Random thoughts my brain throws out to keep me from sleeping

Merlin99

Merlin99

Visualize whirled peas
PREMO Member
If there had been no slavery but the south had wanted to secede from the union would they have been allowed to go their own way? Was preserving the union the important part and the slavery issue a convenient reason to say no. If so that would mean that the north were actually the bad guys and have been castigating the south unfairly for the last 160 years. Try thinking of the civil war without thinking of slavery and it changes the perspective.
 
SamSpade

SamSpade

Well-Known Member
I think we were still a young enough and vulnerable enough nation that splitting up the union would have invited invasion, especially the South. As a consequence of the conflict, all of the world's powers with interests in the region were sending fleets, aiding the Confederacy. France was looking at Mexico, Spain the Caribbean and Britain the South. We'd already established the Monroe Doctrine saying to Europe, hey - keep ya mitt's off!

All of that went to hell when the fighting started.

And Americans knew that, not just the North.

And the union of the states wasn't meant to be like a marriage, where divorce is possible. I don't think the North fighting to keep the South in the Union is a good guy/bad guy thing.

EDITED TO ADD - A South WITHOUT slavery would have been a very POOR part of the nation. Their entire economy depended on it. I don't know what the South would have been like without it.
 
SamSpade

SamSpade

Well-Known Member
Been doing some reading about this, since this morning. What WOULD the South had been like, had there NEVER been slavery? I honestly can't say. Virginia was by far the wealthiest and most populous state at the time of THE REVOLUTION and had slaves for over a hundred years. As a nation - colony - was any colony besides New England powerful enough to repel ANY kind of invasion? Would we have ever BECOME the United States, had the South not had slaves, at least UNTIL the Revolution?

ONE Southern state had very few slaves, comparatively - Florida. Really can't make enough of an opinion, since unlike the rest of the South, it wasn't really ours until well after the Revolution, and was never much of an agricultural powerhouse under the Spanish.
 
Kyle

Kyle

ULTRA-F###ING-MAGA!
PREMO Member
The south without slavery.... Perhaps the Agricultural Revolution in farm machinery might have occurred sooner.
 
Gilligan

Gilligan

#*! boat!
PREMO Member
The first group of states that threatened to secede from the union were in New England and it was quite a few years before the southern actions were taken. At that time it was still widely discussed/agreed that resorting to military force to prevent that from occurring was not in keeping with how the country was united constitutionally and voluntarily in the first place. Furthermore, when the long process of getting the Constitution ratified was plodding along, a couple reluctant southern states were assured that "if they didn't find it to their liking, they could always secede". Yeah..how did that turn out for them?

Abe Lincoln was first and foremost a rabid Federalist his entire political life. He couldn't have cared much less about slavery at the time although he certainly didn't support it. He was a strong advocate of a proposal to return as many former slaves back to Africa as would be possible. Lincoln "used" the secession of southern states as his excuse to stomp out state's right where ever he could, Heck, he literally abolished the government of MD and locked up the politicians and public figures that were known to openly supported MD's secession.

Lincoln absolutely trashed the Constitution in many ways.
 
Kyle

Kyle

ULTRA-F###ING-MAGA!
PREMO Member
Gilligan said:
Lincoln "used" the secession of southern states as his excuse to stomp out state's right where ever he could, Heck, he literally abolished the government of MD and locked up the politicians and public figures that were know to openly supported MD's secession.

Lincoln absolutely trashed the Constitution in many ways.
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Anacondas Tail.
 
SamSpade

SamSpade

Well-Known Member
Gilligan said:
Abe Lincoln was first and foremost a rabid Federalist his entire political life. He couldn't have cared much less about slavery at the time although he certainly didn't support it.
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I think his letter to Greeley is widely misued to imply he didn't care about slavery. You don't have to go far in any of his writing throughout his life, or any of his speeches to know that he DEEPLY hated slavery, almost obsessively so. You read his career - he tried at every turn to stop it.

But he ALSO took a different viewpoint about how that problem was to be solved and his role, as President. If he'd been a modern Democrat, he'd have outlawed it completely the day he assumed office. Isn't THAT why SC seceded so quickly? A dyed in the woold abolitionist became President.

His letter - affirms - what he believed - and that you can't change something like slavery - and the people's DESIRE to keep the institution - by making a law against it - and it wasn't his place as President, to do that. He had a job with very specific constraints - hence, his remarks that if he could save the Union by keeping it or getting rid of it - he would do so.

In my opinion - the Emancipation Proclamation was issued for one reason - to push EUROPE out of our war.
 
Gilligan

Gilligan

#*! boat!
PREMO Member
SamSpade said:
I think his letter to Greeley is widely misued to imply he didn't care about slavery. You don't have to go far in any of his writing throughout his life, or any of his speeches to know that he DEEPLY hated slavery, almost obsessively so. You read his career - he tried at every turn to stop it.

But he ALSO took a different viewpoint about how that problem was to be solved and his role, as President. If he'd been a modern Democrat, he'd have outlawed it completely the day he assumed office. Isn't THAT why SC seceded so quickly? A dyed in the woold abolitionist became President.

His letter - affirms - what he believed - and that you can't change something like slavery - and the people's DESIRE to keep the institution - by making a law against it - and it wasn't his place as President, to do that. He had a job with very specific constraints - hence, his remarks that if he could save the Union by keeping it or getting rid of it - he would do so.

In my opinion - the Emancipation Proclamation was issued for one reason - to push EUROPE out of our war.
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My statement was probably misconstrued...by "couldn't have cared less" I meant that it was far removed from any list of priorities he maintained at the beginnings of the what became a civil war. I stated that he clearly didn't support slavery.
 
D

DaSDGuy

Well-Known Member
Back to your original post - WHY would the south even want to secede if their states rights were not infringed? Their rights to self govern WAS their reason to secede, and the potential abolishment of slavery was seen as infringing on those rights.
 
SamSpade

SamSpade

Well-Known Member
DaSDGuy said:
Back to your original post - WHY would the south even want to secede if their states rights were not infringed? Their rights to self govern WAS their reason to secede, and the potential abolishment of slavery was seen as infringing on those rights.
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I know people go back and forth on why the war was fought or why they chose to secede - but it was over slavery. Over their right to expand slavery. Over their perceived threat to its dissolving. To put it simply, they were defending their right to have slaves. Without slavery, there would not have been a civil war, because without slaves, the huge agricultural economy of the South would have been minimal.

They never would have BECOME the South, to fight over it. The North would have no need to take it.
 
Gilligan

Gilligan

#*! boat!
PREMO Member
SamSpade said:
To put it simply, they were defending their right to have slaves.
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And yet so very few owned slaves at all. Ironic?..or something else? 27% of the West Point graduates that fought in the war, fought for the Confederacy. Why so?
 
vraiblonde

vraiblonde

Board Mommy
PREMO Member
Patron
DaSDGuy said:
Back to your original post - WHY would the south even want to secede if their states rights were not infringed? Their rights to self govern WAS their reason to secede, and the potential abolishment of slavery was seen as infringing on those rights.
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...completely ignoring the rights of other humans to be free and not slaves, indeed not even recognizing them as human....

Which is the most Democrat thing EVER.

Historians like to blahblah and cite all these catalysts, but what you posted above nails it right on the head. Southerners (Democrats) thought they had the God given right to own human beings as slaves and saw anything that curtailed that as an infringement on their rights. That is the crux of the whole thing, and everything else stemmed from that.

All those acts and decisions and provisos and what have you were just a dipshit government (much like what we have today) being indifferent to a problem, slapping a bandaid on a severed limb and making it worse. You think our Congress today are a pack of ignorant savages, they're Little Lord Fauntleroy compared to the douchebags back in the 1800s.

So absent slavery, there would be no reason for the southern states to secede. If they wanted to secede for some other reason, Lincoln would have surely still wanted to preserve the Union because he was quite clear that that was his main interest. Freeing the slaves was just a bonus.
 
vraiblonde

vraiblonde

Board Mommy
PREMO Member
Patron
Gilligan said:
And yet so very few owned slaves at all. Ironic?..or something else? 27% of the West Point graduates that fought in the war, fought for the Confederacy. Why so?
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We have simply to look at the Revolutionary War for the answer. A handful of people were fighting for what is now historically accepted as "the cause", and a couple handfuls more were merely rabble who got roused. Pretty much like today where a large segment of the population has no idea who's even running in an election, but they vote anyway and choose the person they're told to choose, and go to figurative war with their friends and family over any differences of opinion.

Fed: Give runaway slaves back to their masters because it's their rightful property.
A tiny handful of northerers: No.
Slave owners: MFers, give us back our property!
Northern handful: No. In fact we're going help them run away.
Fed: Ahmmmm.....dahhhhh....ermigerd....
Population in general: Whuh?
Southerners: Our newspaper says we need to kick your ass!
Northerers: Well OUR newspaper says we need to kick YOUR ass!
(commence war that most people don't even know why they're fighting)
 
gemma_rae

gemma_rae

Well-Known Member
I once learned African slaves were slaves because they were the losers in tribal warfare. Their choice was slavery or death at the hands of their captors. They were sold in Africa, brought to America, and resold.

Repatriating them would have been certain death or re-enslavement.

Then, the white devils learned they could cut out the middleman and capture their own.
 
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