Post: #1

This idea was brought up in the gay marriage thread recently. That Civil War might have not been fought simply for ending Slavery. It would have been cheaper to buy all slaves and set them free according to some. What do you think was the primary cause of the Civil War?

Post: #2

Generally speaking, it was the growing rift of values between the north and the south. The north was becoming more industrial and the south remained agricultural. The north was becoming more liberal, and as such, supported more federal control vs the state control supported by the south (ironically, the liberal northerners formed a new party called the "Republicans"). The election of Lincoln was the final breaking point, as he was a republican and supported the growing of the republic, including abolishing slavery, which the south was sorely dependent on for their agricultural production.

Post: #3

A couple of good reads are The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War by Thomas DiLorenzo
and here.

Post: #4

North and South had different ideas on the role of the federal govt. This is largely still true today. Red states tend to be southern and blue states are Yankee country. I had family on both sides of the conflict in 1861. But "The South Was Right." ...good read.

Post: #5

Interesting thread. I saw this in the gay marriage thread, so I came over.

The above guys make good points. There are a ton of articles around by the above author Thomas DiLorenzo that will totally change your perception of Lincoln.

To me, the event of most significance during the Civil War, or lack thereof, was the Emancipation Proclamation. It wasn't issued until 1863, two years after the war had begun. If Lincoln really wanted to free the slaves, why not do it from the get go?

Here's a paragraph from it:

Quote:"That on the 1st day of January, A.D. 1863, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the executive government of the United States, including the military and naval
authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.

Notice how it says slaves will be freed only in rebelling states. There are two problems with this:

1.) Lincoln had no jurisdiction in the south, because they had seceded
2.) Lincoln didn't want to free the slaves in the border states, as that would piss them off, cause them to join the confederacy, and thus the union would likely lose the war.

In reality, the Emancipation Proclamation did not free a single slave. It is one of the greatest cons in history in my opinion.

Why would Lincoln do that?

One theory is that it was to change the perception of the war, to one about slavery. This would force Great Britain, who was thinking of intervening on behalf of the south, to abstain from the war as they had just abolished slavery about a year prior.

Post: #6

When you mean liberal and Republican, don't they have different meanings than the current version? Also would Lincoln truly be a small government if he is trying to control the south's different take on things?

From the article posted it sounds like Lincoln was raising taxes to ridiculous levels on South for some reason. That doesn't sound small government too me either.

Post: #7

(10-08-2014 09:12 AM)kbell Wrote:  When you mean liberal and Republican, don't they have different meanings than the current version? Also would Lincoln truly be a small government if he is trying to control the south's different take on things?

From the article posted it sounds like Lincoln was raising taxes to ridiculous levels on South for some reason. That doesn't sound small government too me either.

The parties "flipped" in the early 20th century. The Democrats were historically anti-Federalist and the Republicans were historically Federalist until Democrat William Jennings Bryan emphasized the Government's role in ensuring social justice through expansions of Federal Power.

Quote:Republicans didn't immediately adopt the opposite position of favoring limited government. "Instead, for a couple of decades, both parties are promising an augmented federal government devoted in various ways to the cause of social justice," Rauchway wrote in a 2010 blog post for the Chronicles of Higher Education. Only gradually did Republican rhetoric drift to the counterarguments. The party's small-government platform cemented in the 1930s with its heated opposition to the New Deal.

From http://www.livescience.com/34241-democra...forms.html

Post: #8

(10-08-2014 07:16 AM)ryanf Wrote:  The election of Lincoln was the final breaking point, as he was a republican and supported the growing of the republic, including abolishing slavery, which the south was sorely dependent on for their agricultural production.

Interestingly, Lincoln only won the election because hardliner southern Democrats split their party in the 1860 election...had they supported Douglas, Lincoln's chances for victory would have been slim to none. In addition, at the time Lincoln was vocally not in favor of abolishing slavery as his main objective was keeping the republic united; he planned to limit slavery's spread into new states, but he had no designs on abolition until much later (and only after years of war had massively changed the situation).

Perception overtook reality: the southern elite had become convinced that Lincoln was a greater enemy of slavery than he actually was. However, after decades of threatening secession (as well as the back-and-forth argument of whether unilateral secession was constitutional or not), the prospect of a Republican administration was seen as too much of a threat to tolerate, and since Johnson's fecklessness had allowed the south to prepare materially for secession while doing nothing to reconcile the two camps, southern leaders felt the time was right.

Ultimately, I think the Civil War started due to the effects of slavery. I agree it was about the differences in the social orders, philosophies and values between north and south, but those developed largely from the respective absence and ubiquity of slavery within each region. As the war went on, it increasingly became a struggle over the root cause itself. The reasons for the war, like so many others before and after, evolved as the situation did.

Quote:The parties "flipped" in the early 20th century. The Democrats were historically anti-Federalist and the Republicans were historically Federalist until Democrat William Jennings Bryan emphasized the Government's role in ensuring social justice through expansions of Federal Power.

It happened in stages, and yes that was the first phase. It was the New Deal that emphatically and lastingly positioned the Democrats as the party of federal involvement and the Republicans as its opponents; however, it wasn't until the 1960's, after Johnson's Great Society and Nixon's Southern Strategy, that southern states became more strongly Republican (still known to that generation of politicians as the loathed party of Lincoln). Those two realignments, as much as anything else, established the electoral map and political spectrum of contemporary American politics.

Post: #9

One interesting take on this that I've read is from a book by Morris Berman. He basically states that the South stood for all things traditional: patriarchal, conservative, family-oriented, and generally less capitalistic than the North. Slavery notwithstanding, of course.

The North, on the other hand, was more liberal, progressive, and hyper-capitalist (basically the US that exists today). So, in essence, the South had to be squashed in order for Northern values to predominate, which they do to this day. And everything good that the South represented was essentially erased by the war.

Post: #10

Slavery. End of story. Alexander Stephens, the VP of the Confederacy in the Cornerstone Speech:

"Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; 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."

Lest there be any confusion about this, Article I Section 9 of the Confederate Constitution: "No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed."

Anyone trying to push the states' rights angle is pushing the Lost Cause mythology, which isn't based in fact. The Civil War happened because of slavery. All other things that led to it can be tied to slavery.

Post: #11

(10-08-2014 12:27 PM)Truth Teller Wrote:  Slavery. End of story.

That isn't how history works. It's far more complex. The North tacitly approved of slavery and in no way had any sympathy for the plight of slaves. The idea that the North was full of abolitionists is absurd.

Lincoln himself was full of shit when it came to his own views about the issue. He often flip-flopped on slavery depending on what audience was at hand.

Post: #12

How did the North approve of Slavery?

The slavery as the only cause of Civil War is what is taught in public high schools and probably colleges. To have a discussion like this where their is actual opposing views, and a willingness to into politically incorrect territory such as Lincoln not being such a great man is refreshing. I'm personally a little suspect of too revered of historical characters because it makes them too two dimensional as opposed to an actual human with flaws.

Post: #13

(10-08-2014 01:11 PM)kbell Wrote:  How did the North approve of Slavery?

The slavery as the only cause of Civil War is what is taught in public high schools and probably colleges. To have a discussion like this where their is actual opposing views, and a willingness to into politically incorrect territory such as Lincoln not being such a great man is refreshing. I'm personally a little suspect of too revered of historical characters because it makes them too two dimensional as opposed to an actual human with flaws.

Precisely. Any time you see college professors sucking on a historical figure's cock, prepare to take a closer look. Lincoln was a complex character. He is definitely not the "savior of slaves" that he is often touted to be. Check out some of the work by Eric Foner, particularly The Fiery Trial. Lincoln comes off as two-faced in many of his statements and actions regarding slavery.

How did the North approve? The economies of the North and South were intertwined the entire time, so there is your tacit approval. That's not even mentioning the fact that Northern views regarding blacks were virtually identical to those of the South.

Post: #14

When you look at the South and what percentage of the population actually owned slaves, it was very small. And for the longest time the North was adamant that they weren't going to war to free the slaves. Even the leftist Southern Poverty Law Center admits as much.

I think slavery was more important in the South's reason for fighting than it was to the North, who wanted to preserve the Union at any cost.

http://www.tolerance.org/supplement/myth...nd-slavery

Quote:No. 1 The North went to war to end slavery.
The South definitely went to war to preserve slavery. But did the North go to war to end slavery?

No. The North went to war initially to hold the nation together. Abolition came later. On Aug. 22, 1862, President Lincoln wrote a letter to Horace Greeley, abolitionist editor of the New York Tribune, that stated: “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. What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.”

Lincoln’s own anti-slavery sentiment was widely known at the time, indeed, so widely known that it helped prompt the southern states to rebel. In the same letter, Lincoln wrote: “I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every where could be free.”

Lincoln was concerned—rightly—that making the war about abolition would anger northern Unionists, many of whom cared little about African Americans. But by late 1862, it became clear that ending slavery in the rebelling states would help the war effort. The war itself started the emancipation process. Whenever U.S. forces drew near, African Americans flocked to their lines—to help the war effort, to make a living and, most of all, simply to be free. Some of Lincoln’s generals helped him see, early on, that sending them back into slavery merely helped the Confederate cause.

A month after issuing his letter to the New York Tribune, Lincoln combined official duty and private wish by announcing the Emancipation Proclamation, to take effect on January 1, 1863.

The Civil War, in my opinion, was directly caused by hotheads attacking Fort Sumter. That escalated things to the point of no return and it was stupid because the South had won a major Supreme Court battle, Dred v. Scott, just four years prior that protected the institution of slavery.

Once the war started most Southerners decided to fight against what they viewed as an invasion. Meanwhile the North had things like bloody draft riots in New York City and widespread draft-dodging.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opposition_..._Civil_War

I personally think the Civil War was largely an avoidable and unnecessary war.

Anyway, some people believe that competing wealthy interests operating behind the scenes in both the South and North were responsible for the war. I think there might be something to that but I fully admit my ignorance there and hope to learn more about this and other theories in this thread.

Post: #15

So if the war was avoided, I assume you would have a Union and Federal states of america? One would be like what we have today infested with Marxism and Brave New World style of system. The other a more libertarian style setup, with a caste system? I wonder in that situation what would be the most successful money and powerwise?

Post: #16

It is also worth noting that years prior, during Andrew Jackson's presidency, some South Carolinians threatened to secede over the "Tariff of Abominations". They also refused to recognize the law, which led to the Nullification Crisis.

Consequently, Jackson threatened them with military action and since he was basically an American warlord and a fellow Southerner they knew not to test him.

http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_te...3&psid=371

Quote:Jackson declared nullification illegal and became the first President to declare the Union indissoluble. He then asked Congress to empower him to use force to execute federal law; Congress promptly enacted a Force Act. Privately, Jackson threatened to "hang every leader...of that infatuated people, sir, by martial law, irrespective of his name, or political or social position." He also dispatched a fleet of eight ships and a shipment of 5000 muskets to a federal installation in Charleston harbor.

Post: #17

There's no question that the North was, and would be, more financially successful. It is where industrial production prospered and where capitalist entrepreneurship was more prevalent. The South had a different take on things, so to speak. It is probably the closest thing America has ever had to a "redpill" society, minus slavery.

Post: #18

(10-08-2014 01:33 PM)kbell Wrote:  So if the war was avoided, I assume you would have a Union and Federal states of america? One would be like what we have today infested with Marxism and Brave New World style of system. The other a more libertarian style setup, with a caste system? I wonder in that situation what would be the most successful money and powerwise?

Well, here's the thing. We don't know and it's impossible to know.

It's possible that if South Carolina forces hadn't attacked Fort Sumter that at some point Lincoln would've ordered the US military to invade or attack the South and it still would've happened anyway.

It's also possible that eventually technology would've made slavery irrelevant in the Confederacy had a war not occurred, along with the ever-increasing African American population.

Post: #19

Quote:The Lincoln regime destroyed the system of federalism, or states' rights, that was established by the founding fathers. After the war, the union was no longer voluntary, and all states, North and South, became mere appendages of Washington, DC. Lincoln illegally suspended the writ of habeas corpus and imprisoned tens of thousands of political dissenters without due process; waged total war with the bombing, plundering, and mass murder of some 50,000 of his own citizens; signed ten tariff-raising bills; imposed heavy "sin taxes" on alcohol and tobacco; introduced the first federal income-tax and military-conscription laws; introduced an internal-revenue bureaucracy for the first time; executed thousands of accused deserters from the army; shut down hundreds of opposition newspapers in the Northern states; went off the gold standard and nationalized the money supply; introduced massive corporate-welfare schemes; deported an opposition member of Congress; and exploded the public debt, among other sins. By "targeting and butchering [Southern] civilians," Murray Rothbard wrote in his essay, "America's Two Just Wars: 1775 and 1861" (in John Denson, ed., The Costs of War), "Lincoln and Grant and Sherman paved the way for all the genocidal horrors of the monstrous 20th century." They "opened the Pandora's Box of genocide and the extermination of civilians …"

http://mises.org/daily/4887/The-Great-Ce...in-America

According to the article Lincoln was one of the most reviled presidents of the time. Only due to hagiography, or basically making him into a saint with revision, is he considered such a hero today.What I quoted would not make him that popular. And it seems like he was the one of the first that brought on the centralized government rather than Woodrow Wilson who I thought was the first.

As for the topic of state rights, which was mentioned briefly in the gay marriage thread overriding the red states. This allowance of the federal government to override individual states rights must have originated with Lincoln.

Post: #20

(10-08-2014 02:10 PM)kbell Wrote:  

Quote:The Lincoln regime destroyed the system of federalism, or states' rights, that was established by the founding fathers. After the war, the union was no longer voluntary, and all states, North and South, became mere appendages of Washington, DC. Lincoln illegally suspended the writ of habeas corpus and imprisoned tens of thousands of political dissenters without due process; waged total war with the bombing, plundering, and mass murder of some 50,000 of his own citizens; signed ten tariff-raising bills; imposed heavy "sin taxes" on alcohol and tobacco; introduced the first federal income-tax and military-conscription laws; introduced an internal-revenue bureaucracy for the first time; executed thousands of accused deserters from the army; shut down hundreds of opposition newspapers in the Northern states; went off the gold standard and nationalized the money supply; introduced massive corporate-welfare schemes; deported an opposition member of Congress; and exploded the public debt, among other sins. By "targeting and butchering [Southern] civilians," Murray Rothbard wrote in his essay, "America's Two Just Wars: 1775 and 1861" (in John Denson, ed., The Costs of War), "Lincoln and Grant and Sherman paved the way for all the genocidal horrors of the monstrous 20th century." They "opened the Pandora's Box of genocide and the extermination of civilians …"

http://mises.org/daily/4887/The-Great-Ce...in-America

According to the article Lincoln was one of the most reviled presidents of the time. Only due to hagiography, or basically making him into a saint with revision, is he considered such a hero today.What I quoted would not make him that popular. And it seems like he was the one of the first that brought on the centralized government rather than Woodrow Wilson who I thought was the first.

As for the topic of state rights, which was mentioned briefly in the gay marriage thread overriding the red states. This allowance of the federal government to override individual states rights must have originated with Lincoln.

It was a direct result of the Civil War and led to the realization of a long-held fear as old as the nation's birth.

I know for a fact people like Patrick Henry, an antifederalist, resented that the Articles of Confederation* (which were admittedly flawed) were scrapped in favor of a stronger federal government limited by the Constitution. He and others thought it would eventually lead to an overbearing, oppressive federal government.

*

Quote:Antifederalists feared what Patrick Henry termed the "consolidated government" proposed by the new Constitution. They saw in Federalist hopes for commercial growth and international prestige only the lust of ambitious men for a "splendid empire" that, in the time-honored way of empires, would oppress the people with taxes, conscription, and military campaigns. Uncertain that any government over so vast a domain as the United States could be controlled by the people, Antifederalists saw in the enlarged powers of the general government only the familiar threats to the rights and liberties of the people.

Post: #21

(10-08-2014 12:57 PM)Cunnilinguist Wrote:  

(10-08-2014 12:27 PM)Truth Teller Wrote:  Slavery. End of story.

That isn't how history works. It's far more complex. The North tacitly approved of slavery and in no way had any sympathy for the plight of slaves. The idea that the North was full of abolitionists is absurd.

Lincoln himself was full of shit when it came to his own views about the issue. He often flip-flopped on slavery depending on what audience was at hand.

What the north thoroughly detested though was how the South had in slavery a source of cheap labor that made it uneconomical for Northern states to compete in labor intensive markets.

Post: #22

If we really want to be pedantic, we can say slavery, which then led to 15 other issues, all of which built up slowly from 1787 to the mid-1850s, and then we can collectively blame all those issues for the Civil War.

Still doesn't eliminate the fact of slavery being the cause.

Post: #23

(10-08-2014 02:10 PM)kbell Wrote:  As for the topic of state rights, which was mentioned briefly in the gay marriage thread overriding the red states. This allowance of the federal government to override individual states rights must have originated with Lincoln.

No, it's always been that way. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land, as per Article Six, Section Two. Whenever a local ordinance or state law comes into conflict with a federal law or treaty, the federal law reigns supreme. It also works under the privileges and immunities clause of the 14th Amendment.

The overturning of gay marriage statutes, while distasteful, is not technically illegal.

However, support for gay marriage has dropped 4 percentage points in the last 8 months alone, so we'll see how long this continues.

Post: #24

(10-08-2014 03:26 PM)Truth Teller Wrote:  

(10-08-2014 02:10 PM)kbell Wrote:  As for the topic of state rights, which was mentioned briefly in the gay marriage thread overriding the red states. This allowance of the federal government to override individual states rights must have originated with Lincoln.

No, it's always been that way. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land, as per Article Six, Section Two. Whenever a local ordinance or state law comes into conflict with a federal law or treaty, the federal law reigns supreme. It also works under the privileges and immunities clause of the 14th Amendment.

The overturning of gay marriage statutes, while distasteful, is not technically illegal.

However, support for gay marriage has dropped 4 percentage points in the last 8 months alone, so we'll see how long this continues.

This isn't entirely true.

Before the 14th Amendment the Bill of Rights was not applicable against the States.

States had their own constitutions and could put limits on everything from speech and religion to gun ownership, while the federal government legally could not touch those issues or force a state to change those ordinances.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporati..._of_Rights

Post: #25

There's a lot of revisionist history out there about most of the major modern wars. Authors try to prove that the conventional narrative is lacking or simply wrong. Most of these revisionists make claims that just aren't convincing.

With regard to the American Civil War, it's not a mystery why the war started. There were several major factors. But without doubt, slavery was one of them. Slavery was the big issue that the Founding Fathers had hoped would go away over time. And it wouldn't go away. It was the ghost that haunted American politics all through the 19th century before 1860. And it was threatening to expand into the Western territories.

Countless compromises were put in place by Congress to try to maintain a delicate balance between the slave South and the free North. For a time this worked. But then the compromise system started to break down.

We easily forget that the US in 1860 was basically two nations. The South had its own economy, and a plantation-based social system with race-based slavery at its core. The system was (to me) repugnant and incapable of reform. Tensions gradually grew over time, all through the 1830s, 1840s, and 1850s. The South was very defensive, very stand-offish, and very hot-tempered. They knew their system was ultimately doomed, I think, and they were not prepared to make any compromises to avert all-out war. Their press and newspapers were rabidly pro-slavery, and their politicians were hotheads who would not listen to reason. John Brown's rebellion, the publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin, the Dred Scott decision, and the growing abolitionist movement all served to stoke the fires. Everyone sensed that something was going to happen.

The election of Lincoln gave the Southern hotheads the excuse they were looking for to secede. And everyone knows what happened after that.

I have no sympathy for the South. I think the cause they were fighting for was, as U.S. Grant said, "one of the worst that any man has ever fought for." Slavery was irredeemably evil and I'm glad the war gave Lincoln the opportunity to abolish it, even if he originally was hesitant to do so.

The big mistake, in my view, that the US made after the civil war was permitting the South to backslide into segregation. Reconstruction was bungled. Maybe if Lincoln had lived, things would have been better. But Andrew Johnson was incapable of pulling it off. Maybe if we could have had a civil rights act in 1880, we would not have had 80 more years of segregation and bitterness in the US. The South's entire racist infrastructure should have been dismantled. Seen in this light, we can say that the Civil War was a war of unification for the United States.

I also think that the Southern rebel leaders and generals got off too damn easy after the war. Jeff Davis, Robert E. Lee, and the rest of that rabble...these people should not have been permitted to live out their lives in comfort.

In my view, I think most of these people should have been hanged, or received long prison sentences.