If the US civil war was fought today...

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Albert Speer
blah?

if the South won the war, millions of people would still be enslaved.

Such a brilliantly formed and inevitable conclusion from the facts at hand.

Yep, they'd still be out in the fields pickinb' cotton by hand, and we'd all be ridin' our horses, bullwhips in hand.

As ol' Bugs Bunny said: "what a maroon"

[TCO]

Originally posted by Albert Speer
blah?

if the South won the war, millions of people would still be enslaved.

how did the South fight a just war?

I don't know if they'd still be enslaved. But it's possible. And likely they would have been enslaved for several more decades. John Brown was right. Death to slavers. Just like that colonol in that book by heinlein.

[TCO]

I can actually buy the legalistic argument that states have the right to seced or that slavery was (obliquely and even in 1790 obliquley for a reason of it being an issue) mentioned in the consitutuoin (3/5 thingie).

But slavery is wrong chums. Realio trulio. And firing on Ft Sumter was all about slavery. And slavery ended immediatlely after the war. It sure wouldn't have without the war or if the south had won.

[Capt Dizle]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove If slaves are people, then slavery violates their constitutional rights and the federal government has a right to enforce the Constitution, does it not?

Sure, that right was ratified by cold steel and rifled muskets.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
OK, I should have said "sits well with you". I apologize.

If slaves are people, then slavery violates their constitutional rights and the federal government has a right to enforce the Constitution, does it not?

The Constitution clearly recognized dual and distinct sets of rights of various classes of persons (citizens, non-citizens, citizens of the US, but of another state, slaves, felons, etc.) at the Federal and state levels.

The Constitution's grant of suffrage rights to white males over 21 only applied to elections for Federal office - initially, only the House or Representatives. No state was obligated to follow that standard, nor to require warrants for searches, nor was double jeopardy an issue in state criminal courts unless by the state's own charter or laws.

While an individual was within a particular state, his status was generally governed by the laws of his state of citizenship and his conduct by the laws of the state in which he was located, with the Federal government having virtually no role except in the process of interstate commerce or travel, or at sea or in the territories.

The institution of slavery was expressly recognized by the Constitution, like it or not, and it is clear that with limited exceptions that might be granted within a particular state's own legislative discretion, all that flowery prose about rights and such was reserved for the white male, and everyone else could just hope they had a benevolent white male in charge of them.

[Capt Dizle]

Originally posted by TCO
I can actually buy the legalistic argument that states have the right to seced or that slavery was (obliquely and even in 1790 obliquley for a reason of it being an issue) mentioned in the consitutuoin (3/5 thingie).

But slavery is wrong chums. Realio trulio. And firing on Ft Sumter was all about slavery. And slavery ended immediatlely after the war. It sure wouldn't have without the war or if the south had won.

Well there is room for agreement here. I think. If the North had won the first battle of Manassas, and if the South had quickly crumbled and the war had ended then, the result would not have freed the slaves. Lincoln did not free the slaves (in the Confederacy) until much later and did not free the slaves in the North until after that. During the first year of the war he had no intent to free the slaves. So, I am sure you will agree with me that the war wasn't started over slavery, nor fought to end slavery, but merely that slavery ended as a result of the war.

Right?

[Ned]

So, Michael the Great, it seems to be your position now that a significant portion of the South seceded prior to Lincoln's call to arms, that the Yankee aggression had nothing to do with the call arms, but it that had everything to do with Yankee imperialism and subjugation of Southern economic interests.

Is this an accurate summary of your post?

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by TCO


I don't know if they'd still be enslaved. But it's possible. And likely they would have been enslaved for several more decades. John Brown was right. Death to slavers. Just like that colonol in that book by heinlein.

Two thangs against the long-term continuation of slavery - no cotton country west of Texas (can you imagine slave cattle ranches - we're gonna give 'em all horses and guns and expect 'em not to kill our asses and ride away?) The other one was that the practice of single cropping huge plantation tracts was rapidly depleting southern soil, so plantation owners were just on their way out economically - they would not have been able to maintain the large slave population, and there was neither the liquidity nor the demand to sell off lots of those slaves to smaller landowners or town folk.

Sumter was more about ego, and the fact that ol' Abe played poker a lot better than the cracker politicians he outmaneuvered on that whole Sumter-Pickens affair.

Death to slavers is fine with me, as long as you include enough rope for the Yankee sailers, shipwrights and bankers who made their fortunes off the slave trade.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Ned
So, Michael the Great, it seems to be your position now that a significant portion of the South seceded prior to Lincoln's call to arms, that the Yankee aggression had nothing to do with the call arms, but it that had everything to do with Yankee imperialism and subjugation of Southern economic interests.

Is this an accurate summary of your post?

Nope.

[Ned]

Nope?

[MichaeltheGreat]

Nope.

[TCO]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat


Two thangs against the long-term continuation of slavery - no cotton country west of Texas (can you imagine slave cattle ranches - we're gonna give 'em all horses and guns and expect 'em not to kill our asses and ride away?) The other one was that the practice of single cropping huge plantation tracts was rapidly depleting southern soil, so plantation owners were just on their way out economically - they would not have been able to maintain the large slave population, and there was neither the liquidity nor the demand to sell off lots of those slaves to smaller landowners or town folk.

Sumter was more about ego, and the fact that ol' Abe played poker a lot better than the cracker politicians he outmaneuvered on that whole Sumter-Pickens affair.

Death to slavers is fine with me, as long as you include enough rope for the Yankee sailers, shipwrights and bankers who made their fortunes off the slave trade.

If I were a slave, I'd feel a lot better about the de guerre created end to slavery than some claptrap about the soil. And if I were east of Texas, that whole west of Texas thing wouldn't do much for me.

Oh...and could you get Ming to start some sports thread, so I can troll his azz? I am drinking, need an outlet, and like you too much.

(All that said, I have revised my opinion on the civil war since I was a young Virginian who gloried in all our stud generals and the like.)

[TCO]

Nope?

[MichaeltheGreat]

The economic and rhetorical agression had been building up for a couple of decades. Secession was inevitable, since the south would certainly not just quietly submit to northern hegemony.

Secession was not viewed as a military response, rather it was viewed as simply announcing to the Yankee states that they had finally pushed too far, and that the Union formed in 1787 in the face of foreign threats no longer served the mutual interests of the sovereign states which agreed to form that Union.

It was the Yankee adamance in refusing to even negotiate the disposition of those foreign forts in Confederate harbors that led to things getting a bit hot and heavy.

[Ramo]

The problem with the peaceful end of slavery is Texas itself. With plenty of open land and the relative lack of people, landlords would have every reason to use slaves. So slavery in most of the South should die off pretty quickly naturally, but I'd give slavery in Texas another few decades.