Cause of Civil War

Exactly. It confirms the right to dissolve a relationship or union but also requires that the reasoning also be presented and defended.

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When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

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A major difference between the colonies secession from Great Britain and the events of the Civil War is that the Declaration of Independence was a joint action of all of the individual colonies while the secession during the Civil War was a series of separate acts by individual states.A second major difference is that with foreign help and recognition, the colonies were able through force and diplomacy to succeed. The South (although the Trent Affair certainly could have helped with recognition) never succeeded in either force or recognition.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

Well, the Confederate view would be that there didn't need to be.I agree: I think it has to be conceded that the South was legally in the right. After 150 years, there's no point in being partisan about this. The preservation of the Union and the abolition of slavery were good things, but they were produced de jure belli --- by the "law of conquest".

Guess what? It preceded the act of secession and affirms a universal right.

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We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

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Had the South succeeded in either area, force or gaining recognition, there would be little legal recourse. But the South failed in both areas.The Union was preserved not because of legality, but because the North succeeded in having the greater force and the South failed to garner external recognition as a separate nation.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

I've followed this thread with great interest, learning many new details. But I have to say, I don't really care why the Civil War was fought--regardless of why it began, the outcome had the effect of ending slavery in the U.S.The South would not have abandoned slavery on its own: indeed, southern agrarian interests were intent on expanding slavery into new states and protecting their state citizens' "right" to practice slavery in free states. It was good to see AE's revisionism rebutted, but for me the bottom line is the Civil War did end slavery. While the war didn't fully emancipate African-Americans, it was a necessary beginning.I wouldn't care if they fought over Virginia juleps vs. Vermont cider.

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Dost thou prate, rogue?
-Cassio

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Real things always push back.
-William James

I question that for a few pretty basic reasons.First, the mid to late 1800s were the advent of the mobile engine. The economy of the Southern States was based on cheap land and hand labor. The thing driving much of the desire to expand slavery into new states was that they were very rapidly depleting the viability of the land and the advent of agricultural machinery was very quickly making much of the hand labor cost inefficient.Even though slavery itself was abolished and there was a transition from agricultural to resource exploitation and industry, the class system and economic system changed little.It's likely that the availability of tractors and the other host of mechanical devices that came out over the next fifty years would have doomed slavery anyway, it was just cheaper to buy one multipurpose machine then maintain a large body of slaves.But the big issue, the class system, continued right on for well over one hundred years throughout the Nation, north and south, and it has only been within my lifetime that that issue has begun to get resolved,

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

Maybe--but we still use plenty of stoop labor in U.S. agriculture, with workers who enjoy a status little better than slavery in many cases.Despite our motorhead culture, we regularly discover domestics and sex workers brought into this country to serve as slaves.Where slavery is legal, it will prosper.Indeed, after a feeble Reconstruction, the South merely began criminalizing blacks and then exploited them as penal labor.But, sure, let's assume you're right. In that case, I'm happy they fought a war that ended slavery in 1865 instead of 50 years later, regardless of why.

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Dost thou prate, rogue?
-Cassio

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Real things always push back.
-William James

Which the seceding States also produced. True, all these "abuses" revolved around slavery, but they were perfectly real in their eyes. A Declaration of the Causes which Impel the State of Texas to Secede from the Federal Union: The fact that it was all about slavery doesn't mean that it was all about nothing. The slaveholding states felt that they had been wronged. Only grant them their premise that slavery was perfectly right and proper and necessary and in accordance with the laws of God and Nature and also in the best interests of their "darkies" (God love 'em) and one can see their point of view.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

My only point is that the war did not really change that much. The legal institution called slavery was eliminated but the practical economic and social conditions remained the same, and are still being addressed. Note the date on the reverse.We still had mill towns and company script well past WWII and the idea that even the lowest, least educated, poorest White Man was superior to even the highest, most educated and richest Black Man (or Mexican or Puerto Rican or...) unfortunately can still be found today.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

Hi, NWR. It's still a principle behind an argument, though.----- The results of the grassroots campaign seem to have been divided regionally. This effectively means one region was dominating the other region.If secession under these conditions is the "sore loser" principle, then anybody wanting to separate themselves form a group that was dominating them are also just "sore losers," aren't they?The Poles who wanted their own country after WWI were just "sore losers."The Croatians, Bosnians and other peoples in Yugoslavia who didn't want to be ruled by the Serbian majority in the 1970's-1990's were just "sore losers."The American colonists in the 1770's and 1780's who didn't like British administration of their lands were just "sore losers."(Note that I managed to not list any Nazi examples).In each of these cases, regional majorities that were minorities on the national level, broke away from the mother nation simply because they didn't get their way.Surely you won't argue that rebellion is universally based on the "sore loser" principle, so it becomes an academic exercise of deciding which cause is noble enough that its proponents are not "sore losers." The subjectivity involved in such a decision is too much for me to think it can realistically be made.A party that feels like they are being oppressed, or feels that their trust has been violated, surely has the right to take action against it, just like any minority has the right to take action against any perceived oppression against it. In the case of the Civil War, I think secession was an extreme action, but I can understand why they thought they didn't have a choice. What else can a party that has been rendered politically impotent do? Accept that they lost and get over it?If they had really believed in the principles of the Declaration of Independence (and the principles of freedom they vocally espoused), surely they would have agreed that the rights of black people took precedence over the economic and political wellbeing of the state in which the people live. But, because their concern was probably more about their own political and economic situation, and not about the morality of slavery, their priorities were different.-----Now, after that tirade, it's concession time. I’m beginning to see that you were right all along: it’s too hard to meaningfully distinguish slavery as the cause of the war from states’ rights as the cause of the war because they were too intertwined. It’s all a matter of perspective and emphasis. But, in the end, slavery was still at the heart of it, so the war clearly was about slavery.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Good point. I agree.And I'm still glad the war ended the legal institution of slavery when it did, whatever its cause. Post-emancipation would always have been hell on earth.True emancipation in the U.S. is a long journey, one sooner begun, better ended.

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Dost thou prate, rogue?
-Cassio

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Real things always push back.
-William James

Question.How was Lincoln able to free the slaves only in the Southern slave holdings states? Did he actually have the authority to? If he did, what was the actual legislation that gave him the authorization to do so?

There are an awful lot of feelings in that statement.I agree an oppressed people have the right to revolution. But often revolutions don't succeed without outside help, and to win that support you need more than feelings--you have to make a case.Slavery was primarily an economic institution of the landed gentry/large agrarian interests in the south. They weren't turning to armed resistance because they felt oppressed, they were going to war to protect their slave-based privilege and wealth.The slave system considerably disadvantaged the small farmer in the south, who struggled to compete with slave labor. As is too often the case, their feelings of oppression were exploited by the moneyed classes to persuade the lower classes to die for them--so they could remain disadvantaged.Working Americans even today regularly elect people who mostly serve the interests of other classes. It is a defining sorrow of our time, imho.

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Dost thou prate, rogue?
-Cassio

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Real things always push back.
-William James

Hi, Theodoric. Because he seemed rather frustrated in his last post. I would be too if I logged on to find 12 posts containing evidence that I had to go through and refute. Dr Adequate wins a lot of debates by attrition (i.e. frustration), because nobody can keep up with him.I was tempted to give Artemis a "5" for his response to Dr A, because I liked how he set up his argument, but then I got to the end when all the frustrations and insults came out, and I couldn't do it.----- I agree.----- I agree again.This is a shame, because I think it's an interesting debate topic that I don't know enough about. I figured the best way to keep the discussion going was to take a controversial stance, so I found a possible hole in the majority side and joined in.I don't think I can keep it up though, because I think my argument is weak and probably wrong.I'm grateful to you, Dr A and all the others for the good information you provided here, though.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

If the South had been able to generate more support in the North, even if less than a majority, there probably wouldn't have been a civil war. In your examples, the groups managed to garner a lot of support from outside their own regions, and that is how they gained legitimacy.

True.Still, I believe there is some room for a pro-Confederacy argument that the south had the better Constitution argument. Yes there is a conflict between states rights on one side and the Fifth amendment, but that conflict had been resolved in the south's favor by legal means, namely the Dred Scott decison by the Supreme Court. Further the fugitive slave acts which were anathema to the northern states were explicitly supported in the Constitution.Arti can't get to any of the best pro Confederacy arguments because he wants to deny that slavery played any role at all.