I am not seeing why the North couldn't just impose the end of slavery on the South, but not annex the South. I mean... if they had done that then it would be clear the war was about slavery. Having annexed the South back it becomes logical to suppose this was more about US economic might, or at least that this was a core part of the civil war (ie a part without which there would be no war). Besides, the South included major rivers-- supposedly the US would even declare war on France to secure one of those rivers prior to just buying it from Nap.
The Dismantling of Confederate Remnants Continues
- Thread starter Commodore
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Lexicus
Deity
How on Earth would this have worked?
The way reparations work in peace treaties? And the North was the only major power in the whole continent, unlike with France and Germany.
Lexicus
Deity
I don't get it at all
Usually in peace treaties the losing side signs to a number of agreements, including often the clause that if some are broken (eg slavery returning, etc) the other side automatically gains a CB on them.
I am mostly asking if anyone even wanted that, in the North - or in the South. Anyway, it seems that resentment was kept, leading to the white supremacy dem party in the South, and later on other nice stuff with white hoods.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
The Republicans had been fairly clear from the outset that their primary war aim was maintaining the territorial integrity of the Union. Recognising Southern secession would have represented a defeat in the eyes of the Northern electorate.
The Southern Democrats emerged as the party of white supremacy under Jackson. It wasn't a product of the Civil War. The hoods were only introduced because what they were doing was no very technically illegal.
I am wondering if that reason is downplayed, cause that in itself is not about slavery but capitalismvery/imperialismvery.
Lexicus
Deity
I mean, all the political formations in the US pretty much from Bacon's Rebellion if not earlier were white supremacist.
What peace treaty though?
Lexicus
Deity
The South wasn't annexed, its secession was illegal and failed militarily. I am also not trying to troll here I just had no idea what you're talking about and am trying to figure it out.
I was just looking for a way out, so can't answer more questions.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
It was overshadowed rather than actively downplayed, I think. Nationalism doesn't have the appeal among the American public that it once did, and those for whom it still holds a lot of weight are likely to be those whose sympathies lean Confederate; there are few true Federalists in twenty-first century America.
That is very important: the North at no point recognised the South as a foreign power, or even as an actual belligerent, only as a rebel army. Legally speaking, there was no Civil War, just a prolonged anti-insurgency. (How that's for deja vu?)
Lexicus
Deity
Has there ever been a civil war where the warring entities recognized one another as legitimate, separate combatants?
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
It does happen sometimes; the trick is that recognition is usually extended as part of the process of treaty-making, and civil wars will usually end without a treaty, or be redefined after the treaty to be something other than a civil war. You only tend to find mutual recognition of warring factions that both factions recognise as such when they're forced into an undesirable stalemate.
The key point in the American Civil War is that the Union could have recognised the secessionist state governments without recognising the Confederacy, and even have recognised the Confederacy as a representative body for the seceding states without recognising it as a foreign power, and so recognised the seceding states themselves as belligerents at war with the Union. As it was, the federal government maintained uniformly that the Southern state governments had dissolved themselves in the act of declaring secession; the only debate was as to whether they had rendered the state governments vacant, or if the states themselves had been dissolved and reverted to the status of federal territories.
Tahuti
Writing Deity
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Would have been an interesting scenario if this debate would have been settled for the latter. It may have well prevented the Jim Crow laws and poll taxes for one. It could even potentially led to an Afro-American majority state in the South.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
Maybe, but probably not. No serious proposition was ever floated to re-draw the state boundaries after the war. It was more a question of whether the executive or legislative branches had more authority over reconstruction; due to some obscure constitutional dictate I won't pretend to understand, if the state government was vacated power sort of fell upwards to the president, while if the state itself was dissolved, it fell naturally to Congress like any other territory. The former won out because, first, there wasn't really any legal precedent for demoting a state back into a territory, certainly not those which had never been territories in the first place, and second, because Southern Unionists (and ex-Confederates with Union sympathies), whose support would be crucial in reconstruction, and they weren't very happy with the notion that their states could be dissolved.
caketastydelish
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The USA leaving the UK was also 'illegal' but who cares.
First, whoever has the best army deserves to win. Just my opinion of course. Next time, suck less.
Second, I'm going to side with whoever wants to end slavery no matter what.
First, whoever has the best army deserves to win. Just my opinion of course. Next time, suck less.
Second, I'm going to side with whoever wants to end slavery no matter what.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
The thing is, nobody in either of these conflicts would have agreed with that. All were quite sincerely convinced that they had moral and legal right on their side.
caketastydelish
Deity
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Well, of course, they wouldn't agree to it. I'm just voicing my opinion. It's like sports. If you lost, try harder next time.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
Over three and a half thousand people were killed during a single day at the Battle of Antietam, so the sports analogy seems a bit crass.
