Did the South have a right to secede?

[Seleucas]

I think the world would have been a lot better off if the CSA had won, since that would have meant that the US would lack a lot of the power it would need to become an imperial superpower. Slavery would almost certainly have been abolished in the South peacefully like most every place save Haiti, and the Northern states would have been free to exercise their own state rights fully and refuse to give any sanction to slavery (if the North had seceded instead of the South like William Lloyd Garrison suggested, the issue probably would have been solved sooner and more peacefully) while the South would have been free to follow its own policy of low tariffs and opposition to other mercantilist policies. Meanwhile, neither the North or the South would be able to behave as a belligerent imperial power, as one would act as a check upon the other and each would have fewer resources to turn to militarism.

And the East coast would've been gobbled up in a few years by the British.

Actually....

I'm curious now; did the British still have ambitions to take back the USA that many decades later? I know Queen Victoria had Confederate sympathies (whether those were sincere or cynical, I do not know), but I know that Prime Minister William Gladstone, for instance, thought highly of parts of the United States (which is ironic, considering that I think he did a lot more good for his country than most US Presidents did for theirs.)

[-St George]

And the East coast would've been gobbled up in a few years by the British.

Actually....

I'm curious now; did the British still have ambitions to take back the USA that many decades later? I know Queen Victoria had Confederate sympathies (whether those were sincere or cynical, I do not know), but I know that Prime Minister William Gladstone, for instance, thought highly of parts of the United States (which is ironic, considering that I think he did a lot more good for his country than most US Presidents did for theirs.)

I think by this time we were resigned for US independence... but a Union thats been wrecked by war, with a potentially friendly CSA to the south? That'd be a tempting prospect.

[AiliailiA]

Say "fuck yeah" and give them some help. Build a moat on their side of the border. Nice and wide, to allow big ships to navigate it.

Just imagine: beaches in Arkansas! Probably too radioactive for swimming, but that would fade after a while.

Good for the North, good for the South. Let's do it!

i wouldnt want to swim in anything in arkansas. even a holiday inn swimming pool. and im the biggest southern patriot in texas. they however, they came up with the most painful store to shop in of all time. Wal-Mart. also, thats just a terrible place to be. idc who you are, i doubt you will enjoy arkansas unless you were born there.

Hmm. Either you didn't get the joke, or you didn't consider separating the South from the North by digging a sea-canal with nuclear bombs sufficiently outrageous to be a joke.

[Sanguinthium]

I think the world would have been a lot better off if the CSA had won, since that would have meant that the US would lack a lot of the power it would need to become an imperial superpower. Slavery would almost certainly have been abolished in the South peacefully like most every place save Haiti, and the Northern states would have been free to exercise their own state rights fully and refuse to give any sanction to slavery (if the North had seceded instead of the South like William Lloyd Garrison suggested, the issue probably would have been solved sooner and more peacefully) while the South would have been free to follow its own policy of low tariffs and opposition to other mercantilist policies. Meanwhile, neither the North or the South would be able to behave as a belligerent imperial power, as one would act as a check upon the other and each would have fewer resources to turn to militarism.

why does nobody else have our good sense?

[Hittanryan]

I think the world would have been a lot better off if the CSA had won, since that would have meant that the US would lack a lot of the power it would need to become an imperial superpower. Slavery would almost certainly have been abolished in the South peacefully like most every place save Haiti, and the Northern states would have been free to exercise their own state rights fully and refuse to give any sanction to slavery (if the North had seceded instead of the South like William Lloyd Garrison suggested, the issue probably would have been solved sooner and more peacefully) while the South would have been free to follow its own policy of low tariffs and opposition to other mercantilist policies. Meanwhile, neither the North or the South would be able to behave as a belligerent imperial power, as one would act as a check upon the other and each would have fewer resources to turn to militarism.

why does nobody else have our good sense?

Natural selection. That is, your idea of good sense has been weeded out aside from a few backwards individuals.

[Wikkiwallana]

At this point, the "Confederate" states are like our obnoxious teenager, who lives with us rent-free while calling us bitches for asking them to take out the trash once in a while. And the kid is 19 at this point. I'm not saying the kid doesn't have some potential under all that assholery, but it's time to kick 'em out and let 'em learn how the real world works. If they want to slag on us all the time and say we're not "real Americans" and sneer at our latte-sipping intellectual librul ways, then they can fucking well pay for their own goddamn stop signs.

we could let them do what Texas did, let them secede one by one and after they are broke and starving and beg to be let back in they can sell most of their land to the federal government to pay off their dept., we should get Texas to start, they had to sell us more than half their land last time, we can break it up into small states afterwards.

But then it gets more votes in the Senate...

[Wikkiwallana]

Where in the laws does it say "they can because I say so"? You're going to need a lot more than just that to declare the discussion over.

if the US had the right to secede from Britain, so the SOuth had from the US too.

We didn't have the "right" to secede from Britain, per se. We made ourselves more trouble to hold on to than they were willing to go to. The South didn't manage that, so it didn't get to stay separate.

[Wikkiwallana]

I believe we did have the right to vote on slavery as individual states and outlaw or allow it as our people pleased. However, we did not have the Constitutional right to succeed.

What gives any government, local, state, or federal, the right to allow humans to be held as property?

[Katganistan]

They could leave if they beat us.

Which they couldn't.

Where does it say that in the Constitution? "Beat us and you get to leave."

Where does it say "You get to leave"?

[Wikkiwallana]

And then I'll gather up a band of counter-revolutionaries and stop the idiocy dead in it's tracks. Like fuck I'm going to live in some theocratic, racist, misogynist hellhole.

hmmm. lets see here; it was not theocratic- racism is based on fact, for example, http://www.news-medical.net/news/2005/04/26/9530.aspx although usually skewed- misogynist jokes are 80% of the time hilarious, and hellhole? its like Ukraine with cotton, and no radiation.

I was talking about what it would be if a second secession happened.

[Offenheim]

if the US had the right to secede from Britain, so the SOuth had from the US too.

We didn't have the "right" to secede from Britain, per se. We made ourselves more trouble to hold on to than they were willing to go to. The South didn't manage that, so it didn't get to stay separate.

I'm with Wikkiwallana here, the US definitely didn't have any legal right to secede, until the Treaty of Paris. In my view, it's a bunch of folks pissed about having to pay taxes for a war they started. And then it completely failed to allow for a true revolution, it just replaced a parliamentary monarchy with a presidential republic, amounting to almost roughly the exact same thing. It's taken 200+ years to get even close to what some wanted in 1776 and we still ain't there yet.

By virtue of being de facto independent, one establishes one's right to be independent. It's like common law marriage. You hold out to the community for long enough that you are married, and eventually, you gain all the rights that entails. Same thing with independence and secession.

[Wikkiwallana]

The idea that southern states need federal tax dollars (when they could just as easily raise their own tax dollars) to survive is a bit of idiocy that needs to die.

You sound retarded when spout such nonsense.

1st. Texas is a Tax Donor.
2nd. The federal aid that causes the red states to by and large be tax leeches are highway funds and farm aid. Who benefits more from highway money ? Kansas or the fact that LA and NYC can ship each other goods. Who benefits more from Farm Aid the farmers or the cities the farmers feed (NYC population density would not be possible if food were any more expensive here) ?
3rd. The classification of of Red vs Blue states comes from "Metro vs Retro" has nothing to do with budgetary policy. Red states were those who swung to GOP presidential Candidates(tie went to blue). So states like Tennessee that voted for Bush were red despite having democratic legislatures and states like Florida that voted 50/50 were blue despite having a Republican legislature.

I should probably keep up with local events more, but living in Tennessee, the legislature isn't all that democratic. That "don't say gay" bill from earlier this year comes to mind.

Just went to the check, the senate is 19-13-1 R-D-I, while the house is 64-34-1.

[Wikkiwallana]

why does nobody else have our good sense?

Natural selection. That is, your idea of good sense has been weeded out aside from a few backwards individuals.

And thank goodness for that.

[Distruzio]

If the money used to purchase the land was not just the southerners money, then it is not just the federal gov'ts money either.

It was all of ours. Your people were fucking thieves, as well as fools, and kidnappers.

My people were the kidnapped.

/notwhite.

[Distruzio]

And? Honestly bud, if you are going to quote pro-slavery rhetoric, it's best not to choose the guy who single-handedly stopped the secession movement in the 1850s and continued to oppose the initiative even after Lincoln won. Stephens was pro-Union. Moreover, you ignore the "cornerstone speech" of Robert Toombs, the man who should have been president:

Did I say that quote had jack shit to do with secession? No, it was about the prospects of black people under the CSA. I don't give a rat's ass about his attempts to stop secession for the context of this discussion, as the topic of this side discussion was what was going on after the secession had already happened.

My point is that you use the words of a man oriented against the very gov't you argue against as though those words somehow support what that gov't stood for. Within the context of the discussion at hand, I find such fuzzy thinking quite pertinent and typical of you. To clarify:

When presenting evidence of a condemning nature, it is best not to use evidence created by a man also opposed to that which you wish to condemn as though that evidence somehow represented the condemned.

Stephens was a Unionist. Therefore, whatever opinions he had about slavery, were Union opinions. Not necessarily Confederate.

[Wikkiwallana]

Did I say that quote had jack shit to do with secession? No, it was about the prospects of black people under the CSA. I don't give a rat's ass about his attempts to stop secession for the context of this discussion, as the topic of this side discussion was what was going on after the secession had already happened.

My point is that you use the words of a man oriented against the very gov't you argue against as though those words somehow support what that gov't stood for. Within the context of the discussion at hand, I find such fuzzy thinking quite pertinent and typical of you. To clarify:

When presenting evidence of a condemning nature, it is best not to use evidence created by a man also opposed to that which you wish to condemn as though that evidence somehow represented the condemned.

Stephens was a Unionist. Therefore, whatever opinions he had about slavery, were Union opinions. Not necessarily Confederate.

People oriented against things very rarely, if ever, take position as those thing's second in command. Since he was speaking from such a position when he made that address, his words are a valid measure of the intent of the Confederacy. People can change their minds over time, why do you seem to have such a hard time grasping this? He may have previously tried to prevent succession, but by becoming Confederate VP, he embraced it in deed, regardless of prior words.

[Xsyne]

I think the world would have been a lot better off if the CSA had won, since that would have meant that the US would lack a lot of the power it would need to become an imperial superpower. Slavery would almost certainly have been abolished in the South peacefully like most every place save Haiti, and the Northern states would have been free to exercise their own state rights fully and refuse to give any sanction to slavery (if the North had seceded instead of the South like William Lloyd Garrison suggested, the issue probably would have been solved sooner and more peacefully) while the South would have been free to follow its own policy of low tariffs and opposition to other mercantilist policies. Meanwhile, neither the North or the South would be able to behave as a belligerent imperial power, as one would act as a check upon the other and each would have fewer resources to turn to militarism.

And in WWII the CSA joins the Axis, giving them access to a vast amount of natural resources and giving them a much better chance at victory. No thanks.

[Seleucas]

I think the world would have been a lot better off if the CSA had won, since that would have meant that the US would lack a lot of the power it would need to become an imperial superpower. Slavery would almost certainly have been abolished in the South peacefully like most every place save Haiti, and the Northern states would have been free to exercise their own state rights fully and refuse to give any sanction to slavery (if the North had seceded instead of the South like William Lloyd Garrison suggested, the issue probably would have been solved sooner and more peacefully) while the South would have been free to follow its own policy of low tariffs and opposition to other mercantilist policies. Meanwhile, neither the North or the South would be able to behave as a belligerent imperial power, as one would act as a check upon the other and each would have fewer resources to turn to militarism.

And in WWII the CSA joins the Axis, giving them access to a vast amount of natural resources and giving them a much better chance at victory. No thanks.

Seriously doubt this. France and England were the Confederacy's biggest supporters, Hitler wanted to centralize Germany by suppressing separatists in Bavaria etc. (i.e., the exact opposite of what the Confederacy was trying to do- Hitler even said he thought Lincoln was his favorite president), and the Confederacy had notable Jewish people in its ranks such as Judah P. Benjamin. Besides, why would the Confederacy even want to get involved in a conflict on the other side of the pond?

[Distruzio]

People oriented against things very rarely, if ever, take position as those thing's second in command. Since he was speaking from such a position when he made that address, his words are a valid measure of the intent of the Confederacy. People can change their minds over time, why do you seem to have such a hard time grasping this? He may have previously tried to prevent succession, but by becoming Confederate VP, he embraced it in deed, regardless of prior words.

1. it's spelled secession.

2.Stephens was ever a Unionist, and ever a lover of his state, Georgia. He, along with Toombs and Davis, was involved with the secession movement as early as 1850. Toombs and Stephens were great friends, and ardent opponents. Toombs was with Davis against the Union and for secession. Stephens was too articulate, too popular, and too well connected to defeat throughout the 50s. He singlehandedly defeated the secessionist movement pre-1861.

He never once changed his mind. Never once swayed in his belief that the South, and slavery, was better off within the Union. Never. He was given the VP position in order to quiet the pro-Unionists in Georgia, Tennessee, and North Carolina. Why can't you grasp that the war was a little more complicated than:

Slavery evil. Slavery in South. Therefore South evil. War evil. War to end evil is good.

[Risottia]

Simple really. Did the Confederacy have the right to secede from the Union? Were the states simply exercising their rights, or were they going against the honoured Constitution

States have no rights. Only human people have rights per se. What we usually call a "right of a state/country" are actually prerogatives originating from the rights and the free will of the inhabitants.
That said, at a theorical level, the principle of political self-determination is valid, as it originates from the positive right of human people to have a say in their government. Hence, the inhabitants of the southern US had the theorical right to secede and form a government of their own choice.
At a practical level, though, it was just a minority of the inhabitants that chose to do so, and they simultaneously chose to exclude by law a significant part of the inhabitants, at the same time denying them the basical human right to freedom and to be treated equally by the law. Hence, their secession was totally invalid as long as "rights" are concerned.

[Wikkiwallana]

People oriented against things very rarely, if ever, take position as those thing's second in command. Since he was speaking from such a position when he made that address, his words are a valid measure of the intent of the Confederacy. People can change their minds over time, why do you seem to have such a hard time grasping this? He may have previously tried to prevent succession, but by becoming Confederate VP, he embraced it in deed, regardless of prior words.

1. it's spelled secession.

2.Stephens was ever a Unionist, and ever a lover of his state, Georgia. He, along with Toombs and Davis, was involved with the secession movement as early as 1850. Toombs and Stephens were great friends, and ardent opponents. Toombs was with Davis against the Union and for secession. Stephens was too articulate, too popular, and too well connected to defeat throughout the 50s. He singlehandedly defeated the secessionist movement pre-1861.

He never once changed his mind. Never once swayed in his belief that the South, and slavery, was better off within the Union. Never. He was given the VP position in order to quiet the pro-Unionists in Georgia, Tennessee, and North Carolina. Why can't you grasp that the war was a little more complicated than:

Slavery evil. Slavery in South. Therefore South evil. War evil. War to end evil is good.

Heaven forbid I make a few typos in 6000+ posts. I've spelled it right 95% of the times I've typed it, so if you're needing to resort to that you must really be running out of arguments.

If he genuinely was so pro-union, then the honorable thing to do would have been to decline the freaking position. Since he accepted it, he was therefore qualified to speak on behalf of the Confederacy about its nature, and speak he did. What he may have said or done in his past doesn't change what he did at that point in time.

Get.
Over.
It.

[Wikkiwallana]

Simple really. Did the Confederacy have the right to secede from the Union? Were the states simply exercising their rights, or were they going against the honoured Constitution

States have no rights. Only human people have rights per se. What we usually call a "right of a state/country" are actually prerogatives originating from the rights and the free will of the inhabitants.
That said, at a theorical level, the principle of political self-determination is valid, as it originates from the positive right of human people to have a say in their government. Hence, the inhabitants of the southern US had the theorical right to secede and form a government of their own choice.
At a practical level, though, it was just a minority of the inhabitants that chose to do so, and they simultaneously chose to exclude by law a significant part of the inhabitants, at the same time denying them the basical human right to freedom and to be treated equally by the law. Hence, their secession was totally invalid as long as "rights" are concerned.

This pony speaks truth.

[Distruzio]

Heaven forbid I make a few typos in 6000+ posts. I've spelled it right 95% of the times I've typed it, so if you're needing to resort to that you must really be running out of arguments.

If he genuinely was so pro-union, then the honorable thing to do would have been to decline the freaking position. Since he accepted it, he was therefore qualified to speak on behalf of the Confederacy about its nature, and speak he did. What he may have said or done in his past doesn't change what he did at that point in time.

Get.
Over.
It.

Sorry, but I thought your autism required you to be spot on at all times? Aside from that, it was not a combative attack. In other words, calm down. This isn't a war we're engaged in here. It's a discussion.

---

I wouldn't dare speak on the mans honor, since he was willing to put aside his unionism for the sake of country (Georgia) and nation (the Confederacy). Since he was not involved in the creation of the Confederacy, I'd hasten to add that his ability to represent it's views appropriately, especially given the context provided by the Cornerstone Speech delivered by Secretary of State Robert Toombs (who was intimately involved with the creation of the Confederacy and the presence of Georgia within it), is rather.... questionable. Stephens was a man who spoke for Georgia and Georgia alone at the time of his inauguration in the Confederate gov't. He was viewed with a mixture of distrust and hatred. Were it not for his friendship with Toombs, he would likely have been exiled or killed for his Unionist views. My point is that this topic is too complicated for the one size fits all morality that you and others are hell bent on painting. I cannot get over it, b/c you are incorrect.

This pony speaks truth.

Indeed he does.

[Anthoniland]

Secession is really just the easy way out and in the end can cause more problems that it "solves". I think that if a state becomes disenfranchised with the way the country is being runned then they should just put forth some effort in trying to change the way things are being run in the country and solve them diplomatically.

[Distruzio]

Secession is really just the easy way out and in the end can cause more problems that it "solves". I think that if a state becomes disenfranchised with the way the country is being runned then they should just put forth some effort in trying to change the way things are being run in the country and solve them diplomatically.

When two men are about to come to blows, it is best that they separate.