The Confederate States of America {history revised}

[applepowerpc]

Was slavery the real underlying issue and states' rights was the pretext, or was states' rights the real underlying issue and slavery was the pretext? I don't know that it matters that much. They both played a major role. Had the South given up slavery, I strongly suspect they could have seceded peacefully, or at least won the war due to a lack of determination of the North's part.

 

[leothelioness]

No it wasn't. High tarrifs and unfair trade policies, as well as the hostility of the government to states' rights and the government's siezure of railroads in the South, sparked secession.

Thank you! I have been trying to tell the guy that, but apparently he is too frickin' hard-headed to understand. Either that or he's a bitter yankee that's doing his best to try to make us look as wrong as possible. I vote the latter.

 

[Agrippa]

No it wasn't. High tarrifs and unfair trade policies, as well as the hostility of the government to states' rights and the government's siezure of railroads in the South, sparked secession.

Why then is slavery such a large part of the Declarations of the Causes of Secession? Its the basis of the entire argument of Mississippi and South Carolina, while Georgia and Texas mention all other causes combined in far less depth than slavery

Thank you! I have been trying to tell the guy that, but apparently he is too frickin' hard-headed to understand. Either that or he's a bitter yankee that's doing his best to try to make us look as wrong as possible. I vote the latter.

Please explain the Declarations of the Causes of Secession. I consider myself a historian and when the conventions that approved secession have slavery as a cause completely overwhelm everything else, I tend to see slavery as the primary cause of secession.

I'd also appreciate you not calling me 'hard-headed' or 'bitter' when you have yet to address the Declarations of the Causes of Secession despite the fact that I've brought them up twice before. You may of course call me a Yankee; I'm a life-long New Englander (the original Yankee) whose distant relatives (according to family lore, God only knows how accurate that is) helped burn the Gaspee during the Revolution.

Was slavery the real underlying issue and states' rights was the pretext, or was states' rights the real underlying issue and slavery was the pretext?

In my opinion, slavery was the state's right the secessionists were concerned about. The continued existence of slavery was crucial for the planters, who had a great deal of control over the ante-bellum southern society; most of the equity and capital of the planters lay in their slaves. If they lose their slaves, even if they're compensated for it, then they go bankrupt. I've also seen it written on message boards that many Virginia planters actually made their wealth not by farming (since the soil had largely been depleted by this point) but rather by breeding slaves and selling them to the Deep South and West. I'm still looking for a good economic history of the Civil War though, so I haven't seen it confirmed in print (with online arguments being worth the price of the paper they're printed on).

I think the South's actions towards the Fugitive Slave Laws show us which was more important. The North tried to impede Federal authority in returning fugitive slaves to their Southern owners. The South protested vigorously and troops were dispatched to help recover the escaped slaves. Had state's rights in general trumped slavery, then we should have seen the South abide by the North's attempt to bypass Federal authority.

That, naturally, leads to question of why the North rejected its own position of supreme Federal law. My opinion on the matter is that the Underground Railroad's attempt to get the slaves away from the Federal government was orchestrated by those few individuals that saw slavery as something they had to fight against (abolitionists, in a word) rather than the population as a whole. I have trouble seeing the majority of the population being willing to attack a courthouse extraditing fugitive slaves to southern states.

I don't know that it matters that much. They both played a major role. Had the South given up slavery, I strongly suspect they could have seceded peacefully, or at least won the war due to a lack of determination of the North's part.

Leadership is crucial if the South is going to secede peacefully. A Confederate leader willing to sit back and let the North make the first move, or a weak leader in the Union (someone like Buchanan) would let the South get away with it. The only problem with that is that you'd need a Lincoln-type leader (forceful in nature) to push the South to secession and you'd need firebrands in the South to drive the movement, so the chances of one of those types of leaders coming to power at the same time as secession is unlikely. So, the exact cause of secession would not be a factor; the South may have seceded to preserve its economic welfare (slavery) but the North certainly didn't fit to free slaves, it fought to preserve the Union.

Well isn't Texas' statement quite interesting all Chrisitan nations etc etc.

Very interesting indeed. Of course, New England wasn't much better for much of the 19th century. We had an official church until the 1820s and used to have Pope Day, where people would run through the streets burning effigies of the pope (I wonder how my distant ancestors feel about the fact that New England is mostly Irish/Italian/Hispanic Catholic these days). Of course, I'm from Rhode Island (or Rogue's Island, as it was popularly known), the home state of everyone fleeing from somewhere else, so we were never that heavily into the established church thing.

 

[applepowerpc]

Had state's rights in general trumped slavery, then we should have seen the South abide by the North's attempt to bypass Federal authority.

This is one of those gray areas, similar to whether a state has to recognize a gay marriage performed in another state. If a slave breaks a law in another state, flees, and therefore should be extradited to the state of infraction, I don't view that as a hypocritical position re: states' rights.

 

[susanann]

LEt's say that the Union had lost the war and the CSA won. What would the North American Continent be like today? Would slavery exist today? Would would the Union be like? Would the Allies of ended even winning WWI or WWII?

Get the book:

"If the South had won the civil war"


by Mackinlay Kantor.


It is good. I have 2 copies in my personal library.

After the war, several other states suceeded, since the precedent was made.

Also, several southern states (Texas) suceeded from the confederacy - since that is how they began and could not stop it.


I think everyone agrees that if the south had won, we all would have more personal liberty, and our federal government could not have gotten so powerful as it is today - so we all would be better off.

 

[applepowerpc]

I think everyone agrees that if the south had won, we all would have more personal liberty,

We ALL?

 

[Agrippa]

I think everyone agrees that if the south had won, we all would have more personal liberty, and our federal government could not have gotten so powerful as it is today - so we all would be better off.

I wouldn't go that far. The ante-bellum federal government was far too decentralized. To give one example, the banking system was absolutely primitive; one European observer compared it to the banking system of 13th century(!) Europe. The Civil War helped push us in the right direction with the act that established the first national banks and heavily taxed the bank notes from state banks (the name escapes me at the moment).

There is also the possibility that another strong nation in North America would have increased the amount of warfare on the continent, thus leading to an even stronger federal government. Facing only Canada and Mexico, the US was able to meander along in a form of splendid isolationism for decades (really until the end of the Second World War). A weaker US, facing a third foreign power (CSA) that hinted at expansion, with Britain in Canada and France trying to entrench itself in Mexico (they may have lasted longer there without the US moving a couple of corps to the Texas-Mexican border in 1865), could have gone more European, introducing conscription or increasing the power of the federal government sooner than it was done historically. Of course, that depends on how and when the war ends.

 

[susanann]

I wouldn't go that far. The ante-bellum federal government was far too decentralized. To give one example, the banking system was absolutely primitive; one European observer compared it to the banking system of 13th century(!) Europe. The Civil War helped push us in the right direction with the act that established the first national banks and heavily taxed the bank notes from state banks (the name escapes me at the moment).

There is also the possibility that another strong nation in North America would have increased the amount of warfare on the continent, thus leading to an even stronger federal government. Facing only Canada and Mexico, the US was able to meander along in a form of splendid isolationism for decades (really until the end of the Second World War). A weaker US, facing a third foreign power (CSA) that hinted at expansion, with Britain in Canada and France trying to entrench itself in Mexico (they may have lasted longer there without the US moving a couple of corps to the Texas-Mexican border in 1865), could have gone more European, introducing conscription or increasing the power of the federal government sooner than it was done historically. Of course, that depends on how and when the war ends.

First of all, our banking system, i.e the Federal Reserve, is what is most wrong with our counry, so you are barking up the wrong tree. Perhaps we would have stayed, or remained on the gold standard without inflation, and without excessive spending.

Just because we would not be one nation, does not mean that we would not ally with each other against mexico, canada, or european powers that came over here.

Both north and south, would remain: "federations of states" , in the best sense of the term.

An alliance of 2 federations has no real problems.

 

[susanann]

Quote

I think everyone agrees that if the south had won, we all would have more personal liberty,

We ALL?

We all!!!


Certainly blacks and the south would have been better off. The indians would have had about the same fate, but they still would have more freedom today under a federation instead of under a national government such as what our gov mostly is now.

 

[praying]

We all!!!


Certainly blacks and the south would have been better off. The indians would have had about the same fate, but they still would have more freedom today under a federation instead of under a national government such as what our gov mostly is now.

This one is not part of that we.

Blacks would have been better off, please do explain that.


ETA: And please include the hundred year history of Jim Crow laws in that explanation, and how those states had to be forced by the federal government to relingquish those laws.

 

[Agrippa]

First of all, our banking system, i.e the Federal Reserve, is what is most wrong with our counry, so you are barking up the wrong tree. Perhaps we would have stayed, or remained on the gold standard without inflation, and without excessive spending.

I'm going to have to disagree with you there. The Federal Reserve has nothing to do with spending; it is the government's bank, the government decides what to spend, the Federal Reserve finds it the best way of financing it. Secondly, the gold standard is infeasible; it played a large role in sparking and then distributing the Great Depression around the world.

Just because we would not be one nation, does not mean that we would not ally with each other against mexico, canada, or european powers that came over here.

Both north and south, would remain: "federations of states" , in the best sense of the term.

An alliance of 2 federations has no real problems.

Knowing the exact course of alternative history is impossible, but it is certainly true that weakening the overwhelmingly dominant power and adding another nation to North America makes conflict on the continent more likely. Furthermore, democracies are not immune to warfare; the United States' first declared and undeclared wars were against the two most democratic nations in the globe at the time: Britain and France, respectively.

 

[Agrippa]

This is one of those gray areas, similar to whether a state has to recognize a gay marriage performed in another state. If a slave breaks a law in another state, flees, and therefore should be extradited to the state of infraction, I don't view that as a hypocritical position re: states' rights.

The Constitution did mention that fugitive slaves would have to be returned to their owner. The government in the late 18th century then passed a law whereby those slaves did not have the right to habeus corpus and gave very loose guidelines for returning slaves. Some alleged slaves had been returned twenty years after the slave had escaped, with the owner claiming to recognize the individual, without that individual having the benefit of a trial. Northern states then passed personal liberty laws, forcing a trial before an alleged slave would have to be returned.

The Fugitive Slave Laws were designed to strike down the personal liberty laws, not actually create a law allowing the slaves to be returned; the Constitution already guarenteed that right. The loudest calls for a Fugitive Slave Law came from the Deep South, even though very few slaves from that region actually made it to the North. As Senator Jason Mason said, "although the loss of property is felt, the loss of honor is felt still more."

Still, it is not a black and white issue and the personal stake many slaveowners had in the issue would clouded the purely constitutional question.

 

[Paladin Dave]

The Civil Rights movements might never have taken place in the Southern United States if the Union had lost the war. All black Americans would be very likely to be living as second class citizens, at best.

Also, There would very likely have not been a second world war if the Union had lost. The CSA may have been buddy buddy with Britain, but they were also very isolationist, and did not believe in interfering with things going on in Europe. Without the USA, the Brits would have been that much weaker, and the German Empire could have actually held on to the territories they conquered. That means if there was a second world war, it might have been against a far less radical enemy, possibly not even Hitler at all, since the defeat in WWI fueled a lot of his campaign and earned a lot of his support. Even if the second world war did begin, the USA would not have the agricultural resources of the CSA, and they would be less likely to enter the war, since it took Pearl Harbor to get us in there anyway. With Hitler most likely out of the picture, the German scientists could have developed the Messerschmitt 262 as well as other weapons much earlier. The Sturmgewehr assault rifle would have gone into production a lot sooner as well, meaning the Germans would have had the upper hand in weaponry on land and in the air much earlier in the war. Europe could be speaking German primarily if the Union had lost. Although, since Nazism would have had less of a chance to take root, maybe that would not be such a bad thing?

 

[susanann]

The Civil Rights movements might never have taken place in the Southern United States if the Union had lost the war. All black Americans would be very likely to be living as second class citizens, at best.

Also, There would very likely have not been a second world war if the Union had lost. The CSA may have been buddy buddy with Britain, but they were also very isolationist, and did not believe in interfering with things going on in Europe. Without the USA, the Brits would have been that much weaker, and the German Empire could have actually held on to the territories they conquered. Although, since Nazism would have had less of a chance to take root, maybe that would not be such a bad thing?

You are basically right about the second world war. The second world war was caused by the first world war, and if the US had stayed out of it, we never would have had a WW2, there never would have been a nazi party, and Hitler would have remained an artist which is what he really wanted.

As far as blacks and slaves, slaves would have been freed as automation replaced human labor, much as slavery started ending in the northern states as the northern industries automated. When southern agriculture was taken over by machines, nobody would want to keep expensive slaves and they would have been freed anyways. Slaves just cost too much money.

Therefore, without a Reconstruction and the backlash that it caused, the civil rights obtained by blacks, would have been obtained much earlier than 1965 and without such things as the KKK and lynchings, etc.

 

[applepowerpc]

First of all, our banking system, i.e the Federal Reserve, is what is most wrong with our counry, so you are barking up the wrong tree. Perhaps we would have stayed, or remained on the gold standard without inflation, and without excessive spending.

Our Federal Reserve is nothing more than a government-sanctioned money laundering scheme. The government could very easily print money in controlled amounts and achieve exactly the same results controlling inflation & unemployment, without near the national debt we have today. That is probably for the Economics forum (if anybody actually posted there).

 

[blacktroll]

Whats this Civil War ya'll are talking about? It was the War of Northern Aggression! The South will rise again!

 

[susanann]

Whats this Civil War ya'll are talking about? It was the War of Northern Aggression! The South will rise again!

YOu are exactly right, it was not a civil war at all.

 

[Paladin Dave]

Go on and rise again. We'll just show you who's boss again.

 

[Agrippa]

Bah, the official records call it the 'War of the Rebellion' and so it shall always be. You can't fight Federal bureacracy!

 

[Paladin Dave]

The northerners in my family like to call it the war of Southern Succession.