NationStates

Bienenhalde wrote:

Communist Zombie Horde wrote:American are already superior

If Americans are really so great, why did we choose that degenerate fool Trump to be our president?

Communist Zombie Horde wrote:

Bienenhalde wrote:
If Americans are really so great, why did we choose that degenerate fool Trump to be our president?

Because we are great- and Trump is not degenerate.

It is a myth made up by sad dems that Russia interfered with the election to pick Trump.

Cappuccina wrote:There's nothing special about Trump, he's a shill like the rest of them in Washington.

Communist Zombie Horde wrote:

Cappuccina wrote:There's nothing special about Trump, he's a shill like the rest of them in Washington.

Ok commie. Cup of joe? More like uncle joe amirite.

LiberNovusAmericae wrote:

Hammer Britannia wrote:The Russians picked Trump, not us

He ain't Putin's puppet. The Democrats nominated a shit candidate and thought that all they needed to do to win is not be Trump, and it blew up in their face. Trump convinced people that he fought against a corrupt establishment, and the people who are loathing of business as usual ate it up. Mainstream politics is corrupt, and Trump was able to use public discontent to get elected.

Bienenhalde wrote:

Hanafuridake wrote:We should genetically engineer humans to be anime girls.

What about anime boys?

LiberNovusAmericae wrote:

Hammer Britannia wrote:The Russians picked Trump, not us

He ain't Putin's puppet. The Democrats nominated a shit candidate and thought that all they needed to do to win is not be Trump, and it blew up in their face. Trump convinced people that he fought against a corrupt establishment, and the people who are loathing of business as usual ate it up. Mainstream politics is corrupt, and Trump was able to use public discontent to get elected.

Rostavykhan wrote:

Bienenhalde wrote:
What about anime boys?

That's what he said.

anime girls (♂)

LiberNovusAmericae wrote:He ain't Putin's puppet. The Democrats nominated a shit candidate and thought that all they needed to do to win is not be Trump, and it blew up in their face. Trump convinced people that he fought against a corrupt establishment, and the people who are loathing of business as usual ate it up. Mainstream politics is corrupt, and Trump was able to use public discontent to get elected.

The Dems' plan was literally to toss in Hillary and say "Hello, fellow young people, look at our wacky and relatable Female candidate who's in no way backed by corporate interests! Cool, ain't she?" after fucking over Bernie and expecting everything to go in their favor.

Hanafuridake wrote:We should genetically engineer humans to be anime girls.

Communist Zombie Horde wrote:

Bienenhalde wrote:
If Americans are really so great, why did we choose that degenerate fool Trump to be our president?

Because we are great- and Trump is not degenerate.

Rostavykhan wrote:

LiberNovusAmericae wrote:He ain't Putin's puppet. The Democrats nominated a shit candidate and thought that all they needed to do to win is not be Trump, and it blew up in their face. Trump convinced people that he fought against a corrupt establishment, and the people who are a loathing of business, as usual, ate it up. Mainstream politics is corrupt, and Trump was able to use public discontent to get elected.

The Dems' plan was literally to toss in Hillary and say "Hello, fellow young people, look at our wacky and relatable Female candidate who's in no way backed by corporate interests! Cool, ain't she?" after fucking over Bernie and expecting everything to go in their favor.

Duhon wrote:Well, speaking of the South and its barbaric "Cause", here's a question: could anything have prevented the split of the Union and descent into Civil War, during the 1860s and afterwards?

Diopolis wrote:

Duhon wrote:Well, speaking of the South and its barbaric "Cause", here's a question: could anything have prevented the split of the Union and descent into Civil War, during the 1860s and afterwards?

Not with American federalism as we know it.

Totally Not OEP wrote:Events of late are increasingly making me reconsider whether to readopt Southern Nationalism or not.

Duhon wrote:

Diopolis wrote:Not with American federalism as we know it.

Do I ask whether any other system could've averted disunion and war... or do I already know the answer?

Duhon wrote:Well, speaking of the South and its barbaric "Cause", here's a question: could anything have prevented the split of the Union and descent into Civil War, during the 1860s and afterwards?

Just as a living body maintains itself only insofar as there is a soul to dominate it, so every social organisation not rooted in a spiritual reality is precarious and insubstantial, incapable of keeping its strength and identity under the vicissitudes of the various forces; it is not properly an organism, but rather a composite, an aggregate.

Totally Not OEP wrote:

Duhon wrote:Well, speaking of the South and its barbaric "Cause", here's a question: could anything have prevented the split of the Union and descent into Civil War, during the 1860s and afterwards?

Yes, up until November and into December it was unclear if even South Carolina would pull the trigger.

Duhon wrote:

Totally Not OEP wrote:
Yes, up until November and into December it was unclear if even South Carolina would pull the trigger.

So essentially the only thing that could've prevented secession and war was, uh, faith?

Could secession have been avoided after Lincoln's election? The usual answer is that *at the very least* South Carolina was sure to secede. And yet, even in South Carolina, there was one very prominent politician who *privately* did not regard the South's prospects in the Union as hopeless, even after Lincoln's victory: US Senator James Hammond. In a letter to Alfred Aldrich just after Lincoln's election, Hammond stated "I do not regard our circumstances in the Union as desperate." True, Hammond preferred a Southern Republic if he could be sure that the other southern states would follow South Carolina in seceding, but he had no confidence they would do so. For that reason, he did not want South Carolina to secede until other states had resolved to do so--advice that *if made public* and followed, could have doomed secession, given that even *with* South Carolina's prior secession, the victories for "immediate secessionists" in the Deep South state secession convention elections were often quite narrow.

Hammond explained why he thought staying in the Union was safer for South Carolina than attempting "go it alone" secession: "the South...can, when united, dictate, as it has always done, the internal and foreign policy of our country." (Note that Hammond is here admitting one of the Republicans' main allegations--that the South, far from groaning under northern oppression, had hitherto dominated the country.) Hammond explained that "at the North, politics is a trade." The spoilsmen "go into it for gain." (This was a typical South Carolina aristocratic view of the "mobocracy" which was seen as prevalent in other states, and especially in the North.) For that reason, no Yankee has "ever been twice elected President." Mr. Lincoln's administration will also break down "before it can accomplish anything detrimental", for its "antislavery agitation" will "not gain them spoils and power." (Quoted in William W. Freehling, *The Road to Disunion, Volume II: Secessionists Triumphant 1854-1861,*, p. 405) https://books.google.com/books?id=AsjRsGPOXKMC&pg=PA405

Indeed, with delayers in control of both houses of the South Carolina legislature, and with Aldrich having Hammond's letter in his pocket, things looked bleak for the South Carolina ultras. But then came the "incredible coincidence" I described at http://groups.google.com/group/soc.hist ... 4b3f1a3dbd "A railroad had just been completed linking Savannah, Ga., and Charleston, S.C. As the South Carolina legislature deliberated, leading citizens of the two cities took part in a celebration. The Georgians, carried away by the emotion of the moment, pledged their state's support for secession. Suddenly convinced that other states would follow, the legislature moved the secession convention up to December. The 'coincidence,' Freehling argues, changed history. Had South Carolina not taken this step, Unionists might have prevailed throughout the South."

As it was, however, Aldrich decided not to make Hammond's letter public at the secession convention--and Hammond acquiesced. Too much had changed since the letter was written, Aldrich stated. South Carolina was now too overwhelmingly in favor of secession for it to be blocked, and it was therefore better, Aldrich explained, for the state to present a united front to the rest of the world. Had the railroad not been completed just when it was, and had Aldrich promptly released Hammond's letter to the general public, things could have gone quite differently. South Carolina might have decided not to secede until another state did--which might never have happened...

Or it might have. The battle in the Deep South was generally not between secessionists and unionists but between "immediate secessionists" (also called "separate state action secessionists") and "cooperationists." The big question in determining how close secession was to being avoided is to determine whether cooperationism was just an alternate form of secession or--as the immediate secessionists charged--really a disguised from of Unionist "submissionism." The cooperationists claimed that they also favored secession if necessary but that it should be done not by separate state action but by a southern convention which could put final demands to the North and secede if they were not met. One problem with the cooperationists' position is that the more states seceded, the weaker it became. The immediate secessionists could (and did) say, "We are the *true* cooperationists--we are in favor of cooperating with the states which have already seceded!"

If South Carolina had decided to wait for the other southern states, the cooperationists might have prevailed against the immediate secessionists throughout the South. It is easy to say that this would simply result in Secession Later rather than Secession Now. Surely a southern convention would present Lincoln with demands he would not meet--e.g., abandon the Republican position on slavery in the territories. And yet...cooperationism would after all buy time for the Union, and the immediate secessionists were right to suspect this would strengthen the Unionist cause. They felt they had to strike while the South was still panicking over Lincoln's election. If you allow Lincoln to be in office for some time before acting, the panic will subside, southerners will see that slavery had remained unmolested and that the new president was not another John Brown. Even if the proposed Southern Convention would eventually come about, it might be dominated by Upper South moderates whom Lincoln could appease (e.g., by admitting New Mexico to the Union, at least nominally as a slave state, and by indicating his disapproval of Personal Liberty laws).

So, then, a victory by cooperationists in all the Deep South states *might* give the Union a chance. Was such a victory possible if South Carolina didn't jump the gun? I would say that it was because, as I noted above, even in OTL the "immediate secessionist" victories were quite narrow. In Alabama, the secessionists cast 35,600 votes, the cooperationists 28,100. In Georgia, the secessionists won by only (at most) 44,152 to 41,632. In Louisiana, the secessionists prevailed by 20,214 to 18,451. In Mississippi, there were 16,800 votes for secessionists, 12,218 for cooperationists, 12,000 for candidates whose position was not specified or is now unknown. Florida was somewhat more pro-secessionist than, say, Georgia, but even in Florida the cooperationists got about 40 percent of the vote. (My source for these figures is David Potter, *The Impending Crisis.*)

So preventing secession after Lincoln's election is very, very difficult but IMO not *quite* inconceivable.

Duhon wrote:So... secession later. Neither Lincoln nor the south would've brooked compromise with regards to slavery. There would still be civil war, or at best a random disturbance by southern stragglers that would never really amount to anything, but would solidify northern opinion in favor of abolition if not complete racial egalitarianism.