War of Northeern Aggression

[David Floyd]

DD,

David: Out of genuine curiosity, would you say that the CSA's practice of slavery was both a moral wrong and the knife with which they slit thier own throats because it alienated them from potential European allies?

Yes, although not winning on US soil alsoo alienated the CSA.

GP,

Floyd, according to your tortured logic, Germany had no right to force it's citizens to fight the US. The US had not attacked Germany. We merely traded or gave items as we saw fit...and protected our flagged ships.

You're right, Germany had no moral right either - but we were protecting BRITISH ships.

OH and the timing like sucks!! Right after Pearl Harbor. SUre makes it seem like one more unprovoked attack than a response to your bogus "acts of war"...which aren't "extremist libertarian acts of war"!

True - it had more to do with Pearl Harbor than anything else, but we still committed our own acts of war first.

[SnowFire]

Legal always supercedes moral in terms if what one can and cannot do, but never in terms of what one should and should not do.

I was hoping for a bit more. So, let me get this straight: the United States couldn't attack the CSA because by your logic it wasn't legal since they "genuinely seceded," but they should have because slavery is horrible morally?

You see my point. What I want to know is, what do you think is moral? You apperantly seem to think that anything remotely involving death is immoral. You used to cloak it with talk about free choice and other Libertariany stuff, but not anymore, seemingly. Could you expound on this a bit more? What's your hiearchy of morality? And from your little statement, should we do things we should do but can't? (yes that makes no sense, but I'm using what you said)

[David Floyd]

Ramo,

What's the difference? The Constitution doesn't say that the US must automatically accept seceding states back into the Union. The North had its say, and it was perfectly legal.

The States didn't want to come back.

There are no procedures for secession in the Constitution.

10th Amendment

Lonestar,

It's the best system out there.

Wrong, the Constitution set up the best system.

Only in Mother Goose tales.

Or reality.

I bet Tsar Nicholas said the exact same thing about the Russian peasents for the longest time...

When the make up one fourth the population of your Region, their opinions ARE relavent. And if they were not TREATED as such, I bet we would have had a Marxist revolution in the South by 1917...

Not relevant according to the Constitution.

And.....who payed for, and built those forts? And those weapons that were "liberated" from Federal arsenals? Why, the Federal Government! As most Federal Income at the time was coming from tariffs, and most trade was coming through the breat Northern Port cities, I think the Union had a tincy-wincy more legal claim to those forts than the Rebels did.

They were regardless on CSA soil - similar to how if we refuse to abandon an embassy after being ordered out, that country can forcibly take the embassy and kick us out.

[OldWarrior_42]

Very odd logic being used by DF.

You should travel to the North abit more and make new friends.

[David Floyd]

I was hoping for a bit more. So, let me get this straight: the United States couldn't attack the CSA because by your logic it wasn't legal since they "genuinely seceded," but they should have because slavery is horrible morally?

No, because what is more immoral than slavery is conscription and wars of aggression.

What I want to know is, what do you think is moral? You apperantly seem to think that anything remotely involving death is immoral. You used to cloak it with talk about free choice and other Libertariany stuff, but not anymore, seemingly. Could you expound on this a bit more? What's your hiearchy of morality? And from your little statement, should we do things we should do but can't? (yes that makes no sense, but I'm using what you said)

I'm not sure I understand - I will say the biggest moral wrong, bar none, is forcing someone to die for a cause.

[Ramo]

The States didn't want to come back.

Why did they accept the new Amendments then? I'm sure the Yankees would've been perfectly content with their perpetual martially governed territories.

10th Amendment

It mentions no legal procedures for secession. There's no such thing as illegal secession.

[The Mad Monk]

Originally posted by GP
I've heard older people call it "The War between the States" as opposed to The Civil War.

"The War of Northern Aggression" sounds overwrought. Never heard that much.

Actually, MtG uses it.

Don't know how serious he is about it, though.

*waits patiently for MtG*

Oh--Germany declared primarily because of its alliance with Japan.

[SnowFire]

I will say the biggest moral wrong, bar none, is forcing someone to die for a cause.

Personally, I'd say forcing somebody to die for no reason at all might be worse. But I disgress. This still addresses conscription only. What about the alternate universe where conscription wasn't a neccessary facet of warfare early in its history? What are your opinions about "wars of aggression" there where at least the armies are volunteers?

[Lonestar]

Originally posted by David Floyd



Wrong, the Constitution set up the best system.

Yep. A representitive Democracy. Fortunatly, Madison set up this thing that allows the constitution to amended as time progressed. Gee, what were they called? Oh yeah, Amendments.

Or reality.

Very Rarely, and never on the scale you're talking.

Not relevant according to the Constitution.

So...are you saying that we should have continued to oppress people and what for them to revolt and cause chaos? That would be a failure of...waddya call it, "Protection against all foes, foreign or domestic".


Hmm...if the Rebels didn't constitute a domestic foe, I don't know what does.

They were regardless on CSA soil - similar to how if we refuse to abandon an embassy after being ordered out, that country can forcibly take the embassy and kick us out.

There's a slight difference of one embassy and dozens of Forts the North payed for. Don't recall any Confederate politician calling for riembursement for the North to vacate 'em. Or, calling to hand over the thousands of muskets and rifles in Federal arsenals in the south...

[OldWarrior_42]

similar to how if we refuse to abandon an embassy after being ordered out

Incorrect. You build an embassy on some other country's land with their permission. If they tell you to leave, you have no right to stay , for you do not own that land or have any say in the way that land is governed.

In the US, the land in the south belonged to the federal govt... before (Stressing before) the south ever decided to want to become a sovereign nation. That was federal land and it was being appropriated by the South. You can look it up yourself as I wish to not have to provide links for every bit of information I have on what is known as "The Civil War".

[Ramo]

No, because what is more immoral than slavery is conscription

The Confederates had conscription a full year before the Union.

And I don't see the logic in this. Conscription is simply a much more limited (and therefore somewhat more benign) form of slavery.

[David Floyd]

Why did they accept the new Amendments then? I'm sure the Yankees would've been perfectly content with their perpetual martially governed territories.

So the North forced either acceptance or perpetual dictatorship - some choice

And the Constitution doesn't authorize that kind of behavior, anyway.

It mentions no legal procedures for secession. There's no such thing as illegal secession.

It leaves all non-prohibited rights (in Article 1 Section 10) to the States and people, of which secession is one.

[Ramo]

So the North forced either acceptance or perpetual dictatorship - some choice

Yep. Much better than the choice the Southern rulers gave to those they governed.

And the Constitution doesn't authorize that kind of behavior, anyway.

It doesn't prohibit this kind of behavior. It doesn't specify how to deal with its territories.

It leaves all non-prohibited rights (in Article 1 Section 10) to the States and people, of which secession is one.

How does that contradict what I'm pointing out?

[MrFun]

My undergrad major is History, and I plan to go to graduate school after I graduate. Then I plan to someday be a professor, and teach undergrad college students U.S. history.

I have a particular interest in United State's history from 1850's through the 1880's.

Westward expansion, organization of new territory, and the admission of new states was intertwined with the issue of the expansion or constriction of slavery in antebellum United States.

Slavery became the central issue throughout the antebellum era, and by the time the Civil War erupted, slavery's fate was sealed. It became abolished through the act of war, and emancipation.

The southern politicians were concerned with not being able to maintain power in a majoritarian government of the United States, took the route of secession. And thus, their institution of slavery was becoming more threatened.

I have also read one book, in which the historian argued that the seccessionists were in the minority, and forced this decision on the majority Southerners. Either secede from the Union, or if you remain in the Union, and betray your native Southern state. I wish I can recall the book's title and author. I will look at my list, and let you know what source it is.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by David Floyd


No, I'm suggesting abolishing slavery was wrong because:
-The South didn't want to
-The sovereign CSA didn't want to
-The 13th Amendment was forced down the throats of Southerners, who didn't get a valid, uncoerced vote on it
-The US murdered hundreds of thousands of CSA soldiers in order to do it

I'm what these bluebelly Yankee-lovin revisionists call a "Southern revisionist"

Let's get one point straight - you can shout "might makes right" until you're blue in the face (or the belly), but that simply justifies every tyrant that ever came down the pike. Including such fine demonstrations of Yankee justice as the response to Shay's and Dorr's rebellions.

All that said, David - you are wrong on a number of key points. Mostly involving this concept of consistency. A problem the Yankee apologists also have in abundance - because they both deny the right of secession, then support the unconstitutional means used to deal with secession and the southern states and citizens. The southern consistency issue is to claim the right of secession, thereby repudiating the mutual obligations under the Constitution, while whining about unconstitutional Yankee actions. Both sides try to have it both ways, and both are wrong.

The desires of the south with respect to abolition are irrelevant - slavery was not abolished until the sovereign CSA was in fact conquered and effectively under martial law.

The 13th Amendment was passed quite legally. Get over it. When we seceded from the Union, we rescinded those bonds and obligations between our sovereign states and the Yankee states, and with the Federal government. We also rescinded any rights under the Constitution.

When we were conquered four years later - we were a conquered nation under foreign military occupation, with absolutely no rights to claim that we were entitled to restoration of our position within the union to the status quo ante - the Yankees could do pretty much anything they wanted. Their big problem with consistency is justifying acts such as Reconstruction and martial law, while claiming that secession was never valid in the first place.

CSA troops murdered? We stood up and traded steel and lead with the best the Yankees could throw at us - and for all their advantage in numbers and resources, we made 'em earn every yard of territory. Wasn't murder, it was war.



The short term result of the War of Yankee Aggression was the betrayal of the basis of government created by the founding fathers. The long term result - in the emancipation of millions of slaves, the eventual prosperity of the entire nation, including the south, and the freedom from European geopolitical interference which would have resulted with a weak CSA and a defeated, hostile, weaker US, shows that the historical result was the best one for all parties. Yep, you heard right, coming from a diehard Confederate sympathizer. Sometimes the "right" cause, if successful, would have led to the wrong result. And this was one of those times.