Thank you for your article. We seldom hear of the southern side of this. The South was absolutely within it's rights to seceed. Lincoln's cabinet told him not to proceed with war against the South. But, he did it anyway.
Interesting points but I forget exactly when the good Christian citizens of Virginia voted that it was illegal and immoral to enslave in brutal fashion fellow human beings solely for economic profit? When was that?
The Constitution is not a compact voted on by and for individual states since it was voted upon in unison by all the states for all the states in union to be basis for a national law to establish a nation. You know this.
So, according to your argument when did the people of Virginia vote to outlaw slavery?
Your name calling and raising voice belittles your statements even more. The Declaration of Independence was both a statement of separation and a rallying cry of new union. You know this. Who is this no one of whom you speak? What is a tory? What are you saying beyond attacks? You are not answering questions.
All War College graduates know there are two essential components to military victory - sufficient armament and will to fight. The South was never going to out-manufacture the Northern states, but it came within a hair of grinding down the Union’s will.
Gettysburg was fought in July 1864, before the presidential election. The Union had begun conscripting, and draft riots had broken out in northern cities. if Lee prevailed at Gettysburg, and run amok in the North Atlantic States, Lincoln would undoubtedly have lost the election and George McCellan would have negotiated a settlement allowing the south to leave. Confederate General Lou Armistead led his brigade into the Union position during Pickett’s Charge but ran out of steam and had no reinforcements; like Waterloo it was “a damned near run thing.”
I don’t think we need to get into mutual accusations of treason to understand this, the most important event in American history. It’s hard to understand a civil war while marginalizing (any) one of the participants therein. They were all Americans. They were “us”, not “them.”
Generationally, the parents and grandparents of the young men of 1861 would have personally known their forebears who fought and won the Revolution. This legacy was the defining quality of American nationhood at the time, in both North and South. I don’t think we can say that the young Northerners who flocked to the flag in enormous numbers to smite those who would break up their nation, were any less passionately patriotic than the young Southerners who rose to defend their homeland, their liberty and their civilization. Both were loyal to an American idea that (as Lincoln put it) was “the last, best hope of earth.” The liberation war against slavery came later, in the remorseless revolutionary struggle that Lincoln predicted the war would become. Both are true, and real, and important.
What interests me, is the lesson of human folly. The cold material reality (as Sherman noted) was that an agrarian civilization of 5 million, unable to manufacture even a pair of shoes, could not defeat an industrial civilization of 20 million that was determined to fight. But the Southern fire-eaters were beyond the reach of logic or prudence, and convinced themselves and others of all kinds of preposterous ideas. They were determined and successful in their malicious maneuverings and so induced a war that destroyed their country and cast it into poverty for many decades. It is a moral tragedy, like the Peloponnesian war, well worth thinking about to one who would look deeply into the human experience.
As anyone of Southern ancestry in the North will tell you, anti-Southern bigotry is rampant and unashamed in liberal circles, and the most pious about inclusion and diversity are the worst. I see this as a reflection of the civil rights struggle which is itself a proxy for the social and cultural alignments that we have now. It has nothing to do with the actual reality of those who fought a century and a half ago, or understanding that reality. The people who shout you down for pointing out that the war did in fact have something to do with the question of union, as well as slavery, are not, mostly, bad people. They want to be on the right side, to feel virtuous and look good to their friends. Pretty much like all of us. However, they don’t like this when I say it. As you say, dissent is not easy. I’m thankful that I face only a little social unpleasantness, when many others have faced far worse.
The Union response to the South's mobilization against it was not an “invasion” it was a response to a rebellion. Nobody made an Article V argument for Massachusetts (Shay’s Rebellion) or Pennsylvania (Whiskey Rebellion). It didn’t succeed in the 1832 tariff crisis. Never did American states have the right to use armed military force against the national government. The idea that they did has no basis in law or history. It is true that the feckless and delusional Southern politicians thought otherwise. They sought to litigate this issue by the sword, and they got what they were looking for, at great cost to the Southern people and their descendants.
Let's not cloud the timeline. The South Carolinians were in arms and laying siege to Fort Sumter before Lincoln ever called for volunteers to secure Federal property. He was extraordinarily forbearing, and maybe that was a mistake. If it were Andrew Jackson instead of Lincoln, he would have sent the army right down there to Charleston, dragged those idiots out of their houses, and locked them up in a cold military prison until they agreed to behave. This worked in 1832. Would it have worked in 1861? I don't know. But conceding to the destruction of the country by rebels was not ever going to be on the table.
Thank you for your article. We seldom hear of the southern side of this. The South was absolutely within it's rights to seceed. Lincoln's cabinet told him not to proceed with war against the South. But, he did it anyway.
Comparing Confederate enslavers to anti-Nazi resisters is one of the most obscene things I have ever read.
Interesting points but I forget exactly when the good Christian citizens of Virginia voted that it was illegal and immoral to enslave in brutal fashion fellow human beings solely for economic profit? When was that?
The Constitution is not a compact voted on by and for individual states since it was voted upon in unison by all the states for all the states in union to be basis for a national law to establish a nation. You know this.
So, according to your argument when did the people of Virginia vote to outlaw slavery?
What’s a Tory?
So when?
Just saying words and calling names doesn’t create truth, or answer questions.
Your name calling and raising voice belittles your statements even more. The Declaration of Independence was both a statement of separation and a rallying cry of new union. You know this. Who is this no one of whom you speak? What is a tory? What are you saying beyond attacks? You are not answering questions.
All War College graduates know there are two essential components to military victory - sufficient armament and will to fight. The South was never going to out-manufacture the Northern states, but it came within a hair of grinding down the Union’s will.
Gettysburg was fought in July 1864, before the presidential election. The Union had begun conscripting, and draft riots had broken out in northern cities. if Lee prevailed at Gettysburg, and run amok in the North Atlantic States, Lincoln would undoubtedly have lost the election and George McCellan would have negotiated a settlement allowing the south to leave. Confederate General Lou Armistead led his brigade into the Union position during Pickett’s Charge but ran out of steam and had no reinforcements; like Waterloo it was “a damned near run thing.”
Bet she is a Trump supporter.
Interesting article!
I don’t think we need to get into mutual accusations of treason to understand this, the most important event in American history. It’s hard to understand a civil war while marginalizing (any) one of the participants therein. They were all Americans. They were “us”, not “them.”
Generationally, the parents and grandparents of the young men of 1861 would have personally known their forebears who fought and won the Revolution. This legacy was the defining quality of American nationhood at the time, in both North and South. I don’t think we can say that the young Northerners who flocked to the flag in enormous numbers to smite those who would break up their nation, were any less passionately patriotic than the young Southerners who rose to defend their homeland, their liberty and their civilization. Both were loyal to an American idea that (as Lincoln put it) was “the last, best hope of earth.” The liberation war against slavery came later, in the remorseless revolutionary struggle that Lincoln predicted the war would become. Both are true, and real, and important.
What interests me, is the lesson of human folly. The cold material reality (as Sherman noted) was that an agrarian civilization of 5 million, unable to manufacture even a pair of shoes, could not defeat an industrial civilization of 20 million that was determined to fight. But the Southern fire-eaters were beyond the reach of logic or prudence, and convinced themselves and others of all kinds of preposterous ideas. They were determined and successful in their malicious maneuverings and so induced a war that destroyed their country and cast it into poverty for many decades. It is a moral tragedy, like the Peloponnesian war, well worth thinking about to one who would look deeply into the human experience.
As anyone of Southern ancestry in the North will tell you, anti-Southern bigotry is rampant and unashamed in liberal circles, and the most pious about inclusion and diversity are the worst. I see this as a reflection of the civil rights struggle which is itself a proxy for the social and cultural alignments that we have now. It has nothing to do with the actual reality of those who fought a century and a half ago, or understanding that reality. The people who shout you down for pointing out that the war did in fact have something to do with the question of union, as well as slavery, are not, mostly, bad people. They want to be on the right side, to feel virtuous and look good to their friends. Pretty much like all of us. However, they don’t like this when I say it. As you say, dissent is not easy. I’m thankful that I face only a little social unpleasantness, when many others have faced far worse.
The Union response to the South's mobilization against it was not an “invasion” it was a response to a rebellion. Nobody made an Article V argument for Massachusetts (Shay’s Rebellion) or Pennsylvania (Whiskey Rebellion). It didn’t succeed in the 1832 tariff crisis. Never did American states have the right to use armed military force against the national government. The idea that they did has no basis in law or history. It is true that the feckless and delusional Southern politicians thought otherwise. They sought to litigate this issue by the sword, and they got what they were looking for, at great cost to the Southern people and their descendants.
Let's not cloud the timeline. The South Carolinians were in arms and laying siege to Fort Sumter before Lincoln ever called for volunteers to secure Federal property. He was extraordinarily forbearing, and maybe that was a mistake. If it were Andrew Jackson instead of Lincoln, he would have sent the army right down there to Charleston, dragged those idiots out of their houses, and locked them up in a cold military prison until they agreed to behave. This worked in 1832. Would it have worked in 1861? I don't know. But conceding to the destruction of the country by rebels was not ever going to be on the table.
So you're citing in support of your view, the fifth Article of a Constitution that you think is illegitimate?
Remedy for what?