Did the South have a right to secede?

[Farnhamia]

By god given right I meant that they automatically had the right. Birth-right, if you will. All people have the right to be free, do they not? Or if they don't, do you not agree they should?

Certainly but the people of the South were hardly being oppressed. As my opponent noted earlier, very few Southerners owned slaves. The only people who were being "oppressed" were a small minority, but they dragged their countrymen into a bloody way and got hundreds of thousands of them killed, the land devastated and you know what then? Those leaders resumed their "god-given" positions in society and made the South a blot on the face of the nation for another hundred years. Don't talk to me about "freedom." Those people suffered a political defeat and started a war over it.

[Desori]

By god given right I meant that they automatically had the right. Birth-right, if you will. All people have the right to be free, do they not? Or if they don't, do you not agree they should?

Agreed, but freedom to oppress others? That isn't a given right.

That's not what I'm suggesting. I'm simply suggesting that the right to secede being given one and and a monitoring and punishment system for human rights abuses in all countries, instead of just a subjective measuring of whether a country is justified in seceding.

[Dusk_Kittens]

Ah, yes, hide the bit that shows your previous contention is false in a spoiler. How about an admission that you were in error?

The Morill Tariff was approved in February of 1861, and became law on 2 March of the same year. South Carolina's Declaration of Secession is dated 26 April 1861. Yes, some states (including SC) had seceded, de facto, prior to the first de jure declaration of secession, but it was only after the Morill Tariff became law that secession was de jure.

One of the great complaints against Republicans has always been that they favor big business, and this was as true in 1860 as it is today. One has but to consult the legislative record of the first term of Republicans in the House of Representatives and the House of the Senate to see this. One of those policies favoring big business was, and is, high tariffs. This would benefit the industrialized North and harm the agrarian South because it meant that the South could not import less expensive goods from abroad without having to pay tariff fees which made those imported goods even more expensive than the same goods if bought from the North. With Republicans having overwhelmingly won the Northern seats in both Houses of Congress, the subsequent activity of the legislature was already capable of prediction.

Rather than waste the next six years in congressional debates over the Republican agenda (of which only a small part concerned the Abolition of Slavery), the South opted to go their own way. But the North would not have this; not content with making laws for themselves, they pursued a course of imperialism in order to impose their legal agenda on the South as well.

As for the post by Alien Space Bats, y'all continually hold this up as if it settles once and for all any question of what the war were about and whether or not the South were legally justified in seceding, but y'all never seem to make mention of the fact that The Southron Nation answered that post thoroughly, and that ASB never posted a rejoinder.

Further, in his post, ASB disingenuously quotes Article XIII of the Articles of Confederation, emphasizing the bit about perpetual union while glossing over the requirement, also in Article XIII, of unanimity in order to alter the Articles (much less do away with them and replace them with a Constitution), and omits any reference to Article II of the Articles of Confederation, which affirms the "sovereignty, freedom, and independence" of each state.

Moreover, in his attempts to show that the Confederacy did not allow the repeal of slavery, he has glossed over the fact that the said provision in the Constitution of the CSA applied only to the Confederate Congress, and not the the individual States of the Confederacy themselves (which is entirely consistent with a confederate ideal of government, that the confederate government cannot do things which the states that make up the confederacy can do individually. Indeed, he states as much by quoting the Confederate Constitution, while in the same breath denying that the individual states within the Confederacy could do so. Virginia made the importation of slaves from outside the United States illegal in 1778. That law was still the law of Virginia under the Confederacy.

In addition, he wholly ignores the Morill Tariff, as if it never happened, even going so far as to claim:

But on the contrary, "the last attempt to impose a protectionist tariff on the country" was indeed in 1860, in the form of the Morill Tariff.

What a tapestry of lies, half-truths, and "sheer bullshit" (his own term) he wove in that post which y'all so stubbornly hold up as "the final word" on these questions, all the while y'all completely ignore the fact that his post was answered and refuted, and that he never returned to the thread to reply.

In error? No, I don't think so. I just didn't feel like dealing with the Neo-Confederate sludge you posted, but simply to point out that the Morrill Tariffs were not enacted prior to secession. The Senate was firmly in the hands of the Democrats and I doubt they would ever have been enacted, at least not without some concessions to the South. The US up to 1860 was run on a system, a game, if you will. The South decided they didn't like the way the game was going and like petulant children, tried to stalk off in a huff. The thing is, a nation isn't a group of children playing together. And given that the coming innings would probably have given them the game, trying to leave was the stupidest thing they could have done.

But you won't change your mind no matter what I say, so let's not waste each other's time, shall we?

Yes, in error. It's not "Neo-Confederate sludge" or any other sort of "Neo-Confederate" anything. It's historical fact. The problem is that you see the word "slave" and immediately become blind to anything else. The cause for the secession was SC's desire to secede on any grounds possible, and the grounds they used were the plainly obvious fact that certain non-slaveholding states WERE VIOLATING THE CONSTITUTION. That slavery was involved in HOW THEY WERE VIOLATING THE CONSTITUTION is a non-issue, except to those who still want to pretend that the North was on the moral high ground (right, and who made the profits from the slave trade? Oh, that's right, THE NORTH!).

And no, I won't change my mind, because I know the history, whereas you apparently know only the propaganda and are incapable of seeing beyond it to the historical verities.

[Revolutopia]

, except to those who still want to pretend that the North was on the moral high ground (right, and who made the profits from the slave trade? Oh, that's right, THE NORTH!).

The American Slave Trade ended in 1807, the Civil War started in 1861 that 54 years I highly doubted the North was benfiting from the slave trade more then the South did from slavery.

[Dusk_Kittens]

Ah, yes, hide the bit that shows your previous contention is false in a spoiler. How about an admission that you were in error?

The Morill Tariff was approved in February of 1861, and became law on 2 March of the same year. South Carolina's Declaration of Secession is dated 26 April 1861. Yes, some states (including SC) had seceded, de facto, prior to the first de jure declaration of secession, but it was only after the Morill Tariff became law that secession was de jure.

One of the great complaints against Republicans has always been that they favor big business, and this was as true in 1860 as it is today. One has but to consult the legislative record of the first term of Republicans in the House of Representatives and the House of the Senate to see this. One of those policies favoring big business was, and is, high tariffs. This would benefit the industrialized North and harm the agrarian South because it meant that the South could not import less expensive goods from abroad without having to pay tariff fees which made those imported goods even more expensive than the same goods if bought from the North. With Republicans having overwhelmingly won the Northern seats in both Houses of Congress, the subsequent activity of the legislature was already capable of prediction.

Rather than waste the next six years in congressional debates over the Republican agenda (of which only a small part concerned the Abolition of Slavery), the South opted to go their own way. But the North would not have this; not content with making laws for themselves, they pursued a course of imperialism in order to impose their legal agenda on the South as well.

As for the post by Alien Space Bats, y'all continually hold this up as if it settles once and for all any question of what the war were about and whether or not the South were legally justified in seceding, but y'all never seem to make mention of the fact that The Southron Nation answered that post thoroughly, and that ASB never posted a rejoinder.

Further, in his post, ASB disingenuously quotes Article XIII of the Articles of Confederation, emphasizing the bit about perpetual union while glossing over the requirement, also in Article XIII, of unanimity in order to alter the Articles (much less do away with them and replace them with a Constitution), and omits any reference to Article II of the Articles of Confederation, which affirms the "sovereignty, freedom, and independence" of each state.

Moreover, in his attempts to show that the Confederacy did not allow the repeal of slavery, he has glossed over the fact that the said provision in the Constitution of the CSA applied only to the Confederate Congress, and not the the individual States of the Confederacy themselves (which is entirely consistent with a confederate ideal of government, that the confederate government cannot do things which the states that make up the confederacy can do individually. Indeed, he states as much by quoting the Confederate Constitution, while in the same breath denying that the individual states within the Confederacy could do so. Virginia made the importation of slaves from outside the United States illegal in 1778. That law was still the law of Virginia under the Confederacy.

In addition, he wholly ignores the Morill Tariff, as if it never happened, even going so far as to claim:

But on the contrary, "the last attempt to impose a protectionist tariff on the country" was indeed in 1860, in the form of the Morill Tariff.

What a tapestry of lies, half-truths, and "sheer bullshit" (his own term) he wove in that post which y'all so stubbornly hold up as "the final word" on these questions, all the while y'all completely ignore the fact that his post was answered and refuted, and that he never returned to the thread to reply.

Unilateral secession was and is totally and utterly illegal. Seizing federal property is theft. Opening fire on federal troops is a declaration of war.

The right to secede is entirely legal (even if the Constitution were not an illicit document), and the federal government is illegitimate.

And whats more, for nearly all of the 30 years before the outbreak of hostilities, Southerners and their sympathizers controlled the Senate (all of the time), the House (most of the time) and the Supreme Court (all of the time). And as long as able to effectively dominate the agenda, they pushed through measure after measure which benefitted them and tried to get away with a heckuva lot more. Attemps were already underway in lower courts to get a case up to the supreme court where they might get antislavery laws in the north ruled unconstitutional. Reading about it, I'll never understand why they felt the need to 'secede' not too long before the first such case was expected in the SCOTUS. Is there a lot of doubt, that Taney's southern controlled/friendly court, which came up with 'Dred Scott' (quite possibly the most vile court ruling ever produced) would indeed have done so?

Speaking of encroaching on states' rights, and persistent southern meddling with northern states affairs:

H.B. Adams: Between the slave power and states' rights there was no necessary connection. The slave power, when in control, was a centralizing influence, and all the most considerable encroachments on states' rights were its acts. The acquisition and admission of Louisiana; the Embargo; the War of 1812; the annexation of Texas "by joint resolution" [rather than treaty]; the war with Mexico, declared by the mere announcement of President Polk; the Fugitive Slave Law; the Dred Scott decision — all triumphs of the slave power — did far more than either tariffs or internal improvements, which in their origin were also southern measures, to destroy the very memory of states' rights as they existed in 1789. Whenever a question arose of extending or protecting slavery, the slaveholders became friends of centralized power, and used that dangerous weapon with a kind of frenzy. Slavery in fact required centralization in order to maintain and protect itself, but it required to control the centralized machine; it needed despotic principles of government, but it needed them exclusively for its own use. Thus, in truth, states' rights were the protection of the free states, and as a matter of fact, during the domination of the slave power, Massachusetts appealed to this protecting principle as often and almost as loudly as South Carolina.

And as soon as they lost control of the federal machinery... hissy fit they threw. You see, its no problem that they tell you that you cannot have antislavery laws, but doncha go and turn around and tell them they shouldn't have slavery... its their 'states right' to force it upon your state, doncha know?

The right side won.

We hear this business about how powerful the Southern States were in the federal government over and over again, and always in connection with the idea of slavery (as if the entire South were made up of slaveholders and as if there were no other concerns involved, which is simply another instance of Petitio Principii), but at least you have admitted that you will "never understand why they felt the need to 'secede' not too long before the first such case was expected in the SCOTUS." Maybe, just maybe, there were other issues than slavery involved. Would you now care to look for them, instead of puzzling over why the South decided to secede allegedly "over the issue of slavery"?

[Dusk_Kittens]

Did it have the right? No

Should it have had the right? Yes. All citizens, states, etc. etc. should have the freedom to choose where they reside. So long as the individual owns the land, and is prepared to completely support themselves, entering into a social contract that is citizenship should be a choice, not an obligation.

The same could be said for the forced labor of slaves in the south.

Completely astounding.

The "Civil War" was NOT about slavery, not for EITHER side. Have none of you ever taken a course in US History at the university level?

[Brewdomia]

The same could be said for the forced labor of slaves in the south.

Completely astounding.

The "Civil War" was NOT about slavery, not for EITHER side. Have none of you ever taken a course in US History at the university level?

I think the better question here is have you?

[Dusk_Kittens]

And given that the Confederate army slaughtered Union troops that had surrendered simply because they were black, I'm not going to shed a tear for them.

Citation needed. I'm not denying it happened; I simply don't recall hearing of this. You do realize that there were blacks who fought for the Confederacy (free blacks, btw), don't you?

But even if that's true, isn't that a case of Tu quoque? Sherman's march to the sea would have been considered a series of war crimes if it had been done 80 years later, and that was no isolated incident. Unfortunately, taking one side in any given war and claiming that they were "the good guys" is usually ill-advised, because atrocities are seldom limited to one side.

[Keronians]

The same could be said for the forced labor of slaves in the south.

Completely astounding.

The "Civil War" was NOT about slavery, not for EITHER side. Have none of you ever taken a course in US History at the university level?

For the southern states it certainly was an important factor.

[Laissez-Faire]

By god given right I meant that they automatically had the right. Birth-right, if you will. All people have the right to be free, do they not? Or if they don't, do you not agree they should?

Certainly but the people of the South were hardly being oppressed. As my opponent noted earlier, very few Southerners owned slaves. The only people who were being "oppressed" were a small minority, but they dragged their countrymen into a bloody way and got hundreds of thousands of them killed, the land devastated and you know what then? Those leaders resumed their "god-given" positions in society and made the South a blot on the face of the nation for another hundred years. Don't talk to me about "freedom." Those people suffered a political defeat and started a war over it.

It wasn't simply slavery that was the issue to affect the few at the top of the ladder; economic effects would have been felt in most places of the Southern economy. It was also a general lack of faith in a "gap" between the south and the federal government. So saying that only a small minority were justified in any way for starting war and the larger group was not is false.

[Brewdomia]

And given that the Confederate army slaughtered Union troops that had surrendered simply because they were black, I'm not going to shed a tear for them.

Citation needed. I'm not denying it happened; I simply don't recall hearing of this. You do realize that there were blacks who fought for the Confederacy (free blacks, btw), don't you?

But even if that's true, isn't that a case of Tu quoque? Sherman's march to the sea would have been considered a series of war crimes if it had been done 80 years later, and that was no isolated incident. Unfortunately, taking one side in any given war and claiming that they were "the good guys" is usually ill-advised, because atrocities are seldom limited to one side.

Blacks in the Confederate Army were conscripted at the late stages of the war to stave of the inevitable defeat of the South, otherwise, they were kept on the plantation.

Sherman's march to the sea was property damage and destroying southern infrastructure. I don't recall that being a war crime...

[Anti-Obamaland]

Slavery was only a side issue. The issues of leaving the union revolved around state's rights. I can see what side of the War of Northern Aggression you fall on...

The only right the Confederacy was fighting for was the right to own humans as property. The South Carolina declaration mentions nothing else as vehemently as slavery.

They had the right to try to secede. They failed.

Slavery was the economic system that made the South. To just eliminate it meant to eliminate whatever wealth existed in this region of the nation. How would you feel if someone was taking your way of life from you and your way of supporting your family. Contrary to popular belief, most slaves, who cost a lot of money to have, were treated very well by their owners. TV series like ROOTS in the 1970s promulgated the idea that every master of a plantation was whipping the hell out of his slaves when it was far from the truth. Did poor treatment exist? Sure, but it was few and far between. Why would you beat the hell out of something you had paid for in cold hard cash? Do you go out and beat the hell out of a new car that you buy? No.

Had the North proposed ways to let the South move into a more industrial style of economic engine, it might have never come to war. The constant fighting over new states into the union also aggravated the situation. Again, you cannot take someone's livelihood from them without some pushback and not offer an alternative.

[Revolutopia]

The only right the Confederacy was fighting for was the right to own humans as property. The South Carolina declaration mentions nothing else as vehemently as slavery.

They had the right to try to secede. They failed.

Slavery was the economic system that made the South. To just eliminate it meant to eliminate whatever wealth existed in this region of the nation. How would you feel if someone was taking your way of life from you and your way of supporting your family. Contrary to popular belief, most slaves, who cost a lot of money to have, were treated very well by their owners. TV series like ROOTS in the 1970s promulgated the idea that every master of a plantation was whipping the hell out of his slaves when it was far from the truth. Did poor treatment exist? Sure, but it was few and far between. Why would you beat the hell out of something you had paid for in cold hard cash? Do you go out and beat the hell out of a new car that you buy? No.

Had the North proposed ways to let the South move into a more industrial style of economic engine, it might have never come to war. The constant fighting over new states into the union also aggravated the situation. Again, you cannot take someone's livelihood from them without some pushback and not offer an alternative.

Well, I guess if you treat people decently some of time that must mean it is perfectly okay to own them and deny them all basic rights. The North was no way threatening the Southern slave system, at least no more then the South was threatening their free system.

[Laissez-Faire]

Slavery was the economic system that made the South. To just eliminate it meant to eliminate whatever wealth existed in this region of the nation. How would you feel if someone was taking your way of life from you and your way of supporting your family. Contrary to popular belief, most slaves, who cost a lot of money to have, were treated very well by their owners. TV series like ROOTS in the 1970s promulgated the idea that every master of a plantation was whipping the hell out of his slaves when it was far from the truth. Did poor treatment exist? Sure, but it was few and far between. Why would you beat the hell out of something you had paid for in cold hard cash? Do you go out and beat the hell out of a new car that you buy? No.

Had the North proposed ways to let the South move into a more industrial style of economic engine, it might have never come to war. The constant fighting over new states into the union also aggravated the situation. Again, you cannot take someone's livelihood from them without some pushback and not offer an alternative.

Well, I guess if you treat people decently some of time that must mean it is perfectly okay to own them and deny them all basic rights. The North was no way threatening the Southern slave system, at least no more then the South was threatening their free system.

Well, I guess we can just ignore the Tariff of 1828 then?

[The UK in Exile]

And given that the Confederate army slaughtered Union troops that had surrendered simply because they were black, I'm not going to shed a tear for them.

Citation needed. I'm not denying it happened; I simply don't recall hearing of this. You do realize that there were blacks who fought for the Confederacy (free blacks, btw), don't you?

But even if that's true, isn't that a case of Tu quoque? Sherman's march to the sea would have been considered a series of war crimes if it had been done 80 years later, and that was no isolated incident. Unfortunately, taking one side in any given war and claiming that they were "the good guys" is usually ill-advised, because atrocities are seldom limited to one side.

not technically true, a number of free blacks fought for their states(and a number where barred from doing so), the CSA didn't authorise black soldiers late in war. it also treated all captured black soldiers as slaves, one of the reasons prisoner exchanges broke down.

[Xsyne]

And given that the Confederate army slaughtered Union troops that had surrendered simply because they were black, I'm not going to shed a tear for them.

Citation needed. I'm not denying it happened; I simply don't recall hearing of this. You do realize that there were blacks who fought for the Confederacy (free blacks, btw), don't you?

But even if that's true, isn't that a case of Tu quoque? Sherman's march to the sea would have been considered a series of war crimes if it had been done 80 years later, and that was no isolated incident. Unfortunately, taking one side in any given war and claiming that they were "the good guys" is usually ill-advised, because atrocities are seldom limited to one side.

That would be the Fort Pillow Massacre. There were some other instances, but Lincoln ended up declaring that he'd execute a Confederate POW for every Union POW executed, and that pretty much brought a stop to it.

And no, it's not a case of tu quoque.

[Brewdomia]

Well, I guess if you treat people decently some of time that must mean it is perfectly okay to own them and deny them all basic rights. The North was no way threatening the Southern slave system, at least no more then the South was threatening their free system.

Well, I guess we can just ignore the Tariff of 1828 then?

The Tariff of 1828 was nothing compared to Bleeding Kansas or the Kansas-Nebraska Act in terms of what led to the civil war.

[Laissez-Faire]

Well, I guess we can just ignore the Tariff of 1828 then?

The Tariff of 1828 was nothing compared to Bleeding Kansas or the Kansas-Nebraska Act in terms of what led to the civil war.

Perhaps , but the Tariff more directly relates to the economy.

[Revolutopia]

Well, I guess if you treat people decently some of time that must mean it is perfectly okay to own them and deny them all basic rights. The North was no way threatening the Southern slave system, at least no more then the South was threatening their free system.

Well, I guess we can just ignore the Tariff of 1828 then?

Being forced to pay a tax is not the destruction of slavery or ones economic system, so yes.

[Xsyne]

Well, I guess if you treat people decently some of time that must mean it is perfectly okay to own them and deny them all basic rights. The North was no way threatening the Southern slave system, at least no more then the South was threatening their free system.

Well, I guess we can just ignore the Tariff of 1828 then?

The one that was long gone by the time of the Civil War?

Oh, fun fact: The South came up with the Tariff of 1828. They thought Northern congressmen wouldn't vote on a tariff that affected imports the North depended on. They were wrong.

[Laissez-Faire]

Well, I guess we can just ignore the Tariff of 1828 then?

Being forced to pay a tax...economic system, so yes.

If your economy depends on trade, it can certainly impact it when the Federal government is trying to protect Northern industry. See it in the eyes of Southern businessmen.

[Brewdomia]

The Tariff of 1828 was nothing compared to Bleeding Kansas or the Kansas-Nebraska Act in terms of what led to the civil war.

Perhaps , but the Tariff more directly relates to the economy.

The only important economic issue was westward expansion of slavery to be honest.

[Laissez-Faire]

Perhaps , but the Tariff more directly relates to the economy.

The only important economic issue was westward expansion of slavery to be honest.

If you still have economic uncertainty, it does not bode well for businesses even in the nineteenth century. I agree, but you cannot ignore the Tariff as a role and the economic and political gaps as a factor, if not the main factor, in the Civil War and the reasons for Southern secession.

[Revolutopia]

The only important economic issue was westward expansion of slavery to be honest.

If you still have economic uncertainty, it does not bode well for businesses even in the nineteenth century. I agree, but you cannot ignore the Tariff as a role and the economic and political gaps as a factor, if not the main factor, in the Civil War and the reasons for Southern secession.

Tariffs were at their lowest point in decades before the Civil War, and with continued Southern equality in the Senate it would be practically impossible for any substantial increase in tariffs. Nor did the vast majority of Southern Secession charters even mention the issue, it really only became popular during the rise of the Lost Cause propaganda period of history.

[Dusk_Kittens]

What the South did was a blatant act of treason. The Civil War was over the issue of slavery, which is morally wrong and could not be allowed to continue to exist in America. Any discussion of "State's Rights" is irrelevant when those "rights" are being used to oppress an entire race

The War was not about slavery. Slavery was used as an excuse by politicians on both sides, but it was never the actual issue, except for a very small minority on either side (the 6% of slaveholders in the South, plus a few sympathizers, and the abolitionists in the North -- and lest you think that all Union soldiers were abolitionists who volunteered for duty, you might want to review the record of Irish immigrants to the North during that period, who were immediately pressed into service regardless of their beliefs -- gee, Wally, that sounds like slavery to me). When you have a population of which 94% does not "own" so much as a single slave, why would members of that population enlist in order to fight, if the war for their side is undertaken in order "to preserve slavery"?

I have shown several times that the primary issue was one of Political Philosophy, namely, the same old "Federalist vs. Anti-Federalist" issue that had never been settled to everyone's satisfaction. There were still "Anti-Federalists" in both the North and the South (although more in the South). "Anti-Federalist" means "Confederate." "Confederate" means "preferring a decentralized governmental system," exactly as the US had for the first decade of its existence under the Articles of Confederation. If the War's motives were so simplistic as to number one and only one, then THIS was that one.

But in fact, there were more motives than one. There was also the fact -- notice the word FACT -- that non-slaveholding states were SUBVERTING THE CONSTITUTION. I can scream this from the highest rooftop, and y'all act as if that fact does not itself constitute treason, or at least (as South Carolina maintained) a nullification of the Constitution for all parties thereto (and then appeal to flawed Supreme Court decisions, the same old tired and already refuted forum post, and obviously biased pro-Federalist propaganda). You can plug your ears all you want; you can pretend this isn't truth, but if you have the least trace of intellectual honesty, you are bound to admit that the Constitution was being violated by non-slaveholding states (regardless of whether or not you agree with me that persons of conscience were ethically obligated to ignore, disregard, flaunt, and disobey Article IV, Section 2, paragraph 3 of the Constitution and were furthermore ethically obligated to seek an end to slavery). Regardless of the hokum of the not-quite-infallible Supreme Court, claims of pro-Federalist politicians, and so on, you must also, if you have a trace of intellectual honesty, admit that the South had by this just cause to fear that these acts set a dangerous precedent, in that they portended that any state might disregard the Constitution on any number of particulars, whenever it struck that state's fancy, and that the Federal government might not always intervene in order to enforce the Constitution. Even so, the Anti-Federalist South was very uncomfortable with a central government strong enough to enforce the Constitution and its own Federal Laws (such as was seen during the Nullification Crisis).

Another motivation was the coming to power of the Republican Party in the Federal government, a Party which has always espoused the cause of big business and the wealthy and opposed any efforts to alleviate the plight of the oppressed poor (and in this case, were favoring the corporations of the industrialized North over the rural and agrarian South). In case y'all missed the memo, the majority of people in both the North and the South were not financially well off enough to benefit from the policies of the Republican Party (hey, that's still true today).

Another motivation was the terrorist scare in connection with the Abolitionists (a very real threat, or do none of you know aught of "Bleeding Kansas" and John Brown?); those fundamentalist types do have a tendency, even now (I'm sure nobody here is unfamiliar with the bombing of abortion clinics, the assassination of doctors who provide abortions, violence against homosexuals, etc), to engage in terrorism in an effort to further their agenda (and they excuse the act by focusing on the hoped-for consequences).

And yes, for some, a small minority on each side, the war involved the question of slavery. The vast majority of those involved in the war, regardless of which side they were on (and this also includes the politicians of both sides, who themselves did not, of course, take part in any of the fighting, because, well, they're "War Pigs" and don't actually fight, but love sending other people out to kill and die), supported the war for reasons other than slavery.


Like most of my fellow native-born American citizens, I was exposed throughout elementary school to the same assertion, over and over again, that the "Civil War" was fought over the question of slavery, in both US History classes and World History classes. In junior high, we didn't have any US History or World History course (we had our one and only public school course on the history of our particular state in 8th grade). The first time I was ever exposed to the idea that there might have been other factors involved in the "Civil War" was my junior year in high school (11th grade, for those not familiar with the American system), but "slavery" was still pushed as a motivating factor; it just was no longer said to be the only motivating factor. I took both American Civ (a general education course, that is, a required course) and 2 semesters of US History in university (American Civ at one school, and US History at another school in the same town, due to scheduling conflicts). In both American Civ and the two semesters of US History, we were, for the first time for most of us, exposed to the actual causes of the war, and slavery was not among them. So, yeah, Brewdomia, I certainly have, and no, it wasn't, as some would-be critics here in the past wanted to claim, in the 1950s. My undergrad years were in the 1980s. Nor were our textbooks published by the Sons of Confederate Veterans or whatever.

I will state again, since so many of you seem to assume otherwise, I'm not espousing or defending slavery or racism. I'm espousing confederation and defending the South against federalist propaganda (which is over 100 years old and if we are ever to see the wounds in the national psyche heal, then the federal government needs to come clean and say "Okay, yeah, it wasn't actually about slavery after all; we've been lying to you all for lo this past century and a half, in order to cover our asses and shore up our centralized governmental power." -- the likelihood of that much honesty on their part is extremely slim, but they might eventually admit that the war wasn't actually primarily motivated for either side by the question of slavery). You will want to do further research into these matters, if you hope to contend with me. If all you've got is your elementary and high school propaganda, don't waste my time or yours.