So what I gather from the bleating is that we should have slavery today. What VDH says is essentially we do. No matter what we do we cannot divorce ourselves from history. What exactly is incorrect about the article from a historical point of reference?
If you want to say slavery is a moral evil and no on regrets it’s passing, I doubt anyone will argue. If you want say that the Civil War was about slavery and slavery only and the southern states were morally wrong in seceding from the Union, that’s more arguable but it is a potentially valid opinion. But if you want to say constitutional government was saved when the north invaded the southern states and brought them back into the union at the point of a bayonet, then you are unequivocally wrong.
Regardless of the morality of the South’s cause, constitutional government was destroyed the INSTANT it was no longer a voluntary association. The federal government was seen before the civil war as a creation the states and as deriving its powers from their specific delegations of power. Afterwards, the states were largely irrelevant and clearly subordinate to the federal government.
The states have mostly no sovereignty now because they can’t leave the union. As such, they have no ability to come between you and the power of the federal government. The only federal crime before the civil war was treason, now there are at least ten thousand pages of federal criminal code. Why? Because the states can’t meaningfully object.
The civil war didn’t save the republic, it destroyed it. Guys like VDH pretend that it didn’t and owe their allegiance to the usurper and imposter.
And we don’t have to argue about it. The results are clear and they were easily foreseeable. Shortly after the war, Robert E. Lee engaged in correspondence with Lord Acton in England. In one of his letter he stated that the new union of states forged into a vast centralized empire was “…sure to be aggressive abroad and despotic at home.” In 2022, you tell me if he was right.
If the south is such a bad place it would seem that it always had to be such a place. Born and raised in the south. Lives in the Deep South for 13 years and the north for 3. People in the south are much the same as they were back then and actually a bit improved.
If the south sucks donkey balls so badly why are so many damned Yankees and liberal wags wanting to settle there.
JoeBob and SC. I appreciate the perspective that you guys bring to this article. May freedom ring.
First, the newly formed confederacy attacked a federal installation, Ft. Sumpter. Beauregard with 500+ men attacked Anderson with 80 men defending the fort. They were low on supplies and could not last long. The southern slave states had long argued that the new territories would be slave states and the north said no. James Buchanan was president at the time of the event. The south seceded because of the slavery issue in the new territories. The south was at that time pretty much king of the cotton trade and it was more of a feudal system. The large landowners pretty much ruled the south and unfortunately like in all wars the citizen died protecting his home territory instead of the cause. Lee was a respected offensive tactician and joined the cause because of his home state of Virginia. You can argue that they had the right to secede but that's a pretty lame argument because of why they decided to secede; the new territories. Since the new territories were being admitted to the union it is arguable that the union had the right to define their own rules. There were more issues at hand but the slavery issue was the straw that broke the camel's back. Politics played a major issue. The south was trying to use their slave population to gain seats in congress and enhance their power while not allowing any slave to be a citizen, vote or hold office. In most cases they wouldn't even allow them to be educated. History is what it is and you can choose to ignore facts if you wish but the facts are still there. Hanson's article addresses what is happening in California and really all over the union that is reminiscent of the feudal system of controlling the peasantry by affluent ruling class imposing their will on the citizens. You tend to ignore the entire article in favor of defending a long-ago lost war that cost the lives of nearly 700K Citizens from both sides because of a futile argument.
First, the newly formed confederacy attacked a federal installation, Ft. Sumpter. Beauregard with 500+ men attacked Anderson with 80 men defending the fort. They were low on supplies and could not last long. The southern slave states had long argued that the new territories would be slave states and the north said no. James Buchanan was president at the time of the event. The south seceded because of the slavery issue in the new territories. The south was at that time pretty much king of the cotton trade and it was more of a feudal system. The large landowners pretty much ruled the south and unfortunately like in all wars the citizen died protecting his home territory instead of the cause. Lee was a respected offensive tactician and joined the cause because of his home state of Virginia. You can argue that they had the right to secede but that's a pretty lame argument because of why they decided to secede; the new territories. Since the new territories were being admitted to the union it is arguable that the union had the right to define their own rules. There were more issues at hand but the slavery issue was the straw that broke the camel's back. Politics played a major issue. The south was trying to use their slave population to gain seats in congress and enhance their power while not allowing any slave to be a citizen, vote or hold office. In most cases they wouldn't even allow them to be educated. History is what it is and you can choose to ignore facts if you wish but the facts are still there. Hanson's article addresses what is happening in California and really all over the union that is reminiscent of the feudal system of controlling the peasantry by affluent ruling class imposing their will on the citizens. You tend to ignore the entire article in favor of defending a long-ago lost war that cost the lives of nearly 700K Citizens from both sides because of a futile argument.
If you want anyone to read that screed, you’re going to have to discover the paragraph.
Hanson's article addresses what is happening in California and really all over the union that is reminiscent of the feudal system of controlling the peasantry by affluent ruling class imposing their will on the citizens.
,...and it's being done because the Federal Government became a central power which took control of the States. That's why Nancy Pelosi from San Francisco California has the power to dictate what happens in El Paso Texas.
The Civil War, or the War Between the States if you like, resulted from the suspicion that the North meant to use the power of the Union to destroy the sovereignty of the Southern states. Whether or not that suspicion was justified, the war itself produced that very result. The South was subjugated and occupied like a conquered country. Its institutions were profoundly remade by the federal government; the United States of America was taking on the character of an extensive, and highly centralized, empire. Similar processes were under way in Europe, as small states were consolidated into large ones, setting the stage for the tyrannies and gigantic wars of the twentieth century.
Hanson's article addresses what is happening in California and really all over the union that is reminiscent of the feudal system of controlling the peasantry by affluent ruling class imposing their will on the citizens.
,...and it's being done because the Federal Government became a central power which took control of the States. That's why Nancy Pelosi from San Francisco California has the power to dictate what happens in El Paso Texas.
Exactly. Like today, the Civil War was really about two factions competing for control of the federal government. One wanted to use that power to centralize power in the federal government and provide federal funding for infrastructure improvement, massive spending, and other things. The other wanted to maintain something much more decentralized and closer to the original system.
Like today, these factions used social issues to hammer each other and make the point that not only was the other side wrong, it was composed of bad and evil people. Thus, slavery, a generally acknowledged moral problem, became the cudgel used to beat the opposition. As the rhetoric became more extreme from one side, the other matched it. The final culmination of this rhetoric was John Brown’s raid. John Brown’s hair brained scheme sought to cause a massive slave rebellion that would have wiped out thousands of southern men women and children. And it was widely praised in Northern newspapers and by northern politicians. Further, wealthy backers of Brown were never prosecuted for supporting the raid.
At that point, the die were pretty much cast. Very difficult to live with people who literally want you dead.
We are in that cycle today. Like slavery, issues like guns, abortion, so-called trans rights are used to paint the opposition as not just wrong but evil. And mostly, at least by those in charge, it is a cynical ploy to gain more control of the government and fundamentally change it. The rank and file true believers on the other hand, have a religious reverence and we have already seen several incidents exceeding the John Brown raid in violence and death perpetrated by the religious zealots against so-called evil conservatives.
We think that things were more sectional then and divided by slave state and free state. Really? Look at things now. Taking additional settlement into account, things look pretty much the same. The center of conservatism are the so-called Red States located mostly in the South. The cultural heart of the so-called Blue States is New England and the Upper Midwest. Today California is a player when it was largely out of it back then.
But anyway, things are as sectional and as divided now as they were then. The stakes are two (at least) competing and incompatible ideas about the role of government in the lives of people and the power it takes. Back then, when the South figured that it had lost the ability to challenge the New England faction politically, it decided to try and leave. Today, we hear the same talk from both sides in contemplation of living under the rule of the other.
Pray we have the wisdom to let each other go in peace this time if it comes to it. Had Lincoln not been a power mad dictator, we would probably all be better off today.
Nothing in the Constitution nullified secession. Slavery in the new territories was a debatable argument but there was nothing in it to keep states voluntarily joining the union to from voluntarily leaving. Firing on Fort Sumter was an invitation for the federal troops to leave the new sovereign nation. Much akin to what should be done on the Mexican border werenour states still able to resist independently.
Colossians 3:17 (New King James Version) "And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him."
Pray we have the wisdom to let each other go in peace this time if it comes to it. Had Lincoln not been a power mad dictator, we would probably all be better off today.
The way things are shaping up, I doubt if Americans will be who decides America's fate. A big chunk of the world is fed up with the American government's meddling. If (when?) it kicks off in a major fashion, Asia, Russia, and the smaller countries in their orbit will be aligned against America,...much like they aligned against the Axis powers in WW2.
The difference is, Asia isn't a backwater society with very limited manufacturing capability in 2022,..and America doesn't have a manufacturing capability that can be placed on a war footing in a matter of months any longer.
A good principle to guide me through life: “This is all I have come to expect, standard lackluster performance. Trust nothing, believe no one and realize it will only get worse…”
JoeBob, Great posts. Do you think peaceful Balkanization is a possibility? Because obviously we are way past mending fences.
I don’t know. I think probably not as that there are too many people on each side addicted to the grandeur of empire to let it happen.
You know the sides aren’t perfect. In the civil war, one side fighting for its rights and claiming to uphold the ideas of the founders did so while holding four million people in the bondage of slavery. The other claimed to be fighting for the freedom and dignity of man while taking the position that it was acceptable to invade, kill hundreds of thousands, conquer, destroy and eventually lead a recalcitrant and reluctant populace back into what was by then an involuntary union in the name of freedom.
Guys like VDH and many on this board would rather take a position and then twist themselves into mental pretzels and make ridiculously contrived arguments than admit a few truths. And the truth as I see it, is that for all its evils of slavery, the position of the south was more closely aligned to limited and constitutional republic as envisioned by the Founders. And conversely, for all the genuine, as far as it went, desire on the part of many northerners to free slaves was laudable and good, their overall position was an evil one that necessarily involved the enslavement of the states and their populations.
But, the real truth is that I think guys like VDH and many on this board are perfectly able to see the truth and do. They just get off on being a big and powerful country. You know, the grandeur of empire. They would rather be part of something like that, than to actually be a republic as the Founders envisioned because that republic would necessarily be much weaker and less powerful on the world stage than what we are today.
And once again to acknowledge that and understand forces one to let go of a few favorite tropes and myths. One has to acknowledge that for all the good the US has accomplished around the world using its power, and I’ll acknowledge that it has done much good, it is basically an evil thing. And like all powerful things that are at their heart evil even when doing good, it eventually shows it’s true face. And that where we are. To paraphrase Washington a bit, a government powerful enough to do all that, is powerful enough to take everything you have and do what it wants to you.
And one can’t claim it is a surprise. As noted in this thread, Lee and many others saw exactly where it would take us. Once you accept the Faustian bargain of a powerful centralized state, the devil eventually gets what he owns.
To answer your question, I don’t think we’ll be able to do it. To many, like VDH who would be mostly on our side, don’t realize or don’t want to realize the true cause of everything that is happening today. And if they do, they prefer the grandeur of empire to actual freedom.
Pray we have the wisdom to let each other go in peace this time if it comes to it. Had Lincoln not been a power mad dictator, we would probably all be better off today.
The way things are shaping up, I doubt if Americans will be who decides America's fate. A big chunk of the world is fed up with the American government's meddling. If (when?) it kicks off in a major fashion, Asia, Russia, and the smaller countries in their orbit will be aligned against America,...much like they aligned against the Axis powers in WW2.
The difference is, Asia isn't a backwater society with very limited manufacturing capability in 2022,..and America doesn't have a manufacturing capability that can be placed on a war footing in a matter of months any longer.
Yeah, there’s that too. Countries would be all to happy to stir up endless civil war like we have in the Middle East and elsewhere to keep us down. And they would probably use the security of our nukes as an excuse to come in with so-called peacekeepers.
JoeBob, Great posts. Do you think peaceful Balkanization is a possibility? Because obviously we are way past mending fences.
I'll take a swing at that too.
I don't think so because the majority of the divide is urban vs. rural. Without some strategy/process of turning the progressive cities at least marginally conservative, there won't be any way of separating them out and they will only continue to grow & gain power turning conservative states progressive
I've read that Lincoln wanted to send all the blacks out of this country but was assassinated before it got any traction. Can anybody confirm this or is it just a myth.
I've read that Lincoln wanted to send all the blacks out of this country but was assassinated before it got any traction. Can anybody confirm this or is it just a myth.
He was a supporter of that earlier in his career for sure. It is less certain that he still held those views by the end of the war.
But I’ll add one more parallel to today. Several states in the North had laws actually prohibiting freed blacks. What blacks they had, were mostly the descendants of former northern slaves who were born and grew up in freedom and white society. So, by the end of the war, they didn’t much care about the freed slaves as that that problem was going to be mostly one for the southern states to figure out. They didn’t invite them up to live up there and most of those states were more or less black free and lilly white until the Great Migration of blacks in the 20th century to northern cities for factory jobs. Even today, outside the cities, those states are far more white than the south.
And you see again this week. While Texas and other icky red states are being inundated by thousands of illegals per day, the Yankees in Martha’s Vinyard flip their schit with an influx of fifty.
In this instance, history is coming a lot closer to repeating than merely rhyming.
JoeBob, Great posts. Do you think peaceful Balkanization is a possibility? Because obviously we are way past mending fences.
I'll take a swing at that too.
I don't think so because the majority of the divide is urban vs. rural. Without some strategy/process of turning the progressive cities at least marginally conservative, there won't be any way of separating them out and they will only continue to grow & gain power turning conservative states progressive
Tyrone, You make a good point there. I have often felt that the split this country is facing is most accurately defined by urban vs rural. It's not about lifestyles or geography...it's so basic, a belief of the urban to embrace a megalithic central govt...to the rural belief of just leave me the hell alone, right down to almost DNA level. This potentially cataclysmic rift will not be healed by shaking hands, or reaching across the aisle, and now that the ballot box has been corrupted, neither side will abide any outcome other than their personal favorite scenario.
Well this is a fine pickle we're in, should'a listened to Joe McCarthy and George Orwell I guess.
