re: Why are tariffs and illegal acts overlooked as a cause of the civil war?

quote:

---

The implication here is that there was a wide-spread difference between the attitudes in the north and the south toward the equality of races,

---

Nope, the implication is that the Confederacy stated their reasons for secession and war and the lynchpin/cornerstone (their words) was slavery.

The parties never flipped how the current democrats want to tell it.

The south started voting republican because of economic changes and more businesses coming to the south.

Just look at the election maps. The entire south voted jimmy Carter in for president. The entire south didnt switch red until Bush in 2000. It was still split in both of Clinton's terms.

Forgot to add they did vote in Reagan, but he won every state but minnesota.

quote:

---

I've never once called the CW a crusade against slavery and ultimately Ive never really talked about what Lincoln or the North thought or said about slavery.

---

So now you're saying the war wasn't over slavery?

Either you say there was enough of a difference over slavery to produce a war or the war was fought over something else. You can't have it both ways.

quote:

---

They cited his election and the preservation of slavery in their secession documents and declarations of the war.

---

But now we're back to you saying the war actually was over slavery, but from your previous statement apparently your position is that the south wanted a war over slavery even though the north didn't care if the south had slavery.

quote:

---

You like winning arguments against yourself?

---

Hmmm ...

Also, please provide a link to a copy of a declaration of war by the C.S.A. Oh wait, I guess you can't since there never was one. Makes me wonder about your other assertions of fact.

quote:

---

The simple, irrefutable facts are that the Southern Democrats, who held super majorities in the South, seceded shortly after Lincoln won the Presidency.

---

It is a simple irrefutable fact that the sum of the digits of 1860 is 15, and both of these facts are equally irrelevant to the actual cause of the war.

quote:

---

Lincoln was inaugurated in March and barely a month into his Presidency the South attacked Fort Sumter, which they had NO legal claim to whatever.

---

Using capitals in "NO legal claim" is not the same thing as evidence or even argument to support your assertion. You've provided neither and it is nothing but an assertion. In March, prior to the attack on Fort Sumter, Jefferson Davis had tried to send an envoy to Washington to offer to pay for any US property within the territory of the C.S.A. as well as the southern portion of the U.S. debt up to the point of the secession. Lincoln flat refused to even hear them. It was commonly understood in the north that Lincoln had maneuvered the south into firing on Fort Sumter, because he wanted a war and wanted the south to fire the first shot. The Fort was running out of supplies and he sent a ship to re-supply it.

I guess in either 1777 or 1785 you would have had the U.S. just sit back while the British resupplied their forts within American territory and argued we had "NO legal claim" to do otherwise.

quote:

---

They knowingly attacked US Soilders at a US Military installation.

---

Again, I guess you would have been on the side of the British in the late 1770's. I also wonder if you have any idea how many "US Soldiers" were killed or injured?

quote:

---

This is how the war started, all the suppositions and allegories about why Lincoln and the North invaded the South are stupid and fricking disingenuous.

They Invaded because the gotdamn traitors started a war. Don't start none, won't be none.

---

Wow. The depth of thought and solid foundation of facts presented in this well articulated argument are really likely to convince anyone who might read this. Anyway...

The people of the C.S.A. were not traitors. I would like you to show me exactly where in the constitution, the states surrendered the right to secede. I'll save you the trouble of reading it for the first time, it's not there. More than that, if you had ever read the debates over the constitution you would see that it was assumed, and no one disputed, the right of the people of a state to withdraw their state from the union at any time. Many of the states explicitly referred to this in their ratification document to underline that they understood the constitution as forming a federal rather than national government in which the states retained their sovereignty as they had under the Articles of Confederation. Several of the New England states had threatened to secede at the time of the election of Jefferson and no one, especially not Jefferson, disputed the moral right or legal authority to do so and to be allowed to leave in peace.

Now let's consider Lincoln and those who supported him. He took an oath, specified in the constitution, that as president he would support and defend the constitution. He then suspended Habeas Corpus within the union and imprisoned thousands of people without trial. (The constitution does not grant this authority to the president.) He used the military to shutdown papers (no authority and additionally in absolute violation of the first amendment) and to suspend legislatures and arrest legislators (in the north) thereby directly violating Article IV sec. 4 of the constitution which guarantees each state a republican form of government. He used the military in house-to-house searches to arrest members of the Maryland legislature and held them without trial thereby also violating the fourth, fifth, and sixth amendments. He claimed the southern states had not seceded but were in rebellion and then invaded them with the military (obviously without permission of either their legislature or governor) thereby again violating Article IV sec. 4 in another way. At the same time, there was no declaration of war, again an authority explicitly delegated to congress alone and so he usurped the power to wage war and did so against people who he claimed were still U.S. citizens. The list goes on an on. So if we go by the U.S. constitution, then Lincoln clearly violated his oath and the constitution. If anyone here deserves to be considered a traitor it is Lincoln.

quote:

---

And what Lincoln thought or whether he was a crusader or wtf ever doesn't matter. He did in fact emancipate the slaves and his administration presented (and passed the Senate) the 13th amendment, so he IS IN FACT, The Great Emancipator!

---

No one has raised the issue of whether Lincoln deserves to be called "The Great Emancipator!", so it seems to be an attempt to simply throw out anything you've got whether relevant or not. Lincoln didn't care about emancipating the slaves in part or in whole beyond how it would affect his ability to maintain power over the southern states. He said as much in a letter to Horace Greeley in 1862. The fraud that was the emancipation proclamation and the strong, widespread reaction against it in the north make that plain. Lincoln was at least a white supremacist and a white separatist. All the other countries that ended slavery in the 19th century did so without war. So, if you mean that his actions incidentally affected the time-line over which a "great" number of slaves were emancipated then technically the words can make sense. But not the sense that I think most people have in mind by that phrase, or what you seem to have in mind since you ended it with an exclamation point.

quote:

---

Bow your head peasant

---

I don't see what this is supposed to mean, but I guess it does reflect an attitude I would expect from someone who parrots like a British loyalist of the 1770's as opposed thinking like a Patriot.

quote:

---

I don't see what this is supposed to mean, but I guess it does reflect an attitude I would expect from someone who parrots like a British loyalist of the 1770's as opposed thinking like a Patriot.

---

First GFY you limey bastard.

Second, its a feeble attempt at legitimacy trying to compare the CSA to the 1776 Patriots, for one, the Patriots addressed their grievances with king repeatedly and openly, and frankly had highly moral reasons for their damand and ultimately declaration of independence.

Your heroes made unreasonable demands to a newly inaugurated president for about three weeks and then started bombing

In closing, gfy

quote:

---

You claim that slavery was the only substantial difference between the north and the south. 

---

Again, where did I make this claim?

You are arguing with someone else but at me.

quote:

---

Perhaps you are just slow.

---

Perhaps I am, and this thread may prove it. But not for the reasons you may have in mind.

quote:

---

What I said, and have maintained is that Southern Democrats, angered over losing the election of 1860 seceded.

In their secession declarations (some of which have been posted and linked in this thread) they cited the election of Abraham Lincoln and slavery (and the preservation therof) as their primary reasons.

---

Slavery (one thing) and the election of Lincoln and what he stood for (something else) brought a situation which had been simmering for decades to a boil.

The articles of secession have neither been posted nor linked but that is a minor error. However, I am still waiting for you to provide a link or other evidence supporting your previous and un-retracted claim that slavery and Lincoln's election were cited as reasons in a declaration of war.

quote:

---

Having been formed PRIOR to his inauguration and Presidency one can hardly blame any action of Lincoln's for the decision of Sothern Democrats to leave the union.

---

I've not said anything about any of the Democrats other than to point out that the name of the party is irrelevant. If your whole point is really just to pin slavery and the war on the current Democrat party then that belies a complete disregard for truth and history. That would be every bit as intellectually dishonest, as those idiots on the left who have a politically motivated, deranged and mindless hatred of Trump.

quote:

---

Now, whether you see that as treason or legal secession is irrelevant, it was detrimental to the United States and a violation of the oath those leaders had sworn to the constitution.

---

You brought up treason. I only countered your assertion. Now you completely ignore the facts and simply reiterate your assertion. Be specific. Which "leaders"? Who? The southerner's who had been members of Congress resigned. They did not violate any oath. And again, you conveniently have completely ignored the actions of Lincoln while he was president in which he violated his oath (the only one specified in the constitution) and the constitution in multiple ways, probably more than any other president in history. (FDR is also contender.) So in hind-sight the southerner's were correct in their concern about what his election would mean regarding the constitution, rule of law, and the principles of federalism.

Regarding being "detrimental to the United States", you are turning the principals laid out in the Declaration of Independence upside down. One could just as easily say that not paying a 95% tax rate is "detrimental to the United States". The people do not exist for the government, the government exists for the people. But what did Mr. Lincoln say about this in 1848:

"Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right - a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is the right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit."

No concern there about detrimental effects on the existing government.

quote:

---

Moreover, this newly formed "country" (which was never recognized by a single nation on this planet) attacked the USA at one of her Military Installations, without provocation.

---

For the most part, except for those with an interest, recognition in wars of independence only comes after it is clear what the outcome will be. It is not an indication of merit. Apparently you are unaware, or unconcerned, that during the war for independence from Great Britain, the United States was not recognized by any except England's arch-enemies for quite some time.

As for attacking the U.S. without provocation, you are wrong. The fort was within southern territory and the southerner's had previously offered to reimburse the U.S. for the cost of Fort Sumter as well as other things previously constructed by the U.S. within the C.S.A. Lincoln's military advisers advised him to abandon it, and publicly he said he would. But instead Honest Abe, consciously chose to ignore them and to use it to provoke the south into firing the first shot.

Let's see what Lincoln himself said about it. In a letter to Gustavus Fox, May 1861, he said,

"You and I both anticipated that the cause of the country would be advanced by making the attempt to provision Fort Sumter even if it should fail; and it is no small consolation now to feel that our anticipation is justified by the results."

Lincoln believed that "advancing the cause of the country" meant starting a war and because the general attitude in the north was that the south should be allowed to go in peace, he wanted to make sure that the south fired the first shot. He says that this cause would be advanced "even if it [the attempt to re-provision the fort] should fail". Clearly starting a war was Lincoln's goal, not re-provisioning the fort. He obviously knew this was a serious provocation and wanted it to be.

This was widely understood in the north as well. For example: In April 1861, the Buffalo Daily Courier (that's in New York) ran an editorial stating, "The affair at Fort Sumter ... has been planned as a means by which the war feeling at the North should be intensified." The New York Evening Day Book stated, it was "a cunningly devised scheme to arouse, and, if possible, exasperate the northern people against the South."

I'm still waiting for you to tell me how many people were killed or injured at Fort Sumter.

quote:

---

First GFY you limey bastard.

---

What exactly is the basis for your assumption that I'm a Limey or about my parentage?

quote:

---

Second, its a feeble attempt at legitimacy trying to compare the CSA to the 1776 Patriots, for one, the Patriots addressed their grievances with king repeatedly and openly, and frankly had highly moral reasons for their damand and ultimately declaration of independence.

---

The comparison was not between the Patriots who founded the country and won it's independence and the people of the C.S.A., but between the equivalence of the legal and philosophical circumstances regarding not allowing a foreign military power to maintain and resupply a fort within ones territory.

The grievances of the south with the north had been repeatedly and openly raised in both the Confederation Congress, and Congress under the new constitution after 1788. By 1860 this had been going on for over 70 years, a period much longer than when grievances had been raised by the Colonies with the king. For the most part the grievances were over actions by the so-called Federalists, the Whigs, and eventually the Republicans. (Lincoln's Republicans, not the unrelated first Republican party that had the same name.) These were very similar in principle to those which the Colonists had raised.

quote:

---

Your heroes made unreasonable demands to a newly inaugurated president for about three weeks and then started bombing

---

You have not offered anything in the way of evidence except a snippet of a quote intermingled with opinion about the quote and then mis-characterized it as being the reason given by the south for the war.

You also previously stated that the south had issued a declaration of war stating slavery as a reason. This is simply wrong, I pointed that out, and you have simply ignored it. You assert without any evidence that there were "unreasonable demands". Present evidence of them so that they can be seen and debated.

quote:

---

In closing, gfy

---

Your summary of the historical context and facts supporting your position is quite telling.

quote:

---

Again, where did I make this claim?

---

The only two recurring themes which can be discerned from your posts seems to be that you believe the Democrat party is responsible for the war and that the south instigated a war over the issue of slavery.

quote:

---

Nope, the implication is that the Confederacy stated their reasons for secession and war and the lynchpin/cornerstone (their words) was slavery.

---

I've already pointed out that the semi-quote you gave said nothing about reasons for the war. The author (not actually Stephens) says that slavery was the basis for the government of the C.S.A.. (This is at best hyperbole.) You said that this shows that the reasons for secession and war was slavery.

I and several others argued that slavery was not the sole or even the primary thing which led to secession and war and you argued against this position. What else can one reasonably conclude?

If this is not your position, then are you admitting that slavery was not the fundamental reason for the war but rather mostly a proxy for other economic and political reasons?

Either slavery was the major reason for the war or it wasn't. You can't have it both ways. Which is it?

quote:

---

The only two recurring themes which can be discerned from your posts seems to be that you believe the Democrat party is responsible for the war and that the south instigated a war over the issue of slavery.

---

Is quite different from

quote:

---

You claim that slavery was the only substantial difference between the north and the south. 

---

So, first point - Democrats (D): Virtually every single Leader in the Confederate Government were Democrats (D) in the United States Government prior to secession. Upon losing the war, and thanks to the mercy shown by Lincoln (R) shortly before the filth assassinated him, many of them returned to the United States and found their way back into government as, you guessed it, Democrats (D).

So yes, when we discuss the Confederacy (D) we need to correctly identify them for what they were, Democrats (D).

Did "the South" instigate the war over slavery?

To be clear, the Confederacy (D) started the war. According to them (see multiple references and direct quotes in the tread) slavery was the Lynchpin.