[Lightknight]

Why did the Union attack the states that legally withdrew from the Union? Wasn't that action completely within their rights?

[Becky]

yes, it was completly in their rights.

[Boy Genius]

Yes, it was...

I had a noce long post, but my Internet connection was dumb and killed it, so I'll just make this one last comment.

Nathanael said:
Dissention reached a feaver pitch after Lincon was voted into office without a majority in a single southren state.

Yeah, that's true...considering he wasn't even on the Louisiana ballot. (I'm not sure about other states, but I do remember from La History in 7th grade about the Louisiana ballot.)

[cq dx]

Slavery was quite an issue. Remember that it was
the balance between slave and free states which
the "Great Compromise" addressed.

Remember also that slaves, although considered sub-
citizens, if not sub-human, DID affect area representation,
to the tune of 5/9th a person. In northern eyes, flooding
a region with multiple thousands of slaves (which could
not have happened, but sometimes there were some rather
irrational thinking going on) would affect passage of laws
favourable to northen industry, something John C. Calhoun
would not let congress forget in his lifetime.


-g.

[jc-16]

slavery and politics

[H.M. Murdock]

Originally Posted by Lightknight

What do you mean? The south could certainly sustain themselves without slaves. Only a very small percentage of people even owned slaves.

Very true. And of those who did own slaves, only one out of about three slave owners had more than five. Slaves were expensive to get and maintain.
However, the idea of slavery and economic welfare are somewhat the same.
For instance, the sugar industry relied on slaved to grow sow, maintain, and harvest it. Then slaves extracted the juice, made syrup and sugar with it, which was then distributed and made an fulfilled its role as an important ingredient not only in the kitchen but also in "bug bottles," which were bottles laid on their sides with sugar water in the bottom to kill bugs in the evenings.
The cotton industry. When you think cotton, you think of the t-shirt you're wearing, but there are two types of cotton, brown and white. White is what your t-shirt is. Brown is what lower quality clothing, mattresses (sold nationally), chair stuffings, aprons, and all other manner of things were made. White was only about two-thirds of the market, being the major source of material used in clothing.
Flax was another large market that was, again, maintained by slaves in large part.

Not every part of the markets I've mentioned were supported by slaves, mind. Plantations that used slaves to produce such raw materials did not uphold the markets singlehandedly- there will always be other ways of getting it. However, plantations produced the most for the least and of the best quality. So if you kill slavery, you kill a large chunk of the economy in doing so (in their minds, I will say, as I am not sure of the actual economic effects of such an occurance).

Originally Posted by Becky

yes, it was completly in their rights.

Proof?
A helpful way of viewing this situation more objectively is to see it much as the American revolution; England was our parent nation. We broke off because we were unhappy with a number of things. England, not recognizing our independence, sought to restore order, and we bit the hand that had previously fed us until we broke through the privacy fence and into the neighbor's yard.
In my mind, it's not part of a state's rights to do such a thing. Unless we're venturing into federal constitutionality?

Originally Posted by Boy Genius

Yeah, that's true...considering he wasn't even on the Louisiana ballot. (I'm not sure about other states, but I do remember from La History in 7th grade about the Louisiana ballot.)

[stupid] What about the electoral college? Isn't that the deciding vote anyway? [/stupid]

[BillSPrestonEsq]

Actually cessation was a right decreed in the decleration of independence, unlike the revolution. Thus the USA had a different foundational law than the revelution which was done without a legal precedent.

[BillSPrestonEsq]

Originally Posted by Qingu

I disagree. I think the main issue was slavery; however, the only way the governments on both sides could talk about the issue legally was via states rights. In other words, the states rights debate was the means, not the end.

Slavery was the only issue that the South thought the North was infringing upon their autonomy. The issue is analogous to, say, Brown vs. Board of Education. The issue was plainly segregation; however in order to argue the issue the Court had to talk about it in legal and constitutional terms (which are definitely important on their own, but were secondary in both cases).

That said, I think the states' rights issue was a major rallying cry that the slaveowning aristocracy used to rally up the non-slaveowning Southerners (the vast majority) ... and Unionism was a major rallying cry that the Northern government used to rally up the vast majority of Northerners who could care less about the plight of African slaves.

Qingu, as a descendant of abolitionist confederate circuit riding preachers, I beg to differ. The embargoes had crushed southern economy.

Also if slavery were the issue, why did New York almost suceed? The vast majority of southerners were not slave owners. The North had imported the slaves, sold them, and were now seeking to free them without compensation. (notice historically, that the slave ships were northern, not southern owned)

Thus we are dealing with economic issues more than slavery even within slavery itself. The south was based on a very low tech industry, but if it suceeded, then the South could charge tarifs, and freely export cotton to England. This would enable the south to operate on a truly capitalistic market, instead of having to sell cotton to factories in the North who proceeded to manufacture it into goods which were exported. Thus the North was controlling trade. He who controls trade prospers in world events generally.

That said, if the war were truly about slavery, why did far more free black men fight for the South? (Who incidentally have no memorial yet, seemingly because there existence raises questions on modern history)

Also, why then did the emancipation proclamation only free slaves in another seperate country? Notice it did not free slaves in the USA, and in the neutral states still a part of the union, there was slavery still.

It doesn't truly make sense that there was a moral reason for it, merely economic, with some justification rhetoric in 1864.

[Grasshopper359]

Slavery was the only issue that the South thought the North was infringing upon their autonomy. The issue is analogous to, say, Brown vs. Board of Education. The issue was plainly segregation; however in order to argue the issue the Court had to talk about it in legal and constitutional terms (which are definitely important on their own, but were secondary in both cases).

Maybe Bill knows more about this than I do, so correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that abolition of slavery was the match that set off the powder keg. It maybe about a year and a half ago, there was a thread like this discussing the causes the the Civil War, and if I remember correctly, the Southern States felt that once the Federal government had begun to encroach on their rights, they wouldn't stop; that once they had imposed their will over the slavery issue, they would move on to every other major power that the Consitutioin originally delegated to the State governments until all significant power was centralised in Washington, and the States would be forced to march to Congress' tune on every major issue. Does that seem to ring a bell, or am I thinking of something else?

[ChrisHarbison]

Silly Yankees, don't yall mean "The War of Northern Aggression" (pronounced with a heavy southern accent)?