Who Would You Have Supported In the American Civil War

[Tetro Kornbluth]

@Oakvale:

The Civil War was not for abolishing slavery. It was for beating renegade republics into submission and then reabsorbing them into the Union.

There are two classic misconceptions here:
1) As Lincoln did not plan to completely abolish slavery either in his election campaign or even after Ford Sumter, the war was not really about slavery
2) The rebelling states were fighting for independence from an overbearing government.

These are both false and obviously so. Let's begin with the simple fact: Before 1860 the slave interest was a dominant - perhaps the dominant - interest in American government. The two presidents previous to Lincoln, Buchanan and Pierce had both tried to 'negotiate' the slavery issue by passing legislation favourable to the slave interest in the face of previous compromises that had not been so favourable (How else can you explain The Kansas-Nebraska Act?). Some of these laws were not only an affront to the liberty of persons but actually contradicted the notion of states rights such as the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 that was passed by the Fillmore administration which required local militias to chase and arrest escaped slaves even in states where slavery was illegal and there was strong abolitionist sentiment. Not only that but under Polk, one of the presidents closest to the slave interest, the United States expanded its territory massively following a war against Mexico which brought large territories which were given over to the slave interest who were the driving force behind the idea of expansion. Texas, which had originally separated from Mexico in part because the Mexican government under the 'tyran't Santa Ana had tried to ban Slavery, joined the United States as a consequence of the war. Later on, of course, Texas would separate again, this time from the US, because of slavery.

Not to mention that a large area of the cotton growing south, including pretty much the entire state of Mississippi owes its genesis to the land policies of president Andrew Jackson who engaged in what was perhaps the most openly genocidal campaigns of all of the campaign in American History against its original inhabitants. The confederates were hardly men of peace.

Now to address #1, Lincoln had the first president elected without any support of the South and the first who had campaigned for abolitionist-leaning reform of the slavery laws. The United States, being an empire, was expanding rapidly to the west and taking in all kinds of states. Previous agreements, which were eventually torn up by the Kansas-Nebraska act (see above), had stated that these expansion states would mostly be slavery free. Furthermore, the land of the plains was completely unsuitable to the high extensive cotton agriculture seen in the Deep South and thus it would be difficult under normal economic conditions for slavery to gain an interest in most of the west. In addition to this, the land in the west from was in demand by settlers from the North (and outside the US) who wished to own private property in their own personal manner (i.e. Free from slavery) with all the goods and services that the northern states provided at that time such as public education, which didn't even exist in most southern states at the time. As well as greater equality, at least among those who owned land, as there was a greater disparity between landowners in the south and north. Why? One simple reason: The profits from cotton. And as the profits from cotton were so great, there was no need for the South (in the eyes of its plantocracy rulers) to invest in public goods. Note this: Of the 20 largest cities in the United States in 1860, nineteen were in the North plus the port city of New Orleans. The south was an agricultural economy completely dominated economically and socially by the fact of slavery; the relationship of the government with the people, its economic and class structure even for non-slaves, its undemocratic nature compared to the North were connected to slavery. To support, therefore, the confederacy is to associate yourself with the most powerful anti-modernist, anti-development, anti-liberal, anti-democratic, imperialist expansionists, racists and genociders in American history.

Don't believe me? Let's take a quote from the horses' mouth, Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

What about the reasons given by the states?

Here's Georgia

You must be logged in to read this quote.

And Mississippi

You must be logged in to read this quote.

And it goes on like this... seriously read these

(cont)...

[Tetro Kornbluth]

When Lincoln got elected on the promise of restricted the expansion of slavery this was a major threat to these interests. Because of the growth of Northern industry the population of North was growing very rapidly as opposed to the South which was much more stagnant. The south was getting outvoted and was losing its influence in Washington due to the effects of demographics and the election of 1860 showed this and its influence would clearly grow weaker and weaker in a situation where there were more non-slave states. Thus secession. Which started in South Carolina, the only state in which the electorate could not vote in Presidential elections (the legislature picked their candidate... although if the eligible population (less than 25% of the adult population as the black majority couldn't vote because they enslaved and Women didn't have suffrage yet) had voted there's no doubt they would have agreed with the legislature. South Carolina then seized federal property and then started the war by attacking Fort Sumter. That's right, the confederates and not the Union started the war. This attack led to four further states seceding from the Union and creating the situation that led to the deaths of 600,000 people in the defense of slavery, hierarchy and pseudo-aristocracy. And because they had lost an election.

This strongly suggests that these people were not willing to listen to 'reason' on the slavery issue.

You know, sometimes Redalgo you should realize that people regularly act in bad faith especially when self-interest is concerned.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Some of this I've already gone though and the rest is complete and utter waffle of the most waffliest kind. Who would these "armed opponents" be? The men at Fort Sumter? The Slaves? (Good luck with that...) The Abolitionists? The same Abolitionists that were despised by nearly all Southern Society and most of the north as well... or perhaps the real armed opponents of the regime, The United States Government.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I'll ignore the issue of definitions - what does "support" mean in this context or "broad-based"? I, of course, agree with you for the most part on the US' role in the world today. Unilateral conflict, especially if based on spurious evidence-free assertion such as "WMD" is a pretty bad idea as the last 10-15 years have shown. However, as the Arab Spring has also shown we should not expect rebels in other countries to share our sentiments. Like so much isolationists, you are in fact a perverse nationalist believing that if only America became the true moral exemplar unruined by such corruptions as actual military conflict then the world would simply become more like America anyway. This is false; Democracy, liberalism, etc are not universal values and they were not, as I have pointed out already, the values of the confederacy which was a paternalistic oligarchy.

I'm currently research into Puritan missionaries in Early New England and one of the most amazing ideas they had was that natives would suddenly convert by magic if only the American Indians saw how utterly amazing they were; how Godly, how well behaved, how biblical, etc. Of course this had no relation to their actual actions and even less was this successful, a failure which was then blamed on the ignorance and stupidity of the 'Indian'. It's good to see with Redalgo and the 'Anti-Imperialist' Left such arguments re-appearing.

No if we want Democracy and liberalism to spread around the world, then democracy and liberalism should be aggressively (but not too aggressively) promoted. Of course, we could otherwise retreat into pseudo-relativist blather about other customs and cultures.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Oh good lord, where to begin? As Scott rightly pointed out you claim Slavery is immoral yet you are also a moral relativist with respect for foreign customs (such as slavery per chance?). This whole argument seems like nothing more than a Chewbacca defense - "that does not make sense"; "If Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must be neutral in all conflicts because peace and goodwill to all man. Also, have I mentioned that I'm a Tibetan Buddhist... Oh, the Dalai Lama, he's so spiritual man"

I have nothing wrong with respecting foreign customs, I think a bland rationalist world a la the fantasies of Richard Dawkins would be a dull place but I think if local custom meant denying the privilege of anyone, especially a large group of people chosen only because of their geographical origins and skin colour, to choose their customs would be a crime that no relativist can support. Catholicism is the custom of my country and Presbyterianism the custom of my ancestors but I reject both of them; Black African slaves had no such chance. The situation isn't even comparable. It's mad, bigoted and racist to suggest otherwise.

As for Diplomacy ending slavery, lol. The confederates best chance, in fact, lay in diplomacy especially in getting recognition in Britain and France. Yes, local moral indignation was a major part of the reason preventing that from happening but the British and French were far away, Lincoln in Washington on the border with the now Confederate Virginia, not so much.  

You must be logged in to read this quote.

So your alternative to the slaughter - awful as it was - that took place would be a bound-to-be genocidal revolt. Let's not forget no widespread slave report bar one has ever been successful in world history and the one exception was a highly unusual case (which, btw, inspired the southern plantocracy to be ever more vigilant over their 'property'). This revolt, which would somehow be instantaneous and involve most African slaves (despite their geographical dispersal) and Southern abolitionists (who were an oppressed and tiny minority of intellectuals who were banned from sending their literature through the mail), would of course somehow be successful and end slavery despite this being in the interest of nobody with power or influence.

This simply at the Ron Paul level of magical thinking that somehow slavery would disappear because it had to disappear through the amazing forces of progressive history. I would like to think that historical arguments made even on an internet message board are more sophisticated than those offered by Ron Paul. But alas, it seems, no. Your entire argument boils down to, in essence, "I would be against the war because it hurts my feelings and there's always a better way". I'm sure you think such hallmark sentiments are ennobling but given that it took 600,000 deaths to end American Slavery, I imagine they would have been remarkably ineffective.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Oh, btw, if you haven't figured from my post, I would have supported the Union.