What's wrong with being a traitor?

The plantation model required not only the existence of slavery to survive; it required the expansion of slavery.

One of the lesser known aspects of plantation agriculture is that it was bad agriculture. Planting cotton year after year destroyed the soil. Most plantation owners in the eastern slave states like Virginia and the Carolinas had long been unable to maintain themselves by growing cotton. Their real economy had been based on breeding slaves and selling them to plantations in more recently settled places like Alabama and Mississippi and Texas. And after twenty or thirty years, these areas were starting to hit the same limits. They now had full populations of slaves and no longer were a market for eastern slaves. And their cotton production was starting to decline.

This explains why the existing slave states were always pushing for western expansion (or southern expansion into Central America or the Caribbean). They needed new slave territory where they could make money selling their slaves. Slavery was a system that needed to expand to survive. That’s why they felt so threatened when the Republicans said they were going to close off the western territories to slavery.

This economic reality also explains things like the south’s agreement to ban the Atlantic slave trade - it was the one aspect of slavery they were willing to stop prior to 1860. And it explains the original filibuster movement; before it had its current meaning, filibusters were Americans who tried to establish a colony in Central America or the Caribbean. It happened in places like Colombia, Cuba, Honduras, Mexico, and Nicaragua. And these filibusters were southerners who wanted to bring slavery into their colonies.

I was inelegant in my statement. The South could have proposed, “Yes, we see that you have submitted the Corwin Amendment to the states for ratification. We agree to rejoin on the condition that the Corwin Amendment is ratified thereby preserving slavery.”

I’m more dismayed at the general tone of the conversation in this thread, and in society today, that any attempt at nuance is cast aside immediately. The party line must be adhered to. Any dissent will be vilified. We’re tearing it all down and if you don’t agree with us, you are a racist. In fact, if you suggest that we might possibly be being hasty, then you are a racist. If you don’t join us and do nothing, you are a racist.

I mean, why the need for the double posts about states talking about slavery in their secession statements. I know that. I never claimed otherwise!

This stuff is far too divisive. As I’ve said before, the BLM movement took an issue with probably 90% support and is turning it into another civil war.

Stop being a martyr. You chose to post nonsense and you got called on it.

When you start making up facts and then trying to use them to defend the Confederacy, you need to expect that people are going to raise the issue of racism. Because you’re making the same arguments that racists make.

I made up no facts. Please cite one falsehood I made. I really don’t appreciate the accusation of lying. But cite one and we can debate it.

You said the United States started the war. That didn’t happen. And I have no interest in debating the point with you.

Cool then. But “starting” a war is a subjective thing. Not a factual thing that can be called a lie, no matter who physically fired the first shot.

Here’s a thought. How about you have a debate with the posts I’ve already made? Just re-read whichever one applies to what you wrote.

I’ll get you started.

The US didn’t think it was “subjective’ when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor.

I got a similar epiphany when I realized why the caricatures of black kids eating watermelon where so racist.

When the subject came in a thread years ago I did take a look and found that back in the slaver days and during the reconstruction the black guy eating a watermelon was based on very twisted assumptions back then from racist people: that African Americans were simple-minded people who were happy when provided with watermelon and a little rest, and others assumed that the black guy eating got the watermelon by stealing it from the farm they slaved on and on top of that ‘they were being lazy and not doing their job’.

Of course then I noticed it, those racists that used those images wanted others to forget about the humanity and worth that was stolen from the slaves for generations.

It’s not that simple. If you invite a guy into your house and then after a time you tell him to leave and he refuses, after a while either you or the police will forcibly remove him. What would be your response to him when he says “You started the violence, man!”?

You would say, hey pal, I tried to get you to leave. I asked you to leave. But you still sat on my couch and refused to move. Further, you had your buddies on the way bringing 10 AR-15s to the house for use in anticipation that I might try to force you to leave, so I had to take that action before I was unable to make you leave.

Again, it goes back to the secession question. It’s subjective. It’s how you view it. It’s not a fact, but an opinion, not subject to a claim of truth or falsity.

Except, in this case, it was the guy’s house until you decided it was yours.

Just in case that’s not clear enough, South Carolina was part of the United States, and we had a fort there. The Confederacy illegally decided that South Carolina was no longer part of the United States and shot at the fort.

Did South Carolina own Fort Sumter? Did South Carolina build Fort Sumter?

What we really have here is you inviting me to build and tend a garden on your property, legally turning that section of property over to me for development, then shooting at me because I didn’t leave when you demanded I do so. You followed up by stealing my tomatoes and claiming the garden was yours.

If you can’t fight the substance, fight the tone.

Do you know why your “attempt at nuance” keeps failing? Because you’re trying to manufacture nuance from bad logic and strawman positions.

The south wanted to preserve and expand slavery. There’s no nuance there. This was their stated aim in all their contemporary speeches and documents. Every effort to paint this as “states’ rights” or “way of life” or “political power” falls flat when we demonstrate that all these arguments are offered in support of slavery.

The north wanted to keep the union together. It seems like you’re trying to have the argument that “the north were no angels in all this”. But nobody is offering the argument that the north was morally superior on slavery. Lincoln’s stated aim was to preserve the union and defeat the traitors.

The south started the war. It stole US forts and military installations (theft) and fired on US forces trying to resupply its personnel (violence). The south invaded the north first (military incursion at Antietam causing a horrendous loss of life).

Everything you’re calling “nuance” is in fact a weak argument held for sentimental reasons we can only guess at.

Again, all arguments about the legality of secession. I understand the counterarguments. I don’t necessarily disagree with them. But if you are from the South in 1861, you have at least a colorable argument for shooting at people who refuse to leave your land and threaten violence against you.

Same argument about legality of secession

And these little shitty accusations of racism should be modded, but no reason to report because they won’t be.

Well, yes, that’s the crux of it, right? Earlier, you mentioned leaving the UN and I posted a cite that it’s not clear that you can leave the UN, but you never responded.

There was a way to secede from the United States, of course – get an amendment passed. The South didn’t want to do that, or didn’t bother trying. Or, they figured it would fail.

Your analogy fails because the guy who won’t leave was there before you declared the house yours. If you think it’s a bad analogy, then use another one, but this one sidesteps the main issue – whose house was it? The United States said, this is our house, you agreed it was our house, and now you want to declare it your own unilaterally.

This “colorable argument” is predicated on the assumption of the validity of secession document. Cool that we’ve retreated from “defensible” to “colorable” though. That’s progress.

The “leaving your land” bit is entirely false. You might have an argument here if Ft. Sumter was renting land from the state or an individual, but it was US military installation on land owned by the United States. If Cuba invaded the US installation at Guantanamo Bay, would you shrug it off since Gitmo is part of Cuba, or would you regard it as a legitimate act of war?

None of this nuance, it’s just grasping for colorable straws that fall apart when we examine them.

  1. I think it is profound if the people believed we couldn’t leave the UN. Would make a modern day argument for secession reanimated.

  2. You assume an amendment was needed. My argument above says it was not. Again, no prohibition on secession, so the 10th controls.

  3. Just a restatement of the argument. South Carolina let them in, they can just as easily tell them to leave.

Colorable v. defensible is semantics. The point remains.

The remainder of your post and the characterizations of “renting” or “owned” is a reformulation of the secession argument. Gitmo is a good example. Was that an exercise of raw power or something that can be revoked? I take no position. I just say it was defensible or colorable.