See YY's post about "context" please. We are discussing the AMERICAN Civil War! Like the AMERICAN way of life, and any number of other things we 'United States of' AMERICANS stick that tag on!
Very well, context indeed. Since only US Americans are called "Americans," Confederates had no claim to the label.
Damn straight it's a misleading term, it's an oxymoron. Wars are not Civil. The Confederate States of America were formed in rebellion to the United States tyranny, just as the United States were formed in rebellion to the English tyranny, and as was permitted and allowed for in the foundation of the Constitution itself. They were not fighting against the Constitution as much as the usurped power of a central Federal government, which violated the Constitution, and in such cases, the Constitution calls for a rebellion of the people. They weren't committing treason, they were following orders.
I hope you understand the term "Civil War" is inappropriate because it doesn't accuractely depscribe the war aims of the two sides, rather than this idiotic drivel about wars being uncivil. I further challenge you to explain how the North (who had held power for 8 out of the preceeding 60 years) was being tyrannical. Here read this and learn your history:
http://www.civilwarhome.com/southernseccession.htm
Yes, and the issue is still alive today, but this was the issue the Civil War was fought over, by everyday red-blooded AMERICANS on both sides. We can look back in hindsight and cast judgment on them for something they had nothing to do with, or we can understand they were regular Americans fighting for their Constitutional rights and freedoms, on both sides!
Yeah, thanks for discrediting states rights with your fucking southern ignorance. As usual "the people" embarassed themselves with their depraved human nature, and we got a stronger national govt. Well played, hicks!
You are so full of shit it isn't funny. The Civil War had absolutely NOTHING to do with civil rights for black people, you goofball. It took another 100 years for that to take place, and in fact, most Abolitionists favored sending all blacks back to where they came from in Africa, rather than "mix" with them in society. 1861 America (North and South) was a staunchly racist place by today's standards, and to fool yourself into thinking it was some great liberal racial equality cause, is laughable to me. It's probably downright offensive to some black people.
The War had nothing to do with civil rights and everything to do with slavery. Your ignorant "expand or die" theory left you feeling paranoid about the free soil movement, because a free west would in decades to come mean the full abolition of slavery. First thing's first dumbass:
1) The South had been refusing to industrialize and get off of cash crops for 70 years. For that you all deserved to die.
2) Wasn't the eventual abolition of slavery a good thing?
3) This sounds like the Neocon stance on comprehensive immigration reform. "no, not everything necessary can be done at once, so we support the failed status quo!"
There were a number of economic issues the Federal Government would simply not address or consider. It wanted to abolish slavery, but had no solution as to how this should be done with regard to the law abiding and legitimate companies which used constitutionally legal and legitimate slaves. Remember that slavery was legal, and was constitutional, there was nothing illegal or perceived by most of society as being wrong with it. The North did not have plantation slaves, they were in the agricultural south, where plantations are found. In the North, they were servants, mammies, carriage drivers, but they were not free people. As I said, that took another century.
See my two points above. This entire fiscal quandary was ENTIRELY your fault. ANd you wonder why the southern economy had not grown at all in the 1850's... You refused to industrialize, and you also failed to realize that abolition of slavery would take at least thirty years, more than enough time to kick the habit and reform the pathetic and miserable economic structire. My God, its a wonder you ever became capitalists at all!!!
The root of the problem was States Rights, and whether the Federal government had the right to dictate what state laws were. Up until that time, it was considered the fundamental principle of our government, to allow states the right to determine what is best for their people, as the Constitution describes. Slavery did not become a part of the issue until after the war was almost lost to the Confederates, and Lincoln had to throw it out there to generate chaos. He freed Southern slaves, not Northern slaves!
Lincoln effectively abolished slavery with the Proclamation, because a free south and a free north, would mean the impracticality of slavery in the Border States, and the free soil concept would keep it out of the West. You being Southern are naturally not able to read into a skilled political ploy, because you think that the North was "tyrannical" (no, just better, btw).
[/QUOTE]When the dust settled, and the history books were written, the Civil War became a war about slavery. That poor southern soldier who died at Ft. Mims, had no idea of this. The men who gave their lives were as American as you are, and they understood they were fighting for a cause, but it wasn't slavery.[/QUOTE]
The war was about slavery from the moment the South seceeded out of fear of abolition. No Republican victory, no secession, no war. The war became viewed as a crusade against slavery from the moment Northerners began to realize that abolition must be a war aim to cripple the Southern production effort. The turning point came when Lincon issued the Proclamation.
The men who died fighting for the South, did so unrepentedly and without honor. They were no more American than other evil ideologies we have vanquished. To be an American is to be a republican, and to be a good republican is to have virtue and honor. The rebels favored democracy and populism over republicanism, and subsequently lacked these noble traits.
This is why I look upon the Civil War as a bad move for the North. The South had nothing to offer the Union, its economy would have soon collapsed leading to emancipation, and the Democratic Party would have died and stayed dead. We would never have had to endure the incompetent presidencies of Cleveland, Wilson, FDR's first two terms, Truman, JFK, LBJ, Carter and Clinton: All of the other regions today have become inundated by the New Left, because evil was allowed to endure. The GOP would have maintained its traditional republican values represented clearly by presidents such as TR, Taft, and Coolidge, and by senators such as Lodge and R. Taft.
