see how it worked.  I dunno.  But it always does boil down to money.  It's what is known as Feldstein's rule: "No matter what they say they're talkin' about, what they're really talkin' about is money."  And this one: "Blood is thicker than water, but money is thicker than blood."

Let me point out something else, slaves weren't being imported...not legally, Importing slaves was outlawed in the early 1800's.

Slaves were being smuggled from the west Indies and that is another way folks in the south were turning a dollar thru criminal enterprise.

Billy

Quote from: BILLY-bONNEY on September 05, 2011, 06:37:02 PM


Let me point out something else, slaves weren't being imported...not legally, Importing slaves was outlawed in the early 1800's.

Slaves were being smuggled from the west Indies and that is another way folks in the south were turning a dollar thru criminal enterprise.

Billy

I know.  But prior to the importing being made illegal, they were imported regularly.  Once here, they began to reproduce.  The legal importation occurred to furnish the initial stock.  Would have remained legal but for it being such a moral issue.  Also, the cotton gin really gave the "peculiar institution" a jump.  Slave values increased dramatically afterward.

Something else...I keep forgetting these things...sorry, but I beleive Berggeist hit on this the other day.

There was a deep rooted fear in many Southerners that a slave rebellion or a rebellion of former slaves would take place if freed. The Nat Turner rebellion was foremost on southern minds.

Then Came John Brown, the Charles Mansion of the day, possibly financed by Northern Abolistionists.

There was also the question of what to do with freed slaves, this would have meant ten of thousands of displaced persons having no or little way to earn a living for which they weren't trained.

So in effect what I said about industialism was likely the best way for the South to go, however, stubborn culture and "pride" were obsticles to common sense.


Billy

Quote from: BILLY-bONNEY on September 05, 2011, 06:42:40 PM
Something else...I keep forgetting these things...sorry, but I beleive Berggeist hit on this the other day.

There was a deep rooted fear in many Southerners that a slave rebellion or a rebellion of former slaves would take place if freed. The Nat Turner rebellion was foremost on southern minds.

Then Came John Brown, the Charles Mansion of the day, possibly financed by Northern Abolistionists.

There was also the question of what to do with freed slaves, this would have meant ten of thousands of displaced persons having no or little way to earn a living for which they weren't trained.

So in effect what I said about industialism was likely the best way for the South to go, however, stubborn culture and "pride" were obsticles to common sense.


Billy

Culture and pride are frequenty the enemies of common sense.  Also this attitude: "change is always bad."

From the other Civil War thread.

Quote from: mdgiles on September 06, 2011, 06:45:54 AM
The Declaration was mainly an explanation of our reasons for severing our ties with Great Britain. It was one of our founding documents in that it signaled the American colonies changing their status from colonies to an independent state.

Not quite, is my understanding. The colonies, were all independent ( of each other ) entities, paying liege and tribute to King George.

QuoteThe American Colonies operated under the Articles of Confederation from the the time of the Declaration until the ratification of the Constitution.

Sorry, no cigar, not even one of Slick Willies used ones. The colonies, to fight the War, operated under the Continental Congress. Then, of course, came the Articles of Confederation after the Revolution was won.

QuoteThere is a straight line running from the Declaration, through the Articles, to the Constitution. And the Articles were NOT working, which was the reason a convention was originally called just to revise them, that convention (later called the Constitutional Convention) ended up by scrapping the Articles and writing the Constitution. Oddly enough, the main reason the Articles were considered a problem was the inability of the new country to pay it's debts. It seems we've come full circle. By the way Jefferson was the ambassador to France while the Convention took place.

All of which I pretty much agree, though in truth, the nationalists, mostly led by Hamilton, a monarchist, most probably had a rewrite in mind from day one.

QuoteMadison was the main writer of the Constitution,

Madison may have been the main scribe, but the convention did not arbitrarily stamp everything he wanted, hence the long drawn out affair of the convention as they struggled with the ideas and language.

Quoteas well as the Bill of Rights.

Simply not true, The Bill of Rights were the brainchild of George Mason, of Gunston Hall, Virginia.

QuoteYou can claim input for Jefferson via his correspondence, however the fact remains that he wasn't there whereas Hamilton was.

Mostly beaten down by the Conventioneers as they haggled over many of his pronounced ideas.

QuoteIn addition Hamilton, Madison and John Jay are credited with the writing of the Federalist Papers, which went a long way toward gaining ratification.

Of that, there is little doubt that they ran a great sandy on the country to get ratification. The anti-Federalists actually, in my opinion, foresaw exactly the rise of Leviathan as we know it today.

The rest for a later time.

Quote from: Berggeist on September 05, 2011, 04:27:23 PM
Lincoln very cleverly initiated the actions at Ft. Sumter, in the middle of negotiations.

Lincoln was the lawyer for the Illinois Central long before he ran for President.  He was invested in stock in the railroad.  The financing and building of the boondoggle known as the Transcontinental Railroad began right in the middle of the War which Lincoln had unleashed.  No one was bending over backward to please the South; had that been so, the South would not have seceded.  No, Buchanan want what was most precious of all: peace.  Lincoln wanted his idea of "union" which had nothing to do with the union as it actually existed, even if it meant war.

Again, you make comic-book arguments marshaled around a dry-sapling facts.




-- edited by taxed - removed double posting

Lincoln was a lawyer for any number of clients. It was how lawyers operated back then. Specialization in a specific field of law just didn't exist as it does now. When some sort of problem arose, you hired the best local lawyers (in this case Lincoln) that you could. Often because they were familiar with local conditions - and the people who might be sitting on the jury.

The shear stupidity of saying Lincoln started the war, when the South began their war preparations before he even took office is simply asinine. How exactly did Lincoln trick the Confederates into setting up artillery positions all pointed at Sumter? What did he do to "force" the South to start firing? Lincoln called for volunteers AFTER the South started shooting.

Learn some American history. Compromise after compromise had been made to please the South. The entire governmental system of the US had been distorted in order to keep the South happy. Pres. Buchanan had sat on his hands while the country was coming apart. Even Lincoln had stated over and over again, that he wasn't going to, nor did he have the authority to, interfere with slavery. But that wasn't good enough for the South. The fact is that the South decided " to take their ball and go home" when the North said enough.

In my opinion, the problem with the Civil War is after it was over they didn't take enough Confederates out, line them up against a wall, and execute them for treason. As Franklin said in the American Revolution: "We must all hang together, or we most assuredly will all hang separately". Besides a few slaps on the wrists (except for the guy that ran Andersonville), and losing all their human property, there was no real punishment of the South. It allowed the myth of the "Glorious Cause" to spring up, and for the South to blame everyone except themselves. 

Quote from: BILLY-bONNEY on September 05, 2011, 05:05:33 PM
It was about money.....and control. Slavery was just a side issue or an excuse.

The South was a Nation of Agregairians, The North a Nation of Industrialists.

The South was dependant upon the labor of slaves to do the work of a large plantation and developed a culture all around that insitution.

The North had a supply of labor from ever increasing immigrants from Europe, specifcally Ireland and the Northern European States...German, Swedes etc. This is an important part of the equasion IMHO because those folks came from a different culture where they were NOT FREE in their native lands and had labored under conditions akin to fuedal serfdom...naturally they saw people from the South as Transplanted Aristocrats

The North wanted to introduce industrialization to the South, the South resisted this


"Yankee' Traders figured if they could get the South to get rid of slavery, the Plantation owners would be at the mercy of the industrialists with their labor saving devices and machinery (cotton Gin etc).

Who better to use for that purpose than the Abolitionists, the progressive liberals of the day.

The rest, as they say is History.


Billy

Slavery was THE issue, and had been since the founding of the country. Not so much because Northerners really cared about the slaves; but because a plantation economy requires large tracts of land, which then wasn't available for small farmers. The South couldn't give it up, because all their wealth was invested in slaves. You would have thought that an agricultural region would have leaped on the advances that were being made in industrializing farming. But they didn't, because slavery had two important effects on the Southern psyche. First it pushed every white man, at least one rung up the social ladder. "I might be poor white trash, but at least I ain't a ni**er". It also raised in the South a contempt for labor, work was something slaves did. That accounts for the South's contempt for northern "wage slaves" and their belief that the would be no match for the "superior" Southerners. That attitude also feeds into your point about the South resisting industrialization. It was "beneath" them.

We should also remember that well up into the beginning of the 20th century, the US - especially the MidWest - was still an agricultural nation, with the majority of people living on farms. It wasn't so much the fact that one side was agricultural and the other industrial, but the fact of the plantation system versus independent farmers. And although most Southerners weren't large plantation owners, their society was built around those plantations, supplying them or running them. And every Southern boy dreamed of owning one.

As for the immigrants seeing Southerners as an analog to the feudal tyrants they had just escaped, Southerners saw themselves as a landed aristocracy. Aping the manners and lifestyle of the European aristocracy.

Quote from: elmerfudd on September 05, 2011, 05:19:02 PM
Slavery was the reason the south seceded.  It was not made a significant issue with regard to the war in the North until needed to do so to give some "moral" basis for continuing what was becoming a somewhat unpopular war.

Actually The North came to realize that this war although about saving the Union, had slavery as it's flash point. The North at first made it plain that they had no interest in freeing slaves, even returning runaway slaves to their masters. But eventually they noticed how much the South depended upon those slaves. Slaves grew the food that feed Southern armies. They built the fortifications that protected Southern troops. They even worked in the factories that produced the arms and ammunition that supplied Southern weapons. It didn't take a genius level IQ to figure out that freeing slaves hurt the South. And if enough were freed the South might quite to save the rest. After all the Emancipation Proclamation only freed those slaves that were in the areas still in rebellion. Slaves in areas already under union control or in border states remained slaves.

Quote from: Berggeist on September 05, 2011, 05:53:28 PM
The War was fought because Lincoln wanted it and launched it.  The island on which Ft. Sumter was built was an artificial island.  Most of the construction of the island and of the fort was financed by the people of Charleston and the people of South Carolina.  At secession, Ft. Sumter was not in play.  There was no one there.  Major Anderson moved his forces there without orders. Given the state of negotiations, this move by Anderson could have been viewed by the South as an act of war; yet, the South held its hand.  When the Star of the West was sent and was fired upon, Buchanan could have taken this as an act of war; yet, he held his hand.

If I ever figure out how to post a quote, I'll post some from Honest Abe himself.

Wrong again.
The land on which the fort stood - originally just a sand bar - was ceded by the state of South Carolina to the federal government. In 1827, when construction was started, the federal government filled in the sand bar with 70 tons of granite - imported from New England. South Carolina - no more than any other state - paid for it's construction. As for it being an act of war by Anderson, how can a US officer, moving US troops, from one US facility to another US facility, be considered an act of war; except by some complete madmen. The truth of the matter is that the South expected the North to role over and play dead, as it had on so many other occasions. When that didn't happen, they began shooting.