Washington & Lee to remove Confederate Flag

[Hokie5150]

You're conflating causes of secession with causes of the war.

This is the point that most people miss...

[HokieFanDC]

What's your point? Unlike IP, I'm familiar.
Please find where I said that slavery was not a big part of why SC seceded. They claimed it was the primary reason, and I see no problem with taking them at their word. I've never claimed otherwise.

Here is the text of South Carolina's declaration of secession. This tells you what their main reason for seceding was. It starts with an S and ends with a Y.

You're familiarity makes it all the more baffling.

Civil War started as a result of secession.
Secession occurred as a result of slavery.

It follows that the main cause of the civil war was slavery.

It looks like you're arguing that secession, not slavery, was the cause of the Civil War. That is clearly a narrow argument, that ignores everything that led to secession.

[SuwaneeTim820]

I think what Marine Hokie is saying that the reason for WAR was not slavery, but because the states were going to secede...I think it's just semantics here

Which is kind of ridiculous, hilarious and sad all at the same time.

[HokieFanDC]

You're conflating causes of secession with causes of the war.

This is the point that most people miss...

They are completely inseparable.

[ip_law-hokie]

You're conflating causes of secession with causes of the war.

This is the point that most people miss...

Maybe because it's a meaningless point of distinction.

[VisorBoy]

If England had troops in a fort in the US, would they be attacked?
SC had seceded. They were no longer part of the US. They asked Lincoln to pull the out the troops. They offered to purchase the fort, but Lincoln's people refused to meet to talk about it. Instead, he sent more troops down to the fort.
Want to guess how many people were killed during the "attack"? Zero.

You're conflating causes of secession with causes of the war.
The war was waged over secession. Lincoln did not want to lose the revenue from the southern states. He had no interest in fighting over slavery. He was explicit about both of these points.

Good point. Non-seceding states were not invaded.
Delaware and Maryland were also slave states. If the war had been about slavery, one would think that they'd have been invaded too. As it were, Delaware was mostly left alone, and Maryland was occupied only for the purpose of prohibiting secession. Secessionists in Maryland were imprisoned, while slaveowners were not.

solid point.
perfect examples- Michigan, CT, RI, Mass.
Didn't secede. Didn't find themselves at war.

First of all, the war was begun by the Confederate South when Fort Sumter was attacked.

Slavery, states' rights, and taxation were the primary causes of the Civil War.

Just because a state decides to secede doesn't mean that the property in the state that doesn't belong to the state (i.e. the federal property) automatically becomes theirs again.

[awesome guy]

That was a stretch. The South, I'm told, seceded, "over a multitude of issues."

You were told that by someone arguing in favor of your position.

I'm also told that if the south had outlawed slavery and Fitty's great, great uncle had a hoo hoo instead of a wang, then the war would still have been fought and Fitty's great uncle buck would have been the first woman in combat.

Do you feel that, if slavery had been outlawed in seceding states, the war would have never happened?

1. My bad: "Individual state governments seceded, each for their own reasons."

2. Your hypo is as silly as Fitty's Uncle Buck having a woo woo.

Southern apologists and their revisionist history always crack me up. "95% of historians disagree with me? Historian smishtorian! AMIRITE?!" Reminds me of the hilarious global warming "debate."

It's cute seeing the silly necks dip and dodge with that heavy chip on their shoulder.

The only chip I see has to do with your self-loathing and white guilt. Basically you strike me as someone who moved to NYC and, in order to fit in, decided to follow the meme of making fun of southern people.

IIWII

I can relate to this a bit. I think he took on a caricature and then the caricature took on a life of it's own. I've done the same when I lived in LA and took on a caricature of Andy Kaufman with his wrestling and the "I'm from Hollywood!" bit to troll the hoos. Good times. IP is the typical, arrogant NYC ashat caricature.

[SuwaneeTim820]

You're conflating causes of secession with causes of the war.

This is the point that most people miss...

They are completely inseparable.

Agreed. At least if we are being intellectually honest about it.

[Hokie5150]

You're conflating causes of secession with causes of the war.

This is the point that most people miss...

They are completely inseparable.

Sure they are. Slavery did not equate to secession (see Delaware and Maryland) and secession did not have to led to war. Lincoln chose war as a means of attempting to prevent secession not as a means of ending slavery. There was no "Civil War", actually, as there were not two factions fighting to control the same nation. There was a war of independence as opposed to a "civil war".

[ip_law-hokie]

You're conflating causes of secession with causes of the war.

This is the point that most people miss...

They are completely inseparable.

Sure they are. Slavery did not equate to secession (see Delaware and Maryland) and secession did not have to led to war. Lincoln chose war as a means of attempting to prevent secession not as a means of ending slavery. There was no "Civil War", actually, as there were not two factions fighting to control the same nation. There was a war of independence as opposed to a "civil war".

If Delaware had felt as strongly about slavery as the southern states, they would have seceded too. But you know that.

[HokieFanDC]

You're conflating causes of secession with causes of the war.

This is the point that most people miss...

They are completely inseparable.

Sure they are. Slavery did not equate to secession (see Delaware and Maryland) and secession did not have to led to war. Lincoln chose war as a means of attempting to prevent secession not as a means of ending slavery. There was no "Civil War", actually, as there were not two factions fighting to control the same nation. There was a war of independence as opposed to a "civil war".

That is a load of crap. The states that cared about maintaining slavery, seceded. Had they not seceded, there would have been no Civil War.
The anti-slavery policies and sentiments of the time, led to secession, which led to the war.

[Hokie5150]

You're conflating causes of secession with causes of the war.

This is the point that most people miss...

They are completely inseparable.

Sure they are. Slavery did not equate to secession (see Delaware and Maryland) and secession did not have to led to war. Lincoln chose war as a means of attempting to prevent secession not as a means of ending slavery. There was no "Civil War", actually, as there were not two factions fighting to control the same nation. There was a war of independence as opposed to a "civil war".

If Delaware had felt as strongly about slavery as the southern states, they would have seceded too. But you know that.

That has nothing to do with the point.

[ip_law-hokie]

You're conflating causes of secession with causes of the war.

This is the point that most people miss...

They are completely inseparable.

Sure they are. Slavery did not equate to secession (see Delaware and Maryland) and secession did not have to led to war. Lincoln chose war as a means of attempting to prevent secession not as a means of ending slavery. There was no "Civil War", actually, as there were not two factions fighting to control the same nation. There was a war of independence as opposed to a "civil war".

If Delaware had felt as strongly about slavery as the southern states, they would have seceded too. But you know that.

That has nothing to do with the point.

As does common sense.

[Marine Hokie]

It’s not semantics. When people say that the war was about slavery, they do not generally mean it as an easier way of saying that slavery caused secession which caused the war. Generally, they simply just don’t know what they’re talking about, and are just repeating what they’ve been told by people who want to give the war a moral cause, and to portray Lincoln as an anti-slavery crusader.
We’re then left with people who completely miss the point about why the US invaded and conquered the CS.

I think what Marine Hokie is saying that the reason for WAR was not slavery, but because the states were going to secede...I think it's just semantics here

[Marine Hokie]

No, that doesn't follow. Don't you think that Lincoln's agenda had anything to do with the war's cause?
I'm not ignoring anything. You're ignoring the entire purpose of the war.

You're familiarity makes it all the more baffling.

Civil War started as a result of secession.
Secession occurred as a result of slavery.

It follows that the main cause of the civil war was slavery.

It looks like you're arguing that secession, not slavery, was the cause of the Civil War. That is clearly a narrow argument, that ignores everything that led to secession.

[Major Kong]

Why are all of y'all forgetting the one Border Slave State that even Lincoln commented had to stay in the Union...care to hazard a guess Kentucky who incidentally has a fascinating history in re to slavery.

[awesome guy]

You're conflating causes of secession with causes of the war.

This is the point that most people miss...

They are completely inseparable.

Sure they are. Slavery did not equate to secession (see Delaware and Maryland) and secession did not have to led to war. Lincoln chose war as a means of attempting to prevent secession not as a means of ending slavery. There was no "Civil War", actually, as there were not two factions fighting to control the same nation. There was a war of independence as opposed to a "civil war".

That is a load of crap. The states that cared about maintaining slavery, seceded. Had they not seceded, there would have been no Civil War.
The anti-slavery policies and sentiments of the time, led to secession, which led to the war.

Nope. It was much more complex than that and slavery was just one of several issues. Best to look at slaves states and free states as caucuses or left vs. right. Slave states tended to want less federal government where as free states wanted more. And not just about slavery, but many issues. And so as new states were being brought in, they tried to pair them with free and slave as to not upset the balance of power in the Senate. And has been brought up many times, slavery wasn't even one that Lincoln or the north cared enough to fight over. Lincoln changed this with the emancipation proclamation, where he only freed the slaves in the confederacy. And through that and political skill, changed the cause and nature of union involvement from forcing their will on the south to freeing the slaves. It was a political device. Before the emancipation proclamation, few in the north supported war. They were accepting of a split. Lincoln thought America should remain one union and changed the game so that the north would buy into the war under the guise of a human rights issue. But it was really a big vs. small federal government war, or ven one of belonging to whatever nation you want. The politics of slavery were certainly an issue in the day, but the grievances were much broader and across many fronts.


http://www.ket.org/civilwar/causes.html

[Marine Hokie]

So do you believe that the British government would have been justified in maintaining troops here after independence was declared? (Yes, I realize that the war had already begun.)

Just because a state decides to secede doesn't mean that the property in the state that doesn't belong to the state (i.e. the federal property) automatically becomes theirs again.

[Marine Hokie]

Sure they are. Slavery did not equate to secession (see Delaware and Maryland) and secession did not have to led to war. Lincoln chose war as a means of attempting to prevent secession not as a means of ending slavery. There was no "Civil War", actually, as there were not two factions fighting to control the same nation. There was a war of independence as opposed to a "civil war".

Correct. It was a war of independence or a war to prevent/defend secession, not a civil war. Similarly, the war against the British wasn't a revolution, so much as a war of secession/independence. But hey, 95% of historians call them a civil war/revolutionary war, so...

[HokieFanDC]

No, that doesn't follow. Don't you think that Lincoln's agenda had anything to do with the war's cause?
I'm not ignoring anything. You're ignoring the entire purpose of the war.

You're familiarity makes it all the more baffling.

Civil War started as a result of secession.
Secession occurred as a result of slavery.

It follows that the main cause of the civil war was slavery.

It looks like you're arguing that secession, not slavery, was the cause of the Civil War. That is clearly a narrow argument, that ignores everything that led to secession.

The state's that seceded did so because they believed in their individual state's rights. There were many issues at the time where the southern states argued and fought for their own state's rights. Sometimes they were successful in defending their rights, sometimes they lost.
But the one issue that they would not compromise on was slavery. It was too important for them to allow the fed gov to make decision regarding slavery for them. And they stated that they would not have joined the US, had they not been allowed free choice to make their own decisions regarding slavery. When they felt that the US gov was taking too much liberty, they felt that their control over slavery was at risk, which led to secession.
Lincoln could have taken steps to ensure that they maintained control over slavery, but he didn't.

The decision by each side, not to give ground on the issue of slavery, led to the secession, and the war.

[RiverguyVT]

Good point. Non-seceding states were not invaded.
Delaware and Maryland were also slave states. If the war had been about slavery, one would think that they'd have been invaded too. As it were, Delaware was mostly left alone, and Maryland was occupied only for the purpose of prohibiting secession. Secessionists in Maryland were imprisoned, while slaveowners were not.

solid point.
perfect examples- Michigan, CT, RI, Mass.
Didn't secede. Didn't find themselves at war.

First of all, the war was begun by the Confederate South when Fort Sumter was attacked.

Slavery, states' rights, and taxation were the primary causes of the Civil War.

Slavery, states' rights, and taxation were the primary causes of the Civil War
I can agree with that.

the war was begun by the Confederate South when Fort Sumter was attacked
First strike? Sure. Like all things, the pot came to a boil. At what point do we say it was heated?

Neither point negates those made by me or by Marine.
And I'll grant both yours are fine.

[RiverguyVT]

Ever so often, UWS must re-fight the War Between the States.

We have as long as I've been affiliated here (post 9/11/01)

[Marine Hokie]

Nope. While you're incorrect, I'm impressed that you're actually making an argument this time.
Delaware couldn't secede, since they were surrounded by the US. They could only secede if Maryland did too. Would they have? I don't know, but like Maryland, they were a slave state and were not Lincoln-friendly. Lincoln knew if Maryland and Delaware seceded that he'd be surrounded by the CS, which was why he sent troops into Maryland to occupy them to prevent the secession of Maryland, and subsequently Delaware.

Also, I noticed that you left out Maryland in your response. Why was that?

If Delaware had felt as strongly about slavery as the southern states, they would have seceded too. But you know that.

[BG Hokie]

These are always interesting threads. I've learned quite a bit from them.

At the end of the day, the war wasn't fought over slavery but the war doesn't happen if not for the issue of slavery. Part lazy, part semantics...

If you're looking for a one word or sentence description of why the war happened, you've got to go to slavery.

All the finer points are extremely interesting such as Delaware and Maryland not seceding. Virginia not seceding until the war was on.... etc. It was certainly more complicated than the "war over slavery" and Lincoln certainly wasn't the liberator to the extent he gets credit for, definitely not at the beginning of the war but his drive for the 14th understandably revises his motivation for war in most people's minds 150+ years later...

[Marine Hokie]

Ok let me put it this way. Lincoln agrees with me.

The decision by each side, not to give ground on the issue of slavery, led to the secession, and the war.