Redditor in /r/askreddit argues the American Civil War was fought about states's rights and freedom. Does not go well. (np.reddit.com)
SubredditDrama
71 ups - 35 downs = 36 votes
157 comments submitted at 20:47:44 on Jan 18, 2014 by sirboozebum
Redditor in /r/askreddit argues the American Civil War was fought about states's rights and freedom. Does not go well. (np.reddit.com)
SubredditDrama
71 ups - 35 downs = 36 votes
157 comments submitted at 20:47:44 on Jan 18, 2014 by sirboozebum
Secession was, by and large, about slavery. I didn't read every declaration of secession, but I read most of them and that was a very prominent and common theme. Anyone who's spent five minutes looking at these documents would grasp this.
However, the war was fought to preserve power over the southern states. Slavery didn't matter at all. They could've been a slave-free society that seceded because of the annoying accents of the northerners, and the north still would've launched a war to reconquer them.
Of course, the descendents of both sides are willfully ignorant. Southerners don't want to admit slavery was such a prized institution, and northerners don't want to admit to launching a war to override the very democratic processes and justifications they used to break away from England.
> and the north still would've launched a war to reconquer them.
The Union didn't launch the war.
That a Pole might've fired the first shot of WW2 doesn't mean Germany wasn't the aggressor in the conflict.
> That a Pole might've fired the first shot of WW2
Weird idea.
Or you could consider the first shot of America's revolution, which is sometimes said to have been fired by colonial forces. Even if that's so, the colonists weren't gunning to conquer England, England was gunning to retake the colonists.
Using the first shot as the metric to gauge who the aggressor was doesn't make much sense.
Germany was the aggressor in WWII, so I don't understand your point. The Southern states illegally seceded from the Union, then demanded the Union vacate a military installation, then attacked said installation. The South started the war. It's ridiculous to argue otherwise.
Do you think there would have been no war if the military fort had been left alone?
I think it's a moot point, since the South did attack Sumter, and thus started the war.
And some sources say colonists fired on the British first. Does that make the colonists an armed insurrection of war-mongering slave holders?
Or is it moot who fires the first shot, in light of the fact that one side was clearly mobilizing for war to reclaim the other?
> And some sources say colonists fired on the British first. Does that make the colonists an armed insurrection of war-mongering slave holders?
Yes, the American Revolution was an armed insurrection. I don't see what this has to do with the South starting a war to preserve owning black people as cattle.
It's moot because you asserted that the North started the war. They didn't. The South did.
>Yes, the American Revolution was an armed insurrection.
An illegal armed insurrection of slave holders launched against their rightful government, the government they and their fathers were sworn to uphold.
War-mongering oath breakers, the lot of them. Not so different from the southern states, in that regard.
I don't understand what you're trying to do here. The American Revolution has literally nothing to do with this. You said the North started the war. They didn't. Stop trying to change the argument.
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Are you seriously comparing a nervous soldier squeezing off a shot to the planned mass-bombardment and assault of a fort?
I'm sure the soldier wasn't there by accident, but it was in fact planned that he and his comrades be there.
First shots of the second world war were fired by a German battleship, the SMS Schleswig-Holstein. It shelled a Polish fort.
I'll take your word for it, as I didn't look it up. That's why I said "might've".
In hindsight, a better example would've been that colonial soldier that started the war against England by betraying his government and firing on his own country men.
No, it's not. That would be a case of a lone, nervous soldier losing his cool in a stressful situation. What happened at Sumter was the South seceded and illegally declared their own nation, then told the North to abandon their own fort. When the North didn't, the South bombarded it, assaulted it, and took it. That is completely different than some scared militia farmer panicking and firing off a shot.
>That would be a case of a lone, nervous soldier
They were trained, organized, in formation and armed and on the battlefield. This wasn't a man caught unawares in a bad situation who killed someone, this was someone planning for war for weeks, months probably. Maybe longer. All this planning and preparation put him there, on the field, with a musket in his hands that he used to illegally murder his fellow countryman.
They were local militia, not soldiers. And they'd been gathered quickly, this wasn't some standoff with the British they'd been planning for months. They were all in bed, when suddenly 'Oh shit, the British are coming, grab your guns.'
And even if a single soldier decided to fire at the British intentionally, it still does in no way compare to a coordinated pre-planned assault by Southern commanders.
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Virtually everything you just said was wrong. The first shot of the American Revolution was fired as the militia at Lexington appeared to be dispersing and came from an unknown source (it was very likely a colonist though). What happened that morning at Lexington was far from some calculated ambush, it was a hectic skirmish that I doubt either side was entirely prepared to fight.
Edit: It was also in the town square, not a field.
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MOTHERFUCKER DID YOU JUST COMPARE THE CONFEDERACY TO POLAND BEING INVADED BY THE NAZIS??
If the Poles fired first, that means they were the instigators of WW2, apparently. Did they fire first?
No, they did not fire first.
However, the south fired first in the civil war. Just why exactly are you so supportive of a side who's leaders have stated that they seceded in order to keep their slaves?
> Just why exactly are you so supportive of a side who's leaders have stated that they seceded in order to keep their slaves?
I though colonists seceding was a good thing, was it not?
Please tell me where exactly a founding father said "I am seceding because the British are attempting to take my slaves".
It isn't analogous to the American Revolution, which was the result largely of a lack of representation while still being subject to the whims of Parliament and the king. Meanwhile the South rebelled because Lincoln won a free and fair election (obviously nonwhites and women were largely disenfranchised as was normal at the time.)
Before Lincoln could even be sworn in 7 of the states moved into open rebellion and eventually the war was sparked when they rejected peaceful overtures to end their rebellion and instead attacked and took over federal military property.
The South's actions were the direct opposite of democratic. They had full representation in Congress, a sympathetic Supreme Court, all the rights and protections of any other state, and the right to participate in the election of the President. They then seceded not because they were unrepresented or because they felt the election had been rigged but because they didn't like what Lincoln may possibly do in the future.
Their actions were 100% against the notions of democracy and self government. If anyone can up and leave when they don't like the winner then why have elections? Sometimes part of democracy is accepting that elections are a legitimate way to choose members of the government even when it is people you don't agree with.
The South enjoyed the benefits of the Union and when someone they didn't like got elected they backed out. Then they used military force to try to force the Union to accept their secession and surrender federal territory. They tried to put a gun to the head of the rest of the country so that they would have to vote for the South's preferred candidate or else they would break up the Union. It is childish and worse it was for slavery of all things.
There was nothing democratic about the seceding of the states in the Civil War, and to compare it to the American Revolutionary War is laughable. One main issue dealt with the harsh mandate to tax colonists, even if they were British subjects. American colonials petitioned numerous times to hear their grievances heard to the Crown and to no avail--no ground was moved and further taxation acts continued to pile up. Meanwhile, Britain had been fighting the French and Indian Wars, racking up a lot of cost that was passed over to colonials. By the time of the Battle of the Bunker Hill, every diplomatic recourse had been exhausted, with the ruling government not giving one notice to any colonial complaints.
Compare this to secessionist states, who decided, after a fair and free election, to secede simply because of the result of an election. Mind you, at this point President Lincoln hadn't even imposed what every Southerner feared. Where was the "oppression" of nearly a hundred years that American colonials suffered? It was nowhere to be found. Did secessionists seek diplomatic avenues once they rebelled? No. Their first act was to attack Fort Sumter. We're off to a good start for those poorly oppressed Southerners, I see.
"Northerners" no longer exist--this is a colloquialism that may be used by a few WASPs in New England and that's it. Just about no one in the original "Northern" states disagrees that the acts and decisions taken before, during, and after the Civil War upon the South were particularly correct or right. The difference here, again, is that one side readily admits its faults. Meanwhile, in the South, which continuously identifies itself as Southern, plenty of people spout Lost Cause nonsense and will continuously deny responsibility for the greatest American loss of life over an immoral issue.
Colonists had their pals in parliament, and a very low tax burden to boot. Of course, they didn't get everything they wanted so they used the Enlightenment ideal of the right to self determination to justify going their own way and split.
This isn't materially different from what the Americans in the southern states did. They might've had more pull in their government than the colonists had in England, but in the end they didn't have enough to ensure they got what they wanted so they split.
The colonies weren't voluntary members of a constitutional republic; they were colonies. The Southern states were part of the United States, they weren't sovereign states with the right to withdraw because they liked treating human beings like cattle.
The slave-owning colonists didn't have any legal right to break away, either.
>The colonies weren't voluntary members
Doesn't sound very voluntary to me, if voluntarily leaving means a war will be launched to round them back up.
I think ratifying the Constitution makes it pretty voluntary. And again, the war was launched when they attacked a US Army fort.
Some dead guys chose to join that. Forcing you to stay in some relationship your grandfather forged before you were even born doesn't sound very voluntary to me.
That doesn't give them any legal ability to secede from the Union. Which is beside the incorrect point you keep harping on that a war was "launched to round them back up." The South started an armed insurrection after trying to illegally resist federal sovereignty. The North didn't start a war; they were democratically threatening a barbaric and racist society, so the barbaric racists tried to use force to stop them from doing it.
>That doesn't give them any legal ability to secede from the Union.
Naturally. The colonists couldn't legally leave England, either. And slaves couldn't legally break their own bondage.
>The South started an armed insurrection
I asked you once already in some other comment of mine you replied to, but you ignored it, so I'll ask again here:
Do you think the northern states would not have made a power play to retake the south if the military fort had been left alone?
Let's see. A chunk of the nation breaks off, illegally forming its own country and breaking the country in half because they didn't like the idea of having to give up their slaves. Yeah, I'd say was was pretty much inevitable at that point. I'm fairly certain that when a chunk of your country secedes because they don't like how the established government is working out, retaking them is not out of the question.
Also, you're comparing colonies with no representation, or slaves with no rights to nations with full democratic representation that just didn't like how democracy was turning out?
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> I asked you once already in some other comment of mine you replied to, but you ignored it, so I'll ask again here:
> Do you think the northern states would not have made a power play to retake the south if the military fort had been left alone?
You know why he didn't answer that? Because "if" has no historical bearing on what actually happened. What if the Southerners hadn't seceded? What if the Southern elite weren't disgusting enough to believe that owning people because of their skin color was an okay thing to do? What happened happened, and possible eventualities and hypothetical situations can't be used to write off the shelling of Fort Sumpter as some kind of defensive act.
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You're incorrect.
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