1 The commonwealth of PA wants to put a casino there:
http://bit.ly/9b61ph

shameful

2 Did Lincoln need a teleprompter?

One immediately notices the difference in oratory when looking at this speech and comparing it to modern times.  Obama is probably the most pronounced at this style.. 4-5 second burst.. switch to other teleprompter.. another small sentence.. repeat.. repeat.  To fit that style, the ideas are all small little bites.  I guess that is due to the dumbing down of America.

This is one of the most moving speeches I have ever read..  perhaps as much for its brevity as the ideas and poetry.

3 Happy Birthday to us.

4 More Americans died in the Civil War (2/3rds from disease) but more Americans were killed in World War II.

5 Yeah, but did he get a massage when he was finished???

6 20th Maine Regiment

7 "We cannot consecrate-- we cannot hallow-- [that] ground...." On the other hand, a do-over would avoid the bloodshed and destruction, as well as avoid a totalitarian ploy that makes Woodrow Wilson look like a piker. Concede that slaves are property. Make it illegal to have them. Use Federal funds to compensate slave owners at, say, 125% of market rate. Compensate the ex-slaves at a market rate plus pain and suffering (if any). Return the African-born slaves to Africa. Offer U.S.-born slaves the option of return at Federal expense. Problem solved! Start a 19th-c. "space program" to automate the cotton work the slaves did in the fields. You wouldn't have to wait all that long for satisfactory developments.

8 Concede that slaves are property.

Care to justify that statement? 

9 A note about the Jennie Wade story: I'd always heard that her killing was the result of a stray bullet, not the deliberate action of a Southern sharpshooter as the linked article claims. My usual go-to source on this battle is Shelby Foote's Stars In Their Courses chapter of his three-volume Civil War history, but I couldn't find the relevant passage.

10 Care to justify that statement? It's simply a statement of historical fact. That's why Lincoln had to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, and why Union generals were at first instructed not to free slaves from their Southern masters. Lincoln even toyed with the idea of compensating Southern slave-owners in exchange for freeing their own slaves rather than doing it by Federal fiat. Ethically and morally odious as it was, it was a legal fact at that time in America: slaves were chattel property (at least in the slave-slates).

11 #8

Sorry, but none of you "solutions" addresses the actual cause of the war. And I don't think that wishful thinking, out-of-control spending in Washington and unrepresented and unbalanced taxation are going to avoid the next one.

12

 "The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract"

 

As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free

 

May God continue to bless these United States.

13 Posted by: Monty at July 03, 2010 08:27 AM

I think it's better to let Thorvald respond for himself.  I do not think that he was merely stating an historical reality.  He was advocating for ethnic cleansing.  At least, that's how I read it. 

14 Concede that slaves are property.

Lincoln did state, many times, that he considered slaves to be property, and he didn't want or plan to deprive any "owner" of his ownership rights. In other words, his objection to slavery was not motivated by concern for the slave.

His objection to slavery was motivated by a concern for how it reduced the market wage rate for white laborers. That's why the expansion of slavery into the new territories was such a hot-button issue -- those new territories were economic expansion zones, and the introduction of slavery would have reduced the income for farmers competing against slaves. It's sort of like today's complaints about how slave-wages in China out-compete US manufacturers who have to pay higher US wages -- it's not an expression of concern for the Chinese de facto slave, but a gripe about the effect of Chinese slave labor on the market price for widgets.

Lincoln's true motivation for invading the South, contrary to modern revisionism, was to keep collecting all those sweet, sweet Federal taxes on imports into Southern states. The South had little manufacturing, and thus had to import most of its finished goods -- which it could get either from the North or from Europe. High import taxes ensured that the South bought from the North rather than Europe. By invading, Lincoln was doing the bidding of his Northern industrialist employers.

15 While I appreciate Southerners and their current patriotism, and understand culturally how they view the Civil War, I am glad they lost and lost big in the Civil War. The world would be a much more horrible place had they succeeded. As an American I deplore the waste of life caused by the confederacy to protect chattel slavery of human beings. However I am glad the Union wasted the Southerners engaged in this vile enterprise, as much as I applaud our troops wasting the Taliban.
And while I am not saying that the Taliban are the same as the confederacy, they both brought civil war upon a nation for narrow sectarian/political ends. And those who use the moniker "War Between the States" (a Southern concoction) would no doubt be horrified by Obama's calling WWII the "Great Patriotic War").

16 Immediate thought after reading the Gettysburg Address above: FTW!! Lincoln was the uber. *_* Happy Independence Day, everybody! mac :]

17 By invading, Lincoln was doing the bidding of his Northern industrialist employers. You bet, Phinn. The South will rise again! You, sir, are an idiot. Any replies will be ignored, as will any further posts by you. I recommend everyone else do the same.

18 You bet, Phinn. The South will rise again!

No, it won't.  But of course, nothing will change the historical facts, and magically transform the oft-stated, plainly-declared political and economic motivations of Lincoln at the time (as the exponent of a position broadly held by North industrial interests, whose views he represented). 

You, sir, are an idiot. Any replies will be ignored, as will any further posts by you. I recommend everyone else do the same.

Lick my taint.

19 I attended the battle's reenactment in 1963. The battlefield was haunted by the fallen, sensed in reverence for their suffering.  The war's losses depleted our nation of our finest men and boys willing to protect their homes and families. The extravagant brutality, given brother against brother, made indelible imprints on the survivors and their posterity, affected variously.

Lincoln's War was fought to maintain the union, as to maintain unity within the US Constitution. (Argue Lincoln's precedence beyond Jackson to augment presidential powers and suspend the Constitution itself; hence Obama's campaign claim that Barry's the new Lincoln.)

To say that we all wish this had never happened is an understatement. Dread  a recurrence, as subsequent presidents persistently successively abuse executive privilege beyond Constitutional rule of law, and our own government now enforces division in order to amalgamate federal Marxist power over the states and over all citizen SUBJECTS (seen today in Jefferson's slip of habit). 

20 eaglewingz08
unbelievably oversimplified

21

What's wrong with "The War Between the States"? It's not really any different than "Civil War" is it?

Now, "The War of Northern Aggression" is another matter...

22

Haved visited Gettysburg many times. EVERY American should go there.

It is THE most hallowed ground in the United States.

23

In his brief history Bruce Catton addresses the causes of the Civl War and while he doesn't dismiss slavery as the most important cause of the war, he doesn't ignore a wide variety of other factors (I quote from memory, I don't have the book at hand, so I can't summarize exactly-in any event my great-great grandfather was a member of the 2nd NC Mounted Infantry a Union unit made up of Western North Carolinians who were loyal in large part because the mountains were not slave territory).

Visiting Civil War battlefields is one of my hobbies and Gettysburg is the best I've been to so far (the list includes Vicksburg, Shiloh, Stones River, Chickamauga, Lookout Mountain, Antietam, Moncacy, Fredricksburg, Chancellorsvilly, Petersburg and Bentonville).  The townspeople are really into the battle (tourism is the town's largest industry) and it is not unusual to see them wearing period costumes.  Anyonbe visiting should spend the extra money and hire one of the guides certified by the parks service because they can show you a great deal that you would otherwise miss.  Monocacy, Antietam and Harpers Ferry are all within a short drive in western Maryland.

24

maverick muse

 

Ditto.

25 Thorvald--Return the African-born slaves to Africa. Offer U.S.-born slaves the option of return at Federal expense.

Liberia

26

What's wrong with "The War Between the States"? It's not really any different than "Civil War" is it? Posted by: Steve

The 'Civil War' is shorter.

27 One bummer about the Gettysburg battlefield site is how commercialized it has become. I hear they're even thinking of building up a bunch of retail outlets nearby (Wal-Mart, etc.). I realize that Penn. needs jobs, but this just strikes me as sacrilegious somehow. I was lucky enough to get a tour of the battleground with Ed Bearss many years ago. He was a wonderful tour guide, and had an encyclopedic knowledge of every detail, large and small. I've still got a Minie bullet that I found near the Devil's Den; it was amazing to me that you could still find stuff lying around even so many years later. (They normally frown on tourists doing fortune-hunting on these tours, but Ed was nice and let me keep it!)

28 Congrats Monty on using sanguinary not once, but twice in the first paragraph.

29 While I appreciate Southerners and their current patriotism, and understand culturally how they view the Civil War, I am glad

UNDERSTAND like Sotomayor.

Rejoicing in the deaths of fellow Americans fighting for home and family hardly amounts to appreciating Southerners.

There were a lot of poor white Southerners who never owned a slave. You've heard of crackers, no doubt.

30

Solving the slavery question would not have avoided the war. Most of the Southern men who fought in the war were not slave owners, and would not have willingly died for others to continue the practice. The predominant view was of individual rights and then states rights. They evidently felt that they were continuing the earlier revolution against Northerners who were meddling in southern lives.

This may very well be the sentiment the next time around as Southern men remember their masculinity and reject liberal judges telling us we can not practice our religion, own guns, exercise free speech, associate freely or that I have to maintain the profligate habits of an incompetent President.

31

Abraham Lincoln:

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."

The jug- eared idiot:

"I can't suck it up with a straw"

32

Abraham Lincoln:

"But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract"

President Wee Wee:

"Can't I just eat my waffles?"

33

Abraham Lincoln:

" It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

The Idiot-in-Chief:

""One such translator was an American of Haitian descent, representative of the extraordinary work that our men and women in uniform do all around the world -- Navy Corpse-Man Christian Brossard."

34 Solving the slavery question would not have avoided the war. I'm not so sure that's true. The big driver of the conflict was whether slavery would be extended into the western states. Kansas and Missouri were nasty battlegrounds even before the Civil War broke out over this very issue (John Brown and his sons in 1856 hacked some pro-slavery men to death with broadswords in Pottawatomie, KS -- though he later denied being involved). Slavery was always a huge issue. Not the only one, certainly, but it certainly was a primary. It was also the main reason why England did not ally with the Confederacy early on when the Confederates seemed sure to win -- the abolitionist movement in Britain excoriated the slave-holding Confederacy, and made it politically impossible for the government to ally with them even though it made economic sense (since England at the time needed Southern cotton to drive their textile industry).

35

Abraham Lincoln:

"We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this."

The G-d of the 52%ers:

"On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes -- and I see many of them in the audience here today -- our sense of patriotism is particularly strong."

36 "On the Union side, entire formations were wiped out nearly to a man: the legendary 1st Minnesota Volunteer Infantry regiment took an astounding 83% casualty rate -- still the highest casualty rate during a single engagement of any military unit in American history."

Didn't George Custer top that at Little Big Horn?  Definition of "single engagement"?  Or of "military unit"?

37

Real quick - born in Georgia, lived in Alabama, grew up in South Carolina.  Graduated from West Point.  Just sos you know.

Hindsight and all that - but I don't think the Civil War could have been averted.  You couldn't simply buy off the Southern slave holders and be done with it.  It wasn't a matter of capital preservation, it was a matter of an economy.  The slaves were worth much more to the slave owners for their labor than for their value as property. 

The split was deep - so deep it got very, very bloody.  And it was in that crucible of blood that the country we live in today was truly formed. 

Was it all a tragedy - of course it was.  But one we made it through.

And oh how ironic that Southerners today are more "patriotic" - that they fill the ranks of our military today, way out of proportion to the general population. 

Have a Happy Fourth, morons.  Stuff that happened 150 years ago happened, but don't let it get you down. 

 

38 If Lincoln had taken this troops out of Charleston, none of this would have happened.

SC had left the union, the Federal troops refused to leave. Sort of like having the Brits stay on Governor's Island after the Revolution.  It was certainly a provocative act which lead SC to act.  I say again, Lincoln could have removed his troops and none of this would have happened.

The winners write the history books, and we all know somehow it's Boosh's fault.

39 I also recall the super-secret Battle of Rockbottom Ridge, in which my posse ambushed the filthy Indianan who gave me a dried-up Big Bite at 7-11.  Fightin' Joe always stands up for what he believes in, and he believes every American has a right to a tasty convenience store cheesy dog.  It's a big fuckin' deal.

Well, since the smelly, inarticulate clerk would not accede to my demands, we lay in wait for his shift to end.  As he passed by, I sprang from the bushes, waving the offending, half-eaten wiener at him.  "What's your fuckin' IQ?" I bellowed, also quoting from the Declaration of Independence.  I quoted vibratum.

Oh, he tried to weasel out of it, screaming something about getting a crazy man away from him, but Fightin' Joe backs away from no man, least of all a cheating, dark-skinned foreigner.

And sure, he ran away without giving me a refund or replacement dog, but it's the principle of the thing, I tells ya!

True story.

40

Now, "The War of Northern Aggression" is another matter...

Posted by: SteveN

It certainly expresses a different perspective. (Argue that the South attacked first.) Gen. Lee ordered his troops to sing the Maryland State Song to reassure the civilians that the Confederacy had no argument with civilians as they marched north to battle the Union forces that camped static, to Lincoln's chagrin. Confederate forces never marched through the North burning all homes and farms and businesses. Chivalry and all its Romantic sentiment of honor mattered in the South, and was reflected by Gen. Lee and Jefferson Davis as well.

Yes, the obvious is true: slavery was wrong. But the war was begun on the grounds stated @ 8:34 by Phinn, whether Monty is willing to research or not.

Erasing what is uncomfortable is the mode of the day. So is projecting what should have been. Nonetheless, slavery was on its way out before S. Carolina attacked Fort Sumter after ordering northern troops to return home, and the troops refused to leave under orders by the State of South Carolina. (Ne'er we forget, STATES RIGHTS EXISTED. For example, following Gov. Boggs extermination order, Pres. Van Buren had in 1832 refused to intervene against the determinations of the Sovereign State of Missouri on behalf of any victimized exiles whose property had been confiscated.)

Even South Africa eventually AND PEACEFULLY abandoned apartheid.

41 Harry has it mostly right.    Replace Southerner with American.

Does anybody think Kelo is just?   Does anybody think what Chicago just passed fits the meaning of "shall not be infringed?"

The ideals of the United States are to be mourned, not celebrated, because they no longer exist.  Read the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and tell me where I'm wrong.

 

42 Didn't George Custer top that at Little Big Horn? Definition of "single engagement"? Or of "military unit"? In terms of percentages, Little Big Horn was certainly worse in isolated units; but only about 50% in total US forces engaged. In terms of numbers engaged it wasn't even close: Custer's 7th Cavalry only mustered about 700 men in total, and ended up with 268 killed and 55 wounded.

43

Jeez...all this talk about The Civil War and me wondering if one could ever happen again...and then I read this.

"Last night, as part of a procedural vote on the emergency war supplemental bill, House Democrats attached a document that "deemed as passed" a non-existent $1.12 trillion budget. The execution of the "deeming" document allows Democrats to start spending money for Fiscal Year 2011 without the pesky constraints of a budget"

44 Have a Happy Fourth, morons. Stuff that happened 150 years ago happened, but don't let it get you down. Very wise words, folks.

45 Posted by: Monty at July 03, 2010 09:24 AM (jM/Et)

OK - well, just wondered because the over-all losses at Gettysburg were not on the order of 83%; so did not understand the term "engagement" I guess.

46 Also bear in mind re: Custer that Reno was able to fight off the Sioux with a much smaller force on the same field that day because he chose his ground more carefully and was far more cautious than Custer (IOW those slaughtered under Custer were not the only American forces engaged that day despite the popular perception).

47 Solving the slavery question would not have avoided the war.

I'm not so sure.  If slavery had been ended through other means, it would have drastically altered the economic landscape of the South. 

The sad irony in claiming that the North fought the war to end slavery is that Southern slavery depended on Northern support to exist.  Slavery is expensive to maintain.  It requires a large amount of enforcement costs, particularly in the form of a police-type system to return escaped slaves to their purported owner.  If the US had simply repealed the Fugitive Slave Act, the costs of that enforcement would have to be borne by the owners, who (as you said) were a small minority, rather than externalizing the cost to non-slavers.  Brazil ended slavery peacefully largely by refusing to subsidize this cost for the owners' benefit. 

(But, of course, doing this was politically impossible, since it would mean that more ex-slaves would move into the North.  And the North, being populated exclusively by enlightened, kind-hearted, anti-slavery, morally-superior beacons of truth and benevolence, was a little touchy about having a bunch of black people move into the neighborhood.  In fact, at the time it was quite common to legally prohibit black immigration into Northern states.  Lincoln himself helped write just such a provision into the Illinois constitution, banning blacks from moving in.  He was a peach, that one.)

If the North had simply refused to pay this cost of slavery, and slavery had thus become economically less viable, the South would have had to find other ways to make a living, either through free-market farming, or (more likely) through an increase in industrialization. 

Increased Southern industrialization, in turn, would have altered the political and economic dynamics behind enacting the tariff wall against European imports, which was the driving issue behind secession and invasion in the first place. 

48

Hey, Mav, have you read the declaration of secession?  It's revisionist history to say it was about "state's rights" (and, sorry, I'm as tea party as the next guy, see my Gadsden flag? but the Consitution protects the rights of people, not states.  You could look it up.)  The laws that got the South Carolinians up in arms - literally - were those that had to do with slavery.  They weren't upset about the formation of the Bank of the United States or whatever, they were upset because "The right of property in slaves was recognized by giving to free persons distinct political rights, by giving them the right to represent, and burthening them with direct taxes for three-fifths of their slaves; by authorizing the importation of slaves for twenty years; and by stipulating for the rendition of fugitives from labor," and that deal was ending. 

So if they thought slavery was on the way out anyway, why did they secede from the Union over it, and why did they go to war over it?   

49

If you will notice I am speaking from the Southern perspective about what moved the Southern man. There can be no doubt that he resented the Northern interference. A question continues: why would the Southern man  have risen up to defend slavery when most were not slave owners.

In the North, the situation was different. Slavery was considered a moral stain against the country. Abolitionists were constantly stirring the pot. The pressure that the abolitionists put on the situation was in part what many in the South hated. There was no willingness to allow the South to solve their problem. I would point out that the South also had abolitionists.

If slavery had been the most important cause of the war, why did Lincoln wait so long to issue the Emancipation Proclamation?

As a Christian, I believe slavery to be evil. One of the great contributions of Christian thinkers to the American Revolution was the concept that all men were created equal by their Creator.

50

And oh how ironic that Southerners today are more "patriotic" - that they fill the ranks of our military today, way out of proportion to the general population. 

 

A point worth repeating and considering ...

These same folk, whom 'cling to guns and religion' I might add, stand ready to do violence on behalf of their fellow Americans, allowing me sleep peaceably in my bed at night.  

51 Harry - the North began fighting because they were attacked.  Lincoln initially fought to preserve the Union.  Yes, ending slavery as a justification came later. 

52 According to "The Thomas Legion" website the 26th NC lost 714 of 800 men at Gettysburg (though that accounts for all casualties not just killed or died of wounds).  Also they state that the 1st Texas lost a slightly higher percentage killed at Antietam than the 1st Minnesota at Gettysburg.

53

Back in 1998 I was in Baltimore for a meeting and took an extra couple of days for myself to see the town. Instead, I awoke the next morning, threw my bags in the car, and just started driving. I ended up meandering through small town after small town until I ended up in Gettysburg. I spent the entire day there and wept like a child and, I'm sure, frightened a few people along the way.

I remember sitting on the steps of a church after reading the account of a woman who lived across the street who had left her family behind to go to the church and tend to the injured and dying soldiers. She left the church that afternoon to cross the street for home and saw the door to her own home covered in blood. In the end, it was one of the better tributes I read that day for as she raced home and flung open the door, expecting to see her own family slain, she instead found them tending to other wounded soldiers.

I sat on those steps for what seemed like hours while folks with local guidebooks walk past at a rapid pace. All I could do was stare at the tiny home and imagine what she must have felt: A civilian who left her family to tend to strangers at what would have been the most terrible and frightening of times.

Later that day, as I walked/drove through the battlefield, reading each and every monument, I was surprised at how incredibly difficult it was to tear myself away from each one: As if standing there one moment longer might pay better tribute to their memory. And, finally, that aftenoon, I headed back into the heart of town to get something to eat and happened upon the statue of President Lincoln.

That evening I set out for D.C. as I had never been there and, the next morning, headed for the mall.

I am fully now fully convinced that one should never take in the Lincoln Memorial without having first visited Gettysburg. It was more awe-inspiring, more humbling, and more emotional than I could ever have imagined.

Reading this post, even now, 11 years later and while sitting in the service department at the Jeep dealership, creates more emotion than I'm willing to share with those sitting here with me.

What a country we live in that a man such as he could have led this nation through such a horrific experience, winning the war yet being humbled by the bravery and honor of those who fought the battle.

If there's any justice in this world it is that there is a Heaven from which he, and those who fought so bravely, can witness all that this country has become.

Thanks for an unexpected bit of inspiration this Saturday morning.

54 If slavery had been the most important cause of the war, why did Lincoln wait so long to issue the Emancipation Proclamation? I think, mostly, it was because he was pragmatic. It was not clear until after Gettysburg that the Union would win the war. Declaring the slaves "free" in a part of the country he did not control (and might never control) would have made him look like a buffoon. Even more so than he already was in certain quarters. Lincoln had no special love for the slaves one way or another. He did not believe in slavery, and held it to be evil, but that's as far as it went -- he certainly was not an abolitionist in the William Lloyd Garrison mold. His intent, first, last, and always, was to preserve the Union. He issued the Emancipation Proclamation not out of compassion for the slaves (which he did feel, don't get me wrong); but out of a hard-headed strategic belief that it would weaken the Southern war effort. That's why he held off issuing the Proclamation until after the Union had won the "victory" at Antietam -- he wanted to speak from a position of relative strength.

55 If the North had simply refused to pay this cost of slavery, and slavery had thus become economically less viable, the South would have had to find other ways to make a living, either through free-market farming, or (more likely) through an increase in industrialization.

Posted by: Phinn at July 03, 2010 09:30 AM (GiUTT)

The South did not have the resources to industrialize (either raw manufacturing materials or energy sources (coal, falling water). 

When slavery ended, little changed in the South (largely because Blacks could not readily move North - as explained elsewhere).  The agricultural system simply reverted to share-cropping, which was little better (arguably, worse) than slavery.  Slavery was doomed to end in the South - Civil War or not.  But it was not because the North was paying for it, it was because of economics- slavery was not economically viable in the long run.

56

OT:  From the comments of a random blog in SC:

Graham is a japanned popinjay and a nattering slack-jawed bandersnatch

57 The South did not have the resources to industrialize (either raw manufacturing materials or energy sources (coal, falling water). It's also worthwhile to note that technology (Eli Whitney's cotton gin) actually made slavery more, not less, profitable because it allowed planters to vastly increase the size of their plantations -- and hence the number of slaves required to work it. People who predicted that the cotton gin would kill off slavery were very wrong indeed.

58 I think, mostly, it was because he was pragmatic. It was not clear until after Gettysburg that the Union would win the war. Declaring the slaves "free" in a part of the country he did not control (and might never control) would have made him look like a buffoon. Even more so than he already was in certain quarters.

--It was actually Sharpsburg/Antietam that prompted him to issue to EP.  That battle along with Perryville in Kentucky, was the true turning point of the war, despite what the history books say.

59 A lot of this can be traced back to the high moral dudgeon of the Quakers, who, as I have said before, were pacifists, meaning that no moral cause was too great for them not to send others to die for it.  They were in the very thick of the shit out west over the Kansas-Nebraska Act and spent enormous amounts of energy stirring the pudding over slavery.  They were a real political force to be reckoned with.  I can't stand Quakers.  I live in the midst of them, and you'd have to meet their culture head on to understand just how fucked up they are.

That said, it was in fact rather silly of the South to even think about engaging with the North.  They were outpopulated, outclassed in industrial production, etc.  Further, as someone said above, they did NOT go marching through torching civilian homes.  They were not prepared to engage in total war.  They were doomed from the start.  (Although, clearly, I don't think the South thought this little rebellion would turn into what it did.) 

60 Monty: His intent, first, last, and always, was to preserve the Union keep collecting those sweet, sweet import taxes.

FTFY.

61
To Phinn: I guess Confederate Vice-President Alexander Stephens was also a 'revisionist historian', as shown by his infamous "Cornerstone" speech of March 21, 1861 (emphasis added):

"The new [Confederate] constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution African slavery as it exists amongst us the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the 'rock upon which the old Union would split.' He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time. The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the 'storm came and the wind blew.'

"Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth."

Stephens' adaptation of the language of the Bible, of applying to slavery the metaphor that Jesus used for himself, makes his speech not only vile, but blasphemous.

States' rights was the lever with which the Southern aristocrats tore the Union apart, but the fulcrum was slavery: they would not tolerate any threat to it, nor even any questioning of it. And so the war came. That is fact: deal with it.

62 Happy 4th, everyone, and God bless this great country.  Three young men came home to their families in caskets here in Georgia this week.  A 20 year old Lance Corporal and two 34 years old soldiers, killed in the "overseas contingency operation" by followers of the peaceful religion of Islam. 

The first e-mail I clicked on this morning was from my libtard NYC s-i-l bragging to the family about the fahbulous time she and her husband have been having in Canada, and the music fests they're attending.  I'm sure the military, including her own nephew, our son, never crosses her mind.  And she still believes The One is the bestest president evah!

Okay.  I'm going to put the twit out of my mind, fly our flag, say prayers today for all our brave military, and pray this country can survive Captain Kick Ass and his evil minions.  Hurry up, November.

Oh, and God bless all you great morons/ettes.  Smooch!

63 #22 see #39.

It was a war of northern aggression, Yankees invaded Virginia, a sovereign state that had declared its Independence from the USA.

http://tinyurl.com/2vtyaro

Yankees refused to remove their troops from Fort Sumter, SC.  SC a sovereign state had declared its Independence from the USA and had no desire to have troops of a foreign nation stationed in its main harbor.  The Federal Troops were given every opportunity to leave, they failed to do so and were fired on my SC troops defending their state. 

Winners write the history books, and Boosh started all of this somehow.

64
We begin with this:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.

...And end with this:

Nancy Pelosi is an embarrassment, a disgrace, a buffoon, a sad joke, an economic idiot, and a liar.

65 It was a speech few liked at the time
---------------

Not true. Most people recognized it as excellent, and many knew it was one for the ages. It was panned by many of his Democrat opponents, but then as now, they were dicks.

66

 the North began fighting because they were attacked.  Lincoln initially fought to preserve the Union. 

I have to reject that line of reasoning. The actual case was the typical model of escalation. Over time, each side became more isolated from the other, and with each crisis the situation passed to a higher level of conflict resulting in violence, as in the attack on Ft. Sumter, which Lincoln used to rally the troops. There were certainly other incidents of violence before Sumter.

67 Yesterday was the anniversary of JEB Stuart pulling the old "cannonball in the courthouse" trick here.  Lee probably could have used him down in Gettysburg.

68 Democrat opponents, but then as now, they were dicks.

Some say that history doesn't repeat, it echoes.  That's no echo.

69 Winners write the history books

We best be doing some writing here in a few years, or there won't be anything to write about.

70

I've been to Gettyburg several times over the years.  The town itself has been pretty commercialized but most of the battelfield is untouched.

When I have been on the battlefield, I can feel the spirits of the tens of thousands of men fighting for the two causes they believed in.  It is a very moving experience:  I have stood where Chamberlin stood as the very right flank of the Unon Army and in the woodline where Pickett had been looking up at the ridge.

I am conflicted about the war -- I have a great-great grandfather that fought for the Union in the 79th Pennsylvania Infantry Rgt (and he was apparently quite the bad-ass: wounded three times, captured three times and escaped three times) for almost the entire war.  But...I have concluded that the Southern States had the right to succeed from the United States.

 

 

71 I can't tell you how fascinating this "what was the real cause of the Civil War" debate always is. It's almost as good as Mac vs PC or AR vs AK.

72 Happy 4th to Jane and all the military moms!

73

#62...

Dear Lord.

I became increasingly nauseated as I read that. It's the first and last time I've likely to read that statement as I'm sure it will stay with me forever.

Just an unholy and sickening set of values...I don't give a damn about the claim of those today, whether referring to the Civil War or to seggrgation, that the folks who expressed such sentiment were simply "of their time".

Evil is evil is evil.

74 Thanks Phinn, I'm glad you didn't run away when challenged. I have always felt that a comprehensive historical understanding of the Civil War is fundamental to understanding the true nature of the United States. It was indeed the crucible. We grew up as a nation. In my perspective, this war was the "solution" to a large socio-economic problem that had to be overcome in order for the nation to move on. I think that we as a nation are rapidly approaching another epoch. History will not repeat itself as a blood war, mostly due to our technological dependence IMHO, but there needs to be a settling of issues now as there was then in order for us to move on. There must be winners and losers. Deserving to win s' got nothing to do with it.

75 Agreed, Buckeye Cop.  My GG Grandpa likewise got shot up at Shiloh. 

The Southern states did indeed have the right to secede.  Their error was in thinking they could defend that right by force.  There never was a way for them to win.

76

As a Georgia-born Southern Redneck Cracker, I can say I'm glad the South lost that war and kept this wonderful nation together.

God bless those that give all to provide the freedom that few of us will ever earn.

77 blaster 9:31
So if they thought slavery was on the way out anyway, why did they secede from the Union over it, and why did they go to war over it?

Reading comprehension vs. Revisionism:

I wrote that slavery was on its way out; not who at the time thought that as you assumed and projected in error.

You ought to read the source that you quote before blatantly misrepresenting it.  Since S.Carolina was the subject mentioned, please note that their secession documented STATES RIGHTS as the South's prime issue.

Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union
By Christopher Gustavus Memminger

Memminger was a prominent political leader and the first Secretary of the Treasury for the Confederate States of America.

I'll go back now to read it more carefully, myself.

78 "July 3, 1863 during the Pickett/Pettigrew charge at Gettysburg, the 11th Mississippi had 386 men present in the ten companies and regimental staff. The 11th suffered a total of 336 casualties during this charge (87% of the men fell). The 11th Mississippi Regiment sustained the highest casualty percentage of any regiment at the battle of Gettysburg, North or South."

My ancestor. Samuel Brewer was there, KIA, with his Company, The University Greys.

Lest we forget.

79
Monty, you've got to be kidding? Greatest President?

That Honor lies with George Washington, without which we would not even HAVE a country.

As for Lincoln, when I was young I always counted him as a Great President, but as I learned more about what happened, I began to see him in a different light.
Most people have never been taught, or bothered to learn for themselves the ugly details about Abraham Lincoln.

I suppose it's pointless to bother pointing out the examples. (Like Arresting the State Legislature of Maryland without charges. etc.)

Unless someone can better explain some of the acts of Lincoln, I am having trouble seeing him as anything other than a manipulative dictator, who ensconced the notion of  massive and all powerful Federal government into the nation's psyche ever since.

80 States' rights was the lever with which the Southern aristocrats tore the Union apart, but the fulcrum was slavery: they would not tolerate any threat to it, nor even any questioning of it. And so the war came. That is fact: deal with it.

This war ended more than 100 years before I was born, so I don't have to "deal" with anything.  All I do is read what was said at the time, and then think.  You should try it some time. 

The motivations for the South to secede don't interest me nearly as much as the Northern motivations to prevent secession.  Everyone already knows that the Southern political establishment was controlled by the large slave-owning landholders, and they were thus motivated primarily by their desire to protect the legal system from which they derived their wealth and power.  It doesn't take much in the way of smarts to comprehend that.

The problem people like yourself seem to have is understanding the other half of the equation -- the Northern motivation for preventing secession.  To the extent that the North wanted to eradicate slavery, it was motivated by their own economic concerns, not the morality of slavery or the experience of the slave. Those who did think about such things were a tiny, insignificant minority, limited to a few religious types. 

The main Northern motivation to prevent secession was to preserve the South as a captive market.  The tariff wall was designed to shut down European imports, thereby forcing the South to buy from the Northern factory-owners instead.  An independent South would have meant not only the loss of those import taxes (on which the US government depended at the time) but a loss of the control over the Southern economy. 

Here's what you need to "deal" with -- Lincoln and his employers launched a war to prevent an otherwise legal and peaceful secession, killing over half a million people and destroying an incalculable amount of wealth in the process, in order to secure the South as a more or less permanent market for Northern factory goods. 

That's the truth, but the phrase "For Tariffs! For Captive Markets!" doesn't quite look right when it's carved into the side of a pretty marble monument, so instead, people dress up this war of conquest in all sorts of lofty, noble propaganda. 

Which is another word for "bullshit." 

81 Speaking of Killer Angels, I highly recommend anything by Michael Shaara's son Jeff. He's responsible for awesome works on everything from the American Revolution through WWII. I'm in the midst of To The Last Man, which covers WWI. Just a fantastic author/historian.

82 Greatest President?

That Honor lies with George Washington

Jefferson or Madison.  About equal, I'd say.  They were the men with the real vision for this new country.  And don't forget Franklin Pierce, GWB's second cousin eight times removed.

83 It's simply a statement of historical fact. That's why Lincoln had to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, and why Union generals were at first instructed not to free slaves from their Southern masters. Lincoln even toyed with the idea of compensating Southern slave-owners in exchange for freeing their own slaves rather than doing it by Federal fiat.

Ethically and morally odious as it was, it was a legal fact at that time in America: slaves were chattel property (at least in the slave-slates).

Posted by: Monty at July 03, 2010 08:27 AM (jM/Et)

This characterization reminds me of the Errol Flynn version of "Robin Hood." In the beginning of the Movie, Errol Flynn encounters the Sheriff of Nottingham, and they trade barbs. Presently, a peasant is brought up and accused of having killed one of the King's Deer. Errol Flynn looks as though he's taking up for the peasant JUST so he can pick a fight with the Sheriff. He doesn't appear to give a shit about the peasant other than as an excuse to start something. 

84 The problem people like yourself seem to have is understanding the other half of the equation -- the Northern motivation for preventing secession.  To the extent that the North wanted to eradicate slavery, it was motivated by their own economic concerns, not the morality of slavery or the experience of the slave.

You're most of the way there.  Consider also that Britain was still on the American shit list, for the most part, at that time.  They were threatening to muck around in this whole little spat by recognizing the Confederacy and assisting them.  They were still powerful.  That was an existential threat to the nation as a whole.

85
As bad as Gettysburg was nothing can top Cold Harbor for sheer brutality. 

86

To quote that noted historian Puff Daddy, it's all about the Benjamins. Slavery is that neat little narrative we like to draw on to make our history a scant more noble, but war, as with most things, almost always boils down to jobs/money.

87

Okay. I'm not hoping to start a fight here. I've already expressed how deeply I feel for the soldiers who fought the battle but I have a question to debate and many here are far more well-versed than I.

Given current knowledge that the Confederacy was outmatched, with little probability of success, does it make those who pursued the cause to the bloodiest battlefields fools, or heros, for their cause?

Did the organizers and leaders of the Confederacy know that they were outmatched? If so, was it simply a matter of martyrdom: Meaning that they threw themselves on the sword to express their commitment to a belief so deeply held? Did they enter into a war knowing that they would fall but would be remembered for their commitment?

In times such as those, does devotion outweigh common sense? Or, is it a sense of hopeful euphoria that says: My forefathers fought against greater odds to make out nation free, and won, and so can we?

Is there any current situation in which those same questions might be applied when viewed through a historical context?

Again, don't get nasty. I'm genuinely interested in understanding.

88
You're most of the way there.  Consider also that Britain was still on the American shit list, for the most part, at that time.  They were threatening to muck around in this whole little spat by recognizing the Confederacy and assisting them.  They were still powerful.  That was an existential threat to the nation as a whole.

Posted by: Herr Morgenholz at July 03, 2010 10:12 AM (DZfpP)

I havent seen that scenario talked about much, but I'm sure Britain was licking it's chops over a divided and weakened Union. I believe at one time they even put 25,000 troops in Canada maybe to attempt that exact venture, is that right ?

89

Hindsight and all that - but I don't think the Civil War could have been averted.  You couldn't simply buy off the Southern slave holders and be done with it.  It wasn't a matter of capital preservation, it was a matter of an economy.  The slaves were worth much more to the slave owners for their labor than for their value as property. 

Posted by: blaster at July 03, 2010 09:17 AM (su3hy)

It was more than that. For the Southerners to give up slavery was to admit that it was wrong, for if it were not wrong, why give it up?

To admit that it was wrong, was to admit that they had lived for generations on the food that they did not deserve.

Who could accept such a chastisement about themselves and their entire family?

The truly unfortunate thing is that Mechanized farming was just a short distance in the future. Slavery would have disappeared anyway when it was more profitable for machines to do the work.

90

July the 3rd is a great day to have a birthday.  today is the 54th one i 've had on this day............

91 Posted by: Blazer at July 03, 2010 10:15 AM (t72+4)

Not sure about the troops in Canada, but Britain damn near declared war against the North in 1861 when the Union Navy boarded a British mail ship coming out of Charleston and detained a couple of would-be Confederate ambassadors heading to Europe.

92 Happy Birthday, Racefan!!!

93

Three of my great-great-great-uncles were killed that day, two at Gettysburg, one of them with Elwell and one with Pickett's Brigade.

94 The Emancipation Proclamation only freed the slaves in the so-called Confederate States of America.  Slavery in the states remaining in the Union - Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, West Virginia, and Delaware - ended either by state law or by the passage of the XIII amendment to the US Constitution.

After the US Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision, war was inevitable.

95 Happy Birthday Racefan.

96 thanks ya'll.........

97
Not sure about the troops in Canada, but Britain damn near declared war against the North in 1861 when the Union Navy boarded a British mail ship coming out of Charleston and detained a couple of would-be Confederate ambassadors heading to Europe.

Posted by: Herr Morgenholz at July 03, 2010 10:20 AM (DZfpP)

That may have been the cause. I remember something  to that effect during Ken Burns' Civil War documentary about Britain stationing thousands of troops on the Canadian border opposite New York to ruffle Lincoln's feathers.

98 I'm not convinced that the civil war will ever be truly over . In our day to day lives it's a seldom noticed , almost healed wound , yet even after 150 yrs. the bandage is still in danger of being torn off .
I offer a salute to our honored dead ,yankee and confederate, and all who have ever worn the uniform of these United States .Bless 'em all .

99 Happy birthday, Racefan!

100 One thing I do know and can comment on with conviction, is that a review of my Husbands family tree reveals 14 Robert "X"  Hulls on the Union side, dead. And 12 Robert "X"  Hulls on the Confederacy side, dead.

 All cousins, fighting each other to the death.

We do not ever want to repeat this.

101 52 Harry - the North began fighting because they were attacked.  Lincoln initially fought to preserve the Union.  Yes, ending slavery as a justification came later. 

Posted by: blaster at July 03, 2010 09:36 AM (su3hy)

What a lot of people do not know is that Lincoln engineered the attack on fort Sumpter. I did not know it until a friend of mine (who happens to be black AND a History major) was telling me gleefully about how clever Lincoln was in engineering the attack on Ft. Sumpter.

Lincoln was so sure of the reaction of the Southern forces that he sent orders to the commander of Ft. Sumpter informing him that He would shortly be attacked. He was to take all precautions to preserve life, hold the fort for one day, then surrender it to the attackers. Everyone thought this would be a short trivial conflict.

One thing that is absolutely certain, Lincoln was a very clever fellow. Secession was a fait acompli, and the only way Lincoln could rectify the humiliation of losing half the country was to engineer a show of force, and put this silly nonsense to bed.

It is self evident that both sides underestimated the determination of the other.

102 There is no budget, but an ersatz, ethereal, virtual budget of $1.2T has been "deemed as passed" by Democrats. No one in government seems to give a shit. Wouldn't now be a great time to come to an agreement on secession--before the next Civil War begins?

103

Someone compared WWII casualty figures with Civil War casualties.  It's true there were more KIA in WWII than the Civil War, (292K to about 220K) but the overall deaths were greater in the Civil War (550K to 408K)

Of course, there was greater disease, but many  Civil War disease deaths were in fact infections incident to battle wounds.  So I'm betting the numbers of men who died as a result of enemy fire in the Civil War was just as great or greater than WWII

When you consider casualty statistics for the Civil War battles, you will generally get both an overestimation and an underestimation.  If you didn't know better you would think that 50,000 men died at Gettysburg.  But lost means killed, wounded, captured AND desertion.

On the other hand, if you simply say 8,000 men were killed at Gettysburg, you are understating what happened.  At least twice that number would die within three or four days from complications from their battle wounds

104 I'm not convinced that the civil war will ever be truly over

It's over.  There are "cultural hostilities", but clearly there's no danger of real fisticuffs.  Slavery is long gone, despite the efforts of the race hustlers to bring it back as a contemporary issue.  And indeed, the South is rising again in comparison to the North, merely by sticking to the American principals of liberty more closely than their Northern counterparts. 

105

101...

How horrible. That is a scar that must take generations to heal, and I hope that in your family, it has.

You are correct. We never want to repeat it.

106 "Wouldn't now be a great time to come to an agreement on secession--before the next Civil War begins? " I suppose there is an alternative. If the government would accept our taxes to be "deemed as paid," there would be no need to settle the secession question.

107 I'm genuinely interested in understanding. It's important to remember how different the culture was in America (North and South) than it is now. It was a highly religious age, which you can hear in the letters and speeches of the time. Both armies believed (to varying degrees) in the Divine rightness of their causes. That's what drove the soldiers of both sides forward -- they truly believed in the rightness of their cause. The commanding generals of the South generally formed the "aristocracy" of the Army (remember that it as one Robert E. Lee, a US Army colonel at the time, who put down the Harper's Ferry uprising), and tended to think of their "country" as their respective states, not the United States of America. (Lee, when he spoke of his "country", was speaking of Virginia). We are used, in modern times, to thinking of the United States as a single entity, not a loose confederation of states. It was the Civil War that did this -- prior to that war, the link was much weaker, and the culture far more localized. There were other fractures, culturally: the North was more urban and industrial than the more agrarian South; the North had a far larger population of recent immigrants (Irish and German particularly); the South tended to hew more to the "old world" notions of honor, nobility, and landed gentry. As you can tell from recent posts in this thread, some of the differences among North and South persist to this very day. Back then, the differences were fundamental enough for men to go to war, and slaughter each other in great numbers.

108 Wouldn't now be a great time to come to an agreement on secession--before the next Civil War begins?

The difference is that there would be no hew and cry from the people to keep Tennessee or Wyoming or Texas in the Union by force.  In fact, any government force used in that endeavor would be under extreme risk of rear-guard hostilities.

Posted by: Call me Lennie at July 03, 2010 10:26 AM (r/5/5)

The shits killed as many men as projectiles did.

109 It's also worthwhile to note that technology (Eli Whitney's cotton gin) actually made slavery more, not less, profitable because it allowed planters to vastly increase the size of their plantations -- and hence the number of slaves required to work it. People who predicted that the cotton gin would kill off slavery were very wrong indeed.

Posted by: Monty at July 03, 2010 09:44 AM (jM/Et)

And McCormick's Reaper made it less profitable. That was shortly in the future.

110 Thanks for the great post.  Newt Gingrich, being an historian, wrote a book that begins with a ficticious ending to the Battle of Gettysburg.  I forget the title just now, but I am sure Amazon can easily find it.

111 "The difference is that there would be no hew and cry from the people to keep Tennessee or Wyoming or Texas in the Union by force. In fact, any government force used in that endeavor would be under extreme risk of rear-guard hostilities." Then I'm for dissolving the "Union."

112
Awwwww Gettysburg. I lost a lot of good men on that horrible day. I remember sneaking through the Confederate lines with a knife between my teeth looking to kill me some secessia trash.

113 That said, it was in fact rather silly of the South to even think about engaging with the North.  They were outpopulated, outclassed in industrial production, etc.  Further, as someone said above, they did NOT go marching through torching civilian homes.  They were not prepared to engage in total war.  They were doomed from the start.  (Although, clearly, I don't think the South thought this little rebellion would turn into what it did.) 

Posted by: Herr Morgenholz at July 03, 2010 09:47 AM (DZfpP)

Not necessarily. Had the Southerners acted as Lincoln did, after the first battle of manassas they could has seized Washington D.C., Hunted down Lincoln, and ended the war without further bloodshed. They chose not to invade, even though they had already whipped the only force that could have stopped them.

Indeed, the ragtag remnants of the Union Army were fleeing back through Washington telling the population that a confederate invasion was imminent. Had it happened, the war would have been done. The stupid confederates didn't understand that defending their homeland wasn't the end of it. They needed to stop further attacks by aggressively invading the attacker while they were weak.

Their lack of animosity and sense of fair play cost them the war.

114 Herr , it would probably have been more accurate for me to have said the hot phase is over but the cold phase of the war continues to this day .

115

i'm off for a two day party at my brothers house in the country. food, drinking, old friends, and fun.........

I hope everyone in the Moron Nation has a great weekend..............

seeya monday....................

116 What's wrong with "The War Between the States"? It's not really any different than "Civil War" is it? Posted by: Steve

The 'Civil War' is shorter.

Posted by: Garbonzo the Garrulous at July 03, 2010 08:59 AM (N/7an)

It was neither. The "Civil War" was really a stimulus package. Spending IS stimulus! Think of all the broken windows that needed to be fixed. We need some more Civil War stimulus, today. I am working to bring this about, you Western ingrates. Do you want jobs or not?

117 Their lack of animosity and sense of fair play cost them the war.

Political will.  I alluded to that.  Sherman understood what it took to win.  He broke the will of the South.  As destructive as that march was, it saved lives, in much the same way that Patton saved lives through aggressiveness.  Patton was often excoriated for the number of casualties he took in short periods of time, but his philosophy was to go in and get it over with, because he believed, and it's true, that the likelihood of becoming a casualty goes up the longer one is exposed to combat.  Shorter, more violent operations cost fewer lives.

118

A few years ago, I was in Savannah, Ga, with friends, and we were walking through an old cemetary looking at the graves, trying to find the oldest one. I came upon a group plot, with five men buried there, all part of the "Jefferson Davis Legion". They were buried together; not with family, wives, children or other kin. Brothers in arms, resting in peace.

I'm a Yankee, two of my great-great Grandpa's fought in the Union Army, and there is nothing wonderful about any war, least of all the Civil War. But the time for all the hate is over.  I saw that group grave, and it made me realize that these were decnt men, however misguided, fighting for what they believed in. Not bad men, just wrong. Let them rest.

And at the end of Grant's memoirs, he says this about Robert E. Lee,"Never did a better man lead a worse cause."  If all the decent and moral men of the South, like Lee (who never owned slaves) and others had stood up and said, "Stop, this is foolishnes" (Sam Houston was run out of Texas for trying to say that), maybe there wouldn't have been a war. Or maybe it was inevitable.

119 83 Greatest President?

That Honor lies with George Washington

Jefferson or Madison.  About equal, I'd say.  They were the men with the real vision for this new country.  And don't forget Franklin Pierce, GWB's second cousin eight times removed.

Posted by: Herr Morgenholz at July 03, 2010 10:08 AM (DZfpP)

I'll not deny that they were great Presidents, but again I reiterate, George Washington singlehandedly made the lofty ideas of Jefferson and Madison possible.

120 Maybe we in the flyover states could "encourage" California and New England to secede.

121 Maybe we in the flyover states could "encourage" California and New England to secede.

Is there a fault line in N Pennsylvania we can plant a nuke on?

122

Did the organizers and leaders of the Confederacy know that they were outmatched? If so, was it simply a matter of martyrdom: Meaning that they threw themselves on the sword to express their commitment to a belief so deeply held? Did they enter into a war knowing that they would fall but would be remembered for their commitment?

In times such as those, does devotion outweigh common sense? Or, is it a sense of hopeful euphoria that says: My forefathers fought against greater odds to make out nation free, and won, and so can we?

Is there any current situation in which those same questions might be applied when viewed through a historical context?

Again, don't get nasty. I'm genuinely interested in understanding.

Posted by: jmflynny at July 03, 2010 10:14 AM (//S/Z)

Yes, they knew they were outmatched. Several people in the confederate government PLEADED for them not to Attack Fort Sumter. They predicted exactly what would happen if they did so.

Lincoln was relying on the hotheads to start the war he needed to justify giving them their comeuppance. 

I say the Civil war was more about Egos than anything noble. It was a face saving pissing contest that got out of hand.

123 Another strange (and rather sad) thing about Robert E. Lee: he'd never refer to Union soldiers as "enemies". He always called them "those people". It always surprises me that the animosity between individual soldiers of the Union and Confederacy was almost nonexistent -- yet they went out and killed each other with abandon anyway. Union soldiers who heard of the Fort Pillow massacre by Southern troops, however, never lost their hatred of the enemy. Grant, the commanding general of that campaign, never forgot it either. He used the term enemy quite often, as did his subordinate Sherman.

124 Maybe we in the flyover states could "encourage" California and New England to secede.

Posted by: Bugler at July 03, 2010 10:43 AM (VXBR1)

Unfortunately, socialists never secede.  Quite the opposite. They are all about the constant need to suck fresh money into their failing Ponzi schemes.  This is why no one can live with leftists/socialists.  Eventually, everyone who lives near leftists has to defend himself and his property against them.

125 Dear Canada, Would you be willing to incorporate New York for a cool one trillion dollars? Thanks, The Former United States

126 France would probably be willing to take Hollywood for a reasonable fee.

127

On one wall of the Lincoln Memorial is the Gettysburg address, on the other is this, the second inaugural address.  The last time I was there, some bumble headed women was telling her child that this was "part two" of the Gettysburg Address. She was literally wrong, but in a sense, figuratively right. Less the first paragraph:

 On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, urgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war—seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.

2   One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether." 3   With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

128
Another strange (and rather sad) thing about Robert E. Lee: he'd never refer to Union soldiers as "enemies". He always called them "those people". It always surprises me that the animosity between individual soldiers of the Union and Confederacy was almost nonexistent -- yet they went out and killed each other with abandon anyway.

Union soldiers who heard of the Fort Pillow massacre by Southern troops, however, never lost their hatred of the enemy. Grant, the commanding general of that campaign, never forgot it either. He used the term enemy quite often, as did his subordinate Sherman.

Posted by: Monty at July 03, 2010 10:47 AM (jM/Et)

A lot of the Southern generals were at the top of their classes at West Point and were battle hardened and tested during the Mexican American War. The North was outclassed by the South in terms of military leadership at the beginning which is why they pretty much were lost just about every major engagement for the first two and a half - three years of the war. Gettysburg was definitely the turning point.

129 Yes, Britain stationed troops in Canada during the ACW and began canal and fort building/improving along the border after the Trent Affair as well as starting a Militia movement in what would become Canada.

The ACW also provided the impetus for the British North American colonies to unite as one country for self defence.

I think there was also concern that if the South succeeded in seceding that the North might have turned its eyes to Canada as territorial 'compensation' as it were.

Shortly after ACW, Irish veterans who were part of the Fenian Movement did invade Canada from U.S. soil more or less hoping to take the country and use it as ransom for the liberation of Ireland.

BTW, our national holiday is July 1st and I spent an hour celebrating at a gun range! (And, BTW, there are links to ACW and Gettysburg videos at the bottom of the list of associated videos in my You-Tube link.)

Happy Independence Day. (And I hope that there are many more in the future!)

130 As you can tell from recent posts in this thread, some of the differences among North and South persist to this very day. Back then, the differences were fundamental enough for men to go to war, and slaughter each other in great numbers.

Posted by: Monty at July 03, 2010 10:30 AM (jM/Et)

It should also be pointed out that "insurgencies" in those days often drew foreign support.  The CSA had a realistic (but unrealized) expectation of French, British or Mexican support.  Had it come, the North would have had to think long and hard about its strategy.

131
A lot of the Southern generals were at the top of their classes at West Point and were battle hardened and tested during the Mexican American War. The North was outclassed by the South in terms of military leadership at the beginning which is why they pretty much were lost just about every major engagement for the first two and a half - three years of the war. Gettysburg was definitely the turning point.

Posted by: Blazer at July 03, 2010 10:53 AM (t72+4)

I've discussed this issue with others in the past, one of whom contends that Grants was a brilliant general. I contend that Grant was a Determined General, and that they only thing he had going for him was that he was willing to fight a war of attrition with a smaller but more clever enemy, and didn't care how many men he killed doing it.

With a large enough army and supply system, anyone can eventually grind down their opponent.

132 A lot of the Southern generals were at the top of their classes at West Point and were battle hardened and tested during the Mexican American War. There's a cool book that came out a while back called Last In Their Class: Custer, Pickett, and the Goats of West Point by James Robbin that talks about how the bottom-dwellers at West Point were actually considered good officer stock. It was kind of a point of pride to be the bottom of your West Point class in those days. It's an interesting book if you're into that kind of thing.

133 In the context of their time, culture, current events, and talking points, both sides were justified by their decisions. I'm glad  President Lincoln recognized the battle ground as hallowed, and the soldier's efforts as valiant.
Regardless of the hell, the country is a better place for it.

Now, I'm thinking,...what if there had been a inexpensive form of energy to support that vital economy?
Now oil is made immoral.

134 I've discussed this issue with others in the past, one of whom contends that Grants was a brilliant general.

See Blazer's reference above to the Battle of Cold Harbor.  Grant was a fucking moron a good deal of the time.

135

I've discussed this issue with others in the past, one of whom contends that Grants was a brilliant general. I contend that Grant was a Determined General, and that they only thing he had going for him was that he was willing to fight a war of attrition with a smaller but more clever enemy, and didn't care how many men he killed doing it.

With a large enough army and supply system, anyone can eventually grind down their opponent.

Posted by: Diogenes at July 03, 2010 10:57 AM (eVJ7T)

Grant wasn't as brilliant as he was brutal. before assuming command of the Army of the Potomac he was basically a washed up drunk commanding some obscure frontier outpost. However brutal and determined he may have been concerning human lives, he deeply regretted Cold Harbor and it haunted him the rest of his life.

136 Maybe for a trillion dollars in gold bullion, Bugler. (Glenn Beck's right!)

137

I've discussed this issue with others in the past, one of whom contends that Grants was a brilliant general. I contend that Grant was a Determined General, and that they only thing he had going for him was that he was willing to fight a war of attrition with a smaller but more clever enemy, and didn't care how many men he killed doing it.

With a large enough army and supply system, anyone can eventually grind down their opponent.

Posted by: Diogenes at July 03, 2010 10:57 AM (eVJ7T)

Before Grant idiots like McClellan, Meade and Burnside led the Army. The fact is these generals were very much political and payed too much attention to the newspapers in Washington and New York and what they said about them, which is why they were apt to pull out of an engagement quite quickly when major loss of life was imminent. Grant simply didn't give a damn what anyone thought or said about him.

138 for the 3rd of July. this bridge is what i see from my driveway. the marker is at the end of the street.

139 136 I've discussed this issue with others in the past, one of whom contends that Grants was a brilliant general.

See Blazer's reference above to the Battle of Cold Harbor.  Grant was a fucking moron a good deal of the time.

Posted by: Herr Morgenholz at July 03, 2010 11:00 AM (DZfpP)

Yes, but he was a moron with a virtually unlimited supply of bodies to throw at the enemy. They would simply draft the poor Irish immigrants off the ship and put them into combat against a far better trained and deadly foe. "Welcome to your new country! Now's go die for us! "

140 I would be more than happy to allow you so-called "red staters" to secede if you wish. But first you will blow me.

141 Grant is a deeply misunderstood general. His drunkenness is overstated; he did go on benders, but almost never during a campaign. And when in bivouac, he mainly drank because he missed his wife -- when his wife and son were with him, he never drank. As for his "brutality": he knew that in order to win the war, he had to win battles. There was a prevailing belief in both armies at the time that maneuver and troop-positioning would win the day. Grant knew, as did Sherman, that destroying the enemy army was the only way to win. It wasn't about taking and holding around; it was about defeating the enemy army. That was something that previous commanders from McClellan all the way to Burnside and Hooker could never quite accept. Meade finally got it, but it was Grant that made it a cornerstone of his strategy. Grant was cool, methodical, and very tactical. Cold Harbor was something of an aberration. He was not a bloody-minded man as his oppenent Stonewall Jackson was (he couldn't even abide meat cooked rare), but he knew that the only way to win was to break the Confederate army.

142 But first you will blow me.
We've already got you covered, Chief, like Anderson Cooper with a lollipop.

143 A confederacy was tried right after the Brits were sent packing. It failed. The Constitution was adopted and a Republic was formed. The South pretended the Republic was just another confederacy; they were shown the error of their ways. If the Confederacy had won would they allow Texas or SC or any other State of the Confederacy to leave at some later date?

144
Before Grant idiots like McClellan, Meade and Burnside led the Army. The fact is these generals were very much political and payed too much attention to the newspapers in Washington and New York and what they said about them, which is why they were apt to pull out of an engagement quite quickly when major loss of life was imminent. Grant simply didn't give a damn what anyone thought or said about him.

Posted by: Blazer at July 03, 2010 11:05 AM (t72+4)

A lot of people overlook the possibility that these Generals really didn't believe in what they were ordered to fight for. A lot of people regarded that war as exactly the Federal Oppression of individual states that Founders feared. These fears were well defined in the Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers.

Just as it is suspected that Heisenberg may has sabotaged the German atomic bomb project by playing dumb, working slowly and doing unnecessary and distracting tests, perhaps these Union generals were trying to avert having to fight this war?

145 If the Confederacy had won would they allow Texas or SC or any other State of the Confederacy to leave at some later date? The irony is that Jefferson Davis passed far more draconian acts of conscription and economic control than Lincoln ever did, and Davis had to fight endless battles in his own government among governors and senators who felt that he was being more of a "dictator" than Lincoln was. The Confederate States of America ended up being a far more controlling centralized government than the United States of America. It was a conundrum not lost on even Davis himself.

146 If the Confederacy had won would they allow Texas or SC or any other State of the Confederacy to leave at some later date?

Posted by: eman at July 03, 2010 11:10 AM (kFytp)

Yes.

147 I once saw some old film footage of actual Civil war veterans doing a pitiful reenactment of Pickett's charge. The elderly Confederate vets, some missing limbs, assembled on the pasture, the Union men among the trees and fences. The Rebs let go a yell, then ambled up the slope, where the Union men embraced them. If that don't get ya right here, nothing does.

148 127 Dear Canada,

Would you be willing to incorporate New York for a cool one trillion dollars?

Thanks,

The Former United States

Posted by: Bugler at July 03, 2010 10:49 AM (VXBR1) 

Pass

149 Grant was cool, methodical, and very tactical. Cold Harbor was something of an aberration. He was not a bloody-minded man as his oppenent Stonewall Jackson was (he couldn't even abide meat cooked rare), but he knew that the only way to win was to break the Confederate army.

Posted by: Monty at July 03, 2010 11:07 AM (jM/Et)

I remember reading about a British military attache who was with the Confederates at the time they were constructing the tapestry of earthworks at Cold Harbor. He simply could not believe that Grant would be foolish enough to engage in a frontal assault in a wide open field opposite those murderous trenches.

He of course would be proven wrong.

His own soldiers knew it was madness. Most of them had their names and personal information sewn into their uniform pants before the battle. 5000-7000 men were killed in a space a little more than an acre wide within the first half hour.

150 Another consonance between Cold Harbor and Gettysburg is that the Gettysburg failure can be laid pretty much solely at the feet of Robert E. Lee. He could have disengaged at any time and saved his army; he could have avoided the battle (and the campaign) altogether. But his mistake in Gettysburg doomed the Confederates to defeat. Lee himself knew this, which is why he sent a letter of resignation to President Davis not long after the retreat. (Which was denied.) Grant's mistake at Cold Harbor, however grievous, did not have the same effect. And it was a mistake he never repeated.

151 145
A confederacy was tried right after the Brits were sent packing. It failed. The Constitution was adopted and a Republic was formed. The South pretended the Republic was just another confederacy; they were shown the error of their ways.

If the Confederacy had won would they allow Texas or SC or any other State of the Confederacy to leave at some later date?

Posted by: eman at July 03, 2010 11:10 AM (kFytp)

The Confederates believed that if the Principles of the Declaration of Independence was valid for the United States, it was valid for the Confederate States as well.

Why would it be morally justified for the colonies to secede from Britain, but not from the US ?

Believe it or not, at the time NO ONE thought that it was unreasonable for the south to secede. Northern Newspapers were editorializing "Go in peace..."

The war started when Lincoln engineered the attack on Ft. Sumter, then sent word to all the Northern Newspapers that the SOUTH ATTACKED US! He demonstrated his seriousness by arresting the Legislature of Maryland, and clamping down on any dissent from what he wanted to be the narrative.

Talk about peace with the south? Go to jail!

152 he couldn't even abide meat cooked rare

How could a pussy like that win a war?

153 The Confederates believed that if the Principles of the Declaration of Independence was valid for the United States, it was valid for the Confederate States as well. Posted by: Diogenes Did they believe in this part? "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." The Confederacy was doomed no matter what. It could never hold together and would be consumed by waves of secession, exploitation, and conquest.

154
Posted by: Diogenes at July 03, 2010 11:20 AM (eVJ7T)




Northern newspapers at the time were really not friendly to the Union generals and savaged them. Some were in fact quite pro-Confederacy. Hell, even Mary Todd Lincoln was pro-Confederacy and was rooting for the South and it was no secret and it caused Lincoln quite a lot of embarrassment. One of her brothers was even a commanding officer in the Confederate army or some such.

155 How could a pussy like that win a war? You want weird, you oughta take a look at Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson. A religious zealot and cold-blooded killer, he rode into battle with one hand raised up because he believed it "balanced the bodily humors". He generally dressed like a derelict, but one time received a new dress uniform with yellow piping ("chicken guts") from Longstreet, and then proceeded to wear it almost everywhere until it was as ratty and worn-out as his other duds. He wouldn't eat pepper because he believed it would weaken his left leg. He asked for his horse, Little Sorrel, to be stuffed and put on display after his death (which was done; the stuffed horse now resides at VMI in Virginia). He was noted for sucking on lemons all the time, even during the heat of battle.

156 Hell, even Mary Todd Lincoln was pro-Confederacy and was rooting for the South and it was no secret and it caused Lincoln quite a lot of embarrassment.

Wrong.

157

Posted by: Monty at July 03, 2010 11:31 AM (jM/Et)

That's nothing.  I had to suck a cock!

158 Did they believe in this part?

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

The Confederacy was doomed no matter what.
It could never hold together and would be consumed by waves of secession, exploitation, and conquest.

Posted by: eman at July 03, 2010 11:28 AM (kFytp)

They believed in them to the same extent that the Founders who declared slaves to be worth 3/5ths of a person did.

The word is zeitgeist.

159 declared slaves to be worth 3/5ths of a person did.

Nothing like an old chestnut that refuses to die.

160

@ Blazer  One of the reasons for the vast superiority of the Southern Generals was Virginian Winfield Scott, the architect of the fantastic strategy of drawing the Mexican army northward with an attack across the border in order to set up the Marine invasion at Veracruz

As the first lieutenant general since Washington, Scott, during the interim war years  personally mentored and sponsored the careers of an inordinate number of fellow Southerners.  And lest we forget Scott was a military genius  who passed this trait on to his proteges 

@ Monty

If you want to be technical you could say that Grant's two week Summer Meatgrinder offensive of 1864 was a bloodier battle than Gettysburg. It goes by the names of  Battle of Spotsylvania and Battle of Wilderness and Cold Harbor, but really it was one continuous battle.  All told, both sides lost 76,000 men in this two week period.

There's irony here in that the battle was so grim neither side chose to glorify it; so it's significance is completly underappreciated.  I represented the first time the Union invaded Virginia and stayed put.  When that happened the game was up for the South.  Once the Union Army was permanently squatting on the South's best farmland, the South could be starved into submission

 

161 Southern papers were pretty harsh on J. Davis, especially when the rebels armies were beaten or destroyed.  Which was pretty often.  Since the rebel government controlled access to ink and newsprint, things could get dicey for an outspoken editor.

162

Did the organizers and leaders of the Confederacy know that they were outmatched?

I don't know about that, but it is pretty clear that once the War started, everyone seemed to be all for it. Seems to be a sign of the times. Face it, young men would do just about anything to get off the farms or out of the factories.

And war seemed so glorious.

side note: according to Bruce Catton, most Cavalry troops were city boys. Farm boys knew how much work a horse needed, and wanted nothing to do with them.

163 Speaking of Mary Todd Lincoln, that reminded me of Mary Custis Lee, Robert E. Lee's wife. She was the grand-niece of one George Washington. The Lee estate was later turned into a Union cemetery -- we know it today as Arlington National Cemetery.

164 The Lee estate was later turned into a Union cemetery -- we know it today as Arlington National Cemetery.

So, after the next Civil War, can we turn Obama's house into a titty bar?

165
Wrong.

Posted by: mrp at July 03, 2010 11:32 AM (HjPtV)

Not so, it's pretty common knowledge and documented extensively, even Ken Burns touched on it in his Civil War series.

166 161 declared slaves to be worth 3/5ths of a person did.

Nothing like an old chestnut that refuses to die.

Posted by: Herr Morgenholz at July 03, 2010 11:35 AM (DZfpP)

It's kinda tough to ignore. It's right there on the document.

My point in bringing it up is that to us modern folk it is a peculiar dichotomy, but to the people of that era it did not seem hypocritical in the least. They come from a different time with a different perception of the world.

My salient point is still valid. At the time of the Civil war, pretty much everyone regarded the question of southern secession as very much like the colonies seceding from Britain. The only person who truly objected to it was Lincoln, the person who did the most to cause it, and the person most humiliated by it.

167
Speaking of Mary Todd Lincoln, that reminded me of Mary Custis Lee, Robert E. Lee's wife. She was the grand-niece of one George Washington. The Lee estate was later turned into a Union cemetery -- we know it today as Arlington National Cemetery.

Posted by: Monty at July 03, 2010 11:39 AM (jM/Et)

And Lee's father was Harry 'Lighthorse' Lee who fought under Washington.

168 Mary Lincoln's family, the Todds, all fought for the Confederacy.

169 And Lee's father was Harry 'Lighthorse' Lee who fought under Washington.

Lee's father was a horse?

170 It's kinda tough to ignore. It's right there on the document.

It was a political compromise that in fact gave more recognition to slaves than they deserved if they were "merely property".

This "worth 3/5 of a person" meme is bullshit straight out of the race-hustlers operating manual.

171 Mary Lincoln's family, the Todds, all fought for the Confederacy. Mary Todd hailed from Kentucky, one of the bitterest regions for pro/anti-Union infighting. It was a border state in more ways than one. Mary Todd's family were generally aligned with the Confederacy, but Mary Todd herself can't really be classified as "pro-Confederate" in any real sense. She was in many ways a vain and silly woman, and drove Mr. Lincoln to distraction -- particularly after the death of his son Tad, which nearly drove Mary Todd over the edge. Lincoln loved his wife dearly, but was exasperated by her as well. In addition to the other enormous burdens Abraham Lincoln carried during those terrible years, his wife added still more.

172 So, how would this Confederacy sustain itself? Would it let pieces of itself depart without a fight? If so, how would it protect itself? If not so, what argument would they make? The Confederacy was a lie. It deserved to die stillborn.

173 I am rather unkind to Mary Todd Lincoln, though. For all her flightiness, she was a steadfast wife and tried to be a good helpmate to her husband. She was loyal to Abraham Lincoln, and as such, was loyal to the Union cause.

174 172 It's kinda tough to ignore. It's right there on the document.

It was a political compromise that in fact gave more recognition to slaves than they deserved if they were "merely property".

This "worth 3/5 of a person" meme is bullshit straight out of the race-hustlers operating manual.

Posted by: Herr Morgenholz at July 03, 2010 11:48 AM (rgYqa)

I am aware that it is used to foment hatred, and I am also aware of why it was put in there. (to convince the southerners to agree to the union. Funny how that worked out.) 

It is however like the reference to Jesus Christ in the Constitution, an accurate piece of information.

175 which nearly drove Mary Todd over the edge.

That's an understatement, right there.  That woman was batshit fucking insane, and always had been.  She was nuttier than squirrel shit.  Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. Crazier than a shit-house rat.  &c.

176
but Mary Todd herself can't really be classified as "pro-Confederate" in any real sense.



I remember seeing a program, it may have been Ken Burns' series, about an episode that occurred in City Point around the time of the siege of Petersburg when Lincoln came to visit. Mary Todd had an epic pro--Confederacy outburst of some sort in full view of several Union officers that caused Lincoln to have a 'facepalm' moment.

I'll see if I can look it up.

177

Posted by: eman at July 03, 2010 11:51 AM (kFytp)

Ever see the movie CSA? Interesting film about what the U.S would be like had the south won the civil war.

178 There were several major mistakes Lee made during the course of the campaign. One was failing to listen to his best general, Gen. James Longstreet, first in deciding against maneuvering around the fast-approaching Union forces and concentrating themselves between the Union forces and Washington, on high ground of their own choosing, and then in ordering Gen. George Pickett to attack the center of the Union lines despite Longstreet's insistent warnings against it. Another was not pushing Dick Ewell hard enough to take Cemetery Hill when he had the opportunity to take it without much bloodshed. Also, had Gen. Lee been more forceful on the battlefield at various points in the campaign, such as when Longstreet was taking too long to attack Little Round Top and Round Top, it would likely have led to a more different sort of campaign and result.

179
She was in many ways a vain and silly woman, and drove Mr. Lincoln to distraction -- particularly after the death of his son Tad, which nearly drove Mary Todd over the edge. Lincoln loved his wife dearly, but was exasperated by her as well. In addition to the other enormous burdens Abraham Lincoln carried during those terrible years, his wife added still more.

Posted by: Monty at July 03, 2010 11:50 AM (jM/Et)

I had always read of Lincoln being racked with doubt and grief about the war. It never made sense to me why he would show so much doubt if he truly believed the cause was just. Now that I have been made aware of the darker side of Lincoln, I can see very easily why the man would be haunted by the bloodshed that he never foresaw when he decided to embark upon this path.

(You do know that He and Grant conspired to withhold information about the conduct of the war from the voters and congress during his re-election campaign?)

180 Newt Gingrich likewise wrote a novel "Gettysburg" whose premise was that Lee had prevailed, marched on to Washington DC and had captured Lincoln.

181 I reject the equivalence of Colonies escaping an Empire by force and States escaping a Republic by force.

182 It is however like the reference to Jesus Christ in the Constitution, an accurate piece of information.

Ah yes.  The Messiah clause.  Who could forget?

183 183
I reject the equivalence of Colonies escaping an Empire by force and States escaping a Republic by force.

Posted by: eman at July 03, 2010 11:59 AM (kFytp)

And the distinction is?

184 185, The distinction is the difference between an Empire and a Nation.

185 184 It is however like the reference to Jesus Christ in the Constitution, an accurate piece of information.

Ah yes.  The Messiah clause.  Who could forget?

Posted by: Herr Morgenholz at July 03, 2010 11:59 AM (rgYqa)

I mentioned it for the purpose of getting someone to call me on it.

Here it is.

Done in convention by the unanimous consent of the states present the seventeenth day of September in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred eighty seven and of the independence of the United States of America the twelfth.

There is also a section in the constitution which exempts the President from having to work on Sunday, because it is the Christian Sabbath. I point these little tid bits out to people who are trying to argue that Our Government, our History, and our Constitution are neutral towards religion.

186 I remember seeing a program, it may have been Ken Burns' series, about an episode that occurred in City Point around the time of the siege of Petersburg when Lincoln came to visit. Mary Todd had an epic pro--Confederacy outburst of some sort in full view of several Union officers that caused Lincoln to have a 'facepalm' moment.

I'll see if I can look it up.

Good luck with that.

Mary Lincoln did have a mental breakdown at City Point, but it was triggered by her perception that the wife of General \Ord was paying too much attention to Honest Abe during a military review.  Mary Lincoln laid into the hapless Mrs. Ord with the fury of thousand suns in front of most of the AoP's officer corps.

Not a "pro-Confederate" moment. 

187 The "our Lord" that the Founders were speaking of was actually beer.  Those boys could drink.  True fact.

188 145
A confederacy was tried right after the Brits were sent packing. It failed. The Constitution was adopted and a Republic was formed. The South pretended the Republic was just another confederacy; they were shown the error of their ways.

If the Confederacy had won would they allow Texas or SC or any other State of the Confederacy to leave at some later date?

Posted by: eman at July 03, 2010 11:10 AM (kFytp)

So since we can't leave you can pay our bills. $19 Billion bucks worth.

189 186 185,

The distinction is the difference between an Empire and a Nation.

Posted by: eman at July 03, 2010 12:04 PM (kFytp)

You got nuthin and you know it!  Regardless, the people of the Civil War era didn't think there was any difference, that's why they let the South secede peacefully. It wasn't until the fighting started that anyone thought to object to secession, and then it was only to punish those people who had attacked.

190 It amazes me that even in this day and age, 150 after the event, you still find "Lost Cause" stalwarts like Diogenes and Phinn around. I used to run into people like that quite a bit when I still lived in Charlotte -- at the county fairs, Old Home days, stuff like that. Souls of discretion until you pour a few beers into them, then it's an hour-long tirade on how Abraham Lincoln was a tyrant and a dictator and how the South woulda/coulda/shoulda won the war if only. It's amazing boring, misinformed, and silly-assed bullshit, but somehow each generation breeds a few of them. (Fewer with every passing year, thankfully). You probably can still find a few doddering Englishmen who fulminate about those rotten, thankless Colonials. Human nature is a funny thing.

191 @#2 There is a shopping mall covering most of the site of the Battle of Chantilly in Fairfax, Virginia. There IS a park with a memorial; the park is about 1.5 acres, the rest of the 300 acres that comprise the battlefield are a residential/commercial mix, including Fair Oaks Mall

192 184 It is however like the reference to Jesus Christ in the Constitution, an accurate piece of information.

Ah yes.  The Messiah clause.  Who could forget?

Posted by: Herr Morgenholz at July 03, 2010 11:59 AM (rgYqa)

The 'Lord' they were, in fact, referring to is Me.

193 I've gotta go fellas, all this typing is preventing me from getting any real work done. I enjoyed the discussion, I learned a few new things (perhaps some of you did as well.) and I look forward to future discussions with you all at some later time.

Monty, I thoroughly enjoy your financial articles. You have great wit and insight, and I always look forward to reading your latest stuff. You have rapidly become my favorite poster, though Ace, Gabe, and DrewM are likewise often very good.

Later dudes.

194 191, Hopeless.

195 FOUR!

196 C.S.A.

197 Monty, I thoroughly enjoy your financial articles. You have great wit and insight, and I always look forward to reading your latest stuff. You have rapidly become my favorite poster, though Ace, Gabe, and DrewM are likewise often very good. Well, now I feel bad for taking shots at you. Thank you for the kind words. This topic tends to get people "het up". I oughta know better than to instigate. But seriously: I'm a Lincoln man. I love the man dearly, and think he was one of the finest men (never mind Presidents) that this nation has ever produced. It hurts me when people call him a dictator and a tyrant, because if ever there was a man born who was not those things, it was Abraham Lincoln. If he took extraordinary measures, it's because extraordinary measures were called for to hold off disaster. Whatever America has become in later years (mostly good things, I aver), we owe most of it to a single man: Abraham Lincoln.

198

As someone who grew up and resides in the South and right outside the Capitol of the former Confederacy let me just say that pro-Confederacy sentiment is very much alive and well today. The question I like to poise to folks who harbor a romantic sentiment towards that lost cause is do you think either entity the North or the South would have survived the 20th century, Nazi Germany and the Communist Soviet Union as a divided nation, I don't.

199

Shorter, more violent operations cost fewer lives

Word up, my brother

200 Heck, Blazer, the Confederacy would not have made it to the 20th Century.

201

Posted by: andycanuck at July 03, 2010 12:23 PM (7b1Uc)

Heh. Hey Andy, check the language on that Cover. My disk has a photo of the WH with the confederate flag. And it's in english.

202 On July 4th 1863 Vicksburg surrendered.  The Mississippi River was in complete Union Hands; the South was divided and the Confederates were too stubborn to see that it was over except for more killing,

 I have both Confederate and Union veteran ancestors, one Confederate g-g-grandfather  was captured at the Battle of the Big Black River, but was either paroled or exchanged.  He saw the error of his ways and became a civilian teamster for the Union army in Tennessee.  

203

Lee's Estate was siezed by the United States - they buried Lee's son in the front yard.  It was more than a little bit symbolic.  They turned it into Arlingotn National Cemetary.  There was a whole thing about it, and eventually, in the Congress, they voted to rectify the wrongful taking and paid Lee's heirs some amount of money for it. 

Something about lost causes, and wars in general.  I am not comparing the CSA to AQ, but clearly Al Qaeda is no match for the United States.  But they started it anyway.  Because they thought they could win.  Or more correctly, they thought they could discourage the US from fighting. 

Lee never thought he would force the United States Army to surrender to the CSA, or the national government of the United States to capitulate.  He thought he could tire them out, make it so painful for them that they would STOP fighting, and say, this just isn't worth it.  He was a smart guy, and had in fact been offered command of hte United States Army by Lincoln.  He declined, obviously, to stand by his State, Virginia.

The Civil War was ugly in a lot of ways.  Brother vs. brother, literally, and West Point graduates vs. West Point graduates.  They teach us at school, of 60 major battles of the Civil War, 55 were commanded on both sides by West Point graduates.  The other 5 were commanded by West Point graduates on one side.  Many cases of classmates in battle against each other. 

Read the story of Lewis Armistead at Gettysburg to get real feeling of how things were different then.

At any rate, lost causes are not always.  Sometimes, things come out differently than expected.  David was laughed at for daring to take on Goliath. 

 

 

 

 

204 On July 4th 1863 Vicksburg surrendered. Yes. That's why July 4 was a watershed day even apart from being Independence Day. It guaranteed the victory of the Union. Grant was the commanding general at Vicksburg, and it was that victory that convinced Lincoln to pull him back east and give him command over the armies in the east. Meade, a capable corps commander but no grand leader, remained even after Grant took charge. In fact, Meade offered to resign to make way for Grant, but Grant would not hear of it -- he valued Meade's leadership so much that he couldn't spare him.

205 I laughed at that, too, HH, but I think it looks better as a DVD [or VHS?] cover than the stand-alone photo of the CSA moon landing in the other review photos.

BTW, there's a HotAir headlines' link about 26% of respondents in a 1,004-person poll didn't know you won your independence from Britain. (And there are some in the linked site's comments section defending the 26%. What assholes.)

206
Heck, Blazer, the Confederacy would not have made it to the 20th Century.

Posted by: eman at July 03, 2010 12:39 PM (kFytp)

True, the British were licking their chops over a weakened and divided Union.

207

On July 4th 1863 Vicksburg surrendered.

And on July 4, 1826, both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson died.

208

Good comments morons. Someone mentioned in an earlier post that they had visited Savannah and looked at some interesting graves. Sherman stopped at the outskirts of Savannah and did not destroy it even though there were several thousand CSA troops there. They would escape and go on to fight again and ultimately prolong the war. Anyone care to venture an opinion on why Sherman would do such a thing?

Oh, and all the civil war really proved was that 5 men could whip 3 men over an extended period of time.

209 168 161 declared slaves to be worth 3/5ths of a person did.

You all miss the point -Since and including the Declaration of Independence, slavery was one compromise after another.  The South wanted every slave counted as a citizen for the purpose of establishing congressional districts; it was all about votes in the House of Representatives, as more free states were admitted, soon the slave states would be outvoted. The North quite correctly insisted that no slaves should be counted.  Hence another compromise was forged.  Slaves were counted as as 3/5 in the Census.  It did not have one damn thing to do with the "worth" of a human being.

210

#27

"What's wrong with "The War Between the States"? It's not really any different than "Civil War" is it? Posted by: Steve

The 'Civil War' is shorter." Posted by Garbonzo

Garbonzo, your response makes me suspect that you are not as garrulous as you advertise yourself to be. 

211

Anyone care to venture an opinion on why Sherman would do such a thing?

Family living there? I actually have no idea.

212 Anyone care to venture an opinion on why Sherman would do such a thing? Family living there? I actually have no idea. Posted by: HH Bad Google map?

213 Col. Sanders offered Fried Chicken?

214

Great thread.  Monty you are correct.  Southerners who still cling to a century and a half old dream are silly.  But not as silly as the LIBTARDS who have interfered with blacks becoming fully free and equally successful as their white counterparts.  Liberal policies continue to keep blacks dependant and slaves to DEMOCRATS.   Kerry, Clinton , Gore, Rodham, Kennedy and other LIBTARD demogogues see blacks as A VOTING BLOCK.   What are THE RESULTS.

 

215 Now for something completely different:

35,00 East Tennesseans fought for the North.  One of the things that drove them into the Union Army was that the Tennessee Confederate government was starting to disarm East Tennessee men who refused to sign a loyalty oath.  How's that for a freedom loving Confederacy?

216 Southerners who still cling to a century and a half old dream are silly. I don't know that I'd use the word "silly" in all cases. There's nothing wrong with being proud of your folks, and wanting to remember their sacrifices. That's something the Northerner's could take a lesson from, in my view. I just think a lot of the "Lost Cause" folks are doing it out of sheer cussedness at this point -- it's been a century and a half, folks. The wheel of time has turned several times. Honor the dead, by all means, but let them stay buried.

217
Southerners who still cling to a century and a half old dream are silly.




Not all of us are stuck on stupid.

218

Monty, I meant "silly"  to hold notions about the South rising "agin" or that if not for XY OR Z, "we"  could have beat them Yanks.

219 Monty, I meant "silly" to hold notions about the South rising "agin" or that if not for XY OR Z, "we" could have beat them Yanks. Yeah, I know. I do find a lot of the Southern pride and bearing admirable -- but the flip-side of that admirable character is an inability to let insults and setbacks slide. I had a great-great-aunt in Georgia who could barely speak Lincoln's name without spitting, and this was in the 1970's. Memories are long down South. Another strange thing I hear people say: "America has never lost a war." All you have to do is look at the history of the South during and after the war to see the lie of that statement. Atlanta after Sherman's March to the Sea evoked images of World War II devastation in many ways.

220
Lots of Northerners fought for the South as well as vice-versa. I have no problem with folks recognizing the great sacrifice folks payed on both sides however the kind of person that grates on my nerves are some of the die-hards  who fly the Stars & Bars and no other flag. That is dishonoring the folks who put their lives on the line for the Stars & Stripes to keep us a free nation before and after that conflict, my grandfather being one of them.

221 Btw Monty, I grew up very very close to Antietam.   I still visit and the drive through Western Maryland down to Harpers Ferry is incredibly historic and beautiful.   My grade school is over 200 years old in Hagerstown

222

Karl Marx loved Lincoln, Monty. He was in Marx's own words," The single minded son of the working class. " You like commies, sir ?

And you idiot yankees and your bullshit " history ", heh.

I really wish round two would start tomorrow, really do.

 

223

So about that there Declaration of Independence we celebrate tomorrow.

Ya'll have a safe 4th. People around here gonna be blowing shit up.

Should be fun.

And btw, great thread, Monty...

224 I really wish round two would start tomorrow, really do. Sigh...like I was saying....

225

I went to Gettysburg in 2005 and two things made a really salient impression on me. First, the distance from the trees up to the "High Water Mark" absolutely amazed me. I have felt since I saw that long, long stretch of ground that a) Robert E. Lee was overrated as a general, and b) that the South lost the war when Jackson was shot at Chancellorsville.

Had Jackson lived I can't imagine Pickett's charge ever having taken place simply because the best indirect strategist ever to serve in an American army--Jackson--would have raised too much Hell about the cost of a frontal assault. The man who ran the masterful Valley campaign and caught the Union by complete surprise at Chancellorsville would have immediately recognized the tremendous slaughter that portended and probably risked his commission to stop it. I can't imagine Lee not taking Jackson's advice on this one, particularly after his clear responsibility for the Chancellorsville triumph. I think if Jackson lives the South wins at Gettysburg.

Second, we had some jerkoff guide painting the South as a bunch of moral degenerates. To this day I'm amazed at how fiercely angry I got with this guy. I verbally blasted his ass for that and eventually even got him to admit that Sherman would now be considered a war criminal. When I got finished with him he had learned a lesson about denigrating Southern troops in front of people he didn't know. The vast majority of the Southern troops came from homes and farms where there were no slaves. The best justification I've ever heard for why the South fought was the answer given to a Northern officer who asked that very question of a Southern prisoner. "If you don't own slaves, why are you fighting?" The response was, "Because you're here. You invaded us."

The South had the right to secede. The North beat them by sheer numbers, but the South's political position was both legitimate and justified. Neither Lincoln nor Jackson before him liked the Southern position, and both threatened South Carolina over their stance, but the fact remains that legally they were entitled to leave the Union if they wished.

226

I really wish round two would start tomorrow, really do.

Are you a "woman" of prodigious girth, from West Virginia, who made a video castigating WoW players and showing her "moves"?

227

The South had the right to secede. The North beat them by sheer numbers, but the South's political position was both legitimate and justified.

Could you please describe the legitimate procedure for secession?

228 In memory of William Henry Pohlman, a cousin of my great great grandmother, who was quietly pursuing a missionary calling when the war started. He was shot twice, once in each arm, and after the day's battle, walked to the hospital for treatment. His sister was even able to travel from New York to visit him and he assured her he would recover. But his condition deteriorated and when the barometric pressure dropped a few days later, he died from loss of blood and probably sepsis. He is buried in the Albany cemetery. I am fortunate enough to have a couple of his original letters and a transcribed copy of  his obituary. RIP.

229

Mac,  why don't you take a tissue out of your purse and wipe you eyes.

Wouldn't all of the SLAVE OWNERS  be just as criminal as you think Sherman was.

Mac, just like the SOUTH in the civil war, you are a loser.

 

230 Mac and Mosby  have HOPE and CHANGE tattoed on the asses.

231

One of the reasons why casualties were so high back then is because of the high caliber of the minie balls and projectiles being used. Some would literally knock a limb right off if put in the right place like at a shoulder joint. Being gut shot back then was also pretty much a death sentence.

There were a lot of brutal manifestations back then concerning weaponry. Stuff like grape, bar and chain shot now would have the libtards at the U.N. clutching at their pearls.

232

You didn't answer my question, Monty. What a surprise that is !

Once more, it doesn't bother you at all that the father of Communism thought that the old rail-splitter was just one swell guy , just doin' the good work ?

Hell no, we ain't fergettin !

Screw Lincoln, and the fruit of his loins, Prez Toonces.

233

Does, does Adams yet live?

 

Motherfucker.

234 b) that the South lost the war when Jackson was shot at Chancellorsville.

You might be right.  I often wondered what would have happened had Jackson not been shot by his own troops.

235

Once more, it doesn't bother you at all that the father of Communism thought that the old rail-splitter was just one swell guy , just doin' the good work ?

Napoleon practically lionized George Washington.  Your logic is flawed.  Praise in the other direction is persuasuive.

236 Giving General Buford actually isn't correct. Buford was killed in the first contact at Gettysburg. It was General Howard who choose the defensive terrain at Gettysburg.

237 235 Does, does Adams yet live?

Motherfucker.

Posted by: Thomas Jefferson at July 03, 2010 02:39 PM (Wh0W+)

Now THAT is the obscure reference funny.

238 The best rejoinder I ever heard about why the US should continue its war on terrorism was from a friend of mine: "Three days at Gettysburg did more to end slavery than an entire centuries worth of people talking their heads off."

239 Does, does Adams yet live?

Motherfucker.

HA!

240
You might be right.  I often wondered what would have happened had Jackson not been shot by his own troops.

Posted by: Ombudsman at July 03, 2010 02:40 PM (y4B2y)

Although Lee was a great General I also believe the loss of Jackson was the real turning point. He was in essence Lee's right hand. That guy was as tenacious as he was brilliant. The final nail was the loss of J.E.B. Stuart.

241 234, Marx also liked pulled-pork sandwiches and sweet tea. Go figure.

242 As far as the southern position in the civil war, it was about the Tenth Amendment and state's rights.

It's easy to paint the southern states (and southerns) as racists, and by today's standards they would be. But, by the standards of the time, it was about property rights and the right of the states to control their own commerce and financial health.

That being said, it was also about power. The southern states had a very strong voting bloc in Congress, and, just as Lincoln was determined to break that bloc, the southern states were determined to keep it.

Slavery was simply the hot button issue used to bring all of this to a head, with disastrous results, IMO. I don't think Lincoln initially believed that the south would revolt and once it became clear that they would, well, in for a penny, in for a pound.

Fact is, slavery was becoming economically infeasible and would have been replaced by more efficient means within a decade or so.

243
Marx also liked pulled-pork sandwiches and sweet tea.

Go figure.

Posted by: eman at July 03, 2010 02:44 PM (kFytp)

Kim Jong also loves expensive cognac, Cuban cigars and American porn movies. The wonderful thing about communism is once you're an inner-party member you can continue to live like a capitalist pig while the proles are standing in line for bread and toilet paper.

244 The final nail was the loss of J.E.B. Stuart. I think Stuart was overrated. Nathan Bedford Forrest was ten times the general Stuart was. On the Union side, Sheridan was better, though he had to grow into his role -- and his troopers had to go from being plowboys to cavalrymen. But by the fourth year of the war, Sheridan's troopers were the equal of Forrest's best. The Union also had a great loss in the death of General Phil Kearny in 1862. I truly think he would have gone on to even greater fame had he lived.

245

You know that Abigail was a hotsy-totsy.

 

Just sayin.

246 The southern states had a very strong voting bloc in Congress

Remember in 1856 when SC Rep. Preston Brooks beat Maine Senator Charles Sumner almost to death with his cane?  Very entertaining.  We should resurrect the practice.   I'd love to see Tom Coburn give Pat Leahy a two-hander on his bald head.

247
I think Stuart was overrated. Nathan Bedford Forrest was ten times the general Stuart was. On the Union side, Sheridan was better, though he had to grow into his role -- and his troopers had to go from being plowboys to cavalrymen. But by the fourth year of the war, Sheridan's troopers were the equal of Forrest's best.

The Union also had a great loss in the death of General Phil Kearny in 1862. I truly think he would have gone on to even greater fame had he lived.

Posted by: Monty at July 03, 2010 02:51 PM (jM/Et)

That's true, but back then Stuart was a living legend and practically the embodiment and symbol of the chivalry and aristocracy of the Old South. His loss was a heavy blow to the hearts and minds of the Southern populace.

There are folks who still leave piles of letters and flowers on his grave at Hollywood cemetery in Richmond to this very day.

248 Nathan Bedford Forrest

Now there's an interesting character.   Wonder if he was any relation to Sen. Byrd?

249 1. Had Jackson lived, he would have taken Cemetery Hill right away, which in turn would have allowed Longstreet to take the Round Tops, driving the Union from the high ground and changing the course of the battle. And he would have not needed a direct order from Lee, which apparently Ewell did need. 2. To 238 - John Buford wasn't killed at Gettysburg; John Reynolds of the First Corps was. Buford died of Pneumonia in December.

250

The yankee version of the civil war :

Abe Lincoln, Saint. No one should ever doubt his love for the negro, never mind what he said.

He freed all the slaves, even the ones in Delaware !

Confederates, all bad, the source of all evil in this country. And their ancestors still are, the dumb redneck bastards.

Tarrifs on Southern goods ? never heard of 'em.

There was no legal right for the Southern states to seceed.

Gotcha.

251

I don't think Lincoln initially believed that the south would revolt and once it became clear that they would, well, in for a penny, in for a pound.

Jefferson Davis was made president of the CSA on February 9, 1861.  Lincoln was inaugurated on March 4, 1861.

Lincoln's only provocation was getting elected.

252
Posted by: John Mosby at July 03, 2010 02:58 PM (p8n2Y)



They may have had the right to secede , but the institution that is an abomination to God they decided to hang on to and essentially signed their own death warrant. We are a better and stronger nation and the world is a better place because of Lincoln and the Union not dissolving.

There are millions of people who owe their freedom and their very lives because of the United States of America surviving a dark chapter in its history throughout the world today that would disagree with you.

253

@ Mac #227

More to the point, if Stonewall Jackson had been on the scene on Day 1 he probably would have sensed the necessity of stopping the Union's fishhook deployment on Seminary Ridge before it was solified, and more importantly would have done something about it, making Pickett's charge unnecessary.

And for those who are critical of Grant at Cold harbor, understand that he encountered two revolutionary developments.  The Confederates had placed heavy logs on top of their breatworks which created firing slits and completely protected the defender.  Previously, the defenders in breastworks were difficult to hit -- now it was impossible to hit them.  Then there was the development od DOUBLE and  TRIPLE canister. 

 Previously, canons would fire a single cannister packet.  It then occurred to someone that seeing as the volley would be at close range, you could stuff the whole barrel with canister, doubling and tripling the amount of canister being fired  The effect on the Union was probably similar to unknowingly charging Maxim machine gun nests for the first time.  Certainly Grant can be faulted for not understanding his enemy, but he did quickly realize that something radically new was taking place and stopped the carnage after 20 minutes

Cold Harbor radically changed the nature of the Civil War.  Whereas the beginning of the war resembles the Revolutionary War, the last 10 months seemed more like the trench warfare of WWI  

254 252, Whatever. Let's say it 1861, and the North says "Whatever" to Secession and the Confederacy goes on its merry way. How does it hold together? What if Texas says "See ya" in 1865? How about Georgia? Alabama? Mississippi?

255 Hey Mosby, how does Lincolns ass taste.   

256
Certainly Grant can be faulted for not understanding his enemy, but he did quickly realize that something radically new was taking place and stopped the carnage after 20 minutes



Unfortunately those twenty minutes saw the loss of about 7000 Union lives.

257 They may have had the right to secede , but the institution that is an abomination to God they decided to hang on to and essentially signed their own death warrant. We are a better and stronger nation and the world is a better place because of Lincoln and the Union not dissolving.



Overly simplistic.

It wasn't about "we want our slaves and we'll fight to keep them".

It was about "we will not allow you to use the power of your office to destroy our economy for the sake of your party's consolidation of power" (gee, sound familiar? Guess congress critters and state governments had bigger balls in those days. Oh, wait, they just knew that they had certain rights and powers granted by the Constitution)

258 192 It amazes me that even in this day and age, 150 after the event, you still find "Lost Cause" stalwarts like Diogenes and Phinn around. I used to run into people like that quite a bit when I still lived in Charlotte -- at the county fairs, Old Home days, stuff like that. Souls of discretion until you pour a few beers into them, then it's an hour-long tirade on how Abraham Lincoln was a tyrant and a dictator and how the South woulda/coulda/shoulda won the war if only. It's amazing boring, misinformed, and silly-assed bullshit, but somehow each generation breeds a few of them. (Fewer with every passing year, thankfully).

You probably can still find a few doddering Englishmen who fulminate about those rotten, thankless Colonials. Human nature is a funny thing.

Posted by: Monty at July 03, 2010 12:15 PM (jM/Et)

Monty, I am from, and live in, a state that didn't even exist in the Civil War. My Grandfather was born in Denmark (1889) on my Father's side, and was 1/2 Indian on my mother's side. I live in a city with a fairly important army base next to it, I went to Lincoln School, and made Lincoln Silhouettes when I went there. My Real father (biological) and my Adopted Father both served in the US military, as did my Uncles, my Brother, and my nephew. I had the greatest admiration and respect for Lincoln  until my dear friend (The History Major) pointed out to me that Lincoln cleverly manipulated the south into attacking Ft. Sumter.

It was like an epiphany when it hit me. This was not the act of a great man, it was a cynical and manipulative ploy to initiate a war by a too clever by half lawyer that got out of all control and turned into the bloodiest most devastating conflict this nation ever had, killing 600,000 people directly, and destroying the lives of thousands more, and even worse, establishing the principle of a massively dominant federal government which we are now looking at with horror today! 

I am not a southern apologist, and I regard slavery as evil and needing to be wiped out. I am simply relating the bits of history that i've discovered which cast an entirely different light on the Lincoln and the Civil war narrative than that which has been taught to all of us ever since.

Don't think that I have "inherited" my thinking on this issue. I was slowly persuaded to it by the information which came my way.

259 Let's say it 1861, and the North says "Whatever" to Secession and the Confederacy goes on its merry way.

How does it hold together?

What if Texas says "See ya" in 1865?

How about Georgia?

Alabama?

Mississippi?

Perhaps the issue would have been reconciled and the southern states would have elected to re-join the union without a bloody civil war?

Sam Houston did advise that Texas revert to a Republic and stay neutral  rather than join the confederacy because he knew it would be a long and costly war, and one that the south could not win. (Not because of any moral standing, just simple logistics - the Union always had the upper hand.)

260 Overly simplistic.

It wasn't about "we want our slaves and we'll fight to keep them".

It was about "we will not allow you to use the power of your office to destroy our economy for the sake of your party's consolidation of power" (gee, sound familiar? Guess congress critters and state governments had bigger balls in those days. Oh, wait, they just knew that they had certain rights and powers granted by the Constitution)

Posted by: mpur in Texas (kicking Mexico's ass since 1836) at July 03, 2010 03:11 PM (lRo37)

If they wanted sympathy they simply could have dropped the institution at the get go and garnered British protection which was right on the Canadian border. They chose to hang on to it and continued to be an evil pariah in the eyes of the rest of the civilized world who had since given up holding other men in bondage. Let us not forget that one of the first losses in life in our very own war for independence against the British was one Crispus Attucks, a black man in the Boston massacre.

261 199 Monty, I thoroughly enjoy your financial articles. You have great wit and insight, and I always look forward to reading your latest stuff. You have rapidly become my favorite poster, though Ace, Gabe, and DrewM are likewise often very good.

Well, now I feel bad for taking shots at you. Thank you for the kind words.

This topic tends to get people "het up". I oughta know better than to instigate. But seriously: I'm a Lincoln man. I love the man dearly, and think he was one of the finest men (never mind Presidents) that this nation has ever produced. It hurts me when people call him a dictator and a tyrant, because if ever there was a man born who was not those things, it was Abraham Lincoln. If he took extraordinary measures, it's because extraordinary measures were called for to hold off disaster.

Whatever America has become in later years (mostly good things, I aver), we owe most of it to a single man: Abraham Lincoln.

Posted by: Monty at July 03, 2010 12:35 PM (jM/Et)

I feel no animosity. Your view is the one which we are all taught when we were growing up. I would rather believe your view than my own, but something learned cannot be unlearned.

262 To 238 - John Buford wasn't killed at Gettysburg; John Reynolds of the First Corps was. Buford died of Pneumonia in December.

You are right. For some reason I got Reynolds and Buford confused.    I have absoultly no idea why I confused them

263 Whereas the beginning of the war resembles the Revolutionary War, the last 10 months seemed more like the trench warfare of WWI 
The great debate about the ACW is whether it was the last Napoleonic War or the first Modern War.

264 What if Texas says "See ya" in 1865

Good point. It's kind of like what the Reformation started. Once you've established the validity of breaking away, how do you then say "enough"?. It's no surprise there are 83 jillion Protestant churches.

265 If they wanted sympathy they simply could have dropped the institution at the get go and garnered British protection which was right on the Canadian border. They chose to hang on to it and continued to be an evil pariah in the eyes of the rest of the civilized world who had since given up holding other men in bondage. Let us not forget that one of the first losses in life in our very own war for independence against the British was one Crispus Attucks, a black man in the Boston massacre.

What?

They weren't looking for sympathy, they were fighting to survive. You're focusing on the moral implications of slavery, which was the straw man argument made at the time, as well. Slavery was a legal institution at the time. Slaves were considered property at the time. Yes, it was wrong and yes, it was morally reprehensible, but at the time, the southern states entire economy was based on a perfectly legal institution.

Why would they go to the Brits? Just think on that for a minute. That would be like Texas going to Mexico for help after having won independence.. Makes no sense whatsoever. Not to mention the geographic problem of the southern states being separating from Canada by the northern union.

Look at this way. Let's say that the POTUS declared, with a stroke of a pen, that internal combustion engines were immoral and illegal, effective immediately.The result would be chaos.This is what the south was faced with. Fight or suffer the utter destruction of their economy. At least they went down swinging.

266

243... I can't stop laughing.

267 #114

RIGHT ON.  Yankees just don't get it. 

We just wanted to be left alone.  Linclon had other ideas AND it wasn't about slaves, although the South lost billion of dollars in investments in salves, that the Yankees never lost, they just paid their Irish wage slaves less and keep all their money.

Here's a question for you Yankees. 

If all the Southerns in the armed forces, Black and White, quit tomorrow, who the fuck is going to protect this country?

Oh, and we're going to close all the "occupation" bases you bastards have in the South.

 I know you won't miss Ft Hood, Ft Bragg, Ft. Jackson, or the Pentagon?

268 They weren't looking for sympathy, they were fighting to survive. You're focusing on the moral implications of slavery, which was the straw man argument made at the time, as well. Slavery was a legal institution at the time. Slaves were considered property at the time. Yes, it was wrong and yes, it was morally reprehensible, but at the time, the southern states entire economy was based on a perfectly legal institution.

Why would they go to the Brits? Just think on that for a minute. That would be like Texas going to Mexico for help after having won independence.. Makes no sense whatsoever. Not to mention the geographic problem of the southern states being separating from Canada by the northern union.

Look at this way. Let's say that the POTUS declared, with a stroke of a pen, that internal combustion engines were immoral and illegal, effective immediately.The result would be chaos.This is what the south was faced with. Fight or suffer the utter destruction of their economy. At least they went down swinging.

Posted by: mpur in Texas (kicking Mexico's ass since 1836) at July 03, 2010 03:31 PM




Fighting to survive what ? Certainly not the 20th century which would have turned out drastically different had the Union dissolved. They were forced kicking and screaming into modern times and away from aristocracy.

269
eman writes:

256 252,

Whatever.

Let's say it 1861, and the North says "Whatever" to Secession and the Confederacy goes on its merry way.


Actually, that's exactly what happened. What turned it into a war was the attack on Ft. Sumter.




How does it hold together?


By mutual consent. You know, freedom.


What if Texas says "See ya" in 1865?

How about Georgia?

Alabama?

Mississippi?

Posted by: eman at July 03, 2010 03:07 PM (kFytp)

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

270

Really, Monty, I have so enjoyed this thread and the debates that have ensued. I admire the breadth of knowledge and diversity of opinions that always come forth from threads such as these. It happens too infrequently.

Might I suggest a bi-weekly or monthly American History with Monty series?

Hell, for that matter, any general civics lesson would be appreciated. I've suspected for quite some time that if the GOP would offer civics lessons to the communities that the power that the federal government holds over us could be lessened by a better-informed voting citizenry.

271

Yes Oregon, it's like the current administration once you've lied so many times, lying comes natrually.  Spending others money too.

Once you've established that YOU  CAN VIOLATE LAWS.  Which laws need you obey?

272 Fighting to survive what ? Certainly not the 20th century which would have turned out drastically different had the Union dissolved. They were forced kicking and screaming into modern times and away from aristocracy.

Not arguing that it certainly changed the course of this country.

They were fighting to save their economy.

What if a southern president had been elected and had declared that factories had to be shut down? Think the northern states, with their industrial complex would have sat still for that?

273
Fighting to survive what ? Certainly not the 20th century which would have turned out drastically different had the Union dissolved. They were forced kicking and screaming into modern times and away from aristocracy.

Posted by: Blazer at July 03, 2010 03:34 PM (t72+4)

I think the notion that anyone can predict with certainty the likely outcome of a changed history is foolish. The events of history often hinge on some very peculiar events, and the outcome can be massively different than it otherwise might have been. (did you know the catalyst for the french revolution was the perverted marquis de sade screaming at the people in the courtyard about all the tortures he and the hundreds of other political prisoners had to endure? When the finally broke into the Bastille, they discovered that everything he said was bullshit, but the revolution had already started because they had killed the kings men. Viva la Republique! ) 

How the confederacy would have fared later, and how the US would have fared later is completely irrelevant to the salient point. You might argue that a woman will do terrible on her own if she leaves you, you might argue that you would do terrible without her, but forcing her to remain with you deprives her of the right to make that choice.

If you believe in your own founding principles, that breaking away is a right, it's hard to justify denying it to others.

274

#262...

...the rest of the civilized world who had since given up holding other men in bondage.

If only that were true. Even today men, women and children are enslaved to work the fields and factories and then others are enslaved in far more horrifying trades. Of course, I'll grant that you did state "civilized world" but, by most standards, those who benefit from human trade are, in fact, part of the civilized world.

Sorry. For some reason that particular sentence just jumped out at me like a shot to the heart.

275

Hell, for that matter, any general civics lesson would be appreciated. I've suspected for quite some time that if the GOP would offer civics lessons to the communities that the power that the federal government holds over us could be lessened by a better-informed voting citizenry.

Posted by: jmflynny at July 03, 2010 03:36 PM (NHK5s)

I have long been of the opinion that conservatives should create PSAs (Public Service Announcements) for the education of the public, especially concerning the ideas of the founding era. EVERYONE should know that the second amendment is a right, and they should also know WHY it's a right.

Everyone should also know that the nation was founded as a REPUBLIC, not as a democracy. People should learn what the proper role and scope of the government is and why.

276

Obama is trying to do that now.  Cap and Trade is desinged to stop manufacturing and prosperity. 

Obama and LIBTARDS are destroying our economy because they think it is immoral.

Being elected does not allow you to ignore the will of the people.

277 The War Between The States, while longer, is more acurate than The Civil War.  In a civil war, both sides are seeking to control one government.  In our case, the South basically told the North to piss off, we're leaving, and formed their own government.  Lincoln said, oh no you don't.  The South did not want to control the North; they just wanted to be left alone.

278

I think the notion that anyone can predict with certainty the likely outcome of a changed history is foolish. The events of history often hinge on some very peculiar events, and the outcome can be massively different than it otherwise might have been. (did you know the catalyst for the french revolution was the perverted marquis de sade screaming at the people in the courtyard about all the tortures he and the hundreds of other political prisoners had to endure? When the finally broke into the Bastille, they discovered that everything he said was bullshit, but the revolution had already started because they had killed the kings men. Viva la Republique! ) 

How the confederacy would have fared later, and how the US would have fared later is completely irrelevant to the salient point. You might argue that a woman will do terrible on her own if she leaves you, you might argue that you would do terrible without her, but forcing her to remain with you deprives her of the right to make that choice.

If you believe in your own founding principles, that breaking away is a right, it's hard to justify denying it to others.

Posted by: Diogenes at July 03, 2010 03:48 PM (eVJ7T)

In essence it was their right no matter how wrong headed and stupid it was, however I am a strong believer that God is on the side of the righteous first and foremost which is why the Confederacy was doomed to failure from the start.

Everyone on this hot button issue have valid and salient points and for the most part a lot us will just have to agree to disagree, but the event is over 150 years old after all. It's over , time to move on.

279 (did you know the catalyst for the french revolution was the perverted marquis de sade screaming at the people in the courtyard about all the tortures he and the hundreds of other political prisoners had to endure? When the finally broke into the Bastille, they discovered that everything he said was bullshit, but the revolution had already started because they had killed the kings men. Viva la Republique! ) 

Uhm....no.

On July 2, de Sade shouted out of the window of the Bastille that "they were killing prisoners in here". He was transferred to an insane asylum. The revolution started on July 14.

To say he was the catalyst is silly.

280

#262...

...the rest of the civilized world who had since given up holding other men in bondage.

We are all in bondage to the extent that the government takes our wages against our will and uses it for things we abhor and detest.

281

If only that were true. Even today men, women and children are enslaved to work the fields and factories and then others are enslaved in far more horrifying trades. Of course, I'll grant that you did state "civilized world" but, by most standards, those who benefit from human trade are, in fact, part of the civilized world.

Sorry. For some reason that particular sentence just jumped out at me like a shot to the heart.

Posted by: jmflynny at July 03, 2010 03:52 PM (NHK5s)

Communism and dictatorships are still very much alive and well today, so you are quite right in that respect. Unfortunately the new age leftists at the U.N. get to decide what constitutes slavery today which is why they have no problem with Sudanese Arabs enslaving the black Christian today. Hell, even Louis Farrakhan is down with it.

282

Here's a question for you Yankees. 

If all the Southerns in the armed forces, Black and White, quit tomorrow, who the fuck is going to protect this country?

This reminds me of people who think that opposition to illegal immigration being against Hispanics.  It's entirely beside the point and rather tribal.

283

277...

To your point...

By a show of hands, how many of us can still sing the words to I'm Just A Bill?

I say, local civics lessons and PSAs and, the PSAs should be aired on Saturday mornings. Why the hell should we surrender another generation of children to the bullshit they are/we were fed Monday-Friday from 0800-1500?

284

What would happen if Texas , New Mexico (even with a LIBTARD Gov) and Arizona seceded from the UNION to protect themselves.

 

Would libs approve of that?  Would Confederacy supporters?

285
Here's a question for you Yankees. 

If all the Southerns in the armed forces, Black and White, quit tomorrow, who the fuck is going to protect this country?



You assume those Southerners put an allegiance to the Confederacy before the United States of America and being a Southerner and a patriotic American is mutually exclusive.

286
In essence it was their right no matter how wrong headed and stupid it was, however I am a strong believer that God is on the side of the righteous first and foremost which is why the Confederacy was doomed to failure from the start.

That was the common sentiment at the time, and ever since as well. But what of Lincoln's willingness to keep slavery if the South simply rejoined the Union? That kind of messes up the narrative a bit.

Lincoln wrote:
"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. "





Everyone on this hot button issue have valid and salient points and for the most part a lot us will just have to agree to disagree, but the event is over 150 years old after all. It's over , time to move on.

Posted by: Blazer at July 03, 2010 03:56 PM (t72+4)

The degree of time which has passed is irrelevant to the principles involved. We are still to this day debating the meaning of the US constitution, as evidenced by the Supreme Court's recent ruling that the Second Amendment actually means what it says it means.   That's an issue which is over 200 years old.

287

What would happen if Texas , New Mexico (even with a LIBTARD Gov) and Arizona seceded from the UNION to protect themselves.

 

Would libs approve of that?  Would Confederacy supporters?

It would have to be for very drastic reasons for me to support secession. But if those reasons were there and the cause for secession was necessary, then I would support it.

288 I know you won't miss Ft Hood, Ft Bragg, Ft. Jackson, or the Pentagon?

John Bell Hood.  A pretty good division commander and an utter disaster while he lead the Army of Tennessee.

North Carolinian Braxton Bragg: "Do you know what a retreat looks like?"  Private:  "I ought to, General; I've been with you during your whole campaign."

Thomas Jackson:  Shot by North Carolinians

I always thought that fort-naming was done by Yankees with a sense of humor.

289

288...

I agree.

The fact that it's been 150 years holds no bearing and, at least in my opinion, makes it a far more interesting and revelant debate. I mean, imagine: 150 years later people are still taking sides and debating the issues and discussing military strategy. It's fascinating!

How many other governments have stood for more than 200 years while carrying on an oftentimes nearly violent debate about its own existence? A frigging piece of paper with a bunch of signatures written by a few select individuals chosen to represent their individual states continues to shape the world after more than two centuries.

Give me more!!!!

290 Uhm....no.

On July 2, de Sade shouted out of the window of the Bastille that "they were killing prisoners in here". He was transferred to an insane asylum. The revolution started on July 14.

To say he was the catalyst is silly.

Posted by: mpur in Texas (kicking Mexico's ass since 1836) at July 03, 2010 03:58 PM (lRo37)

I used to subscribe to National Review and also the American Spectator. The allegation that De Sade was the catalyst for the French revolution was put forth in an article in one of those two magazines. The article pointed out what a sick and vile man De Sade was, and how he came to be in the Bastille to yell at the crowd, and how the bloody French revolution was a precursor to socialism/communism, and therefore it is poetic that such an event enshrining such an evil body of thought was triggered by the rantings of an evil man.

I found the case the article made compelling, and if I have not accurately conveyed it's essence, then the fault lies with me.

In any case, I don't see how your description deviates significantly from mine.

291

Yes,  mpur, I'm sure we ALL agree on what DRASTIC is.

Some have higher, some have lower boiling points.

292 286

What would happen if Texas , New Mexico (even with a LIBTARD Gov) and Arizona seceded from the UNION to protect themselves.

 

Would libs approve of that?  Would Confederacy supporters?

Posted by: gus at July 03, 2010 04:05 PM (Vqruj)

I saw an article the other day that suggested we do the opposite of secession. All of the "Red" states, (I hate calling them "Red" states, because that is the color of the communists, but the media established the practice when bill clinton ran, and have refused to change it because it helps the democrats.) should "EJECT" the "Blue" states from the union.

It was amusing, and I only wish it were that easy.

293 If the Union had no legal right to keep any State bound within, then the Confederacy, founded on the Right of Secession, would certainly have no legal right to bind its States.

294
You assume those Southerners put an allegiance to the Confederacy before the United States of America and being a Southerner and a patriotic American is mutually exclusive.

Posted by: Blazer at July 03, 2010 04:05 PM (t72+4)

I suppose this is a good as place as any to inject this little tidbit of civil war amusement.

When the Civil war began, the Southern states said "We have seceded!" to which the northern states replied, " You CAN'T secede! We won't LET you secede!"

After the Civil war, the Southern States said "Since we are compelled to remain in the Union, Give us back our representation in Congress." The Northern states responded, " NO! You seceded! "

295

I suppose this is a good as place as any to inject this little tidbit of civil war amusement.

When the Civil war began, the Southern states said "We have seceded!" to which the northern states replied, " You CAN'T secede! We won't LET you secede!"

After the Civil war, the Southern States said "Since we are compelled to remain in the Union, Give us back our representation in Congress." The Northern states responded, " NO! You seceded! "

Posted by: Diogenes at July 03, 2010 04:24 PM (eVJ7T)

That's all good and fine, but I was responding to another poster regarding present times.

296

 " It hurts me when people call him a dictator and a tyrant, because if ever there was a man born who was not those things, it was Abraham Lincoln. If he took extraordinary measures, it's because extraordinary measures were called for to hold off disaster. "

I guess jailing thousands of people up north, ( not everyone up north cared for Mr. Lincoln's war were called " copperheads "  suspending the writ of habeus corpus on many of them at that, shutting down newspapers that didn't tow the line. ( It is rather ironic that, the grandson of Frances Scott Key, Frances Key Howard, editor of a newspaper critical of Lincoln, was imprisoned at the very same prison as his grandfather had been by the British: Ft. McHenry, Baltimore. ) and wanting to arrest legislatures. ( When the state senate of Maryland voted to stay in the Union but not to condemn the Confederacy for leaving, Lincoln had half the senate arrested. ) And let's not talk about threatening to have Supreme Court Justices arrested for finding some of  his antics un-constitutonal , shall we ? it might just harsh your mellow.

You got that extraordinary part right. It would be extraordinary not think as  him as anything but a tyrant.

297 295 If the Union had no legal right to keep any State bound within, then the Confederacy, founded on the Right of Secession, would certainly have no legal right to bind its States.

Posted by: eman at July 03, 2010 04:23 PM (kFytp)

I take it you missed the part where I posted the initial text of the Declaration of Independence? If you have any further questions on this issue, I urge you to consult the Wisdom and Principals of that document.

298 296, You've earned it. "Mr. Madison, what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul. "

299

You got that extraordinary part right. It would be extraordinary not think as  him as anything but a tyrant.

Posted by: John Mosby at July 03, 2010 04:28 PM (p8n2Y)

Most people are unaware of that stuff, as well as other stuff that Lincoln did. It isn't taught because it doesn't fit the narrative. If he had not been shot and turned into a martyr, it is very likely history would not remember him so fondly. The same is true of John F. Kennedy who was an absolutely TERRIBLE President. 

300 In any case, I don't see how your description deviates significantly from mine.


You said he was the catalyst for the French Revolution.

The story regarding de Sade and the French Revolution is, at best, a historical footnote, at worst, an urban legend. It doesn't even serve as a catalyst, more or less the catalyst.

de Sade's political life is far more interesting post revolution.

301 299, Your citing of the Declaration is misplaced. The British Empire and the Republic were two very different things. The South could make no valid claim comparable to those made by the Colonies. Also, if you are right that States may come and go as they please, please tell us how the Confederacy would endure.

302

I'm not necessarily a champion of Ulysses Grant, Blazer (25 , but what you said underscores how radically new the developents at Cold Harbor were.  Two huge armies locked horns at Antietam for 12 hours and the casualties were 23,000 lost.  The Army of the Potomac attacked for 12 hours and lost 12000 men.  The loss rate at Cold Harbor was 15-20 times that.

This is the 19th century of course.  No Army commander or Corps  commander was capable deciphering reports and changing its course of action in the space of ten minutes.  Twenty minutes was as about as fast any military organization had ever reacted

 

  

303

Diogenes.   We needn't EJECT whole STATES.  Start with Detroit and Chicago.  Just a little test drive.

 

304 300 296,

You've earned it.

"Mr. Madison, what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul. "

Posted by: eman at July 03, 2010 04:31 PM (kFytp)

Why am I not surprised that you find the point stupid? I would like to take credit for pointing it out, but I will have to explain that the point was made in one of my history books.

At the beginning of hostilities,  The Northern Union DID  assert that secession was impossible. After the Southern states demanded back their representation in Congress, the Northern states congressional coalition refused to allow it "because they seceded."

That is in fact what DID happen. It just goes to show that people were less motivated by principals than they were by political expediency. With the Southern states out of Congress, the remaining members of congress enacted a lot of laws that would have been impossible otherwise. Most of them to punish the South.

305
You said he was the catalyst for the French Revolution.

The story regarding de Sade and the French Revolution is, at best, a historical footnote, at worst, an urban legend. It doesn't even serve as a catalyst, more or less the catalyst.

de Sade's political life is far more interesting post revolution.

Posted by: mpur in Texas (kicking Mexico's ass since 1836) at July 03, 2010 04:34 PM (lRo37)

The conditions were right before the revolution. It may very well have happened anyway without the storming of the Bastille. However, it DID start with the storming of the Bastille. And WHY were they storming the Bastille? Because the Marquis De Sade had harangued the crowd outside his prison window (it overlooked a public area) with all sorts of lurid tales of torture and killing that his perverted little mind could come up with. For a long time, the crowd ignored his rantings, but eventually they started believing him, formed a mob and then attacked the prison killing the guards etc. They found it mostly empty, and the prisoners it did house were mostly imbeciles and lunatics.

If you are arguing that the Marquis De Sade was NOT the spark that started it, I would like to hear your argument as to what the spark was?

306

They general assessment of war dead in the Civil War has over 400,000 dead due to disease.  That is pretty misleading.   Wounds were not treated as they are today.   Disease then  is gerneally different from disease now.

 

 

307

I'm not necessarily a champion of Ulysses Grant, Blazer (25, but what you said underscores how radically new the developents at Cold Harbor were.  Two huge armies locked horns at Antietam for 12 hours and the casualties were 23,000 lost.  The Army of the Potomac attacked for 12 hours and lost 12000 men.  The loss rate at Cold Harbor was 15-20 times that.

This is the 19th century of course.  No Army commander or Corps  commander was capable deciphering reports and changing its course of action in the space of ten minutes.  Twenty minutes was as about as fast any military organization had ever reacted

 Posted by: Call me Lennie at July 03, 2010 04:37 PM (r/5/5)

I'm not necessarily a champion of Ulysses Grant, Blazer (25, but what you said underscores how radically new the developents at Cold Harbor were.  Two huge armies locked horns at Antietam for 12 hours and the casualties were 23,000 lost.  The Army of the Potomac attacked for 12 hours and lost 12000 men.  The loss rate at Cold Harbor was 15-20 times that.

This is the 19th century of course.  No Army commander or Corps  commander was capable deciphering reports and changing its course of action in the space of ten minutes.  Twenty minutes was as about as fast any military organization had ever reacted

 

  

Posted by: Call me Lennie at July 03, 2010 04:37 PM (r/5/5)

Another poster above stated in essence this is where modern 20th century warfare began and the old days of lining up whole regiments and taking turns shooting each other in an over blown game of Chess came to pass. I agree. The American Civil war ushered in the modern age of combat as well as weaponry, the Gatling Gun or machine gun and the automatic rifle and handgun was also introduced in this conflict although they didn't see widespread use until some years later sort of like the jet fighter in WW II.

Our European counterparts put many of the tactics they learned from our strife during the Civil War into practice at the beginning of the 20th century with devastating results.

308

De Sade not being the spark is the issue.  Do you claim he was still?  Despite the FACT THAT  De Sade had been taken away 12 days earlier?

Having  PROOF that De Sade was NOT the SPARK does not require PROOF of who was.

309 303 299,

Your citing of the Declaration is misplaced. The British Empire and the Republic were two very different things.


They were the same on the one essential point. The one body of people no longer wished to remain under the rule of the other.



The South could make no valid claim comparable to those made by the Colonies.

That is your opinion, but is in any case beside the point. If a woman wants to leave her boyfriend, isn't it enough that she doesn't love him any more? Must she wait till he beats her before she's justified in leaving him?


Also, if you are right that States may come and go as they please, please tell us how the Confederacy would endure.

Posted by: eman at July 03, 2010 04:36 PM (kFytp)

How a woman will fare after she leaves her boyfriend is irrelevant to whether or not she has the right to leave. The boyfriend may say "You'll come crawling back to me on your knees, because you can't MAKE it out there without me! " but this is not a good argument against her leaving.

310 305

Diogenes.   We needn't EJECT whole STATES.  Start with Detroit and Chicago.  Just a little test drive.

 

Posted by: gus at July 03, 2010 04:41 PM (Vqruj)

311 310

De Sade not being the spark is the issue.  Do you claim he was still?  Despite the FACT THAT  De Sade had been taken away 12 days earlier?

Having  PROOF that De Sade was NOT the SPARK does not require PROOF of who was.

Posted by: gus at July 03, 2010 04:53 PM (Vqruj)

Why would the mob have assaulted the Bastille if not for the lies spread by De Sade?

312 @306 At the beginning of hostilities,  The Northern Union DID  assert that secession was impossible. After the Southern states demanded back their representation in Congress, the Northern states congressional coalition refused to allow it "because they seceded."

Not quite.  The official (Lincoln and Congress) position was that secession was impossible, and they always declined to recognize it as having been accomplished; the acts of secession were a legal nullity.

By contrast, they absolutely did recognize the Southern states as having been in a state of rebellion.  That is why the secesh states were initially denied representation; not because they had left the Union, but because they had taken up arms against it.  Even the Emancipation Proclamation only applied to states and parts of states in rebellion.

313

The conditions were right before the revolution. It may very well have happened anyway without the storming of the Bastille. However, it DID start with the storming of the Bastille. And WHY were they storming the Bastille? Because the Marquis De Sade had harangued the crowd outside his prison window (it overlooked a public area) with all sorts of lurid tales of torture and killing that his perverted little mind could come up with. For a long time, the crowd ignored his rantings, but eventually they started believing him, formed a mob and then attacked the prison killing the guards etc. They found it mostly empty, and the prisoners it did house were mostly imbeciles and lunatics.

If you are arguing that the Marquis De Sade was NOT the spark that started it, I would like to hear your argument as to what the spark was?

The Bastille was stormed because of it's large weapons and ammunition cache.

If one person or action could be credited with sparking the French Revolution, it would be the firing of Jacques Necker, Director-General of Finance, by the King.

314

Re: Savannah.  The book, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, author says it was because a delegation of Savannahnians went to meet with Sherman and agreed to surrender the city in return for it not being set ablaze.  Very pragmatic.

In Manhunt, author emphasizes Lincoln's ocmmittment to emancipation because L made it one of 2 conditions for Southern surrender--other being coming back into the Union.  So there.

315

"Mosby," you can suck my dick, if you're so fired up for some action.

Went to college at Gettysburg.  Know it backwards and forwards.  Duke used to send up paranormal investigators; I knew some of the people who said they saw..."things."  I never did, though, even if out at night on the battlefield.  Orchard and Devil's Den are creepier and sadder than Pickett's Charge.

316
The Bastille was stormed because of it's large weapons and ammunition cache.

If one person or action could be credited with sparking the French Revolution, it would be the firing of Jacques Necker, Director-General of Finance, by the King.

Posted by: mpur in Texas (kicking Mexico's ass since 1836) at July 03, 2010 05:09 PM (lRo37)

Okay. I concede. French History is not my forte, and I cannot now but try to remember why the author of that article asserted the Marquis De Sade was the father of the French Revolution. I do recall him stating that the official version is a sanitized version of what happened. Now I'll just have to go and look for that article to see if the meme can be rehabilitated.

You are right. I am wrong.

317

I walked the line of Pickett's Charge some years back from the Angle of the Union lines across the field to the tree line, the line of departure for the Confederate troops.  It was 1500 steps, 15 minutes.  That's a long time to be under continuous rifle and cannon fire.

I read where scavengers collecting abandoned weapons from the battlefield after the armies had moved found many weapons with multiple loads.  One had 26 loads of powder and bullet.  You couldn't tell if a musket was loaded.  You just had to remember.  In the excitement of battle, some soldiers loaded their musket, couldn't remember a few minutes later if they had loaded it, and loaded it again.  That's how panicked some guys were.

318

Scholarly film text I have calls Clark Gable a "redneck."  I'd be proud to be one if I looked like him...

319 "my dear friend (The History Major) pointed out to me that Lincoln cleverly manipulated the south into attacking Ft. Sumter. "

Weren't Jack Ruby and the Dallas PD also involved?

320 Late to the conversation and enjoy the re-fighting of epic battles.  My $.02:  only two historical places have, in the moment of taking them in, sent shivers down my spine.  Gettysburg and The Alamo.

321 An unmitigated disaster.  Liberty died there, and Abe ("Me take Constitution; throw out window") Lincoln birthed the modern Leviathan.

322

mpur If one person or action could be credited with sparking the French Revolution, it would be the firing of Jacques Necker, Director-General of Finance, by the King

I don't know the details, but I do know that the King didn't want to call in the Estates General. The King did it because France was headed towards sovereign default.

A regime can survive many things. Inability to pay its bills is not among them.

323 Ahem, sock. (Although not an entirely inappropriate sock.)

324 gus, a couple of years ago I visited Hagerstown on a business trip.  Unfortunately I did not havve the time to visit Antietam but the sense of hisory in the whole area was just overwhelming.  I remember getting chills when I drove into town over a little bridge and saw the sign "Antietam Creek".  One day we drove across the state line into PA for lunch and I saw a street sign, "Mason-Dixon Road".  I realized that this region was ground zero for the Civil War, and probably no other place had as many of the proverbial "brothers fighting on both sides".

325

Okay. I'm totally into this thread and have been glued here a good bit of the day and now have a compulsive need to make suggestions for the 2nd in a series of American History with Monty. (Monty, I can be be very persistent)

The Alamo

The Cuban Missile Crisis

The Great Depression

Do with these suggestions what you will.

326

eman the Confederacy, founded on the Right of Secession, would certainly have no legal right to bind its States.

No, the Confederacy would have banded together on a number of shared interests: slavery, white supremacy, and later on the annexation of Cuba and Puerto Rico, and Hispaniola.

The right to secede was always humbug. The North would have declared itself seceded if the Democrats and pro-slavery Unionists had got their act together in 1860.

327

RickZ  The South did not want to control the North; they just wanted to be left alone

The South wanted the North to enforce fugitive-slave laws. It had to "control the North" - at least, its legal and executive institutions - in order to do that.

328 Diogenes, the dismissal of Necker by Louis XVI on July 11 was the spark.  France's finances were in tatters, taxes were killing the 3rd Estate, and the varied scandals didn't help any.

329

Okay. I concede. French History is not my forte, and I cannot now but try to remember why the author of that article asserted the Marquis De Sade was the father of the French Revolution. I do recall him stating that the official version is a sanitized version of what happened. Now I'll just have to go and look for that article to see if the meme can be rehabilitated.

You are right. I am wrong.

I know this: My husband has done an incrediable amount of research on de Sade and written several papers on the man and not once has he ever referenced, or found reference to, de Sade being the catalyst, or even remotely involved in, the French revolution.

330 I know this: My husband has done an incrediable amount of research on de Sade and written several papers on the man and not once has he ever referenced, or found reference to, de Sade being the catalyst, or even remotely involved in, the French revolution. Jean-Paul Marat probably has as good a claim on that as anyone.

331 Jean-Paul Marat probably has as good a claim on that as anyone.

Certainly more so than de Sade.

332

John Mosby - strawman much?

Diogenes - a Lincoln conspiracy theorist, really?  Was it MIHOP or LIHOP? 

Lincoln did not force South Carolina to secede.  He wasn't even President yet - he was merely the President Elect. He had been President just over a month when the Southern forces attacked Fort Sumter. 

 

333 Hey Monty, comment 327 is an excellent suggestion, btw.

Although I'd add that it doesn't have to be limited to American history, history in general is endlessly fascinating, IMO.

334 The bitch set me up

335 Hey! That's my line, Citizen!

336

323 An unmitigated disaster.  Liberty died there, and Abe ("Me take Constitution; throw out window") Lincoln birthed the modern Leviathan.

Yep. But some here won't be a havin' none of that, no siree !

 

 

337 "An unmitigated disaster.  Liberty died there, and Abe ("Me take Constitution; throw out window") Lincoln birthed the modern Leviathan."

What liberty? The right of self-determination to organize and declare political independence for the purpose of perpetuating a crime against humanity?

Last I checked that wasn't on any of the books. Arguments about how Lincoln was a horrible tyrant and anything in support of the South at all are ill-founded or, more commonly, simply insane. All this talk of all these other reasons about why the South seceded were either barely mentioned at the time, if at all, and most if not all of them are post-hoc nonsenses written up by people like Jeff Davis after the war. Oh it wasn't about slavery, it was about our great love of principle and liberty! Stuff it traitor, it was about you wanting to keep the blacks in bondage and everyone knew it then and it's too bad not enough people know it now, although thankfully the vast majority do.

"Yep. But some here won't be a havin' none of that, no siree !"

Because it's stupid nonsense. If the Southrons hadn't tried to break the unbreakable bond of Union, Lincoln would have never done a single thing he did to increase the size and power of government. Oh he would definitely have done other things, the man was certainly somewhat socialistic in some of his economic views, but nowhere near to the degree of what happened.

"government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

Our government certainly bats 0 for 3 on that. They are neither of the people or by the people, but they certainly do think they are FOR the people. They're wrong on that. And unfortunately these 3 failings are an affliction of too many politicians of the Republican Party as well as almost the entirety of the Democratic Party.

338 FYI, to Morons who don't know: "John Mosby" is a nick -- the poster in question is trying to channel a Civil War cavalry battalion commander known as the "grey ghost". Better at running than fighting, which suits our poster quite well, actually.

339

Coming right here to comment, not having read the thread......

The surrender of Vicksburg was actually more important to winning the Civil War than the Battle of Gettysburg.

That being said, Gettysburg is one of two places I've ever seen that were haunted.

The othe was Glencoe in Scotland.

340

A true partisan ranger if there ever was one, as was the 43rd Virginia Cavalry he commanded. I'm proud of him, he was an ancestor of mine.

Are you gonna cry because i told the truth about Saint Abe, or are you going to try to dispute it ? Try it, you know you wanna.

Have a happy 4th, Monty and the morons, even to you billy-yank knuckleheads, like
comment 340, meh.

341
"government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

More like government of 52% of the people and the other 48% can eat dirt.

342

". He always called them "those people".

They were. And your point is ?

343 "comment 340, meh."

Because it's true. This "Lost Cause" bullshit and the rest of it was dreamed up once they realized we Northerners were going to win and there was fuck-all they could do about it, and afterward, when traitors like Jefferson Davis needed to find a less odious reason for what they'd done than "we wanted to keep race slavery."

I was wrong though on one point, the South was very much interested in extending slavery to the territories, simply to give them a majority in Congress to protect and perpetuate slavery indefinitely.

Clement Vallindangham was a great man at whining about how "Saint Abe" was a tyrant. So was old Sam Medary, editor of The Crisis. There was no shortage of true, false, fair, and unfair criticism of Lincoln, and also enough seditious opinion going around to satisfy any Copperhead. Considering the repression of dissent and unrest (as many secret societies in the North, some competent, some farcical, formed to oppose the draft particularly and the Lincoln government generally, occasionally by force) in other countries at the time or earlier times or later, and even looking at what Lincoln did solely based on American standards, he certainly was a saint. He was no tyrant.

One Georgia farmer in late '63 wrote to his son in the Army of Northern Virginia, "They thought this war up drunk, but now they'll have to settle it sober." Some people are still hung over.

344 In what certainly seems like four score and seven years ago, American voters, deceived by a man of a true nature most foul and his media propaganda ministers, brought forth, upon this Nation, a profoundly warped man, conceived who knows where for certain, who is dedicated to the proposition that all men are created weak and subservient to his every insane will and whim.

Now we are engaged in a great battle, testing whether this nation, or any nation so burdened, and so assaulted, can long endure. We are met here on a great internet battlefield, with compatriots in the Tea Party Freedom Movement rallies, compatriots on the radio waves and Spartan Warriors in the Great State of Arizona, of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of our lives in  honor of our forefathers who dedicated their lives that this nation might live vigorous and free.
It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

It is for us, the living, to be dedicated to the restoration of freedom, liberty, rule of law, progress and sanity which our Founders so nobly brought about. It is for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us – that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they so long ago gave the full measure of devotion – that we here highly resolve that our Founding Fathers shall not have labored in vain; that this nation shall have a rebirth of freedom and responsibility; and that this government will once again be of the people, by the people, for the people, and that we will not allow abominations like Barack Hussein Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and their gang of quislings to cause it, and it’s shinning light, to perish from the Earth.

345

You know, reading the pro-Union/Lincoln parts of this thread remind me of one of the classic mistakes my history professors warned me about: judging the present by the past.

The Union sympathizers want to sling racist mud at the South and call them horrible and evil for having slaves. What they forget is that slaveholding, by the standards of the time, was perfectly legal. There was damned little debate about the fact the black man was inferior, because everyone pretty much could see the proof right in front of their eyes. The abolitionists didn't like slavery, but most northern whites didn't want blacks anywhere near them.

They still don't.

The South was forced to fight. The North straightforwardly told them it intended to destroy a large chunk of their capital investment and grind them and their states under its heels. They did it in a deliberately rude and insulting manner as well. Preston Brooks beat Charles Sumner nearly to death on the Senate floor because Sumner had, on that same floor, viciously insulted Brooks' father-in-law, John C. Calhoun as well as his state, South Carolina. Calhoun at that time was an old man, so his son-in-law took care of business for him.

By the standards of the day, Brooks was completely right to do what he did. He resigned from Congress, went back to South Carolina, ran for the open seat and was overwhelmingly reelected. He received hundreds of canes with metal plates inscribed, "Hit him again!"His constituents, as well as most of the South, saw him as a hero fighting back against oppression.

In the end, it comes down to this: the Southerners were presented with having their economy destroyed at gunpoint. They had two options: to tamely submit and certainly be destroyed, or to fight and probably be destroyed. They chose the latter. Again, by the standards of the day that was the honorable choice.

The war deserves to be called the War of Northern Aggression because that is exactly what it was. Slavery was a problematic institution at the best of times, and anyone who reads what is probably the best book on the subject, Kenneth Stampp's "The Peculiar Institution," can see that even before the war the seeds of slavery's self-destruction were already sown. By the start of the war it was already clear in the North that it was cheaper and easier to have wage slaves than chattel slaves, and the South was slowly coming to that conclusion as Stampp shows. The North, because of their greed, wasn't willing to wait.

The what-might-have-beens of history are always fascinating. However, for Northern partisans to come along at this late date and drape themselves in the cloak of moral righteousness is ludicrous. It was a Northern power grab, and that's all it was. Anyone who claims the war as some great moral effort on the North's part is simply buying Northern propaganda. As in most things, if you want to know why certain events happened, follow the power and the money. You'll find your real truth there.

 

346 Or you could actually read books instead of believing horrible nonsense.

The churches of the United States split into northern and southern branches starting twenty, twenty-five years before the war. Over slavery.

We're wrong for saying the South was racist (damn near the whole population of the country was at the time), we're the racist ones. Nice flourish there.

You're not worth the time, you're one of the sad few still hung over. Really, we'd be more than happy to whip the asses of people like you again. It was people like you that dragged hundreds of thousands of poor boys off their farms and out of their homes north and south so they could die in some field in Virginia or Tennessee. The dirt-poor "mean whites" who had been kept dirt-poor by the slaving aristocracy sure made a nice army for you to sacrifice on your altar of "defense against northern aggression."

Keep fighting the war in your head pal that's where you want it to stay. Both the North and the South paid a lot of needless division and horrible bloodshed thanks to your kind.

347 Lincoln wanted to "let 'em up easy". John Wilkes Booth made sure that the Reconstruction would be very painful for the South.

348 Great thread.

My roots are deeply Southern.  My great-great grandfather was a rabid secessionist preacher from Charleston who went to England during the Civil War to lobby the court of Queen Victoria to support the South.  Other parts of my family come from Virginia and Prince William county where the battles of Manassas was fought.  I was raised honoring Robert E. Lee and the courage of Southerner's fighting against overwhelming odds.   I still marvel and respect the courage and military leadership of the South regardless of how misplaced it was.
While going to school at UVA, I would listen ad nauseum to revisionist history taught to friends raised in public Virginia schools about how the Civil War was provoked for purely economic reasons.

However I also am a father of an adopted black girl.   Ask me if somehow this was 1860, would I permit my daughter to live a life as a slave because it was an institution that was on its way out, and would eventually be abolished in one or two generations? 

Ask me if I would permit it for one day?

The simple answer is no.  I'd pick up a gun and probably shoot first, and ask questions later. 

The Civil War was provoked by moral issue.  A profoundly moral one.  It required me to be a father before I truly understood it.

Thankfully there were abolishionists who understood this independent of their personal circumstances and were willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to end this evil institution.

349
Abraham Lincoln:

If I could save the Union without freeing the slaves, I would do it. If I could save the Union by freeing some and leaving others in slavery, I would do it. If I could save it by freeing all, I would do that. What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because it helps save the Union.


Sounds like Lincoln wasn't really all that into the slavery thing. Kinda blows the whole narrative doesn't it?

What I find most objectionable is why so many people get stuck on their emotional feelings, and completely ignore facts which simply don't jive with what they want to believe. It seems to be simply too much to expect people to be objective about stuff they feel passionate about.

350 Is it too late to root for the south?

351 Diagenes, having strong emotions does not equate to being irrational. The evolution of jurisprudence and the rule of law in the West was driven by a collective sense of moral outrage about injustice. And whatever Lincoln thought personally about slavery misses the point, Lincoln could not go to war without broad based support by ordinary people in the North, and the driving force was slavery.

352

Fapo,

Why would your adopted black daughter have to live as a slave? They had free blacks in the South. Some of THEM owned slaves. Your point is not valid because "the system" would not have precluded you from having your daughter as a free person.

Presentism yet again in this thread. If you had picked up a gun and shot first, you'd have been a) disobeying the law of the land, which would have gotten you hung, and b) doing so unnecessarily. I suggest you read Kenneth Stampp on this issue. The war was one of northern aggression against an agrarian society that refused to be crushed by northern business interests. The anti-slavery whitewash was strictly for public consumption. If you don't believe that, ask yourself why white people would give their lives for the freedom of people most of them deeply despised.

Your filial sentiments notwithstanding, your classmates at UVA were right in their interpretation. As Churchill once said, politics is all about power and money. This war was no different.

353

"politics is all about power and money. This war was no different."

In other words, you are saying that all us morons who voice opposition to BO are not doing so on the basis of any principle, we just want more power and money.  Gotcha.

354 "If I could save the Union without freeing the slaves, I would do it. If I could save the Union by freeing some and leaving others in slavery, I would do it. If I could save it by freeing all, I would do that. What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because it helps save the Union.


Sounds like Lincoln wasn't really all that into the slavery thing. Kinda blows the whole narrative doesn't it?"

Lincoln slowly modulated his rhetoric and positions in order to keep the Northern people from blowing up behind his back while the Rebs were already doing so down South.

Another good Lincoln quote is a meeting he had with Wendell Phillipps, William Lloyd Garrison, and others. After they pushed him to a more radical abolitionist policy and he parried their requests rather skillfully, Lincoln asked something to the effect of how badly the abolitionists were criticizing him for not going fast enough and how fervent they were in prozelytising the people of the north to abolition. They honestly replied that they were both quite harsh and quite devoted. Lincoln said, in effect, 'keep it up. Get the country to where it is ready, and I will be there with you.'

Another good Lincoln quote is with one of his abolitionist friends early in the war, I forgot his name, and Lincoln asked how the Italians these days had improved on the Roman saying, 'go slowly, for I am in a hurry.' His friend replied that the Italians now said "festina lenche" or something  like that, which meant the same thing. Lincoln said that the same principle applied here. He would have faced a double rebellion if he had tried to do anything other than slowly and skillfully bring the American people around to supporting freeing the slaves.

355

No, Gary. Don't be deliberately obtuse. What we're doing in opposing Obama is trying to keep some of our money and trying to keep him and his accomplices from acquiring all the power they need to steamroll us into penury. Something like what the South was trying to do against the North. Of course, the Obots will use the fact that AoS morons do in hobos to drape Obama's racist power grab in the loftiest of moral crusade rhetoric. With apologies to Julia Ward Howe,

"Oh mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;

"He is cleaning out the closet where the Val-U-Rite is stored;

"And those hobo-offing morons he will soon put to the sword;

"As The Won goes marching on..."

356
And whatever Lincoln thought personally about slavery misses the point, Lincoln could not go to war without broad based support by ordinary people in the North, and the driving force was slavery.

Posted by: fapo at July 04, 2010 06:22 PM (TcaE

You are correct about that last part. Lincoln could NOT go to war without broad based support. But how to get it? At the time, the public was VERY MUCH AGAINST going to war with the South and preferred to let them leave in peace. What changed their minds was the news that the SOUTH ATTACKS!

Lincoln cleverly provoked them into attacking (by sending a letter to the CSA government telling them that he was sending an armed resupply train to fort sumter, and they better not fuck with it. He also sent a letter to the commander of the fort warning him he was about to be attacked. Ordered him to hold the fort for a day and then surrender it. .) knowing full well that the hot-heads would take the bait. After the attack, he arrested any newspaper editors that tried to spin a different narrative, and he arrested the legislature of Maryland to prevent them from seceding too!

Had the commander of Ft. Sumter simply surrendered it before any shots were fired, (another commander had already abandoned another fort.) there NEVER WOULD HAVE BEEN A CIVIL WAR.  Think about it. Lincoln DARED NOT attack (the people of the North would have refused to go along with it.) . If the South couldn't have been provoked into an attack, then how could the war have started? 

The point is, if you couldn't start the civil war, then all of this prattling about slavery is irrelevant. I mean, how could the driving force be slavery when that wasn't what started the war? HMMM???

The evils of slavery was piggybacked onto the narrative to justify getting @ 600,000 people killed, and devastating an entire region for generations. If you start some shit that causes THOSE kind of loses, you damn sure better come up with a good reason to justify it, and that EX POST FACTO reason was slavery.

The rubes bought it, (anyone that didn't was a seditionist) and that was all that was necessary. They're still buying it today.

357 Well said, Diogenes. They are still buying it today.

358 Abe destroyed the Union to save it. Retaining land as Federal after statehood. Direct taxes. Layering Federal jurisdiction over the States, etc.