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The Confederacy: did they fight for slavery

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  Quote medenaywe Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: The Confederacy: did they fight for slavery
    Posted: 22-Dec-2013 at 16:54
What do you think about "EU federation" MM?
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  Quote opuslola Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22-Dec-2013 at 21:33
Amen Amadeus! The truth shall set us all free!

Regards, Ron (the only person on this site that had five or more close relatives fighting for the South!/ specifically Mississippi) Oh!, as far as I know, my immediate family (back then) only owned one slave Ca., 1840-45! And I do not know what ever happened to her!

The Patriotic group, that they joined, was; "The Sons of Liberty!" A name that should make some heads turn!

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sons_of_Liberty

Edited by opuslola - 22-Dec-2013 at 21:50
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  Quote Mountain Man Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 23-Dec-2013 at 11:02
Originally posted by Salah ad-Din

Well look at it this way - if it had not been for slavery, would the Southern states have seceded?  There you go:)


Yes, they would have, had the issue of States' rights arisen in another way.

"There you go"...
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  Quote Mountain Man Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 23-Dec-2013 at 11:03
Originally posted by medenaywe

What do you think about "EU federation" MM?


Since we are specifically discussing the American Civil War, and since I am not a citizen of the EU nor of any European nation, I have no informed position.
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  Quote lirelou Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 23-Dec-2013 at 19:07
MM, in re:  "Yes, they would have, had the issue of States' rights arisen in another way."

You mean, like they did over Civil Rights?  Hmmm, I don't suppose that had anything to do with slavery,..

Funny, isn't there a Southern expression about putting lipstick on a pig? And it's still a pig?
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  Quote nickherc Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-Dec-2014 at 05:48
Confederacy made a few mistakes. They underestimated world's need for their cotton. When war was declared, they've expected the whole world will rally to their cause. 
They tried to much, they should just repel attacks on their territory and try to win media war. North folks were't that exited about the war. 
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  Quote AnchoritSybarit Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27-Dec-2016 at 04:24
The problem with asking a simple question about a complex subject is that the arguments on either side do not have a point of congruity.

First, let me say that I am 66 yrs old born in the deep south where total segregation was as common as heat on a summers day.  I was raised such that profanity was simply not tolerated EXCEPT  Damn Yankee or God Damn Sherman.  The beard I sport today was begun in 1968 the day I graduated from high school and was free to do so was not as a hippy, free love, anti war, sex-drugs-and rock and roll but as an homage to Bobby Lee, Jeff Davis, JEB and of course Stonewall.  I am and have been for many years an ordained deacon and ruling elder in the Presbyterian Church.  In spite of this I state that it would have better had Jesus never been born, died or risen from the dead than the South to have won the War.

That said first Lincoln did not start a war to end slavery.  Had the South been willing to put down their arms at any time before Antietam or even until Jan 1863 when the Emancipation Proclamation was officially announced, they could have reentered the Union slavery intact.  Do you not find it strange that slavery did not become a war aim until 2 years after fighting began.

On to the crux of the matter.  The moving force behind all of the Southern state legislatures enacting secession was the elite slaveowning class.  That is indisputable.  I assume most of you have seen the statistic about the high percentage of Southerners who owned slaves (at least one).  That would seems to support the concept that the war was brought about and fought by Southerners to preserve their slaves.

Numbers lie.  If you eliminate those slave holders who held only 5-10 slaves (that is a maid, butler, gardener, coachman--city dwellers) the number rises astronomically to 90-95%.  This is significant because the former could afford to loose all their slaves and not face economic ruin.  A Wade Hampton or one of his colleagues would go from being Princes of the Realm to paupers overnight.

But ignore the above and just assume that the war was DECLARED because of a perceived threat to slavery.  Can you really try to tell me that the poor grunts (privates, corporals, sgts) who bore the brunt of the suffering.  Men who had no slaves and knew they had no real chance of ever owning a slave, spent 4 years in the most horrific fighting this nation has ever known, facing disease, starvation, privation, wounds and poor medical attention that we cannot even conceive--for nothing.

One earlier poster tried to make the case that there were 2 incompatible economic systems.  He is absolutely right.  Except for one thing.  They were not in COMPETITION.  There was never the possibility of using slaves in factories to compete against free labor.  There was never any question of luring free men to work in the cotton fields.

But here we find the beginning of a satisfactory answer to the original question, why did they fight.  They fought because there was a pre-existing healthy hate between the two sections.  You have to go back to 1810's and 20's and the First and Second Bank of the US.  We have all been raised on the concept of the heartless, cruel, rapacious banker who would take the food out of his own mother's mouth.

We all know that the Depression of the 1930's left a mark on the American Soul.  The Chinese fear foreigners because they have been invaded and their civilization devastated time and again.  The failure of the First BAnk of the US irrevocably seared the soul of the young American culture.  People all over the US lost their land, their homes and businesses in that first economic crash and the failure of the bank to compensate.  The fear was so deeply ingrained that even when the Second Bank was functioning well, Southern and Western interests were determined to destroy it and did so.

Roughly the same time Northern interests moved to impose high tariffs which promoted growth of northern industry.  It ruined Southern landowners and western farmers.  The great irony of the Civil War was that lacking the slavery issue the divide could very easily have been South + Northwest vs Northeast.

My argument is that the war was actually prosecuted on the southern side by men who feared that a north which could legislate away slavery, could also legislate a new Bank and impose new high tariffs--that would have been intolerable.  To prevent that they were willing to see their friends die or be wounded next to them, to have their bowels be wracked with dysentery, and dozens of other diseases.  To eat food which we would vomit just to look at.  To march barefooted in heat and humidity.


Edited by AnchoritSybarit - 27-Dec-2016 at 04:31
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  Quote medenaywe Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27-Dec-2016 at 05:16
southern soul about lost war.Have a nice time here.(i have erased your blank post here by the way)Smile
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  Quote Xenophon Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 11-Mar-2017 at 04:07
Has anyone here read George Fitzhugh? He was an apologist for slavery who pointed out, with a certain amount of cogency that Southern slaves were in many aspects better off than immigrants to the industrial North. While this can be debated, the bottom line is that the issue then was not as clear cut at it seems in retrospect.
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  Quote AnchoritSybarit Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 23-Mar-2017 at 02:01
Originally posted by Xenophon

Has anyone here read George Fitzhugh? He was an apologist for slavery who pointed out, with a certain amount of cogency that Southern slaves were in many aspects better off than immigrants to the industrial North. While this can be debated, the bottom line is that the issue then was not as clear cut at it seems in retrospect.

Just read a book review in an old North & South magazine.  John Emison's LINCOLN UBER ALLES:  Dictatorship Comes To America.  Evidently the books must be two of a kind.  Just reading the review I wanted to lynch the author.
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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Jul-2019 at 22:27

Much of this on who you would be asking and when. Things in politics change in regard to actions happening. I would say no especially in the beginning because there were states that did not leave the Union but still labelled as slave states. In Dec. 1860 South Carolina succeeded just after Lincoln’s election and Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas in total of 2 months.

At the time Ft. Sumter was attacked April 12, 1861, the Confederacy would have seen the fort as a base in foreign territory. The Federal troops would not leave so the attack began. Washington would see it as a rebellion and would build their armies to counter the rebels. The Union did not recognize the Confederacy as a nation so the war at this part would be on whether or not state governments had the right to decide to leave the Union. Lincoln’s decision to enlist 75k soldiers and invade a foreign, yet brother, nation just made the situation worse as Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee and North Carolina join the Confederacy adding strength and fervor for the Southern cause.

As the war continued most of the tactics the South used in battles were defensive battles on Southern soil near the northern border. Using this, news of battle aftermaths would reach Richmond and the scout network could be faster as well as showing the North that the Confederacy are up for a hard fight. Southern victories such as first and second Manassas, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville and others made Lincoln’s war very unpopular amongst the civilians as well as breaking morale of the soldiers themselves.

After Chancellorsville, The Army of Northern Virginia make a daring move to invade the North looking for a good place to attack the Army of the Potomac (North). This is what leads to Gettysburg. The losses on both sides were harsh but the South lost massively and had to return. Something as horrible as Gettysburg made the war look like a bloodbath. Lincoln needed something else in his politics to get the people more interested in his cause- an idea of freedom for slaves. Lincoln being a third-party candidate winner in his election brought anti-slavery ideas to the table and having his wartime unpopularity needed a boost of energy.

Now, how would Lincoln have a chance to win in the next election? The war became dominated in Union victories by the 1964 election. After the fall of Atlanta, it was certain that the North would be able to win fairly quickly. Lincoln ran against his former Commanding General George McClellan. Lincoln wanted to finalize the win. McClellan was willing to make a truce. Lincoln won and finalized the war.

Wars as well as any kind of political actions are not usually cause and effects alone but changes of mind and will due to these kinds of events often take some leverage.

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