oops. yes, of course you are right.:smack:
Putting morality aside, neither side was willing to accommodate the other over the long term.
Thanks for the cite.
So this would be like China asking the Brits to vacate Hong Kong before the expiry of the lease and the Brits responding by pointing cannons at China from Hong Kong and China responding by shelling Hong Kong.
Bullshit. The Union was willing to allow slavery to continue. The Confederacy had no such comparable accommodation they were willing to do. The Confederacy wasn’t content with things continuing as they had been – they demanded that slavery spread (as new states were admitted), and that Northern states subsidize Southern slavery (i.e. the Fugitive Slave Act). And they demanded that slavery be acknowledged as just and moral and a “positive good” and be guaranteed for all time.
One side wanted things to pretty much continue as they had so far. That’s not comparable to what the Confederacy was willing to do.
Why must the two sides be equally culpable? They’re not.
Except without the imperialist overtones; South Carolina freely joined a union of equals, whereas Hong Kong was ceded as part of the treaty that ended the First Opium War. That mars the analogy badly.
Perhaps Scotland unilaterally seceding from the UK, and demanding that British military bases in Scotland be vacated, would be closer to the mark?
Still waiting for a cite for the “pointing cannons”. It’s more like this:
This would be like China asking the Brits to vacate Hong Kong before the expiry of the lease, along with vague threats and reports of armed Chinese ‘rebels’ ready to attack, and the Brits responding by moving to a different fort that is more defensible (but still on their own property), and China responding by attacking the British resupply mission, then attacking the fort in force.
Except the “responding by pointing canons.” And the lease, as opposed to ownership. And the fact that the Brits only ever held Hong Kong because of superior force in the first place, as opposed to South Carolina spending years actively campaigning for the construction of Fort Sumter. And the fact that we’re talking about a fort, not a city.
But other than those niggling details, yeah, it’s exactly like that.
“On December 26, 1860, six days after South Carolina seceded from the Union, U.S. Army Major Robert Anderson abandoned the indefensible Fort Moultrie, spiking its large guns, burning its gun carriages, and taking its smaller cannon with him to be trained on the city.”
I read “trained on the city” to mean aimed at Charleston.
[quote]
Bullshit on this “point a gun…” analogy. There’s no way to see the situation as the US troops threatening Charleston. There’s no way to see their stationing there as anything but a defensive posture.{/quote]
What if they were aiming guns at Charleston?
Does your opinion change if the troops were threatening the civilians of charleston or is that OK because they supported slavery too?
The first attack by the cadets was on that supply ship. were they attacked before the attack by the cadets?
My point is not their age but their status.
By the governor of south carolina in january of 1861 and several times in the following months by the government of south carolina and finally by the confederate general beauregard before they open fired on fort sumter.
How do you figure they had no ability to attack?
Where do I say that anyone other than the south was at fault for the war? I agree that moral blame for the war lies with the south. Where do you get the impression that I am trying to place the blame elsewhere?
In mine, we’d still have it around today. Look at the fight for Civil Rights, look at the Jim Crow Laws (which are coming back, in the guise of “voter fraud prevention”). The moronic inbred bigots in the South need to have someone to feel superior to.
True, it would be more limited, but still around. People talk how un-economic it is, but look at Migrant farm workers, who the farmers would be happy to exploit.
That Wikipedia source link is circular – taking us to another Wikipedia page that doesn’t mention “training” or “aiming” guns in any way.
Even if it’s true, no, this doesn’t change my opinion, since training cannons towards a possible direction of attack is not “threatening the civilians of Charleston”.
Further – there’s proof of this. On January 9th, 1861, days after the US troops moved to Fort Sumter, the supply ship was fired upon by Charleston shore batteries (operated by the aforementioned college students), stopping the resupply mission. So Charleston (Southern) cannons fired upon Fort Sumter’s supply ship, and Fort Sumter didn’t fire back. That’s as solid evidence as could possibly be provided that Fort Sumter wasn’t threatening Charleston (especially the civilians!) in any way whatsoever.
This continues to be a bullshit analogy.
Their supply ship was attacked by Charleston cannons, and Fort Sumter did not fire back. There was no threat whatsoever to Charleston from the troops in Fort Sumter.
Armed military cadets who operated shore batteries and fired at US forces who presented no threat to them.
You mean the month that Fort Sumter’s supply mission was attacked? If it was before this attack, it was days before at most… and was it even before the attack?
Yes, after Fort Sumter’s resupply mission was attacked, a Confederate General demanded surrender. So what? They had started the war, attacking forces that posed no threat whatsoever to them.
For one thing, since they didn’t fucking attack when their resupply mission was fired upon by Charleston cannons; for another, since attacking a populated mainland from a small coastal fort would be suicidal.
Then what on earth are you trying to say?
Nah, slavery would be long gone by now if we’d never fought the Civil War and just let the South go.
But the phrase “Never Again” would refer to what happened in camps outside of Birmingham, not Auschwitz.
And what about the union that defeated them. Were they immoral too? Was it a battle between two immoral forces?
And what does that have to do with conscription?
So you think that social contract theory is propaganda? Wow. It almost sounds like you are more of an anarchist than a libertarian.
Just because you don’t understand it doesn’t make it magic.
Wow. So you think that we should have just left segregation at the lunch counter and kids working in coal mines and monopolies alone? Are you familiar with the concept of market failures?
Are you familiar with just war theory of is that just another hodgepodge of magic words? The idea is that sometimes you can justify war and going to war to end something as immoral and destructive as slavery seems like it might fit, even if you think that slavery might collapse under its own weight at some point in the future.
And the civil war was instrumental in that virtual elimination of slavery. And are you seriously saying that we should have just waited for some spontaneous epiphany from the south to give up slavery?
And that will lead people to abandon a cornerstone of their culture? Really?
How can you tolerate actual overt slavery and be pissed off about conscription? Are you fucking kidding me? Slavery for life and the lives of all my descendants is INFINITELY more destructive of human freedom and dignity than being forced to fight in the interest of the nation from which I derive the benefits of citizenship.
Can you define these terms because AFAICT anyone that doesn’t like some aspect of government might be inclined to call themselves libertarians and there is no supreme libertarian council to say that they are wrong. What I see is a lot of true scottsman arguments when I point out how inconsistent libertarians are with each other depending on what end result they want.
Bullshit. They were not willing to permit it over the long term. And why should they.
The way things had been so far was to have a slave nation. That was not going to continue.
I never said they were.
In the post below, you seem to pretty strongly indicate that you believe the Union was the aggressor, and the Confederacy was “reacting, not attacking”. I hold that these views are bullshit.
This manipulates the facts – Lincoln and the Union government, in general, were absolutely fine with the Southern states retaining slavery. Lincoln, and most of Congress, had no plans, had the war not occurred, to restrict or end slavery.
In the long term, slavery probably would have ended when enough slavery-opposing states were admitted into the Union. But that would have taken quite a while, so yes, it was going to continue, just not for as long as the rich white assholes in the South who started the war wanted (which was, essentially, for all time).
The post I quoted above pretty heavily implies that you think the Union was more responsible for the war than the South.
IIRC they didn’t have the cannonballs unless they got resupplied. You know, by those supply ships that the cadets attacked to prevent resupply.
Only because you can’t conceive of any way that any at of the confederacy could be propelled by anything but evil.
Like I said, I thought that was because they didn’t have the cannonballs. Heck they didn’t return fire during the battle of fort sumter because they didn’t have the ammo.
So you don’t see how a supply ship carrying cannonballs might be a threat to them?
I guess my point is that the resupply of a fort in Charleston harbor might be considered a hostile act despite the fact that the supply ship didn’t fire at anyone.
How do you figure that a guy with a bunch of cannons that is about to get more cannonballs poses no threat at all?
because they couldn’t attack, the resupply ship had the fucking cannonballs. You really think that Fort Sumter waited over 2 hours to return fire because they were holding out hope for peace? They didn’t have the fucking cannonballs until they were resupplied.
"No attempt was made to return the fire for more than two hours. The fort’s supply of ammunition was not suited for the task; also, there were no fuses for their explosive shells, which means that they could not explode. Only solid iron balls could be used against the Rebel batteries. "
From the wiki article
Originally I was trying to dial back the rhetoric of one of the posters. Then it devolved into details about Fort Sumter and who was at fault for the battle of fort sumter (I mostly think it doesn’t matter because the civil war was going to happen. It HAD to happen because the south would not and could not give up slavery). Then at some point people started to act like I was defending the institution of slavery.
I am referring solely to fort sumter and I am referring solely to the confederate perspective. I do this because people are saying that there is no reasonable basis to justify the actions of the confederacy at Fort Sumter. I am also saying that it is not unreasonable to see the resupply of a military fort as an aggressive action. But most importantly I am saying, who gives a fuck. If the Union army had swept through all the secessionist states as soon as they seceded and freed all the slaves would that move the moral compass perceptibly? Probably not. So then what does it matter if South Carolina was responding to perceived threats or if South Carolina was engaging in unprovoked attacks?
Persoanlly I think that if you remove the moral issues (which I agree are 90% of the aargument) then I could see how having a military force in charleston harbor could reasonably be seen as a threat. Pantastic was making it sound like the battle of fort sumter started with an unprovoked surprise attack on the fort. The attack on fort sumter was triggered by union attempts to resupply the fort, they had more than fair warning that something could happen.
This is incorrect – they may have been low on ammunition, but they did (eventually) return fire on 12 or 13 April:
"As news of the relief expedition percolated through the Confederate government, Beauregard was instructed to demand the fort’s surrender and fire on it if surrender was refused. Beauregard began moving men and artillery into place and on April 11 and sent envoys to Fort Sumter to demand surrender. Anderson, after polling his men, once again refused. Following the refusal, Beauregard was asked to assess how long it would be before Anderson would run out of food and be forced to surrender, so just after midnight on April 12, the envoys arrived back at the Fort. Hoping the relief expedition would arrive before then, Anderson said he would surrender at noon on April 15. He was informed that was not soon enough, firing would began at 4:30 a.m.
After a signal gun was fired, Virginia fire-eater Edmund Ruffin, who had campaigned relentlessly through the 1850s for states’ rights, slavery, and secession, was given the honor of firing the first shot at Fort Sumter. Anderson, to reduce his casualties and conserve ammunition, did not return fire until just before 7:00 a.m. when Captain Abner Doubleday fired the first return shot."
So they could have fired at Charleston when Charleston cannons opened fire at the supply mission, but they chose not to.
This is as bullshit of an accusation as saying that you are defending slavery.
What you thought was wrong, per the above link. They could have returned fire, but chose not to.
No. But even if it seemed to be a threat to them, after they attacked the resupply mission and Fort Sumter didn’t respond, then there’s no possible justification for the second attack (the actual Battle of Fort Sumter) as a reaction to a threat.
I think that’s a bad and weak point. The hostility was entirely one-sided.
Because of his position and his actions. He could have fired in response to an attack, and he didn’t. And because of his position, which was extremely weak (since the Fort was designed to protect the coast from a seaborne attack, not a mainland attack).
Factually incorrect; see above. They had ammunition, just not a whole lot of it.
So you admit they had ammunition, and could have returned fire, but chose not to? Yeah, they were absolutely no threat. The only hostile actors were the assholes who attacked the resupply mission and Fort Sumter. Every action by the Union, in the case of Fort Sumter, was a defensive action.
It “HAD to happen” because the rich white assholes in charge of many Southern states (not “the South” at large – there’s no way to know exactly how many Southerners supported secession, but based on the demographics it may not have been any more than a plurality, if that) couldn’t see a future without slavery. You’re not defending slavery, but you’re defending those assholes who couldn’t see a future without it. Further, you say the South “could not give up slavery”. Yes they could-- they chose not too. It would have been very difficult and costly, but it was possible.
Why do you defend these assholes, and why do you believe such nonsense that the South “could not give up slavery”?
Yes, they knew something could happen, but that doesn’t justify, in any way, the Southern attackers actions. “Knowing something could happen” doesn’t justify the actions of the bad actors who make that “something” happen.
There’s no reasonable way, except from the point of view that “slavery must be guaranteed and preserved and defended for all eternity” (which is not a reasonable position), to see Union troops moving from one Union property to another, and getting resupplied (which happens in peacetime as well), as a threat. It was a threat to nothing but the eternal protection of slavery.
I think we are in agreement. The North could very well have agreed to keep admitting states in pairs and only admit a free state if there was a slave state waiting for admission.
The quoted text is ONLY about Fort Sumter and I am not even saying that Fort Sumter was instigated by the north. I am saying that you can’t act like the battle of fort sumter was the result of an unprovoked surprise attack by the south. Unless you think the civil war was fought over fort sumter, I don’t see why you think I blame the civil war on the north.