What would you change about history?

[Redsection]

Make sure nixon never got impeached.

[Salus Maior]

Oh, you mean how they denied an offer to rejoin the Union with slavery when they were on their last legs, while simultaneously sending a diplomat to Europe to offer the emancipation of Confederate slaves in exchange for European aid

Capitalism has a long track record of success, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Estonia, Mauritius, Bostwana, the list goes on, while non free-market economic principals have been very unsuccessful, or less successful than free-market capitalism.

Yeah, when they were on the verge of being defeated and had no hope of victory. Doesn't change what the Confederacy was founded for and fought for. And in your Confederate victory scenario, they would have no reason to rescind Slavery, and according to their own constitution, COULD NOT repeal Slavery anywhere in their territories or states.

By wishing for a Confederate victory, you are wishing for slavery to continue to survive in the U.S for longer than it did. Make of that what you wish.

Not to mention, the Confederates shot first. "War of Northern Aggression" indeed.

If you want to debate me on this, you might want to read through this first:

The Cornerstone Speech by Confederate Vice-President, with the following passages being the most relevant:

The new Constitution has put at rest forever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institutions—African slavery as it exists among us—the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson, in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split." He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old Constitution were, that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with; but the general opinion of the men of that day was, that, somehow or other, in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away... Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the idea of a Government built upon it—when the "storm came and the wind blew, it fell."



Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and moral condition.



. . . look with confidence to the ultimate universal acknowledgement of the truths upon which our system rests? It is the first government ever instituted upon the principles in strict conformity to nature, and the ordination of Providence, in furnishing the materials of human society. Many governments have been founded upon the principle of the subordination and serfdom of certain classes of the same race; such were and are in violation of the laws of nature. Our system commits no such violation of nature's laws.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornerstone_Speech

Full text of speech:  http://www.ucs.louisiana.edu/~ras2777/a ... phens.html

Mississippi's Articles Of Secession:



Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin."
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_missec.asp

Georgia's Articles Of Secession:



"The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery. They have endeavored to weaken our security, to disturb our domestic peace and tranquility, and persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property, and by the use of their power in the Federal Government have striven to deprive us of an equal enjoyment of the common Territories of the Republic. This hostile policy of our confederates has been pursued with every circumstance of aggravation which could arouse the passions and excite the hatred of our people, and has placed the two sections of the Union for many years past in the condition of virtual civil war. Our people, still attached to the Union from habit and national traditions, and averse to change, hoped that time, reason, and argument would bring, if not redress, at least exemption from further insults, injuries, and dangers. Recent events have fully dissipated all such hopes and demonstrated the necessity of separation. Our Northern confederates, after a full and calm hearing of all the facts, after a fair warning of our purpose not to submit to the rule of the authors of all these wrongs and injuries, have by a large majority committed the Government of the United States into their hands. The people of Georgia, after an equally full and fair and deliberate hearing of the case, have declared with equal firmness that they shall not rule over them. A brief history of the rise, progress, and policy of anti-slavery and the political organization into whose hands the administration of the Federal Government has been committed will fully justify the pronounced verdict of the people of Georgia."
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_geosec.asp

South Carolina's Articles Of Secession:


"We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection."
It should be noted that in this particular document, South Carolina actually comes out against the rights of individual states, stating their grievances against certain northern states for passing laws that essentially nullified the Fugitive Slave Act within their own borders.


The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution. The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia. Thus the constituted compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation.


http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_scarsec.asp

Texas Articles Of Secession:


"The government of the United States, by certain joint resolutions, bearing date the 1st day of March, in the year A.D. 1845, proposed to the Republic of Texas, then a free, sovereign and independent nation, the annexation of the latter to the former, as one of the co-equal states thereof. The people of Texas, by deputies in convention assembled, on the fourth day of July of the same year, assented to and accepted said proposals and formed a constitution for the proposed State, upon which on the 29th day of December in the same year, said State was formally admitted into the Confederated Union. Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one of the Confederated Union to promote her welfare, insure domestic tranquility and secure more substantially the blessings of peace and liberty to her people. She was received into the confederacy with her own constitution, under the guarantee of the federal constitution and the compact of annexation, that she should enjoy these blessings. She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery-- the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits-- a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time. Her institutions and geographical position established the strongest ties between her and other slave-holding States of the confederacy. Those ties have been strengthened by association. But what has been the course of the government of the United States, and of the people and authorities of the non-slave-holding States, since our connection with them?"


And also...



"…In all the non-slave-holding States, in violation of that good faith and comity which should exist between entirely distinct nations, the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party, now strong enough in numbers to control the affairs of each of those States, based upon an unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color-- a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of Divine Law. They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States."


And...


"…We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable. That in this free government all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding states."
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_texsec.asp

"But States' Rights!"

The Confederate Constitution does give states certain rights not granted in the U.S. Constitution. However, concerning the question of slavery, Article 9, Section 1, Clause 4 states the following:



(4) No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed.
In other words, states had NO right to ban slavery.


"But what about The Morrill Tariff?"

Yes, that was opposed by Southern states, and for understandable reasons. However, seven states seceded before the bill was passed, including Virginia, whose Senator (Robert M.T. Hunter) was in charge of the Finance Committee. If they had stayed in the Union, the bill would likely have been tabled. As it was, however, their withdrawal led to a Republican majority in the Senate, and the passage of the bill. As the secession preceded the passage of the bill, this is a blatant reversal of cause and effect.  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morrill_Ta ... ate_action

"Why did so many black people fight for the South, then?"

They didn't. Or, rather, not many did, even when promised their freedom in exchange. The exact numbers are in dispute, but any accounts not based upon hearsay don't indicate them serving in great numbers.

http://militaryhistorynow.com/2012/06/2 ... nfederacy/


"So why did the Confederate Government allow blacks to enlist in exchange for their freedom?"

They didn't. There was no promise of freedom in the bill passed that allowed them to enlist as combat troops.

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-hist ... k-soldiers


"Why did the Confederate government promise England in the last days of the war that in exchange for recognition, they would abolish slavery?"

No link needed for this one. For all they knew, they were on the verge of being hanged for treason, and were willing to give up everything they'd fought for in order to save their own hides.

If it's not too immodest for me to say so, that's an example of a well-sourced argument.

Rebuttal?

[Mattantia]

Here's what REALLY should happen:

1. Feminism never existed.
2. Taylor Swift never released 1989.
3. Larry Mullen, Jr. was part of both U2 and A-ha.
4. Canada was a dictatorship with an extremely strong military.
5. Eminem followed through with his threat in his song Vegas.
6. Bono invented the word "Bazinga" and not Sheldon Cooper.
7. Degrassi wasn't full of retcons.
8. Adolf Hitler was less antisemitic.
9. Nixon was never impeached.
10. Death metal was created by deathrock artists.

[Mattantia]

Make sure nixon never got impeached.

Oh yeah, that too.

[Redsection]

Make sure nixon never got impeached.

Oh yeah, that too.

thats right.

[Ism]

Have Al Gore beat Bush. Would love to see how that turns out.

[Gharoukannia]

*Or I would make it so that Prussia won the Austro-Prussian War and united Germany

Erm....Prussia won the Austro-Prussian war in 1866

Forget it then.

[The United Territories of Providence]

Make sure nixon never got impeached.

Here's what REALLY should happen:

1. Feminism never existed.
2. Taylor Swift never released 1989.
3. Larry Mullen, Jr. was part of both U2 and A-ha.
4. Canada was a dictatorship with an extremely strong military.
5. Eminem followed through with his threat in his song Vegas.
6. Bono invented the word "Bazinga" and not Sheldon Cooper.
7. Degrassi wasn't full of retcons.
8. Adolf Hitler was less antisemitic.
9. Nixon was never impeached.

Christ Almighty...Nixon was never impeached...He resigned.

[Italian-Australia]

Why did you make the example anti-religious? Tisk. That's half the problem with the world nowadays, people getting abused for daring to believe in something.

I'm religious myself, and adhere to an Abrahamic faith. I made that example just purely out of haste. I don't see anything wrong with it, really.

My apologies for acting too hasty, I just have received a lot of crap for being Catholic. It makes me JUMPY!

[Bhikkustan]

Tell flacco not to throw that pick! And get the ravens to win last years Super Bowl! Most important changes in the thread!

[The Carlisle]

Well, nothing major as in big events. But something small but means a whole lot to people I like.

Preventing Owen Hart's death.

[Immoren]

Also I nearly forgot:
Tell my past self to take that place in the vocational school to learn a trade, instead of going to the upper secondary school/high school.
After primary school I applied for upper secondary/high school, but didn't get accepted, due to issues around the society, but then my Ma got place in the vocational school she teaches. But I later that year got into the upper secondary/high school I applied before, from list of applicants whom would be picked, if those already chosen actually don't want the position.

[The Wolven League]

Make sure nixon never got impeached.

Here's what REALLY should happen:

1. Feminism never existed.
2. Taylor Swift never released 1989.
3. Larry Mullen, Jr. was part of both U2 and A-ha.
4. Canada was a dictatorship with an extremely strong military.
5. Eminem followed through with his threat in his song Vegas.
6. Bono invented the word "Bazinga" and not Sheldon Cooper.
7. Degrassi wasn't full of retcons.
8. Adolf Hitler was less antisemitic.
9. Nixon was never impeached.

Christ Almighty...Nixon was never impeached...He resigned.

Shhh...

[Suicune]

Prevent humans from ever evolving in the first place. In all senses of the phrase, life would be so much simpler.

[The Wolven League]

Prevent humans from ever evolving in the first place. In all senses of the phrase, life would be so much simpler.

So, by not existing life would be simpler?
Oh wait, I get it now...

[Suicune]

Prevent humans from ever evolving in the first place. In all senses of the phrase, life would be so much simpler.

So, by not existing life would be simpler?
Oh wait, I get it now...

There are plenty of other forms of life outside of humans. All of them far less harmful than we are.

[Finland SSR]

So, by not existing life would be simpler?
Oh wait, I get it now...

There are plenty of other forms of life outside of humans. All of them far less harmful than we are.

Not this again.

The development and evolution of a sapient species capable of exploiting a much greater portion of Earth's resources is a natural step in the evolution of life, and the damage caused to the other, less developed species is normal to nature - weaker, less fit lifeforms will go extinct, nothing to cry for If not by humans - then by a meteor impact or other natural disaster.

[Greater Mackonia]

The Vienna Circle were all captured by the Nazis and very sadly died in concentration camps....except Wittgenstein, obviously.

[The Wolven League]

The Vienna Circle were all captured by the Nazis and very sadly died in concentration camps....except Wittgenstein, obviously.

Why do you want them all to die?

[Greater Mackonia]

The Vienna Circle were all captured by the Nazis and very sadly died in concentration camps....except Wittgenstein, obviously.

Why do you want them all to die?

Well I don't have anything against any of them personally, they were all very intelligent people, I just think they led thought down the wrong path. It was partly facetious.

[Tigeria]

For me it's not about changing the past, it's about preparing for our future.

Let's say we took out the holocaust, that would still happen down the line anyway, because it didn't happen. If not hitler then someone else would have caused it. if you took out democracy, that too would come back at a later time. So really talking about changing the past is pointless because it would happen anyway.

So it's how the world gets defined today that matters because what we do today will set in place what the world will look like tomorrow.

[The Wolven League]

Why do you want them all to die?

Well I don't have anything against any of them personally, they were all very intelligent people, I just think they led thought down the wrong path. It was partly facetious.

Eh, fair enough. Why would you spare Wittgenstein, though?

[Conscentia]

I've made some amendments to my previous answer...
First set of changes:
Prevent the murder of Archimedes; save the Antikythera mechanics from getting sunk; save the library of Alexandria.

If permitted by the conditions of this hypothetical also:
Have the printing press, Newtonian telescope, optical microscope, and navigational compass invented during the reign of Marcus Aurelius in the Roman Empire.

The following changes are applied if still applicable to history:
Delay the death of Marcus Aurelius by at least 1 year; prevent the birth of King David, prevent Commodus from becoming Roman Emperor.

The following changes are applied if still applicable to history:
End the War of 1812 in decisive British victory, prevent Ada Lovelace suffering uterine cancer, delay the death of Ada Lovelace by at least 30 years, complete the Analytical Engine.

The following changes are applied if still applicable to history:
Prevent the birth of Stalin, delay the death of Nikola Tesla by at least 7 years, complete the Wardenclyffe Tower.

... Then fix whatever I broke doing all that.

Did I miss anything?

[Conscentia]

For me it's not about changing the past, it's about preparing for our future.

Let's say we took out the holocaust, that would still happen down the line anyway, because it didn't happen. If not hitler then someone else would have caused it. if you took out democracy, that too would come back at a later time. So really talking about changing the past is pointless because it would happen anyway.

So it's how the world gets defined today that matters because what we do today will set in place what the world will look like tomorrow.

Why not destroy the world? It's just going to get destroyed eventually anyway.

[Nationes Pii Redivivi]

For me it's not about changing the past, it's about preparing for our future.

Let's say we took out the holocaust, that would still happen down the line anyway, because it didn't happen. If not hitler then someone else would have caused it. if you took out democracy, that too would come back at a later time. So really talking about changing the past is pointless because it would happen anyway.

So it's how the world gets defined today that matters because what we do today will set in place what the world will look like tomorrow.

Wow- and your reasoning behind this assertion is...?