Five myths about why the South seceded

Originally posted by mnemeth1
reply to post by TheWalkingFox

 

You are not getting the main thrust of my point, either that or you are avoiding it intentionally.

The north wanted to conquer the south in order to retain the southern citizens as tax slaves.

That is the ultimate cause of the civil war.

The south fought entirely to defend themselves from tax slavery.

I get the "main thrust" of your point. The trouble is, the main thrust of your point is completely wrong. The southern states each declared their reasons for secession. They laid it out, in ink and paper, and maild it to Washington DC. They mounted it in the halls of their own legislatures. The declarations were printed throughout southern newspapers. And each and every such declaration revolved around the south's intention to preserve the institution of African slavery in perpetuity.

They do not mention Taxes. They don't mention tariffs. They don't mention attempts to "conquer the the south." Rather, one and all, they lay out the statement that they are seceding to protect slavery.

The black slavery issue was an excuse for the south to secede, but in reality, the south did not leave because the north nullified slave laws alone, they left because in addition to nullifying the slave laws, the north was expropriating the south's resources (money stolen through taxation) for their own personal gain.

Funny that the southern states ALL neglected to mention this, even the ones like Florida and Arkansas that didn't explicitly mention slavery in their declarations.

If the only thing the north did was nullify slave laws, the south would not have left the union.

edit on 14-1-2011 by mnemeth1 because: (no reason given)

Except, once again, that is exactly the stated reason for all these states leaving the union. That's not the North saying this. That's the seceding states themselves spelling it out for everyone, "We like slavery, you don't, so bye!"

Every scrap of evidence tells you that you are wrong. The seceding states' own documents tell you you are wrong. Your entire point is completely erroneous, and anyone who performs a modicum of research can see this.

Battle of Fort Sumter

People who think that the south is innocent are fools. The south is not innocent, it just lost. Defending the south is not about defending justice, it's about being a sore loser.
This is a war between two collectives of states lead by two kinds of elites. One who's more industrialized and one who wants to rely more on free labor.

I hate to break it to you guys but none of you are right and as usual the truth of it all is never discussed, because it's never been disclosed by either side. Governments all Governments get all soldiers to fight based on lies that they know appeal to soldiers to fight.

The majority of the Southern States and a few of the Northern States were in hopeless default on their stock and bond loans to the London Bankers, Washington's D.C.'s job, real job, and the President's job is to make sure this debt always gets paid, because the one thing they never told you about our beloved Constitution is it's Latin Legal Definition of the actaul word is "Agreement to pay back another's debt".

The cost in gold/money and humans to build the early U.S. Infrastructure was all provided by London Banks and European Investors and our beloved founders, agreed to honor these investments and pay these debts always, with your taxes, and by selling your resources, so the investors and corporations could make pure profit, in exchange for setting up the government and being recognized as a legitimate state by the Europeans.

Because we were born in great debt that wasn't fully disclosed to the public two things happened moving forward, the payment of the debt had to be handled quietly, and it had to be handled efficiently because the only way future infrastructure improvements and expansion could happen is with more lines of credit from London and Europe.

The Southern States wanted out of the debt, they had no way to pay it back, and hoped they could do that through gaining their independence.

This left Washington on the line for all of the debt, and faced with disclosure of it and ruin if they couldn't get the South back into the Union to help pay it.

That's why Lincoln would have done anything to force the South back in, because the Federal Government could not have survived it's own default, exposure and bankruptcy, so in reality all this fighting was simply over our hidden debt on the European Owned Infrastucture and Stock Investment.

It really didn't have a darn thing with what any of you are talking about.

reply to post by TheWalkingFox


No, as you pointed out, they declared a secession, which is not a declaration of war.

After they declared their independence, the north postured to move against them.

The war was the making of the north, and it certainly wasn't about "freeing the slaves"

Georgia:

The material prosperity of the North was greatly dependent on the Federal Government; that of the the South not at all. In the first years of the Republic the navigating, commercial, and manufacturing interests of the North began to seek profit and aggrandizement at the expense of the agricultural interests.

Originally posted by mnemeth1
reply to post by TheWalkingFox

 

No, as you pointed out, they declared a secession, which is not a declaration of war.

I know this. i'm not sure exactly why you keep trying to pretend I said otherwise.

After they declared their independence, the north postured to move against them.

False. The Confederacy made the first move by firing on union troops. You can wriggle around all you want to justify this, but it was an act of war, and the first shots of the war were delivered by the troops of South Carolina.

The war was the making of the north, and it certainly wasn't about "freeing the slaves"

No, freeing the salves did not become a northern issue until about 1863, in which case it was simply added to the main reason for the war, reinstating the Union.

However, I am not talking about the northern reasons for fighting. I'm talking about why the southern states seceded in the first place, thereby setting the stage for a civil war. No matter how you split it, Without secession, the war would never have happened. Just a lot of shouting in Congress. And the reasons for secession? Slavery, pure and simple, as stated by the secessionist states themselves.

Georgia:

The material prosperity of the North was greatly dependent on the Federal Government; that of the the South not at all. In the first years of the Republic the navigating, commercial, and manufacturing interests of the North began to seek profit and aggrandizement at the expense of the agricultural interests.

edit on 14-1-2011 by mnemeth1 because: (no reason given)

No, the material prosperity of the south was wholly dependent on free, captive labor. Also covered in the Georgian declaration.

Also note that this does not talk about taxation. Rather it talks about business interests in the north trying to make a profit, yes, at the expense of the south's agriculture. Private industry with a profit motive is a different beast than "tax slavery" (whatever the hell that is; especially in this context, it's a ludicrous notion)

Originally posted by Golf66
Here is my take maybe I can help out:

While slavery was a heinous enterprise and a very emotional one at that it was not THE reason for the war.

I disagree, it was the core reason for the war. Was it the only reason why Southern states left? No, as there were other smaller issues at hand that southern states wanted to air out, but slavery was at the core the issue.

It was about the fear in the south of them losing its influence

Now that is very interesting. One person insists it is about states rights, another insists its about tariffs, and you are to insist to us now it is about Southern influence in the federal governement. Atleast with this new argument I can to a degree agree with. While slavery was an essential part to the southern economy at the time and was the core reason for southern states leaving (as stated in each of the first five declarations), alot of the issues by the South can lead back to southern influence. Southern states did not like being dictated by the North and part of this fear was in losing their right to continue the practice of slavery. The win of the first Republican in US history brought on a reaction from for the first Southern states to leave. The win of Lincoln, a member of a party that was largely seen by the South as abolitionist (despite Lincolns attempts to play the abolitionist stance of party down) brought forth a reaction by the southern states to leave. They saw their time in domination over the Union coming to an end, and their right as states to determine slavery (as they viewed was their right) was at the core of this influence they held in DC.

The presidential election of 1860 had resulted in the selection of Abraham Lincoln as president of the United States. Lincoln won because of an overwhelming Electoral College vote from the more populated Northern states. Not a single Southern state voted for him.

You make it sound as though all the Southern states united together and couldn't get close to getting a president elected beyond the count for Lincoln, however you are missing the actual results of that time. The loss of Southern state backed candidates was not because they lacked southern voter turn out. In 1860 the Southern states were split between three candidates amounting to more than 2 million votes spread between all confederate states, with Bell gaining Kentucky, tenesee and virginia, Beckinridge assuming the core southern coastal states and Douglas gaining Missouri. Had they decided on one candidate they would have probably pushed their own into office again and the civil war would have been avoided.

The South was losing influence in DC, mostly over the issue of slavery (Northern businesses and politicians made it their mission to rid slavery in the south as they were unable to compete), they were not losing their voter power however. The South back then and still does today hold significant power in voter influence.

Soon Northerners might accumulate the voting power to basically dictate programs and policies to them regardless of what Southerners might desire.

As demonstrated, the Southern states still had a significant voter base. They lost out in the 1860 elections because they were split 3 ways.

Having a Masters in Military History I can say slavery, was not what motivated the average Confederate Soldier, who likely fought for ( if you read the first source or original source history from their letters, diaries and obituaries) other more mundane issues, I doubt you will find many Soldiers who mentioned slavery at all perhaps some of the Officers who were upper class but not the guy in the trench.

This was already mentioned by the previous member. I am well aware of this, this same claim was made by an african american lecturer in North Carolina, he made it clear that most confederate soldiers did not fight for slavery, and in actual fact many african americans served in the confederate army. However the agenda of the soldiers did not justify the reasoning behind the war. Just because soldiers were taking orders and moving into Iraq because they felt it was their duty to protect the United states, does not mean that the war waged on Iraq was really about defense, and not about a national political agenda. Those troops who were sent into Vietnam did so at the orders of Johnson, many of them had little opinion over communism and ideology. This does not mean that the war in vietnam had nothing to do with a geographical and political motive.

The personal opinions or views of soldiers very seldom justify or explain an agenda of a war. Soldiers are not the ones at the end of the day making the decisions to wage war.

A very small proportion of the southern population owned slaves at all as they were an expensive investment in terms of 1860's dollars.

By 1860 just under 400,000 slave holders were documented:
freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com...

Around 393,000 slave owners held 3,950,000 african american slaves. The population of the entire confederate states amounted to 9.1 million. I see you are trying to down play the significance of slavery to the South at the time to make a case here but the stats don't appear to stick in my books.

So it’s like a car or small tractor in price I don't know how many you have but I have 1 car 1 truck and no tractor.

Wonderful, comparing enslaved American citizens at that time to tractors and cars to make your case. And I figured we moved ahead as a society? All I will say to this is that free labour is more valueble over time than that of a car or tractor, especially to a farming business that is relys on labour to function.

Look at the states with the highest taxes, crime, biggest entitlements and worst schools - who runs them? Liberal left.

I look at California and its debt under a republican governor, but then I compare the likes of New York and California to the United Kingdom and Australia and New Zealand, and the two after very different. California holds far less protections and regulations from government compared to entire western countries. I don't see Australia, New Zealand or Canada riding under as much debt in proportion, and yet their systems are far more "socialist" as you'd call it.

Finally, despite the drama about the legality of secession; the US would be very hypocritical on the world stage to deny the states the right to do

The United states did all sorts of things in its time. We invaded and held agression against our southern neighbour all for the sake of terrirtorial conquest, we did the same to our northern neighbour in 1812, and celebrated when the Soviet Union collapsed. It'd be silly to assume this Union is all about complete freedom and letting states leave as they will, because if this was the case, the Union would never have formed.

Very interesting indeed. I always tend toward the "money trail" causes of conflicts, so I lean toward PROTOPLASMIC TRAVELER's angle.

Some of the discussions here are based on the "the books I read are absolute truth, and the books you read are wrong" line of reasoning.

All the "knowledge" we have is influenced by the sources of information we had access to, some percentage of rational analysis of this information, and our personal opinion as to how much weight each source should be given.
All of these are influenced, near or far, by our social and cultural environment.

I know, yada, yada, yada, but my point is DOUBT IS YOUR FRIEND.

Only by keeping some level of doubt as to "WHY" you think the way you do can you truly "deny ignorance".

Only when you are there to see it with your own eyes, can you truly be sure of something, right? (And some people would even argue that our senses can play tricks on us, and they can be questioned as well, but that is beyond my scope!)

I know I'm from Canada, but I find American history very interesting, and have taken courses on the subject when they did not conflict with my major.

Thanks for the interesting thread,

the Billmeister

reply to post by TheWalkingFox


The reasons for secession are not reasons for war - unless you are a tyrant State that desires to keep its tax slaves.

If you aren't arguing over the reasons for war, then why are you addressing this thread?

The point of this thread is to refute the lies in the OP, which I think I have done quite well.

You seem to be concerned with reasons for secession, not reasons for war.

reply to post by Billmeister


Most people are completely unaware of the financial aspects of the U.S. because the Government never discloses to the people the nature of it's debts, how they are structured and what the debt is for. There is a reason for that because the way the debt is structured favors the money lenders and the government at the people's expense.

So the Politicians, media and historians never talk about that.

The truth is in the 1820's when most of the founders died off and for about the only time in the nations history an honest group of people new to Washington D.C. who inherited the complex financial arrangements that the founders agreed to, so as to gain independence were so shocked by the nature and manipulation of it, that many of the Southern States tried to seceede then, but Andrew Jackson talked them out of it in a historic session of Congress pretty much by telling them the truth, the only chance we had at getting it under control and taken care of, was by sticking all together, that it would be ruin for everyone to disband, because in reality each state is it's own financial business enterprise, with it's own lines of credit and debt, almost all of them from London banks, using the pooled money of European Investors. Not only was Europe sending the cash to make each State a succesfull business venture by taming it's wilderness and building it's commerce through hard infrastructure improvements but they were sending the immigrants too, to do the actual phsyical work of it. The immigrants were the Stock in these State Enterprises and the loans were the Bonds to get them to labor at those enterprises, and taxes were designed to off set the actual cost of the investment so the various businesses that were being developed along the way could generate pure profit for the owners.

So in essence this whole Ponzi Scheme was making the people actually pay for the purchase of everything, but not actually giving the people a profit in the enterprise just a chance to labor at it for a dishonest wage because a good portion of what they earned was being taxed back from them.

Jackson managed to get the outstanding debt down to just 23,000.00 before the European controlers of the Second United States Bank manipulated the currency into runaway inflation.

Had he paid it, the original stock and bond investments would have kept paying annual dividends in eternity as they still are, but the arrears would have finally been caught up. Since then our debt has grown to impossible proportions and it all can only happen because the people always argue about the fictions each side of a two sided coin puts out.

Whether it's the democrats and the republicans, or the Union and the Confederates, each side believes and loves their lies, and blames all the failures on the other side for not ascribing entirely to the same desires and beliefs, so that the real problem never gets addressed.

Even when the South broke away it couldn't be honest with it's people why it was, because it had been lying to them the whole time about these debts and that they were laboring to pay them, to make just a handful of Europeans they thought they got rid of in the Revolutionary War rich and their Masters.

The Union couldn't disclose it either, so what you have is a lot of the phony baloney excuses that people who fought for on the other side know are phony baloney, but of course each side needs to validate why they got tricked into fighting the war in some noble way.

When the North won the war it simply set up a military dictatorship and occupied the Southern United States militarily and officially up until 1978.

We actually now have that military in 153 nations and the most advanced sophisticated killing machine locking down the world that has ever been known.

Proud Americans think that serves us, but the truth is this is the mercenary enterprise that the International Elite build out of our constant debt, and our own governments fear of what will happen to them if the nature of that debt is ever exposed.

We are 14 Trillion in debt, and there is only 2 trillion in U.S. Currency to pay it back, and people are still too preoccupied by lies and false hope provided by both sides of the political divide to even have the common sense to do the simple math on that.

The Debt Wars aren't over, in fact they are just about to begin in a way the world has never imagined.

I wonder why there are always two of them in america. Even until today it stays the same, just two of them, the red and the blue. Maybe this should change.

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler


I am seeing a trend in the U.S.A. toward more people catching on to this... perhaps they went too far with the bailouts. The recipients of these bailouts, which the FED did its best to keep secret, go a long way into shedding some light onto the FED's true shareholders.

Here in Canada, it is pretty simple, our central bank is a "crown corporation" and, therefore belongs to her majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Many people claim that she is just a figure head, but that is the "game" being played up here. In reality, she is our head of state, she decides who is our prime minister, and all laws must receive "royal ascent" to pass. I have read, in other posts of yours, that the Rothschilds are her bankers, but can find no sources to confirm or deny this. (That obviously does not make it untrue, and, obviously, the secrecy is essential for the status quo.)

I apologize to the OP for the tangent, but I wanted to note that many of us outside the U.S.A. are following your whole central bank situation very closely as it could, potentially, have massive repercussions worldwide.

Thanks,

the Billmeister

reply to post by Billmeister


You are right about the Queens unknown power, but the truth is she has the right to pick our President too. It's all in the Treaty of Paris and that's what the Electoral College is about, the citizens don't get the final say with their vote, the much smaller hand picked electoral college does. Of course in reality the candidates are all prescreened and selected to meet the Pope's, Queen's, and Banker's expectations of discretion and servitude. But they do have those fail safe's in place.

Our Central Bank is owned by the same people who own most of the others including China's, so it really is just a massive debt manipulation scheme, where State's will give up their sovereignty to join growing bigger and bigger collective unions after being declared insolvent through this massive debt manipulation scheme.

So it's really just a power play, because the truth is the money is worthless, what has value are the resources that they have acquired that they can control the ebb and flow of and make very scarce to make real the illusion of debt and merging one nation with another to resume the free flow of these resources again down to the people.

They tricked us into fighting and arguing with one another to acquire them all the resources and their control of them through their control of the corporate infrastructure and the rules of trade and commerce in how we can obtain them ourselves to survive, after stealing them from each other to give control of it to them.

It's a shame people never caught on and likely never will.

But this is the horrible nature of the beast we have created in our endless quest to dominate one another in silly arguments they give us that we mimic and parrot to the best of our ability and never think through on our own.

In fact we love it so much we will happily argue over what happened 100's of years ago too, just to avoid having to be responsible for our plight today.

Amazing huh!

When the civil war started slavery was practiced in the North, so the civil war could not have been about slavery. The north wanted to send slaves back to Africa when slavery became an issue, and many were sent back.

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler


Yes, indirect elections are a farce in our so-called democracies, that is why I encourage everyone to vote independent, if only to bring to light the ridiculousness of a party-based system.

You seem more pessimistic than I, do you not see a realization of this economic scam coming to light in the U.S.A. with the "end the FED" movement?

National debt made absolutely no sense to me since my economics 101. Because, logically, if a country had a debt to another country, and all countries are in debt, then somewhere a "magical book" would exist where debts to differing countries could be crossed out, because in the real world, not everyone can be in debt.
When even my professor could not explain this, my quick research led to the Bank of International Settlements and the fact that countries do not owe money to other countries (as was explained in school) but they all owe money to private banks. It is such a ridiculous system, that I can only imagine the propaganda machine required to keep it afloat!

the Billmeister

Guys, gals..

Slavery was NOT the reason for the war.

Resources were.

It just happens that, at the time, slaves were integral to obtaining the resources.

Slaves (back then) were no different than the tools we use today, ie tractors for farming, automated mining equipment, etc.

You don't fight because of the tool that obtains the resource, they can be easily replaced.

You fight for the resource.

reply to post by Billmeister


Even if it comes to light, the Security/Prison Complex was designed to handle challenges to it's authority. The Government won't correct itself, and the people have no way to change it through elections because the process is rigged.

That means the only way to change it is to defy it, and if you do it individually you are going to be arrested, shot and or killed, and if the States try to do it collectively like in the Civil War, then you will be military invaded shot and killed, so the truth is, there is no real way to change it, except for a whole lot of people wanting to risk life and limb to try with bleak prospects of succeeding, or surviving the attempt.

It's actually all over but the shouting, and learning to live in a painful new world of fewer freedoms, more laws, less economic opportunity, fewer luxuries and keeping your mouth shut about it all so they don't come out and arrest you for conspiracy to do this or conspiracy to do that.

One of the things that made the civil war possible was a number of the Southerners still had a big enough private stake in the enterprise to be willing to fight for it.

Now hardly anyone has that kind of incentive since most of us have been accustomed to just struggling for enough to survive day to day.

The majority will just keep on in that day to day struggle no matter what law or system they have to live under, because it's their immediate path to survival that matters to them, not their long term prospects.

Not enough people are prepared to admit how bad it is, and the majority will shout them down and deny it because they are afraid of the inevitible blood shed and violence and what effect it will have on them, if anyone seriously tries to change this system from the outside, peacefully or not.

The state is well armed, controlls the propaganda machine, and knows how to keep the people divided and afraid, of it and of each other.

So yeah it's about as bleak as bleak can get.

When you add to the fact that a dozen different foreign and religious factions are all clouding the picture with their own agenda that serves them in the public discourse what you have is a hopelessly divided population, with a runaway government, who will do anything to keep it's power and control.

Primarily because it only exists to protect and serve the Banks and Corporations that made this state of affairs possible.

Those banks and corporations were powerful and in control enough 150 years ago to get us to fight one another to maintain their status quo, and well they haven't gotten any weaker since then!

Welcome to our real world of lies and manipulation where the only way to have any hope is to lie about it and pretend it might.

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler


Thanks for your input, I look forward to more discussions with you in the future.

I fear I have steered this thread off on a tangent, I apologize again to the OP for doing so. That is the trouble with the real world, many topics are intertwined!

the Billmeister

When it comes to the South's Motivation to secede you can either study history, and read what they themselves wrote - something that is possible thanks to the links of previous posters - or you can depend on the modern-day version that was written up during reconstruction.

I remember attending a conference on total war once and the joke that went around was " The North won the War on the battlefield, the South won the war on the bookshelves". IMHO, a truer word was never spoken.

Look at the Southerner's declarations of secession; if you're not satysfied by that go and look up how much the South really cared for OTHER'S STATE RIGHTS when it came to questions that materially concerned them; fugitive slave act, improvement schemes etc. The South cared for state's rights only when it was in their interest. Look, as a general rule in history: Distrust any explanation that ascribes only idealistic (in the descriptive sense) motivations to one side of a conflict - they're never true.

I HIGHLY recommend reading "The Civil War and Reconconstruction" by J.G. Randall. This book has stood as the standard work in its field. Its first publication was in 1937 and has been revised by Donald. I am a huge Civil War buff due to the fact that many of my relatives fought and died in this war. Whenever I have a question, this book serves as my basic reference tool. Mine is literally falling apart at the seams - I have had it since my college days. I assure you, this one-volume history of the Civil War will be your "go to" guide for information.

Another author I would recommend is Shelby Foote. He wrote a wonderful 3 volume narrative on the Civil War. A true southern gentleman who, sadly to say, has passed away. His smooth southern drawl became quite famous for narrating several Civil War documentaries. One he is most noted for was directed by PBS's golden boy, Ken Burns. The best documentary I have ever seen. Morgan Freeman's voice was also used. Go to you local library and check to see if they have a copy- I think there are close to ten DVD's in this documentary. If they don't have it and you are seriously into studying the Civil War - Buy It! Trust me, you will not be disappointed.


www.amazon.com...

One thing seems to be forgotten in all of these replies. Slaves at the time in the South were considered a resource. They were not really a human. Now we know how misguided that is, but at that time they were livestock.

Those sentiments were starting to change, but had not completely changed. So, if someone was allowing your livestock to move over into there territory and would not return it, that would probably make you a little upset. Range wars were fought over this until barbed wire came about.

If the actual thought of Human beings being forced to do something against their will was a reason to fight, then how come Lincoln only freed the slaves in the states that were in rebellion? His Emancipation Proclamation did not free the slaves in Missouri or Kentucky. Grant himself had slaves even during the war.

Many don't realize that slavery was not thought of like it is now. It was just par for the course then.