The CSA (Opinions)

[nonconformist]

1. Secularism must be taken on faith, the assumption there is no God

Uh, no. Secularism is a concept in which god and religion are not part of the government. There are thousands of religious secularists, and the opposite of a secular state (such as, say, France, a catholic nation) is a thocracy (such as Iran)

 

[Ekolite]

1. Secularism must be taken on faith, the assumption there is no God

No, you're thinking of atheism.

 

[Aegis]

I find this hilarious. The problem started much earlier and it originally had nothing to do with slavery. Was slavery a part of it? Yes, but it wasn't the main reason. I would suggest you read more on the cause of the Civil War.

Have you read the declarations of the causes of secession, from the seceding states? They lay out their reasons for secession within those documents and it's pretty obvious that slavery was their chief and principal reason for seceding. No other research is necessary.

 

[Methos]

The Emancipation Proclamation didn't make slavery illegal, but permanently freed slaves within those states. It happened after the war broke out and was used as a tool to pressure southern states to re-join the union. If he applied it to the northern union as well, there was the danger that several additional states would secede as a result. The EP eventually led to abolishing slavery in every state.

Thanks for the correction.

No other research is necessary.

Wow, this is just appalling. You suggest then to ignore everything up to the point? To ignore where the original problem started? I disagree.

I do thank you for the suggested reading. It's been years since I took that class.

 

[Aegis]

Thanks for the correction.

It's more of a clarification than a correction. You weren't wrong.

Wow, this is just appalling. You suggest then to ignore everything up to the point? To ignore where the original problem started? I disagree.

I do thank you for the suggested reading. It's been years since I took that class.

You don't have to ignore it, but when you ask "What are your reasons for secession?" and they come back with "XYZ" as their official reasons, that answers the question.

Other good reading material:

Alabama Secession speech:
http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/Alabama_secession_Speech.htm

Cornerstone Speech by CSA VP Alexander Stephens:
http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?documentprint=76

 

[Luckymoose]

When you sign a contract (what the Union is) you have the right to make it null and void if you find it conflicts with the original terms you agreed to. If your landlord doesn't repair your plumbing and he said he would in the lease, you can exit the lease. It works that way for states too. Also it was voted on by the people and they wanted out.

 

[Miles Teg]

This is correct, though as I recall, an additional effect that Lincoln desired was to draw Main into providing troops, as up to that point, they didn't see a reason to be involved. I could be mistaken on the state though. At the time there were foreign troops in Canada and Lincoln was afraid that nations in Europe would recoginize the CSA as independent and then ally with them. At that time, the Union wouldn't have survived an attack from the north. Therefore, in 1863 Lincoln for the first time, publicly stated that slavery was an issue in order to keep Europe out of the war.

You seem oddly unable to comprehend that wars are fought for different reasons on different sides. Lincoln wished privately to abolish slavery, but was unwilling to risk the union, so he confined his public remarks to the simple containment of slavery. The ruling classes in the South were unwilling to play this game of political give and take that might have endangered their slaveholding status, so they took their marbles and went home.

The war was fought on one side to preserve the union, and on the other to protect the slave-holding classes. Simple as that.

Also note, that when Lincoln made slavery illegal, he only did so in the southern states.

Because that's all that he could do, legally, with his executive powers. He also pushed for the 13th amendment, a fact which southern apologists seem to conveniently forget.

Also, the Civil War had its beginnings from what is referred to as the Terror Acts of 1828, 1830, and 1832.

Absolutely ridiculous. There were tensions in that period over tariffs, but citing them as the root cause of the Civil War is nonsensical. That's three decades removed from the outbreak of the Civil War, and the issues only affected the richer coastal states (mostly South Carolina, in point of fact).

Also, the term you're looking for is "Force Acts", not "Terror Acts". Unless you're trying to be inflammatory.

I find this hilarious. The problem started much earlier and it originally had nothing to do with slavery. Was slavery a part of it? Yes, but it wasn't the main reason. I would suggest you read more on the cause of the Civil War.

I'm decently well read on the Civil War, thank you. What I find amusing is that you insist on taking the constitutional problems of over a quarter of a century earlier, and applying them to the Civil War. There was some shared figures and rhetoric, but the root economics of the matter are different enough to make confusing the two issues a rookie mistake.

I was rather shocked to find out how much of what I originally believed and was taught in school that was wrong.

Oh god yes. I had the privilege of moving around a lot, but mostly in the American South. It was rather appalling how the schools insisted on teaching "both sides" of a non-extant argument.

 

[Zack]

Those who support the Confederacy will always say the war was fought because of state's rights; those who support the Union will always say the war was fought to abolish slavery and preserve the Union.

I belong to the latter group.

 

[Drewcifer]

As far as seccession goes you could make the argument that it was illegal in the 19th century but legal now. There is nothing about it in the constitution but it could be argued that the 1948 Universal Decleration of Human Rights that the US signed grants the right to it.

Article 21
1.Everyone has the right to take part in the government of their country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.
2.Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in their country.
3.The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.

 

[Cutlass]

1. Secularism must be taken on faith, the assumption there is no God

This is absolutely false. Secularism has nothing whatsoever to do with the belief or disbelief in any or all religions. Secularism says separation of church and state. Nothing more, and nothing less. And any Christian who does not also want separation of church and state is a lousy Christian.

 

[Cutlass]

When you sign a contract (what the Union is) you have the right to make it null and void if you find it conflicts with the original terms you agreed to. If your landlord doesn't repair your plumbing and he said he would in the lease, you can exit the lease. It works that way for states too. Also it was voted on by the people and they wanted out.

And yet they couldn't be bothered to try the least little thing to make secession happen legally before they started shooting....

 

[civ_king]

Alright, this was brought up in another thread. The CSA isn't a popular thing to get into detail on. People just say, "I support states rights, therefore I support the CSA!" Which, doesn't work.

The Confederates had slaves, but someone I know who thinks they should have won says while it was wrong it wouldn't have lasted long. I kind of see his point, however, again, it is wrong. That being said, if Canada or Mexico was conducting such a practice today, I'd tell them to release their slaves. If they refused, I would invade them to free them. I would have applied the same logic to the Confederates. However, a better question is, did they have the right to secede?

I am unsure ATM. The Constitution doesn't really say, and the 10th Amendment sort of implies that they can. However, if states can leave on a whim the Federal government is nothing, and at that time the Federal Government was following the constitution. With all the nasty, unconstitutional stuff going on in the United States, such as our nation having already denied 40 Million the right to live (Hint, I'm not referencing the death penalty, something I agree with) Denying citizens their God-given right to bear arms, the government pushing a religion of secularism, and other such things, I'm not quite sure I could oppose it today.

In other words, I ideally support the Confederates. In reality, its not quite so. Slavery is the one thing that makes it impossible for me to support them. The fact that the federal government was following the constitution is really only a minor point.

So, the purpose of this discussion is to-

For pro-CSA People, convince me slavery wasn't enough of an issue to fight over

For Anti-CSA People, Convince me of other reasons then slavery the CSA should not have been allowed to exist, and if that logic still applies today.

Oy Vey

no one needs to convince you of anything

 

[Neonanocyborgasm]

This has been done to death.

The CSA seceded in order to preserve slavery. The agricultural economy of the southern states depended on slavery, and it was feared that the northern states, which had become wealthy by industrialization, would eventually overcome them, and would make slavery illegal. This is especially notable when observing the states that did not secede, which were Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware. It was in these states that slavery was least important economically, despite it being legal, and least prevalent.

All this talk of the Civil War being about states' rights is moot, because the right that they were defending was the right to own slaves. I could care less about the constitutionality of the matter, as it's just splitting hairs.

 

[Antilogic]

3. Secularism is not a religion: its a philosophy that states that the government and its institutions should remain separate from religion and religious believes. No amount of word-twisting can define secularism as a religion: it doesn't adhere to any supernatural belief systems.

While I agree with other things in your post, I would like to append the adage "Calling atheism/secularism a religion is like calling bald a hair color."

1. Secularism must be taken on faith, the assumption there is no God

Secularism is not a faith, it is not a belief system, it does not require any faith whatsoever. All it means is that irrelevant of the possible existence of a god or gods, or whatever divine agenda you happen to subscribe to, humans can establish a society where we can interact without a religious element. This does not deny the existence of any gods, it just means we humans can interact with each other without bringing them into the picture. If they exist.

Any attempt to represent this as a religion with any of the modern trappings (as in, supernatural beings, afterlife, etc.) is laughable at best.

This is correct, though as I recall, an additional effect that Lincoln desired was to draw Main into providing troops, as up to that point, they didn't see a reason to be involved. I could be mistaken on the state though. At the time there were foreign troops in Canada and Lincoln was afraid that nations in Europe would recoginize the CSA as independent and then ally with them. At that time, the Union wouldn't have survived an attack from the north. Therefore, in 1863 Lincoln for the first time, publicly stated that slavery was an issue in order to keep Europe out of the war.

Also note, that when Lincoln made slavery illegal, he only did so in the southern states.

Also, the Civil War had its beginnings from what is referred to as the Terror Acts of 1828, 1830, and 1832.

Whatever problems you have with Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, remember he ran as a member of the early Republican Party, which included in its platform a restriction of slavery in US territories. He mentions this in his response to the Kansas-Nebraska Act as well as other speeches in 1857-1858. To suggest that restricting/eliminating slavery was not part of Lincoln's agenda is a bald-faced lie.

When you sign a contract (what the Union is) you have the right to make it null and void if you find it conflicts with the original terms you agreed to. If your landlord doesn't repair your plumbing and he said he would in the lease, you can exit the lease. It works that way for states too. Also it was voted on by the people and they wanted out.

I find this analogy lacking for several reasons. The "contract" that was signed gave proportional representation in the House and two votes in the Senate to each member state, and the states agree to abide by the rulings of the federal government. The states agree to select the executive head of the government via an Electoral College. All I see in the Southern secession is a bunch of sore losers, to use the modern vernacular. You have to abide by the election results even if you don't like them, for if you always got what you wanted irrelevant of who was elected, then it would be a monarchy and not a republic. The new, legitimately-elected government in 1861 was not as friendly to the slaveholders as their predecessors. Tough, man, but that's the way it goes. No reason to start shooting up the place and turning to treason.

 

[FriendlyFire]

Jesus this thread is a cluster.

In any case, supporting states rights does not mean supporting slavery. It didn't necessarily mean that then, is most definetly does not mean that now. The marriage of the two in modern politics is a lame attempt to relate small government people of today to things like slavery which has not been a legitimate position by anyone for 150+ years. It would be like claiming liberals want to guillotine fat cat capitalists.

Patroklos is right it was all about Federal government Tyranny on things like TAXES.
Which is why the south had lots of TAXES to pay for the war against having to pay TAXES .... oh wait

 

[Smellincoffee]

Having been born and raised in Alabama, I do not like the confederacy. I...despise it. Not for what it was, necessarily, but for the cult of southern romanticism and nationalism that turn it into something good or noble. The southern states seceded out of fear that Lincoln and the more radical Republicans would attack slavery. I have looked up the senators and congressmen of the southern states at that time: they were planters, lawyers. They had a vested interest in the southern economy, and to protect it they sacrificed hundreds of thousands of young men on the altars of greed and tribalism. They waved flags of "states' rights", and those men -- the majority, with no connection to slavery -- marched to their death defending the interests of the minority. That people can be deceived to fight and kill for so perverted a cause outrages me. Those who wave rebel flags over their homes belong to the same class that the confederacy's masters once took advantage of.

That's the sort of thing that's jaded me on politics: one group takes advantage of another. Hell, I'd rather live in a commune or be an anarchist.

 

[madviking]

Not for what it was, necessarily, but for the cult of southern romanticism and nationalism that turn it into something good or noble.

So, no Faulkner for you?

 

[Mango Elephant]

Hey, I just thought it might intrest some of y'all to know that less than 1.5% of the Southern White population owned slaves.

 

[Smellincoffee]

So, no Faulkner for you?

Tried him once and ran away, but I think that was more for the style of the prose than the content. I have managed to read a couple of "southern gothic" novels, though, although the author doesn't buy into the romanticism.

 

[FriendlyFire]

Hey, I just thought it might intrest some of y'all to know that less than 1.5% of the Southern White population owned slaves.

Though approx 1/3 of the population was slaves
As we move North the slave population decreses until we reach the Union states with slavery population of about 1%

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