It’s almost as if they considered the right to hold slaves as a human right - which is even more perverse.
Its also fun because State’s Rights sure as hell didn’t matter to them when it came to Southern interests. Fugitive Slave Law anyone? Oh, that doesn’t count because reasons?
That’s why they needed to secede - a confederacy of slave-holding states couldn’t coexist with free states without one violating the other’s rights, so they went their separate ways. Thus would sayeth an apologist.
That wasn’t perversity by the standards of the time, remember - the idea that it was appropriate and natural was even supported by a lot of the Bible (much more so than prohibitions of homosexuality, btw), and it wasn’t widespread only in the South or even the US. It isn’t dead even today.
Obviously. But it’s still completely perverse.
Oh yes, in other words the South couldn’t have everything it wanted and all the power, so we’ll take out ball and go home.
And somehow being a separate country would mean that the United States would respect the Confederacy slave ownership rules much better? Or did they plan to built an iron wall on the Virginia border?
No, it’s not that they didn’t want compromise, it’s just that compromise wasn’t possible. You couldn’t have slavery and a refuge for slaves to escape to.
Yes, that would actually have made it much easier for slaves to take refuge. Thus apologist thinks twice (150 years too late).
Man, somebody tries to redecorate and it’s bitch, bitch, bitch.
I’d suggest this goes to show the problems with relying on Fox News and the Washington Times for information.
You can’t judge reactions without understanding what the choices were. The planters were not going to give up the very basis of their way of life. So any “choice” that led to the elimination of slavery was no choice at all in their eyes. My point here is that with that reality in mind the actions of the Southern elite make perfect sense. Yes aggressively trying to expand slavery antagonized Northerners but if slavery was contained it could be eliminated, no choice. Beating up anti-slavery speakers also antagonized Northerners but the only way to settle the disgreement in favor of keeping slavery was to stop people from talking about it.
I won’t say that Southerners didn’t overreact to slave revolts. They did so to the degree that the very nature of some well known “revolts” are in dispute to this day. That is, many historians believe that in some cases slaves were tortured and put to death only because Southern whites were so paranoid. I do disagree about the point about Lincoln however. It is misleading to blame Southern immaturity for failing to defeat Lincoln. Lincoln won a majority in all of the Northern States. Even if you combine all the votes of every other candidate it makes no difference. Lincoln still wins. This is the sobering fact that the planters faced. They needed support from the free states to elect a president but the opposite was no longer true. The balance of power had shifted in an unmistakable fashion.
The preponderance of forces indicates only that the Confederacy could not conquer the North and not that they would inevitably be conquered. Other nations have gone to war without a chance of total victory in hopes of a political settlement. I was going to use Japan as an example but the United States themselves faced worse odds when they seceded from the United Kingdom. Southern leaders can be forgiven, I think, for not understanding that technological improvement in logistics had greatly increased the size of armies that could be fielded and thus allowing the North to reach the force to space ratio they needed to suppress the rebellion.
And your “solution” ends with the planters giving up their slaves. Again, that’s no choice at all. Better to fight and lose than to just give up.
Perhaps they can be forgiven for this, but they can’t and shouldn’t be forgiven for being party some of the most inhuman brutality and oppression that humans are capable of.
It was never about state’s rights, any more than the Revolution was about colony’s rights. The South seceded because they believed they had the right to leave the Union, and the war was fought because the North invaded the South.
Point 1. This is all well and good, but invading another’s space and attacking him (as Brooks. a Representative, did to Sumner, a Senator), was first of all cowardly and reprehensible, since Sumner was half pinned under his desk asnd could not defend himself–which Brooks may have know full well. And what was Brooks doing in the Senate chamber anyway? Besides, There are two Constiitutional provisions that Brooks’ attack directly violates: Freedom of speech from the First Amendment, and the immunity of members of Congress from accountability for what they say on the floor of their chambers. In any case, no matter how justified the Southern states’-rights people considered themselves to be, they could not overrule the Constitution, let alone human decency.
Point 2. Keep in mind that Lincoln was not on the ballot at all in the South. Yes, he won anyway; but the Southern states carried out their threat to secede if he were elected.
And some of “the most inhuman brutality and oppression that humans are capable of” were the result of the actions of Union soldiers. Do you really think there was much difference in soldiers from the South and soldiers from the North?
There were approximately 150 concentration camps altogether. The South was generally poorer than the North, and had fewer rations to give to their prisoners. Yet, my grandfather, imprisoned at Camp Douglas in Chicago, saw men searching for kernels of corn in the manure from horses. That is just an example of some of the inhumane and inhuman brutality there.
This is what war does to people. Any war. Every war. That’s why I am a Pacifist.
What about the inhumanity of the Northern slave states that had slaves for a much longer period of time in general? Do you think those slaves were well-treated in New York for 200 years? Some slaves were burned alive in the streets.
Of course there shouldn’t have been slavery to begin with. But there was, thanks to the founders of our country. Some were from the South and some were from the North.
History should be truthful and the portraits should remain – even when not honored.
Prisoner of war camps. Concentration camps are for civilian populations.
But at the same time I can blame someone who has limited food for eating everything on 1 day with the assumption that the food might be taken by rats if he paces himself. The planters weren’t going to give things up? Fine. Figure something out: evolve, reform, plan. But don’t act like spoiled children.
Yes, choice. They were digging their own graves by doing this. Had they not been so aggressive their way of life might have kept up for ages, mostly from inertia. But by so blatantly trying to seize power they brought the issue to a head much sooner than it might have otherwise. They were a drowning man trying to save himself by flailing around his arms rather than trying to tread water.
It demonstrated to the otherwise indifferent northerners that the South was populated by bullies who they would laud and fawn over. Preston Brooks was a coward and a bully who would fight a duel against someone who might fight back.
If they had handwaved or poopoo’ed the anti-slavery speakers they would have gotten a lot less antagonism. But that is not how barbarians in mansions operate.
First of all: one of the things that drove people to the Republicans was that the Democrats splitting themselves they way they did. Douglas on his own could have probably done a lot better than a split party. He had more influence in the North than many give him credit for.
Nonsense. The South could have accepted a fate and slavery would have probably gone on for decades before the practice became obsolete, unprofitable, or unworkable on its own (what would the Boll Weevil do to slavery?). Instead they gambled on a series of idiot moves and destroyed themselves in a moronic ‘blaze of glory’. While I am glad it turned out that way (ended slavery much sooner than a slow fade would have) I’m not going to say the South was making smart decisions.
The problem with the Left position “this person from the person with (insert bigoted or unsavoury belief) shouldn’t have things or buildings named after them” overlooks the fact that those beliefs were extremely common - before WWII almost nobody in the West believed that Jews were morally equal to Christians, and until the 1950s, virtually all Australians supported the White Australia policy_ - so if their madcap scheme was implemented, there wouldn’t be many people left to name things after.
No. But there was a world of difference between the political and social aims of the leaders of the South and the leaders of the Union.
That’s fine. I think war is usually evil, but not in all cases. I don’t believe slavery would have ended without war, and the attempted conquest (and genocide) of the Axis powers in WWII would not have ended without war. So I’m not a pacifist.
All slave-ownership was hugely evil.
Most of the slavery was in the South. That doesn’t excuse Northern slavery and slave-owners. But the leaders of the South started a war to preserve slavery.
Beliefs are not the problem in this case. These are men who fired upon the Flag of the United States and soldiers of the United States willingly.
The South believed they had “the right to leave the Union”, but saying they seceded just because they believed they had the right to secede is like saying people file for divorce because they believe married people should have the right to get divorced. Generally speaking, people who file for divorce do believe that (contra the Pope) married people should have the right to get divorced, but the reason they actually file for divorce is someone is sleeping with the pool boy or they can’t agree about money or he keeps leaving his dirty underwear all over the place and she’s sick and tired of it. And the reason the South sought to exercise their supposed right to secede was because they believed slavery was under threat and secession was the only way to save it.
The North didn’t just up and invade the South after an entirely peaceful Southern secession, either. The U.S. did continue to control Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor, but Lincoln took some care to refrain from doing anything directly warlike. The South opened fire anyway.
I’m not arguing for the morality of secession. I think that’s what Zoe wants to argue about but I was only pointing out the logic of doing so. If Southern states were going to leave the Union over slavery then this was the time to do so. It hadn’t been politically feasible before and waiting would only make the North stronger.
Affairs of honor have their own logic. By disdaining Brooks’ challenge Sumner had demonstrated that he had no honor. Since Brooks didn’t consider Sumner a gentleman it was permissible to beat him. For more on this Joanne B. Freeman has a wonderful book about dueling culture and is in the process of writing another specifically on congressional violence.
Brooks was acting as a private citizen and so cannot have been violating the first amendment. The Senate might hold him in contempt for his actions but there is no constitutional issue. The Bill of Rights applies to governments (and only the federal government back then) and not to individuals.