Ignoring the issue of slavery, who would you have wanted to win the civil war?

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
Do you mean the cotton gin, by Eli Whitney?

I thought it was the cotton gin, but that was invented about 1800 and actually triggered an increase in the number of slaves.
It might have been some improvement though?

[SlowwHand]

You are correct on the approximate date of patent.
I would assume improvements were made.

[SpencerH]

I have a vague memory about a discussion where this came up. At sometime fairly shortly after the war there was less need for manual labor beacause of this technological change. Therefore, the plantation owners didnt need to hire the newly freed slaves. The lack of income was a driving force for the black population to move out of the south.

[Ethelred]

Originally posted by SpencerH


Its funny, but I've only seen you retaliate to these kinds of comments. I guess you're learning how to sling it yourself now.

Rebutt not retaliate. But if you want you can think of it as learning from you.

[Ethelred]

Originally posted by Sava


They wanted the land that IS theirs, and has been theirs for hundreds of years. What would the US do if illegal immigrants in the Southwest tried to secede from the Union?

I am not going to debate the reasons why they did it since its clear even in your post that you agreeing that its about taking the land.

However both sides were immigrants at one time. Give it back to the Parthians and the Macedonians. I think the Scythians were in there too. If you want to go back hundreds of years I can go back also. The key is that the fighting was over land.

[Ethelred]

Originally posted by History Guy
A good number of Confederates actually fought for no other reason than that they felt they had to go with their state when it seceded, and that they could not fight against their people, Virginians against Virginians, that sort of thing.

The war started because of the secession. The secession was over slavery. Why people fought in the war is not the reason the war started in the first place.

And Virginia, many people conviently forget, seems to have seceded mainly due to the fact that U.S. troops were crossing the border to go down and destroy already seceded areas. They saw this as invasion, and no one was going to tell them anything otherwise. The whole thing was one bloody mess. Nuff said.

Virginia was not exactly the only state that seceeded. The question is about the South as a whole. Most of the South seceeded before the shooting started.

The reason, of course, that Fort Sumter was fired upon, was because the people of South Carolina, who had claimed independence, believed that this was a sign of Northern aggression, and Major Anderson's hops around from fort to fort in Charleston harbor wasn't a help to the Union at all. In short, the Union brought about the firing by their own unflexibility. Of course, Lincoln had opted not to accept secession as legal, and so nothing was done at all about it. Nuff said.

The Fort was a US fort and even the land it was built on was built with federal money. The island was artificial. The South chose to start the fighting. The North did not thus showing that the decisions that led to the War were Southern decisions. The could have just negotiated. In fact the Fort was near to surrender since the South had ALLREADY blockaded the fort. They were nearly out of food when the shooting started.

I still can't shake the feeling, however, that slavery was already on it's last legs. I do doubt that, even had the South seceded peacefully, it would have survived much longer at all. That seems also to be the informed opinions of several major Civil War historians. Nuff said.

Slavery was on its last legs prior to the cotton gin. That revived slavery. Still I doubt that slavery could have lasted till now but it certainly would have lasted decades more.

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by Ethelred
Rebutt not retaliate. But if you want you can think of it as learning from you.

Show me a personal attack that I've made against anyone on any thread and you might have a point. There are none, I see no point in slinging mud. I assure you, you wouldnt make the comments up close and personal.

[Ethelred]

Originally posted by SpencerH


Show me a personal attack that I've made against anyone on any thread and you might have a point. There are none, I see no point in slinging mud. I assure you, you wouldnt make the comments up close and personal.

Show where I made a personal attack and you might have a point. Pointing out that you would need to be a mind reader is rather difficult for most people to construe as a personal attack.

You are being just a touch too sensitve here.

[SlowwHand]

Ignorance is when one doesn't know, and just is mistaken, Ethelred.
Stupidity, on the other hand, is when facts are presented, and ignored.
Your figures are wrong.
Your statement about secession before the firing on Ft. Sumter, is wrong.
Your belief about why the South wanted out of the Union, wrong.

150 years ago, no different than today, evidently.
The South was tired of hearing the North talk smack about them.
Frankly, I'm beginning to fully understand how they felt.

[KrazyHorse]

Get it over with already and secede...

[SlowwHand]

Nice avatar.

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by Ethelred

You are being just a touch too sensitve here.

Perhaps so, but then I didnt precede my serious comments with one about the naivete of yours.

[ZaphodBeeblebrx]

I don't know, these days it looks as though the Northeast, and the West will Secede first.

Just look at the 2000 Voting Records, if you can find them, and just compare them to the 1828 Voting Records.

If you're still interested, then check out the 1840, Voting Records, it's Positively Ugly!

[KrazyHorse]

For those of us who don't understand what you're talking about, do you mind explaining?

In other words,

[SlowwHand]

He's a Blue Belly. He doesn't know WTF he's talking about.