The US Civil War

[Baruch]

The South seceded in support of slavery, which was BAD.  And if you doubt that, just read most of those States Articles Of Secession.  They specifically mention slavery. 

And let's keep in mind that The South had control of the Federal Government from its establishment to 1860 when the Northern States finally became sufficiently populous to overcome the Southern States' electoral advantage and got so pissed they decided to object to a Damned Northener being elected President who wasn't likely to go their way though he even married into a slave-holding family). 

So it was a fit of pique that led them to withdraw.  And that slavery-thing they didn't want challenged even though Lincoln said in his inaugural address he had no intention of challenging...  They just didn't win the Presidency for once, and like a child taking his ball from the game and going home, they left.

The anti-slavery movement in the North only really got going when Union soldiers moved into the South in the West and saw discovered how horrible things were there.  They wrote letters back home saying they had seen black men with so many whip scars on their backs they could not imagine how anyone could be treated that way.

And by 1863, most Union soldiers were so disgusted at how the negroes were treated they had determined that it had to end ALONG WITH forcing the Southern States back into the Union. 

I will not deny that the issue of permanent Union was unsettled at the time the Southern States seceded. I think there were decent arguments for it.  But by the middle of the war, slavery ruined all moral arguments for the Confederacy. 

Plus, as Jefferson Davis himself admitted, he could not lead a group of individual Sovereign States without Federal power.  The Confederacy was doomed at the outset and their arguements for "Their Peculiar Institution" only made it worse.

N'est-ce pas?

The human race has no moral arguments.  They are shit arguments, all of them.  Not as if every Southerner had a big planation.  Only rich minority could hold slaves.  So just arrest the planation owners ... why send an army?  Slavery was a convenient excuse to get the rabid New Englanders (John Brown fans) on side.  Why did Lincoln wait until 1863 to partially ban slavery?  Because the point was ... suspension of the Constitution by the Southern states (no authorized way to secede).  And even Andrew Jackson said he would go to war against S Carolina if they dared to ignore Federal law.  You accept a post Civil War hagiography.  Nothing happened like the liars said it did.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nullification_Crisis

Unconstitutional tyranny by Washington DC ... and of course California is now in favor of Nullification ... for illegal immigrants.  Sounds mighty traditional of Democrats, doesn't it?

[Baruch]

You are an idiot.

Ad hominem by rational virtue signallers?  Bwaha.

[Cavebear]

The human race has no moral arguments.  They are shit arguments, all of them.  Not as if every Southerner had a big planation.  Only rich minority could hold slaves.  So just arrest the planation owners ... why send an army?  Slavery was a convenient excuse to get the rabid New Englanders (John Brown fans) on side.  Why did Lincoln wait until 1863 to partially ban slavery?  Because the point was ... suspension of the Constitution by the Southern states (no authorized way to secede).  And even Andrew Jackson said he would go to war against S Carolina if they dared to ignore Federal law.  You accept a post Civil War hagiography.  Nothing happened like the liars said it did.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nullification_Crisis

Unconstitutional tyranny by Washington DC ... and of course California is now in favor of Nullification ... for illegal immigrants.  Sounds mighty traditional of Democrats, doesn't it?

I rather expected you to make those arguments.  Confederacy-apologists often do.

1.  Most Southerners did not own slaves.  But some hoped to afford them someday and others feared the wage drop if they had to compete with freed slaves.
2.  The Human Race DID have moral arguments against slavery even at the time.  The US South was the last bastion of slavery in the Western world.
3.  Plantation owners couldn't just be arrested, because slavery was legal (and guess who wrote the Constitution and demanded it be kept legal?  But also demanded that their slaves who couldn't vote be counted in the Electoral College)?
4.  Lincoln waited until 1863 to partially ban slavery to keep the border States in the Union as a practical matter.
5.  Lincoln emancipated the slaves at the first opportunity (a weak win at Antietam).
6.  The Confederate Constitution stated:  "Article I, Section 9, Clause 4 prohibited the Confederate government from restricting slavery in any way:

"No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed."

Article IV, Section 2 also prohibited states from interfering with slavery:

"The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States; and shall have the right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with their slaves and other property; and the right of property in said slaves shall not be thereby impaired."

7.  Individual Confederate States declared the same in their Articles of Secession, but I think you get the point by now...

Need I continue?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Brazil abolished slavery in 1888.

[Cavebear]

Brazil abolished slavery in 1888.

And they aren't the last either. 

Seriously, THAT'S all you got out of my post?  I really need to stop wasting my time here!

[Gawdzilla Sama]

And they aren't the last either. 

Seriously, THAT'S all you got out of my post?  I really need to stop wasting my time here!

Seriously, you want me to comment on everything?

[Baruch]

And they aren't the last either. 

Seriously, THAT'S all you got out of my post?  I really need to stop wasting my time here!

I guess all Brazilians can hang their heads in shame, forever ... if they ever visit G-d's Country ... aka New England.

[Baruch]

And they aren't the last either. 

Seriously, THAT'S all you got out of my post?  I really need to stop wasting my time here!

All Americans are aggressive a-holes.  Always have been, just ask the Natives.  The Union isn't the center of goodness ... just ask the immigrants in the NY tenements.

[Cavebear]

Seriously, you want me to comment on everything?

Why not.  This is a discussion board  ;)

[Cavebear]

All Americans are aggressive a-holes.  Always have been, just ask the Natives.  The Union isn't the center of goodness ... just ask the immigrants in the NY tenements.

You have a real anger on about Americans, don't you?  Aggressive?  We tried to stay out of WWI.  We tried to stay out of WWII.  We only got into to WWII when the Japanese attacked us and the Nazis then declared war immediately afterwards and started sinking our merchant vessels. 

And that got us really PISSED!  We didn't start it.  WE weren't the aggressors. 

And consider this...  If the Nazis had taken over all Europe, we COULD have just ignored the Nazi atrocities and just maintained trade with them while they and the Soviets came to a bloody standstill (which the Soviets would have slowly lost on their own).

So don't say we are natural aggressors.

[Baruch]

You have a real anger on about Americans, don't you?  Aggressive?  We tried to stay out of WWI.  We tried to stay out of WWII.  We only got into to WWII when the Japanese attacked us and the Nazis then declared war immediately afterwards and started sinking our merchant vessels. 

And that got us really PISSED!  We didn't start it.  WE weren't the aggressors. 

And consider this...  If the Nazis had taken over all Europe, we COULD have just ignored the Nazi atrocities and just maintained trade with them while they and the Soviets came to a bloody standstill (which the Soviets would have slowly lost on their own).

So don't say we are natural aggressors.

The US was an essential backer (Fed Reserve) of the British Empire, prior to WW I.  We are always the aggressors (and so is everyone else).  The US was shipping war goods to both sides, until the British blockade.  The US has never been pacifist, including during the Vietnam war.  Just cowardly (at first).  Unfortunately, Vietnam being the wrong war, it gave a bad reaction to the draft and legitimate warfare.  In 1965 LBJ should have drafted all the male college students, first.  Not the poor Black men.

[Cavebear]

The US was an essential backer (Fed Reserve) of the British Empire, prior to WW I.  We are always the aggressors (and so is everyone else).  The US was shipping war goods to both sides, until the British blockade.  The US has never been pacifist, including during the Vietnam war.  Just cowardly (at first).  Unfortunately, Vietnam being the wrong war, it gave a bad reaction to the draft and legitimate warfare.  In 1965 LBJ should have drafted all the male college students, first.  Not the poor Black men.

Nice elision from the WWs I was referring to to Vietnam, but it doesn't distract ME and is beside the point. Your talent (or habit) seems to be changing an argument from A to C.  I don't admire that and no one else should either..

Now let's say I accept your argument that the US was shipping goods to both sides in WWI.  Well, that is exactly what I was claiming.  We weren't favoring either side and were NOT aggressors.  You said we were and agressors don't exactly trade with both sides.

Don't you ever get tired of being wrong?

[Baruch]

Nice elision from the WWs I was referring to to Vietnam, but it doesn't distract ME and is beside the point. Your talent (or habit) seems to be changing an argument from A to C.  I don't admire that and no one else should either..

Now let's say I accept your argument that the US was shipping goods to both sides in WWI.  Well, that is exactly what I was claiming.  We weren't favoring either side and were NOT aggressors.  You said we were and agressors don't exactly trade with both sides.

Don't you ever get tired of being wrong?

My opinions are complicated.  Shipping to both sides (briefly in 1914) is the epitome of unethical aggression.  The British blockade nearly made the US come in on the side of the Kaiser.  Hence the other string on alternative history.

[Cavebear]

My opinions are complicated.  Shipping to both sides (briefly in 1914) is the epitome of unethical aggression.  The British blockade nearly made the US come in on the side of the Kaiser.  Hence the other string on alternative history.

So dealing with both sides in a conflict that didn't involve us directly makes the US the aggressor somehow?  Please excuse me while I go collapse in laughter at the logic of that...

[Baruch]

So dealing with both sides in a conflict that didn't involve us directly makes the US the aggressor somehow?  Please excuse me while I go collapse in laughter at the logic of that...

Yes, they guy keeping the getaway car ready, is a criminal too.  Not just the guys in masks and guns.