# The War of Northern Aggression **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 14, 2007, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-of-northern-aggression/400046 "2007-04-14T02:44:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2007, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-of-northern-aggression/400046/141 "2007-04-16T23:28:41Z")
[QUOTE=vibrotronica] Jesus, are you serious? The War of Northern Aggression? It’s the fucking Civil War, you idiot. And that beautiful house was built with slave labor. As in human slavery, the thing the Confederates went to war to preserve. [/QUOTE] Actually, no. The Civil War was a Constitutional issue. The Southern states seceded over states rights. Yes, slavery was a big part of the issue, but it was not _the_ issue. There’s a pretty good discussion of this at [http://www.civilwarhome.com/statesrights.htm](http://www.civilwarhome.com/statesrights.htm). ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2007, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-of-northern-aggression/400046/142 "2007-04-16T23:53:02Z")
[QUOTE=Jackmannii] Not to be over-Zealous, but [this link](http://www.generalsandbrevets.com/nt/nt1.htm) contains a photo of the revered General (bottom row). [/QUOTE] _Over Zealous_ was the tell-all memoir written by Mrs. Tower (the former Miss Black and inspiration for a Yeats poem) after their separation. The book was mostly forgotten save for its constant explication by Mrs. Black Tower’s son by the General, a professor of English literature named Ivory. ---
**Author:** ![saoirse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@saoirse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saoirse)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2007, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-of-northern-aggression/400046/143 "2007-04-17T00:39:28Z")
[QUOTE=Terrifel] \*Assuming the historical romance novels haven’t beaten me to the punch already. I mean, come on… “Zealous Tower?” [/QUOTE] That name is a little too crude for romance novels. Say, I don’t suppose there’s a subgenre of… nah. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2007, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-of-northern-aggression/400046/144 "2007-04-17T00:45:47Z")
[QUOTE=chowder] What is it with you Americans and your civil war? You’re always rattling on about it for some reasons best known you yourselves. [/QUOTE] Yours have been about which family would get its useless sons first in line at the feed trough, never mind that they’ve all been pretty much interchangeable. England’s identity and integrity were never at issue. Ours was about a Cause (which Cause depends on which side you were on, but still it was a Cause). Something bigger than ourselves, something worth dying for, something that actually mattered. Hell, even the re-enactors aren’t just fools playing solder. Many or most of them are trying to “see the Elephant” - to \*become \* part of that Cause. Lincoln at his second inauguration: > [@](#): > > Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came. > > One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. > … > Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. > … > Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said ‘the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether’. > > With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan – to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations. That gets this Yank choked up even today, and I’m pretty typical of us in that regard. It’s said, and I think correctly, that the Civil War _is still being fought_. The racial issues left behind by the war, and more importantly by the end of Reconstruction, are still with us. The prattling from Southerners (and other conservatives) about states’ rights, and the limits on federal power, _is still with us_. Those things are at the core of our national debate _today_. Now, what was all that about which color rose should be on the crest on the chair at the head of the palace dining table? **Zoe** , thanks. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2007, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-of-northern-aggression/400046/145 "2007-04-17T03:11:09Z")
[QUOTE=ElvisL1ves] Yours have been about which family would get its useless sons first in line at the feed trough, never mind that they’ve all been pretty much interchangeable. England’s identity and integrity were never at issue. [/QUOTE] Well, to be fair to them, England’s big Civil War was about whether the country should be governed by meritocratic middle class Calvinists, or a Scottish pseudo-Catholic fop. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2007, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-of-northern-aggression/400046/146 "2007-04-17T03:23:39Z")
[QUOTE=Clothahump] Actually, no. The Civil War was a Constitutional issue. The Southern states seceded over states rights. Yes, slavery was a big part of the issue, but it was not _the_ issue. [/QUOTE] Slavery was pretty much the issue. The southern states liked states’ rights when the national government did stuff against slavery, and didn’t like them so much when individual states tried to do stuff against slavery. So, I think states’ rights is a red herring. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2007, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-of-northern-aggression/400046/147 "2007-04-17T03:56:24Z")
> [@](#): > > Actually, no. The Civil War was a Constitutional issue. The Southern states seceded over states rights. Yes, slavery was a big part of the issue, but it was not _the_ issue. I could say the Southern states seceded over high cable bills, but even if I said it a thousand times that wouldn’t make it true. The secessionists themselves didn’t hesitate to explain their views on why they were seceding. And they made it clear that slavery was the reason. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2007, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-of-northern-aggression/400046/148 "2007-04-17T04:08:27Z")
[QUOTE=Captain Amazing] Well, to be fair to them, England’s big Civil War was about whether the country should be governed by meritocratic middle class Calvinists, or a Scottish pseudo-Catholic fop. [/QUOTE] The English civil war was a high point in a multi-century-long conflict between the Crown and the Parliament that started basically with the Magna Carta. It’s no longer a national obsession because by the 19th century or so, it became pretty obvious that Parliament had won. ---
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2007, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-of-northern-aggression/400046/149 "2007-04-17T04:35:59Z")
[QUOTE=chowder] What is it with you Americans and your civil war? You’re always rattling on about it for some reasons best known you yourselves. Hell, we’ve had 2 civil wars and a load of European nations have had theirs but you don’t here them and us constantly rabbiting on about them. Sheesh [/QUOTE] Actually, isn’t there a similar interest in the Spanish Civil War? And if re-enacting a past, and decided, issue is so silly and a distinctly American passtime, why is Waterloo getting re-enacted annually? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2007, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-of-northern-aggression/400046/150 "2007-04-17T04:54:12Z")
[QUOTE=Algher] MANY thanks for the link! So the Supremes say that you can not leave the Union, period? Seems dicey to me, personally. You should be allowed to leave. You are allowed to give up your citizenship, so why can’t everyone in a state give up theirs and take the state with them? [/QUOTE] ## Well, for one thing, what are the odds that _everyone_ in a state would decide to forego the benefits of American citizenship? Support for secession certainly wasn’t unanimous in any of the Southern states in 1860. The Constitution being entirely silent on the issue, I would agree with **Pleonast** that Congress would have to weigh in on the issue; presumably Congress could do things like set the terms and conditions on which a state could secede: perhaps a referendum (probably with some pre-specified super-majority vote of the citizens necessary for secession, not just 50%-plus-one of the registered voters who bother to show up on some particular Tuesday); and some settlement regarding the rights of inhabitants of the seceding state who don’t favor secession and want to remain American citizens (and who very likely own property in the wannabe new independent republic, may have been born and lived their whole lives there, etc.) Boy, they had some hellacious names back then didn’t they? In addition to Zealous Bates Tower, there’s also Alfred Thomas Archimedes Torbert, right there on the same page; Don Carlos Buell also strikes me as a rather dashing name, and from [that page](http://www.generalsandbrevets.com/nb/nb3.htm) we also have Napoleon Bonaparte Buford and Catharinus Putnam Buckingham. Of course the Confederates had Pierre Gustave Toutant de Beauregard, which is a moniker that’s pretty damned hard to beat. (Alas, Simon Bolivar Buckner on the Confederate side is now mostly remembered for helping to coin the phrase “unconditional surrender” by doing so to Ulysses S. Grant) ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2007, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-of-northern-aggression/400046/151 "2007-04-17T05:05:14Z")
Well, on the subject of names I have to yield to Chowder’s Civil War. Ours had no name to compare to [Praise-God Barebone](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Praise-God_Barebone). On the subject of Arlington: again, it didn’t belong to Lee. It belonged to his wife and their oldest son and was seized for $92 in back taxes. The son eventually received $150,000 for it when he took it to the Supreme Court in the 1880s. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2007, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-of-northern-aggression/400046/152 "2007-04-17T05:38:54Z")
[QUOTE=smiling bandit] … But to say there was some grand moral movement wholly unknown to historians to abolish slavery beginning in the 1100’s is just plain fiction. … [/QUOTE] That would be an interesting point IF anyone had made that claim. [QUOTE=smiling bandit] … Even in England, it was banned only after considerable debate. … [/QUOTE] There was no debate in 1772\*\*[\*\*\*\*\*](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolitionism#Britain)\*\*, slavery was ended by a judgment issued by Lord Mansfield, Chief Justice of the Court of King’s Bench. I assume you have a cite for this debate in 1102? [QUOTE=smiling bandit] … But the idea that slavery was actually a morally bad thing in and of itself was relatively new. … [/QUOTE] At no other time, in all of human history, was the morality of slavery questioned? The morality of slavery was very clear to the first slave. [QUOTE=smiling bandit] … it did spread; just not as fast as you seem to think is required of men. … [/QUOTE] [QUOTE=smiling bandit] … In the South, certain actions by the pro-slave side made speaking against slavery a very dangerous thing to do, but there was a considerable antislave sentiment. However, many Southerners felt they could not morally fight against or abandon their home states, either - poor whites especially felt torn. … [/QUOTE] So, was it spreading slowly naturally or was it being actively suppressed? If it was spreading slowly why was there a need to terrorize people into keeping their mouths shut? [QUOTE=smiling bandit] … Ben Franklin founded the _first_ anti-slave society in North America; he was at the forefront of a new idea in America. … [/QUOTE] Ben Franklin might have been the first North American **A** bolitionist, but certainly he wasn’t the first **a** bolitionist! Just as the first person to think slavery was evil was a slave, so too the first abolitionist was also a slave. That history does not record this says more about the morality of history than the morality of slavery. CMC fnord! ---
**Author:** ![chowder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/977dab/32.png) [@chowder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chowder)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2007, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-of-northern-aggression/400046/153 "2007-04-17T07:35:36Z")
[QUOTE=Jackmannii] Was your username chosen with [this fine old colloquialism](http://www.yourdictionary.com/ahd/c/c0330350.html) in mind? Suits ya. [/QUOTE] No need for the snarky remark ☹ . The saying BTW is unheard of in the UK. My username was chosen after much deliberation, I originally thought of Cromwell but decided against it just in case you merkins figured I was just banging on about our civil wars…Ho-hum ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2007, 8:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-of-northern-aggression/400046/154 "2007-04-17T08:46:47Z")
/aside I used to belong to the English Civil War Society, specifically the King’s Army (please don’t mentioned the Sealed Knot - the KA and the Roundheads Association both despise them). While travelling in costume down to Devon, our regiment stopped for a piss break at a service area where we attracted the curious attention of a bystander. We explained who and what we were - and he amusedly explained that his name was Oliver Cromwell (and provided documentary evidence). One of the funnier things that ever happened to me. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2007, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-of-northern-aggression/400046/155 "2007-04-17T13:40:05Z")
[QUOTE=Algher] MANY thanks for the link! So the Supremes say that you can not leave the Union, period? Seems dicey to me, personally. You should be allowed to leave. You are allowed to give up your citizenship, so why can’t everyone in a state give up theirs and take the state with them? OK - that should be another thread. Thanks for the edjumacashun. [/QUOTE] From the Wiki link: The court did allow some possibility of the divisibility of the Union in the following statement: \*The union between Texas and the other States was as complete, as perpetual, and as indissoluble as the union between the original States. There was no place for reconsideration, or revocation, except through revolution, or through consent of the States. \* …and neither is ever gonna happen, as far as I can see. There have been several earlier threads on secession as a concept, and the legal basis (or distinct lack thereof, IMHO) for it. I would also note that James Madison, among the foremost Framers, wrote to the July 1788 New York ratification convention that the Constitution “requires an adoption _in toto_ and _for ever_” (emphasis in the original). Cite: Thomas Fleming, _Liberty! The American Revolution_ (Viking 1997), p. 379. I’ve never read anything to suggest that any of the other Framers - Washington above all - thought otherwise. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2007, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-of-northern-aggression/400046/156 "2007-04-17T15:23:37Z")
The saying, “History is written by the winners,” was never more wrong when speaking of the American Civil War. It sometimes seems like every literate survivor–from both sides–wrote a memoir, and most appear to have been published. ---
**Author:** ![chowder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/977dab/32.png) [@chowder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chowder)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2007, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-of-northern-aggression/400046/157 "2007-04-17T16:02:34Z")
[QUOTE=Malacandra] /aside I used to belong to the English Civil War Society, specifically the King’s Army (please don’t mentioned the Sealed Knot - the KA and the Roundheads Association both despise them). While travelling in costume down to Devon, our regiment stopped for a piss break at a service area where we attracted the curious attention of a bystander. We explained who and what we were - and he amusedly explained that his name was Oliver Cromwell (and provided documentary evidence). One of the funnier things that ever happened to me. 🙂 [/QUOTE] Which is why you lost the Civil War. Allus stopping for piss breaks and gassing to strangers who obviously were just decoys out there to slow you down. Put your faith in God but keep your powder dry Honestly ---
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2007, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-of-northern-aggression/400046/158 "2007-04-17T16:57:17Z")
[QUOTE=vibrotronica] The War of Northern Aggression? It’s the fucking Civil War, you idiot. [/QUOTE] Dayum, I always figured they were talking about the '92 - '93 World Series. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2007, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-of-northern-aggression/400046/159 "2007-04-17T22:53:03Z")
[QUOTE=smiling bandit] It is an extremely cmplex issue, because like any mass political movement there were a great many people involved, and they did not all agree. Men like Stephe Douglas (Confederate VP) and Robert E. Lee were light years away from, say, Jeff Davis or Edmund Ruffin (a prominent S. Carolina secessionist firebrand who killed himself when he realized the South’s defeat). Indeed, many of the South’s best and brightest leaders were men who were only tepidly in favor of it! (Of course, this is also becaue so many went to West Point and were very close to their Northern colleagues.) I would highly reccomend James McPherson’s Battle Cry of Freedom. It’s a fantasic one-volume book. Although thick and pretty detailed, he’s a good writer and makes even the driest events fascinating. A third of the book covers events before the Civil War, detailing how policy decision made decades before the Civil War set the stage for it. While not entirely unsympathetic to the South (good people, bad cause), it does seem clear that most of the problems were caused by a fierce sense of pride. Certainly he notes events where Northerners did provoke them to some degree or another, but never leaves out the basic fact that the outrageous level of Southern response and the insistence on a seige mentality was a greater influence on events. Basically, the South _made_ her own enemies. The South got a lot of its press out after the war ironically because the North was lenient with them. Jeff Davis mostly sat at home, still moderately wealthy, and wrote memoirs praising… himself and his cause. And so did many others. [/QUOTE] I am reading Us Grants memoirs. many think it the best autobiography ever written. He writes very well and was involved in so much. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2007, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-of-northern-aggression/400046/160 "2007-04-18T01:16:46Z")
[QUOTE=gonzomax] I am reading Us Grants memoirs. many think it the best autobiography ever written. He writes very well and was involved in so much. [/QUOTE] I’ve wondered before if Twain had a hand in writing or editing them. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-of-northern-aggression/400046.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-of-northern-aggression/400046.md?page=9)