How Can You Call It The War Of Northern Aggression

[gandog56]

You are so wrong it isn't even funny. All the big bank houses were in New York and they were making a killing selling cotton exports. The last thing THEY wanted was a war disrupting their huge profits. Most of the shipping was from New York City to England, the shipping companies were happy with slavery. It was the poor dirt farmers and the makers of manuafactured goods who wanted the war. Slavery was not a real cash raising economy. The South did not have lots a cash to buy those manufactured good, Why buy the latest Parisian dress, when ol' Aunt Beulah could sew as pretty as you please. And cost you nothing but the crops and animals to feed them?


But is still comes down to who fired the first shots...and that would be the SOUTH!

[Casull]

But is still comes down to who fired the first shots...and that would be the SOUTH!

 
 
 
 
Somebody breaks into my house, I'm going to fire the first shots.  And, they will still be considered criminals.

[eastbank]

it would have been cheaper in blood and money to just boycott the south, put embargo,s on all farming supplies and machinery and any slaves making it to a free state would be free from then on. it may have pained the north free states,but it would hurt the south more, man made fibers were on the way and cotton would not be king long and with the new harvesting equipment comming on line would have made the slaves a hugh burden to the south. i know with out that war there would have been another branch on my familey tree. hows this for a so called rich northern farmer,  my GGG father,s estate in 1859. eastbank.

[AtlLaw]

just boycott the south, put embargo,s on all farming supplies and machinery and any slaves making it to a free state would be free from then on.

You mean kinda sorta treat the South like a foreign country?   
 
Nice farm BTW!   

[gstewart44]

You mean kinda sorta treat the South like a foreign country?   

Or more like a SEPERATE country which is what the South wanted in the first place. 

[SHOOTALL]

'Endeavor to persevere'Quite northern profits and Southern expense

[gandog56]

You mean kinda sorta treat the South like a foreign country?   

Or more like a SEPERATE country which is what the South wanted in the first place.

Maybe, but it would still be a SLAVE holding country right on our border.

And they STILL fired the first shots!

[greenmtnboy]

 gandog56     SIMPLE..   This is a Southern born website   Either you agree that the North was wrong or your wrong..   Doesn't mean its right .   Kinda like the gun control issue.

[AtlLaw]

Either you agree that the North was wrong or your wrong..

Nope, just means that different people have different opinions...   

[eastbank]

home of the dead horse club. eastbank.

[greenmtnboy]

  All the same atlaw,  and you know what they say about oppinions..   A dead horse for sure we all lost in the end.

[BAGTIC]

My position is simple. Slavery is a moral evil. Period. If the South felt commited to the perpetuation of that evil the stain is on them and no one else.
The South had a right to secede. They did. I have no problem with that. The Union was unhappy/disappointed with that secession but it accepted it and took no cation to force the CSA back in to the Union. Pragmatically it was making the best of a bad situation.
The CSA launched an armed attack against the USA. An attack that was unwarranted, unnecessary,  and unjustified. Moreover it was stupid. They paid the price.
Now what do a lot of recidivist rednecks expect to gain by the perpetuation of a myth?  The CSA is gone. The south was devastated by the war and crippled for more than a century afterwards by reconstruction and its aftermath. The mentality is no different from that of the neo-Nazis who live a delusion of imagined past glories and what 'might have been' IF things had gone differently. Well, they didn't. This is a common delusion of 'loosers' of all stripes, a denial of reality. It keeps psychiatrists rich, prisons and asylums full.
Now, most southerners had nothing to gain by slavery. The overwhelming majority of slaves were owned by the small percentage of of  large plantation owners. The small land owner may have had one or even two slaves but not enough to make much difference to their lives. They had been suckered by the people up in the big house to fight a war and shed their blood to maintain the planter's standards of living. It was the military industrial complex in its basic form.  The rich get richer and the poor do their dirty work and get buried in a pine box. Things really haven't changed much.

[Casull]

The CSA launched an armed attack against the USA. An attack that was unwarranted

 
 
 
That is an out and out lie.  As for the balance of that post, it is nothing but hateful opinion.

[hellbilly075]

South Carolina was in the right to secede. Nowhere in the Constitution is there any mention of the union of the states being permanent. This was not an oversight by any means. Indeed, when New York, Rhode Island, and Virginia ratified the Constitution, they specifically stated that they reserved the right to resume the governmental powers granted to the United States. Their claim to the right of secession was understood and agreed to by the other ratifiers, including George Washington, who presided over the Constitutional Convention and was also a delegate from Virginia. In his book Life of Webster Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge writes, "It is safe to say that there was not a man in the country, from Washington and Hamilton to Clinton and Mason, who did not regard the new system as an experiment from which each and every State had a right to peaceably withdraw." A textbook used at West Point before the Civil War, A View of the Constitution, written by Judge William Rawle, states, "The secession of a State depends on the will of the people of such a State." So in that case South Carolina was well within its defined rights. Lincoln on the other hand raised an Army to invade his own country. The Army being used in the south during reconstruction and the corruptness on horrors perpetrated by the Army was the impetus for the Posse Commitus being enacted in 18(78?)....Hellbilly

[subdjoe]

The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in a privately delivered opinion said. “If you bring these leaders to trial it will condemn the north, for by the Constitution, secession is not rebellion.” Lincoln appointee Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, July 1867 (Foote, The Civil War, Vol. 3, p. 765)

The government appointed three separate attorneys to take on the case against Jefferson Davis, but all three eventually declined when they decided the case was “doomed to failure.” The following quote is attributed to one of those attorneys. “Gentleman, the Supreme Court of the United States will have to acquit that man under the Constitution, when it will be proven to the world, that the north waged an unconstitutional warfare against the south.”

President Johnson was prepared to offer Davis a pardon in order to avoid embarrassment. Davis refused a pardon on the grounds that, to accept a pardon is to admit guilt. Davis wanted a trial to settle the issue of secession, once and for all, in a court of law.

President Johnson chose to give amnesty to the entire south, Davis included, thereby shelving the issue, unresolved to this day.

[BAGTIC]

And? One can invade without forts.  In fact, forts are static, just thought I would point that out.  But Sumter had enough guns on it to command the harbor.

Tell us, how many southern troops were heading to Boston or New York in April, 1861?
[/quote
 
Fort Sumter was not being built as an act of aggression against the CSA. The CSA didn't even exist when the fort was begun. Furthermore if it was an 'act of aggression' why the Hell did SC politicians transfer the title to the USA? Was that an act of treason towards SC.
The fort was being built for the same reason all the other forts of the period were built, to defend us against foreign invaders, Just as Fort McHenry had been built to protect the harbor at Baltimore. We had been unable to win a single battle against the British during the War of 1812. The ability of Fort McHenry to repulse a British invasion force was one of tghe high points of that war and one of the reasons for building many new forts to protect against future invasions. Sumter was built to protect Charleston not to attack it. Forts are defensive structures not offensive.

[BAGTIC]

The CSA launched an armed attack against the USA. An attack that was unwarranted

 
 
 
That is an out and out lie.  As for the balance of that post, it is nothing but hateful opinion.

That is the truth. As for the response it is born of foolishness, ignorance, and blind chauvinistic bigotry.

[Casull]

That is the truth.

 
 
 
BS.  South Carolina was being invaded and defended themselves.
 
 
 
 

As for the response it is born of foolishness, ignorance, and blind chauvinistic bigotry.

 
 
 
If you are referring to your prior post, then I would concur.

[Cabin4]

It was a war born from Northern Aggression.

[subdjoe]

Fort Sumter was not being built as an act of aggression against the CSA. The CSA didn't even exist when the fort was begun. Furthermore if it was an 'act of aggression' why the Hell did SC politicians transfer the title to the USA? Was that an act of treason towards SC.
The fort was being built for the same reason all the other forts of the period were built, to defend us against foreign invaders, Just as Fort McHenry had been built to protect the harbor at Baltimore. We had been unable to win a single battle against the British during the War of 1812. The ability of Fort McHenry to repulse a British invasion force was one of tghe high points of that war and one of the reasons for building many new forts to protect against future invasions. Sumter was built to protect Charleston not to attack it. Forts are defensive structures not offensive.

No, but it was being reinforced and reprovisioned as an act of aggression. 

As for the worn out "Well, SC had given title to the US," then, I suppose, the United Colonies had no title to any Crown lands when they broke away to form the United States. 

Sumter, if reinforced and reprovisioned, would have commanded the harbor, and could have prevented all shipping in and out of it.  It was also a very good staging point for the invasion Lincoln was planning to collect the tariffs, duties, and taxes from what was now a separate country.  I suppose you would stand still for England to invade the US in order to collect taxes owed since 1776.

Buchanan did nothing because he, and his Attorney General, saw secession as legal and constitutional.  Congress did nothing because Congress saw secession as legal and constitutional.  Even Lincoln was willing to "let them go" so long as the taxes, tariffs, and duties were paid - but by what logic would those be owed if the states of the deep south had been "let go" to form their own nation?  Can the US demand taxes from any nation it chooses?

[gstewart44]

Great points to ponder Subdjoe!   

[Cabin4]

Yes those are good supporting points. However, the overriding reason the southern states seceded, was because they can under the constitution. There is nothing "binding" in the formation of the Union. The states elected to become part of the Union. The fact that they elected to join means they can elect to secede.

[gandog56]

....when the South fired the first shots?

If a burglar is breaking in, are you the aggressor if you shoot at him?

Lincoln refused to pull US troops from SC soil.  Lincoln was attempting to resupply and reinforce those troops in preparation to invading the former states of the deep south.

Disputed territory. Is an island off the South Carolina coast SC soil? And once again, they fired first. The Union had no intention of shooting first, and I think SC KNEW that.

[gandog56]

It was a war born from Northern Aggression.

How can it be, the Union never fired at the Confederacy yet. I still think South Carolina was the "aggressors".

[gandog56]

it would have been cheaper in blood and money to just boycott the south, put embargo,s on all farming supplies and machinery and any slaves making it to a free state would be free from then on. it may have pained the north free states,but it would hurt the south more, man made fibers were on the way and cotton would not be king long and with the new harvesting equipment comming on line would have made the slaves a hugh burden to the south. i know with out that war there would have been another branch on my familey tree. hows this for a so called rich northern farmer,  my GGG father,s estate in 1859. eastbank.

The South was pretty much selling all it's cotton to England and other European countries, so a boycott by the Union would NOT work.

The funny thing is most of the cotton was exported through New York city, in the North, before the war.

[mannyrock]

  Er, . . .time out guys.




   It is true that South Carolina fired the first cannons.   (Since they did so only because Lincoln was sending warships into their harbor to reinforce a federal fort in their waters, one can debate earnestly who really started the War.)


  But what this current argument forgets is, that South Carolina was not "The South".  It was one small state in the South.   The others didn't shoot first.  And, the largest Southern States on the border had not even voted to secede, hoping for a peaceful solution.


   Lincoln then ORDERED them to provide troops to the federal government, so that the North could send an invasion force of 75,000 men into the states that had already pulled out, but primarily South Carolina.  Heck, Lincoln hoped that he could dupe Col. Robert E. Lee into leading it, so that he could make the political claim that a Southerner was leading the invasion.  He was really upset when Lee refused and resigned from the Army.


  Lincoln then made it clear that any State that refused to provide the required troops would be invaded and occupied. (Take a look at what he did to Missouri!  And all they did was declare themselves neutral!)


   I believe that that, in a nutshell, is why its called the War of Northern Aggression.  Jefferson Davis did NOt send an army across the Potomac to attack Washington.  He sat their, for months and months, negotiating for a peaceful resolution, and sure enough, Lincoln invaded Virginia with a huge force.  (They weren't there long though.  Got their butts handed to them at Manassas, and all ran back across the bridges into D.C.)


  So, a little more complicated than the question of who fired the first cannon in S.C.


Mannyrock


 


  Lincolns decision to invade, demand for troops, and forma threats to any State that refused to provide troops, were the express reasons for the larger border State's seceding. 




   

[subdjoe]

If a thug is on my porch, bringing in friends and ammo with the clear intent - stated before hand - that he was going to be staging a home invasion, would I be the aggressor if I fired on him?  Just yes or no.

[mannyrock]

 Gandog,


    I appreciate your viewpoint, but you are underestimating somewhat the intellect of Lincoln.  Lincoln was a political genius.  Probably the only political genius of the 19th Century in America.


   Lincoln schemed for weeks, on the decision of whether or not to send reinforcement supplies and ships to Fort Sumter.  He knew for a fact that it would force the South Carolina to fire on the ships.  He discussed it at length with Seward and his other advisors.  He was in a political chess game with his abolitionist friends, who wanted to immediately attack the South, and his more cool headed friends (primarily from New York) who wanted to wait out the situation to negotiate a peaceful (i.e. more businesslike) solution.  All of the border states hung in the balance, and so Lincoln openly desired to make sure that SC fired the first shot, and not him.   Ultimately, he got what he wanted.


  Several of the Lincoln biographies discuss this in detail, including that by Carl Sandburg, which won the Pulitzer Prize. 




Mannyrock

[SHOOTALL]

But is still comes down to who fired the first shots...and that would be the SOUTH!

 
 
 
 
Somebody breaks into my house, I'm going to fire the first shots.  And, they will still be considered criminals.

In reality it was the north several days before the South fired. It was a union detachment in FL. who fired first at a Southern militia from Al. I believe. But why cloud the issue with facts ?

[Mike in Virginia]

rock - I don't believe Lincoln was a "political genius."  Far from it.  We are in the shape we are today because of him.  The racial problem was the only reward our nation received from the cost of so much lost.  Lincoln created a permanent problem worse than slavery.