Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Slavery Was Not the Cause of War Between States; Gene Kizer Jr

Yes, it doesn't follow that secession had to equal war. There was no reason for the war, except for northern economic interests.

You live in VA, I have no idea if you are a native or transplant. I suggest you read Virginia's Secession Ordinance before spouting off your crap.

Dance about it all day long but no slavery. No War.

Please post another 10,000 words but you're still wrong.

You keep stating the causes for secession in defense of your theory on the cause of the war. By any standard, the North was the aggressor. The North insisted on occupying southern territory after the South had peacefully seceded from the former government. Lincoln rebuffed attempts at peaceful negotiations from President Davis and other Confederate emissaries. The North wanted the former southern states back in their government and they raised an army and forcefully coerced them back in. Thus, the "cause" of the war begins and ends with the North's motivations for it, NOT with the South's motives for leaving the union of states. The North used slavery as a pretext for getting many people and entities on the bandwagon and attempting to deny the South aid. Over and over again though, economics and the union itself are mentioned as motives for attacking the South, not enslavement of people there.

Native Southerner- FYI.

True, the Virginia's Secession Ordinance does not mention slavery, but Virginia (and the rest of the South) did not want the Federal Government to meddle in (what they considered) local issues, regardless of the morality of these issues (e.g., slavery).

A textbook example of the genre....

Note the writing of slavery pretty much out of the script, this despite the fact that National Politics had been dominated for decades by the need to appease those whose whole economy was based upon slavery. Hence the Missouri Compromise of 1820, the issue of the annexation of Texas in 1836 and again in 1845, the Wilmot Proviso of 1847, the Compromise of 1850, the controversies surrounding the Gasden Purchase of 1852, the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 and the subsequent intercine wareware ("Bleeding Kansas"), and the Presidential elections of both 1856 and 1860.

Note also the complete ignoring of the moral force that was the Abolition Movement and the fact that one could be absolutely repulsed by slavery without having to believe that Blacks were equal or even belonged here.

In so far as Lincoln was concerned in "reaching out to the South", he was even prepared to sign into law in 1861 a Thirteenth Amendment GUARANTEEING slavery where it already existed if this would only preserve the Union and avert war, the sticking point, as clearly elucidated by the collective South in their writings, being the extension of slavery into the new territories.

"The North", an actual two-thirds majority of the United States, felt that the integrity of the Union was worth dying for and that secession meant the end of the country they were born into. Even if we accept the notion that Lincoln was an evil and manipulative man and that his speeches were written only to delude the masses, his Gettysburg Address of '63 clearly states the position for which the Union rank and file were bleeding and dying for.

When Lincoln called for troops subsequent to the South Carolina Declaration of Secession every other State was free to respond to this as they wished.

EVERY STATE subsequently declaring for Secession was a Slave State and collectively identified themselves by that very same term, the other two-thirds of the States declaring for the Union and willing to die for its preservation were all Free States.

There were citizens in every state, North and South, of course who disagreed with the majority in their own state, although the percentage of dissenters, the geographic areas in which they were the majority, and the subsequent bloody suppression of the same was greatest in the Confederacy. Likewise Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri where slavery was legal but not so widely practiced, were effectively split on the secession issue.

Birdwatcher

Why can't you accept that those who fought on the Southern side had just as much claim to that Union as the Yankees, and that they were fighting to protect the States THEIR grandfathers had established PRIOR TO THE UNION?

And that the Southern States were the ones invaded by a foreign power and exercised the right of defense.

And that they likely viewed Abolitionists with the same contempt most of us feel toward Obama and his minions.

You appear to be so blinded by the fact that slavery is wrong and has always been wrong that you can't grasp another, older fact; People have the right to defend themselves against aggression.

I have never questioned those motives, the tragedy of that war being that the rank and file on both sides, literate and free Americans all, were firmly convinced they were in the right.

However the fact that the Southern Leadership, all from the wealthy slave-owning Planter Class, apparently could not imagine a South without slavery cannot be written out of the script. Neither can the appalling prospect for the South of four million suddenly freed slaves in their midst in the event of a Free State-imposed Abolition be ignored. Same thing with the fact that by 1860 the South had collectively placed most all its economic eggs in the slave-grown cotton business, along with making the enormous societal and social adjustments for the same.

Birdwatcher

There's that pesky little thing called the Constitution that keeps getting in your way. But, hey, that nor any law at all mattered to Lincoln so why should it matter to you (or djs, or Obama...

And yet Lincoln himself faced removal from office by the power of the popular vote in 1864, an unusual predicament for a putative Despot to be in. Also you'll note that as early as 1863 total abolition and emancipation everywhere, both North and South, was made a prominent part of Lincoln's election platform.

The motive for this not being welfare of Black folks, but a publically stated recognition of the fact that slavery had been the force behind secession and would continue to be such if it were allowed to persist.

The Constitution was a moot point if secession had destroyed the Union, and note that its forms and confirmation to it were restored subsequent to the war, a process which most agree would have happened much faster if Lincoln had not been shot.

Birdwatcher

Which was their legal and Constitutional right.

"The North", an actual two-thirds majority of the United States, felt that the integrity of the Union was worth dying for and that secession meant the end of the country they were born into. Even if we accept the notion that Lincoln was an evil and manipulative man and that his speeches were written only to delude the masses, his Gettysburg Address of '63 clearly states the position for which the Union rank and file were bleeding and dying for."

THIS idea is the ONE I commented on. And the ONE you still have not responded to.

You give the "rank and file" Yankees TWO noble motives for fighting; Preservation of the Union,Freeing the slaves.

You dismiss the Rebel soldiers as "useful idiots of the Rich Planters".

Whether you intend it, or even realize it, this idea of "right and wrong" permeates every discussion of the War you engage in on this forum.