Air it out, try to explain your way of lookin at it

[El Confederado]

Ok boys,
I get soo tired of the who was right , who was wrong b.s., so now y'all get a chance to back it up.So here we go.

Why was the Union correct and the Confederacy wrong? ( For you Union boys)

Why was the Confederacy correct and the Union wrong?( for the Confederates of the bunch)

So lets see what y'all come up with and please use some thought, dont just use heart wrenching b.s. about morals or say things like " because it was wrong". y'all are smarter than that. Put yourself in their shoes and try to see it in their eyes. Have fun, it should be a real live one.

[Savorino]

Both wrong!

Proof:
         Thousands of dead people

Sav


( Sav, to be honest they say it is alot closer to a million,EC)

All the more reason,
wrong leaders at the wrong time.
sav

[williamlayton]

It was in defense of broken contracts, need for sustaining an unbroken Union, and this feeling of manifest destiny.
The Union could not allow a potential threat from previously defeated enemies to regain a foot-hold and threaten it.
Blessings

[Shorty]

The South wasn't wrong.  It was just those fire-breathing, slave-holding, wealthy dick-heads in South Carolina that sucked in the poor, uneducated, backwards, otherwise loyal, good Crackers into a fight they didn't really want!    :shock:  :eek:      

[El Confederado]

Well I think I will keep it simple for all those who still cant either read or think for ones self.

First, The Union was wrong simply because of the fact that the Federal government under Mr Lincoln broke the sacred contract of the Constitution  and it's amendments, as well as the tenants of the Articles of Confederation and the Declartion of Independence. This being said the Federal government under Mr Lincoln was no better than King George and that said government was illegal in it's actions.

Second, The people of the South were correct by asserting their Constitutional rights as well as their rights affirmed under the Declaration of Independance  and the Articles of Confederation in moving to sever ties with an opressive and illegal government in order to form their own Union of States , to protect their rights to Life, Liberty and Property.

[williamlayton]

WHO broke a SACRED contract
This needs some thoght before you answer EL.
Blessings

[El Confederado]

willaimlayton,
To answer your slanted question, the Union did, they willfully violated the Constitution and that is a plain fact. The Constitution , the Articles of Confederation and the Declaration all lend power to the Southern claim for self rule, now I know you will see it different if for no other reason than it is stated by me, so go on ahead and do your thing, but those writtings are written in English and have not changed there meaning, all one needs do is read them with a mindset of that time and without some grudge against the Southern Cause.

In a side note just for giggles, do you feel that the people of Texas had the right to rebel against their legal government in Mexico City or that the people of the English colonies had the right to rebel against the English King? I should be interesting to see you answers, because depending on your answers, I have some more questions for ya. I would love to understand your train of thought.

[williamlayton]

Well at least you finally admited to a contract. We can start from the fact there was a contract and extrpolate who broke it.
Blessings

[El Confederado]

williamlayton,
I have always contended that there was a contract, however, I dont understand you admitted part, your begining to talk like ironfoot pard.I also naticed that you didnt touch the questions with a ten foot pole, gee I wonder why :-D ?

[williamlayton]

Fergot bout that, went outside to smoke a cig. Got to do it that way or tha Hen won't let me have computer privileges.
Well now, TEXAS, by GOD is a little different--not a whole lot though--we did try stayin with them boys but they kept breaking the rules. That said, if you remember other post from the past, Folks can do or try most anything they want IF they are willing to accept the consequences.
Still think it was a foolish move, doomed for destruction, Illegal (illegal is ok if you accept the consequences).
Now if you want to lead a legal life, without lookin over your shoulder, well thats a whole nother thing.
Texas probably could not have stood against them boys a second time around, if we are talking about during the war. After the war Texas was pretty depleted and needed the union. Mexico was hell bent to take it back and the Union needed it for this manifest destiny thing they had going.
Blessings

[williamlayton]

Now lest ya get too uppity. Me an ol RIP thunk we coulda whupped them boys agin.
Blessings

[l.cutler]

Weren't The Articles of Confederation tossed out because they gave too much power to the states, which left a weakened Federal government?

[El Confederado]

williamlayton,
Your just too good an olod boy to dislike. That being said I think you missed the jist of the question and statement.


The thoughts of selfrule are as American as apple pie and to say that the South had no right to self rule is to say that neither the American Colonies had said right, the People of Texas, the People of California or the People of any number of counties that the United States has backed in the past 228 years as a nation.

[williamlayton]

Oh I thought I did touch on that, not very clear agin am I.
The thoght is ok, lends to implosion, as argued previously. It is everbodys right, I guess it is a right if you are a follower of the free will theory, to try an do most anything you want if the consequenses of failure are worth it.
Blessings

[ironfoot]

This topic was pretty well covered in the "Causes of the Civil War" thread, which El Confederado has apparently deleted for some reason.
The South's rebellion was illegal. The secession was in response to the South not liking the outcome of the presidential election. The South wanted to preserve slavery where it existed, and expand it into the territories. The North wanted to stop the expansion of slavery, and to keep it on the road to extinction. Despite any other grievances the South may have had over other issues, like taxes or tariffs, they were not sufficient to cause secession. It was when northerner Lincoln was elected on an anti-slavery platform that the South seceded. Lincoln was elected president over the whole country, and he felt it was his job as president to preserve it. If a state could secede every time the state did not like the results of a presidential election, we wouldn't have much of a country. In similar fashion, the blue states cannot secede if they don't like the fact that George W Bush was elected president.

[gino]

Maybe it's a flaw in my character or something but I have trouble getting worked up over something that happened 140 years ago.
gino

[El Confederado]

Ironfoot,
Since your sooo sure that the South acted illegaly, put ones money where ones mouth is , prove it, show us all something that is real proof, not just because you say so.

[nohorse]

Ironfoot:

“The South's rebellion was illegal”:  
Agreed, based solely upon US law secession was an act of open rebellion and was illegal. [This has no bearing upon whether or not the South felt that they had the right to secede. Keep in mind that one of the essential beliefs of the anti-Federalists was in the right to secede. Thomas Jefferson believed in this right. The West Point Military Academy taught that Americans retained this right. Many Americans also believed in this right including the New Englanders that wanted to secede during the War of 1812. Even Lincoln refused to acknowledge secession stating that the Confederate States were merely states in rebellion. They all believed that Americans have the right to change the form of government when that government proves abusive or ineffective.]
 
“The secession was in response to the South not liking the outcome of the presidential election”:
I agree that the election of Lincoln influenced the state conventions to ratify articles of secession and form the Confederacy and that Lincoln and his party are specifically mentioned in some Articles of Confederation such as Georgia’s.  But Lincoln’s election was not the sole cause of secession.

“The South wanted to preserve slavery where it existed, and expand it into the territories”:
Agreed, at least during the beginning to mid phase of the war.  

“The North wanted to stop the expansion of slavery, and to keep it on the road to extinction”:
Well some did but obviously not all.  Legislation and Supreme Court decisions regarding slavery before the Civil War, which included the Compromise of 1820, the Missouri Compromise, the Kansas/Nebraska Act, the Fugitive Slave Law and the Dred Scott Decision effectively legalized slavery across the entire country. As I stated before slavery was an ‘American’ institution and all of these legal decisions accommodated all slave holders [not just Southern slave holders] and re-affirmed, by Federal law, the right to own and retain slaves as personal property. As stated in a different thread : ‘The Fugitive Slave Law was a complete victory for the cause of the slave-holders [all slave holders – not just Southern slave holders] and showed clearly that the abolitionist lobbies weren't running the Washington government by trying to eradicate the 'rights' of slave holders which were mandated and guaranteed by Federal law.’

“Despite any other grievances the South may have had over other issues, like taxes or tariffs, they were not sufficient to cause secession”:
Unlike many Republican platforms today Lincoln believed in ‘Big Government’.  He federalized the railroads, he created the national currency, and he raised the tariff [taxes] on trade items from the South. As you know, because the South was an agricultural based economy they made their money by trading [selling] to the north and were already paying exorbitant taxes while the industrial north [which did not have a trade based economy] paid basically nothing. The higher tariff rightfully enraged the Southerners. Although Lincoln’s platforms and interests in developing big government may seem sensible today in the 1860’s this was viewed as a serious infringement upon the states individual rights to govern. Rights that were in fact delegated to the states by the US Constitution.  Thus, to say that the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery would be incorrect, but to say that the Civil War was only about slavery or mostly about slavery would be just as incorrect.

“It was when northerner Lincoln was elected on an anti-slavery platform that the South seceded”:
I agree that the election of Lincoln prompted many states to ratify Articles of Secession and Lincoln and the Republican party are mentioned in some of these, like Georgia’s. But again, this was not the sole reason for secession.

“Lincoln was elected president over the whole country, and he felt it was his job as president to preserve it”:
Yes, initially Lincoln served as president over the entire country. That was until the states began to secede in 1860. Whether or not Lincoln and the north liked it the Confederacy, for a time, existed as an independent nation and owed nor proclaimed any allegiance to Lincoln or the US government.

“If a state could secede every time the state did not like the results of a presidential election, we wouldn't have much of a country”:  
Again, the election of Lincoln prompted many of the Southern states to ratify articles of secession. They were already contemplating secession and wanting to secede - this was merely another ‘nail in the coffin’ so to speak. The 1860 presidential election was just one of the many contributing factors that resulted in the formation of the Confederacy.  Not the actual and only reason for secession.

"During the Civil War it was legal to deprive the enemy of its property and the Emancipation Proclamation was, in part, an effort to do that":
Excuse me while I laugh – Waaauugghhhaaaaa.  

The Emancipation Proclamation also helped speed up the demise of slavery, which was appreciated by many abolitionist Lincoln supporters.”:
Well, we can agree that the abolitionist lobby in Washington probably liked it.

“In similar fashion, the blue states cannot secede if they don't like the fact that George W Bush was elected president":
Personally, after the first 4 years of Bill Clinton I would have seriously considered the option of voting for secession had it been included on the Mississippi ballot.

[El Confederado]

Nohorse,

Most times I agree with ya , but this time I found a flaw in you thought,

"Agreed, based solely upon US law secession was an act of open rebellion and was illegal."

What US law are you basing this on. The Constitution, I hope not because the Constitution at that time was silent on the whole act of secession, thus the only law that even could be applied is the 10th Amendment and lets face it, it tends to support secession.Now once we all can get on the same page with this then I will try to move on to Ironfoots wierd train of thought in the rest of his post.

[nohorse]

Excellent point and I quote James Ostrowski: "The issue of the right of a state to secede is of more than historical interest. Since the end of the Civil War in 1865, though several amendments giving the federal government greater power over the states have been ratified, there have been no textual changes to the Constitution which explicitly prohibit secession.

There was no attempt by either side in the Civil War to resort to federal courts or international arbitrators for a decision on the legality of secession. Nor has any state attempted to secede since the Civil War. As settled as secession may be as a political or historical issue to many, it has never been settled as a legal one."

I am reserving judgement on your view of Section 10 until I can research this a little more. Good discussion and thanks.

[nohorse]

Regarding Lincoln and the constitutionality of secession try this website:

http://www.liberty-ca.org/presentations/articles/2003was_secession_legal.htm

[El Confederado]

Nohorse,
This is what I like to see, a person that atleast thinks and reads, not just spews the Union line about the evils of the Confederacy. We may not agree on things 100% of the time and to be honest, that is a good thing, but atleast I can seem to talk with you and you have an open mind and not a closed one made up by  todays schools and a government  of 140 years ago.

[nohorse]

El Confed: Thanks for the compliment.

[williamlayton]

It is a good exchange.
Blessings

[El Confederado]

Here is one for y'all to check out



The Real Lincoln

Do states have a right of secession? That question was settled through the costly War of 1861. In his recently published book, "The Real Lincoln," Thomas DiLorenzo marshals abundant unambiguous evidence that virtually every political leader of the time and earlier believed that states had a right of secession.

Let's look at a few quotations. Thomas Jefferson in his First Inaugural Address said, "If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union, or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left to combat it." Fifteen years later, after the New England Federalists attempted to secede, Jefferson said, "If any state in the Union will declare that it prefers separation ... to a continuance in the union ... I have no hesitation in saying, ‘Let us separate.'"

At Virginia's ratification convention, the delegates said, "The powers granted under the Constitution being derived from the People of the United States may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression." In Federalist Paper 39, James Madison, the father of the Constitution, cleared up what "the people" meant, saying the proposed Constitution would be subject to ratification by the people, "not as individuals composing one entire nation, but as composing the distinct and independent States to which they respectively belong." In a word, states were sovereign; the federal government was a creation, an agent, a servant of the states.

On the eve of the War of 1861, even unionist politicians saw secession as a right of states. Maryland Rep. Jacob M. Kunkel said, "Any attempt to preserve the Union between the States of this Confederacy by force would be impractical, and destructive of republican liberty." The northern Democratic and Republican parties favored allowing the South to secede in peace.

Just about every major Northern newspaper editorialized in favor of the South's right to secede. New York Tribune (Feb. 5, 1860): "If tyranny and despotism justified the Revolution of 1776, then we do not see why it would not justify the secession of Five Millions of Southrons from the Federal Union in 1861." Detroit Free Press (Feb. 19, 1861): "An attempt to subjugate the seceded States, even if successful could produce nothing but evil -- evil unmitigated in character and appalling in content." The New York Times (March 21, 1861): "There is growing sentiment throughout the North in favor of letting the Gulf States go." DiLorenzo cites other editorials expressing identical sentiments.

Americans celebrate Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, but H.L. Mencken correctly evaluated the speech, "It is poetry not logic; beauty, not sense." Lincoln said that the soldiers sacrificed their lives "to the cause of self-determination -- government of the people, by the people, for the people should not perish from the earth." Mencken says: "It is difficult to imagine anything more untrue. The Union soldiers in the battle actually fought against self-determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of people to govern themselves."

In Federalist Paper 45, Madison guaranteed: "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite." The South seceded because of Washington's encroachment on that vision. Today, it's worse. Turn Madison's vision on its head, and you have today's America.

DiLorenzo does a yeoman's job in documenting Lincoln's ruthlessness and hypocrisy, and how historians have covered it up. The Framers had a deathly fear of federal government abuse. They saw state sovereignty as a protection. That's why they gave us the Ninth and 10th Amendments. They saw secession as the ultimate protection against Washington tyranny.

COPYRIGHT 2002 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.


Contact Walter E. Williams | Read his biography


©2002 Creators Syndicate, Inc.


P.S.
And this was wrote by a black man, gee , I guess he is a bigot too. What say you IntrepedWizard?I think I would still like you to take that remark back, but we will see .