Prison labor isn’t even illegal:
The courts have consistently upheld that prisoners are not required to be compensated for labor, and if they are it’s typically for pennies a day. In fact, prison populations started ballooning, oh, right around when the South’s economy started collapsing due to abolishing chattel slavery.
Yes, I worded that poorly. Prison labor is not illegal.
Cite or evidence?
The reasons motivating the leaders aren’t necessarily the same reasons motivating the common soldiers, volunteer and conscript.
Think about the motivations for the defenders of Stalingrad, for example. Communism and the glory of the Soviet? Mother Russia? Staying alive? Trying not to get shot as a deserter? Because we fought yesterday and I’m way too tired and cold to think about why I’m fighting today?
Or think about the American servicemen in Vietnam: did they go to repel communism? to protect the Vietnamese people? to defend the Star-Spangled Banner? to massacre unarmed civilians at places like My Lai? because they were told to go? because they couldn’t get to Canada? because … why? If you had to pick one single motivation that applied to every American soldier, sailor, and marine who served in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, or adjacent waters, what would you pick? How sure and certain are you that the factors driving Kennedy and Johnson and Westmoreland were the same factors driving Dan Bullock of Brooklyn, rifleman with the 5th Marines, killed in Quang Nam Province at the age of 15, or Leslie Sabo, rifleman with the 101st Airborne, who was drafted in Pennsylvania in 1969 and killed in Cambodia in 1970?
Turning back to the Civil War, why would a working-class conscript from the hills of southern Appalachia, who didn’t own slaves himself and didn’t belong to a slave-owning family, pledge his life to defending the principle of slavery?
No, it was “Us normal, them demonic army of darkness”. The Union wasn’t particularly good, but the Confederacy was about the most purely evil force that has existed in human history. Anyone who supported it was a monster.
Even after Obama was elected, I thought that the big step was Jimmy Carter: not electing a black president, but electing a southern president. I thought that America had got over it: that the south was no longer sabotaging civil rights to destroy the federation, and that the federation had stopped distrusting the south. I viewed the election of Obama as a only confirmation: the confederates no longer hated the federalists enough to allow it to control the vote.
And I agreed with those who thought that white backlash was just the dying gasp of those who had lost.
But, on the evidence of this survey, perhaps I was wrong.
Can you clarify what you mean by this?
To me both Option #3 and #5 are close but I went #3 in the end. Because “the cause” was just as evil when our nation was founded and there were people who wanted it stopped then; and they failed. It is just one of those things in history we may never come to terms with. Some want to point to the Civil War and the South, I look more to the British victory over the French in the 1750s. Who knows? Maybe we’re all right in the end just at different periods of time.
I like this one. Good option.
If we’re applying today’s standards and morality to the 19th century, why not also criticize the ham-handed way that the Union handled the issue?
Today we would acknowledge that this idea may bring economic hardship to our fellow citizens and we would offer financial incentives. We’ll give you $x billion (for that era) to facilitate your transition away from slavery.
Bribe enough key people and the few noisy extremists would have been a historical footnote. With incentives, you could have recruited a lot of the leaders and rabble-rousers who, in turn, would recruit most of the public sentiment in support.
Make them a financial offer they couldn’t refuse, along with expertise from both sides to help formulate transitions plans and deadlines, and appoint specific people to be responsible for the success of the process.
We do that all of the time now. And, people are more cooperative and compliant when there are rewards, and less cooperative and compliant when punishment is involved.
It never needed to have become a war. It could have been completely avoided if 21st century sensibilities were applied. There’s plenty of blame to go around when looking back from the 21st century.
We don’t have to apply today’s standards - there were a hell of a lot of people who knew slavery was morally reprehensible even in 1861.
For decades prior to Lincoln’s election northern states had all the control, which they used used to pass tariffs that mainly effected southern states, to the point that 80 percent of the federal budget came from southern states.
They had no control over this since representatives were determined by population.
South Carolina , the first state to secede was interested in secession since at least 1830 when a particularly bad tariff passed. Three years later, after SC simply refused to honor the tariff a compromise passed.
Many of the tariffs were a double penalty, as the federal budget largely helped to industrialize northern states they would put tariffs specifically on importing products that they themselves produced. This forced the south to essentially pay twice for goods.
5 major slave owning states seceded when Lincoln was elected, despite having not been on the ballot in those states.
Lincoln promised not to abolish slavery but intended to outlaw it’s expansion to new territory which they viewed as ensuring abolition and their economic demise since they would then become a complete minority (majority of all states actually had legal slavery at the the time)
When Lincoln called for troops, the other 6 southern states joined citing their refusal to fight against other southern states.
Maryland would likely have joined as well if not for their proximity. The governor there actually had Bridges and railroads destroyed to impede union troop movement.
Essentially 5 southern states seceded directly because of slavery, 6 others identified with them in taxation without representation issues and thus joined the pro slavery side despite their citizens being largely split and having internal civil wars over the slavery issue itself.
All in all they coalesced to become a force which was fighting to preserve slavery, whether half of them actually wanted it or not they ultimately sympathized to that cause.
2 percent of the country were abolitionists at the start, the rest mainly saw it as a financial issue. (Slave labor took away jobs and such)
As the union conscripted (took possession of slaves as contraband property) and educated slaves throughout the war, abolition gained more followers.
There really wasn’t a whole lot of high moral ground anywhere.
For sheer death toll, the Khmer Rouge make the Confederacy look like pikers. For brutality in war, the Imperial Japanese Army in Nanjing, pretty much everybody on the Eastern Front in WWII, or the Interahamwe in Rwanda far exceed the men in grey. For ability to suppress dissent, the Gestapo or the Stasi would appear far more effective; for racial animosity and enforcement of white supremacy, the Ku Klux Klan or any of several South African organizations top my league tables. What makes the CSA uniquely evil?
Disagree, strongly. It is necessary to vilify it, otherwise (as we see actually happening) it becomes a cover for hanging on to the villainy.
There are no Nazi reenactors in Germany. One guess as to which side is more popular in Civil War reenactment circles, by 2:1 .…
It is necessary, csa,Nazis, whoever, how many foot soldiers do we think believed in the cause as we know it?
Even the CSA managed to recruit two full black companies of freedmen in the last couple months when they opened enlistment.
Most generally don’t believe in the cause even in our modern wars. At least now we generally have to veil our interests behind human rights and do some good.
If we vilify such causes , we severely reduce leaders ability to use soldiers for evil causes and civilian populations to call for or sympathize w them.
Actually there are some; not a lot because of possible legal issues with the badges and the like but they do exist in fair numbers. The only ones banned are certain SS impressions. And many re-enactors are strongly anti-Nazi in their philosophy just as many CSA re-enactors are strongly “abolitionist”.
Most of the Nazi forces for re-enactments and filming come from the US and England. “Winners” often seem to enjoy portraying the opposite side as much as the “losers” do; sometimes even more. Maybe there is a lesson there but then again maybe not.
(My thing is F&I but us re-enactors/living-history folks are pretty strongly networked no matter what era we portray)
PS – I know Bates and on a big level I equate him with Tony Horwitz; interesting but he needs to spend more time and research before he writes. Both write very well but ---------- the long and short is that both decided what they were going to see long before they looked for it.
And for the record the various “quartermaster services” (the shops who make and supply the clothing) put the international numbers about equal. “Union” is a little bigger here and a lot lower in Quebec; my personal favorite example. But it is pretty much a wash and rarely related to the politics of today. But with the rules for participation in events and all ------- lets just say its not an easy answer.
Actors love playing villains. It doesn’t mean they want to *be *villains IRL.
I can’t vote in the poll because it needed to allow multiple options. If it were allowed, I would say 1, 2, and 4. It is possible IMO to fight honorably in a wrong cause.
It’s like what Bill Maher said about the 9/11 hijackers. They were brave and self-sacrificing in a horrible cause.
Regards,
Shodan
You really do have a knack for hyperbole. You almost got me with that one. 
I think suspending the writ of habeus corpus and arresting Confederate sympathisers like the mayor of Baltimore also prevented MD from seceeding
The CSA was formed to protect states’ rights. Unfortunately that centered around the right to maintain slavery as an institution.