Your View From Today on the Civil War

[Richard III]

I've debated this before, but now I just want to stay out of it and do a straight poll and hear from otha's.

Whaddaya think?

 

[Richard III]

ARRRG! I'd selected multiple options, please correct...

 

[Constantine]

I'll post all my choices since the poll aint working right.

I think the South seceded primarily to protect slavery.

I think the South seceded primarily to back out of an overbearing federation. On this I think the south felt this and related this to number one.

I think the North wasn't fighting to free the slaves at all. They started fighting just to hold the union as one and the war aims changed after Sharpsburg.

 

[Al Zan]

i am getting sick of these topic Civil War!

 

[Serutan]

I think the South seceded because the industrialization and
rapid population growth in the North meant that Southerners would
in the forseeable future (forseeable in 1860) would not be able to
protect their interests (including slavery) in Congress, and eventually the courts.

If one looks at the makeup of the Congress elected in 1860, Lincoln would not have had a snowball's chance of getting much of the Republican platform through, since the Republicans did not control Congress.

Therefore secession was a pre-emptive measure.

Richard, just out of curisity: Wouldn't a topic about American history of necessity be americocentric?

 

[privatehudson]

I think the South left the union almost totally over slavery and I think this because whilst other issues affected the majority of the white population of the south (many of whom didn't even own a slave anyway) the people who affected the decision and ended up running the confederacy were by and large slavery supporters and/or owners. I think the other two options were more important to the masses if you like, those southerners who had no slaves nor any great care about slavery as a whole. As it was more often than not the landowners, the rich and powerful in the south who held the power, it was they who drove the secession.

I believe Lincoln wished sincerely to free the slaves personally, but not at the cost of splitting the country, ie he recognised that whatever his personal wishes, the country came before those. But Lincoln was no fool, he also knew that by declaring for freedom he could stand an excellent chance of preventing British (and by extension French) intervention, hence the emancipation proclomation just after Sharpsburg. Also it helped raise trouble throughout the south during the later years of the war. I doubt that many of the greater mass of Northerners gave a damn about slavery, it was an extremist issue at that time. Some states on the borderline of the two nations were close to being slave owning or supporting states anyway, indicating that in many a state stopping slavery wasn't really a big issue at all.

Given his attitude though I imagine Lincoln may have pushed for a more concillatory approach to the south had he lived. He was first and foremost an excellent politician, he may have seen value in not alienating the south. Part of that may have involved compensating the southern slaveholders, or phased freedom rather than instant under his sucessor. I would also imagine this may have brought the two halves of the forcefull union back together a little more easily than what actually happened.

 

[onejayhawk]

I think the leadership of the South saw its position being threatened. Virginia was always the first among equals in the colonies and later the states. After the war of 1812 that started to change. As the population and economic clout of the Northeast and Midwest grew, the primacy of Virginia faded. More than any other factor, I believe it was a fight against the tide of history that moved the South to conflict.

That being said in the general, in the particular it was different. The issue of slavery was not a matter of right and wrong, it was a matter of face. Only those that had never owned slaves could easily dismiss them, and no one likes being forced to do anything, especially not something as integreated into the economy as this. The childish attituted of "I wont and you cant make me" sums it up well.

It raises an interesting point. Washington was carved out of three states, and was thus independant in practice as well as theory. How might things have been different if Richmond had been named the national capital.

J

 

[Mescalhead]

I think the issue of slavery was a catalyst. The conflict was a long time coming.

As far as hundreds of thousands of white men willing to risk their lives to free blacks from bondage in the 19th century: Yeah right!

 

[Patroklos]

As you said, Slavery was a catalyst.

While everyone is entitled to there opinion, all serious historians blame states rights, slavery merely bieng ONE(albiet a major one) of those rights debated at the time. Saying slavery was the cause of the Civil War is like saying taxation was the cause of the Revolutioary War. They are both PC grade school indoctrination that do not stand up to even the most casual scrutiny

-Pat

 

[onejayhawk]

Not so much state's rights as state's primacy. The southern states wanted the right to refuse a federal idict by act of state legislature. The immediate idict would have been one banning slavery. As late as the 1960's in the segregation of schools you can see vesteges of the thinking.

Still it was Virginia that held the whip hand. If Virginia had been less adamant about their assertion of rights, over any coalition of other states objections, then the other southern states would have fallen in line behind them. Virginia had the the oldest, most respected families, the tradition of political leadership, and very importantly, the cream of the military leadership, exemplified, but not limited to, Robert E Lee. Virginia felt that place of primacy slipping away, and was fighting in part in an effort to save it.

J

 

[Knight-Dragon]

Originally posted by Richard III
ARRRG! I'd selected multiple options, please correct...

If you mean for me to change it to a multi-option poll, I don't see any way to do it. Only options to close poll, edit poll, edit votes; that's about it.

 

[Dr. Dr. Doktor]

"I think that Lincoln was really a demagogue and a dictator"

Obviously the war against the South was a capitalist emperialist enterprise, and Lincoln, while he may have been a moral and ascetic man, was simply a tool in the hands of the wealthy New England bourgousie. The transfer of black workers to the North where they had to live under even more appaling conditions, than they had before and were submitted to the same kind of despotism, and the ability of the rich sons of the Northern bourgousie to buy others to fight for them, and the totally corrupt and miserable failure that was the Reconstruction all point to the fact that greed was the primary motive.

 

[Richard III]

Originally posted by Dr. Dr. Doktor
"I think that Lincoln was really a demagogue and a dictator"

Obviously the war against the South was a capitalist emperialist enterprise, and Lincoln, while he may have been a moral and ascetic man, was simply a tool in the hands of the wealthy New England bourgousie. The transfer of black workers to the North where they had to live under even more appaling conditions, than they had before and were submitted to the same kind of despotism, and the ability of the rich sons of the Northern bourgousie to buy others to fight for them, and the totally corrupt and miserable failure that was the Reconstruction all point to the fact that greed was the primary motive.

That's not the standard commie line.

The standard commie line is that while Lincoln was a tool of the bourgeous industrialists, the fervor of the northern working class to free the slaves from a form of bondage that hobbled any hope for true liberation of the industrial proleteriat was, in fact, a worthy crusade, regardless of the efforts by the bourgeous leadership to restrain it from such a goal. It was the blue-clad armies of the working class who broke the feudal-industrial southern order and made a great leap forward in the progress of historical materialism in America possible.

The sellout of the worker's triumphs on the battlefield, while regrettable, must nevertheless not be permitted to despoil the positive effects of ending slavery, and - more important - for creating a growing class consciousness among the triumphant proletarian veterans of the war, who later formed the core of progressive and labor movements as the growth of the new capitalist order became more pronounced.

Please correct your post accordingly.

R.III

 

[scoutsout]

Originally posted by Serutan I think the South seceded because the industrialization... in the North...

Serutan's post comes closest to the mark.

If you don't understand the meaning of the following three words, you can't understand the origins of American Civil War:

Tariffs of Abomination

The Congress (House ways and means), increasingly dominated by northern states, imposed heavy protectionist tariffs on imported goods, in an effort to promote domestic manufacturing interests located in the north. The largely agricultural south depended on trade with Europe for their standard of living (southern cotton for european manufactured goods).

This is a gross oversimplification of the economics of it (of which the slave trade was certainly a component) but if you think that war was all about slavery, you are misguided.

The notion that the Civil War was fought over slavery is a bunch of revisionist historical claptrap.

The notion that slavery did not play even a secondary role in the politics or the war is borderline Ku Klux Klan propaganda.

"History is the story of the vanquished, as written by the victors."

 

[Dr. Dr. Doktor]

The Civil War was fought over slavery. Or rather it was fought over to whom the slaves belonged. The T of A, mentioned by scoutsout, was instrumental in creating the conditions for war. However the capitalist North needed an infusion of cheap labour to man its factories. Also by bringing black slaves into the North as workers, divisions could be created among the proletariat - between blacks and whites- and so their revolutionary favour could be weakened.

Furthermore by freeing the slaves in the South, while letting the economy sink into abject poverty due to the 'failed' Reconstruction, helped cause resentment between black and white.

Hence the capitalist class was able to divide and conquer, and the results of that is still felt to this day.

However, as Richard III pointed out, while the war was a bougouis enterprise it was not reactionary, but as he states 'a great leap forward' in the industrialization of the U.S. Where I disagree with his optimism is that this fundamental change in the economic sphere did not create a change in the mental and cultural superstructure. That is according to Althusser - the mind of Man is most often out of synch with the objective material conditions.

 

[Thorgrimm]

Boy Dr. Dr. Doktor i would hate to go to the school you attended as they do not know s**t about the American civil war, just Commie bovine excrement you are spouting. Thankfully D******ds like you are becoming more and more rare. And if you do not have the "balls" to say where you are from you and your ilk are despicable as you only like to hide in the dark where bovine excrement belongs.

Moderator Action: No insulting individual posters pls. Warned. - XIII
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[onejayhawk]

Originally posted by Dr. Dr. Doktor
[BObviously the war against the South was a capitalist emperialist enterprise, and Lincoln, while he may have been a moral and ascetic man, was simply a tool in the hands of the wealthy New England bourgousie. [/B]

 

[Serutan]

Originally posted by onejayhawk

Still it was Virginia that held the whip hand. If Virginia had been less adamant about their assertion of rights, over any coalition of other states objections, then the other southern states would have fallen in line behind them. Virginia had the the oldest, most respected families, the tradition of political leadership, and very importantly, the cream of the military leadership, exemplified, but not limited to, Robert E Lee. Virginia felt that place of primacy slipping away, and was fighting in part in an effort to save it.

J

I must disagree. While you are correct about Virgina's respectibility and leadership (not to mention population and resources), the state that was the most vocal and active in asserting state's rights was South Carolina (most famously in the person of John Calhoun). The most prominent of the "fire eaters" of
the 1850s (W. L. Yancey) was from Alabama.

And in the event, South Carolina led the secession parade.
Virginia did not secede until after Fort Sumter. So if any state held the whip hand, it was South Carolina.

 

[Richard III]

Originally posted by Serutan
And in the event, South Carolina led the secession parade.
Virginia did not secede until after Fort Sumter. So if any state held the whip hand, it was South Carolina.

And while I don't want to get into the debate here, I recently had the pleasure of reading South Carolina's "justification for secession" as read to its legislature. Was intrigued by just how prominent slavery was in that explanation, and how absent "industrialization" or "the tariff" was.

Nice touch with the "whip hand."

 

[Evie]

Slavery was the catalyst, as noted, I'd say.

And one must not only consider slavery in itself, but also the fact that it was at the heart of the way of life of the south - a basic institution of then southern-society.

I'd venture to say that in a way slaves were the equivalent of cars, or computers in our society. Taking them away would not be merely a question of the (apparent, perhaps) loss of efficency (economic or otherwise), but also of taking away something that many of us have come to see as an essential part of our lives. Even if it was proven that economically we could do better without our computers - we would still fight tooth and nail to keep them, because we're used to having them, and don't want to lose them. Even if someone gave me proof that I would be able to get my term papers done faster with a pencil (mostly because I don't have the internet or games distracting me), I wouldn't abandon my computer. I'm too attached to the internet, the games - all that come with it beyond the simple issue of work efficency.

I'd think even the issue of slavery went far beyond simple economics/racism combined, which many people like to reduce it to.