That’s not how it works. Military commanders don’t bow to the demands of anyone who walks up to their doors. They responded appropriately when they were attacked.
They were terrible people even as far as governments go. Among the worst regimes in the last couple of centuries.
Countries don’t magically generate just on someone’s whim. There was no legitimate vote in the south, and a huge proportion of the south’s adults would have very likely opposed secession had they the opportunity. There was no reason why the fort’s commanders should or would have taken seriously any demands from a group of armed men outside their door. They reacted appropriately. The men (and their leaders) who shot at US soldiers started the war. Making countries doesn’t just occur by whim of rich landowners.
They weren’t worse, because their regimes were not enshrined in white supremacy and dedicated to exploiting chattel.
Will, you still haven’t supplied a citation to support your statement, “The vast majority of Americans hold a deeply perverse ideological view of the sanctity of the union. As I stated, it was a contorted view pioneered by religious fanatics.” It’s the deep perversion I’m asking about, preferably from an 1856 standpoint and not your 2014 Big-L-Libertarian view.
A country doesn’t get to set its borders to wherever it wants and then declare that it’s been invaded because some other country is holding land it now feels it’s entitled to.
On another note… just read George R.R. Martin’s 1985 time-travel/alt-history short story “Under Siege,” in which a Swedish expatriate soldier with considerable knowledge of later history comes to the U.S. in the early 19th century, becomes a wealthy publisher, and helps found the Republican Party. In an alternative timeline, his writings are influential in the 1856 election of John C. Fremont to the Presidency.
And Fremont fucked it up? Because from a 2014 standpoint we can see that he was likely to. From an 1864 standpoint, too. 1856 was his year.
Rick Kitchen, that’s an interesting question I can’t answer, but as he was a glamorous explorer, being a bastard probably just adds to his mystique. It’s all for the best that women can’t vote because Buchanan wouldn’t stand a chance.
the story only mentions Fremont’s 1856 win in passing. It doesn’t say how good a President he was, or if he was able to either avert or win the Civil War.
Perhaps you weren’t following along. I was responding to Brainglutton.
It is my sense that most Americans today do hold this view as **BG **claims. It is my opinion that it is deeply perverse.
Are you suggesting that the American War for Independence was also not a legitimate use of force?
As I have stated before, if the Japanese told the US government to abandon Okinawa, and instead of making efforts to do so attempted to send further supplies to Okinawa, the Japanese government would be within its rights to attack the US forces there.
In any case, if a few shots fired in which nobody was killed by the Confederates is a legitimate casus belli there would be far more wars than have occurred thus far. If not for the fanatical propaganda from the Northerners after Ft. Sumter, it could have been a minor footnote in a much more peaceful history. Its the equivalent of Gaza launching a rocket that makes a pothole in the parking lot of a Israeli gas station, and Israel proceeding with a land invasion. Oh nevermind.
This is a view pioneered by fanatical Christians who also happened to worship John Brown as a Christ-like figure. It is also the view of historians with an agenda. The compact theory still stands despite your pronouncements.
It quite simply was a minority viewpoint in 1856. When it did gain adherents, it was always couched in religious terms.
False analogy. The U.S. has never claimed that Okinawa is U.S. territory; we have a base there because of a treaty with another sovereign nation. That treaty, as far as I know, contains the means for its peaceful and lawful abrogation by either party. None of that was true of Ft. Sumter in 1861.
And nobody you did not address directly can respond? I think you have this message board thing all wrong.
A lot of Americans had simply not thought about it deeply by 1856. Like all people they were preoccupied with their own lives and did not yet see how they were a part of something bigger. It was only the “four score” part of the quote and America, as a nation, was just getting its sealegs. Yes, Americans in 1856 were generally quite religious, but they weren’t any more stupid than other people in other times, and were perfectly capable of making decisions on their own.
And my question stands:
IOW, WHY does “1856 you” think nationhood, as a philosophical concept, is deeply perverse and only held by religious extremists? As a Libertarian do you see the Antebellum South as a Libertarian ideal, with each plantation the owner’s fiefdom?
No, you can respond, but you should follow along so I don’t have to spoon feed you.
Oh ok, so when did the religious Awakening take place? When John Brown started his slaughter? We are not a part of something bigger if you mean a nation. We are a part of society formed by voluntary associations, that is all. You make the US seem like a cult.
Yes, and they wanted to make decisions for everyone else as well. It was this form of Christian pietism, a throwback to Puritanism, that envisioned the government as a tool of God, to wipe sin from the world. This view was threatened by the influx of Catholic and Lutheran immigrants who held a more laissez-faire view of government.
These fanatics were in favor of an activist government so they could wipe out the perceived sins of the Catholic and Lutheran newcomers, and create God’s kingdom on Earth.
I don’t have a problem with religion per se, but I do have a problem with religious fanatics when it comes to them using the government to accomplish their ends.
Well I think it’s only held by religious extremists because it is, and I live in 1856 remember, so I read the papers.
It is deeply perverse because it is not based on voluntary association, but forced on an arbitrary geographical area by men with guns.
Hm. Libertarians of the age were among the most outspoken of abolitionists. So 1856 me would have found pockets of libertarianism in the upper Midwest as well as parts of the frontier.
It might have been a minority view in 1856…I don’t know. The lack of opinion polling at the time means that it’s hard to tell exactly what the public was thinking, and the fact that large portions of the country tried to secede showed that not everyone believed it. But it wasn’t a fringe viewpoint, nor a view held only by fanatical Christians. It had a fairly long and distinguished history…there’s a reason the full name of the Articles of Confederation was “The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union”. Some of these quotes are fairly long, and I’m sorry about that, but here are some examples of people who had the viewpoint who can’t just be derided as “fanatical Christians”, and none of their arguments are explicitly religious.
From George Washington’s Circular to the States in 1783:
And from his farewell address:
From James Madison’s letter to Edward Everett:
Daniel Webster, in a speech before the Senate:
Andrew Jackson’s Proclamation Regarding Nullification:
There was no Japanese equivalent in the case of the Civil War – there was no reason for the US government to consider the Confederacy as a legitimate country or government. There was no legitimate vote, and no reason for them not to be treated as a bunch of organized, violent criminals.
You’re confused on the issues. We’re talking about what constitutes a declaration of war not what constitutes a cause for war.
If Japan decided that the United States shouldn’t be on Okinawa, then the American presence there might be a cause for war. But it wouldn’t be a declaration of war. The Japanese government attacking the United States would be the declaration of war.
