Why do people foolishly insist that US/CS reunion is possible?

@robert: I said nothing yet, but this comparison is out of way. You talk about abortion as if it was killing babies, but as a matter of fact, a fertilized egg or an embryo in an early stadium isn't a full-developed baby. I don't know when they start to feel pain, but certainly not from the first moment.

That is a matter of opinion. I, and probably a majority of people in the United States at this time, believe that abortion is, in fact, "killing babies," as you put it. There may be a small window in the early weeks of pregnancy when it would not be that, but medical science itself is not agreed on exactly when that point arrives...and it seems to be getting earlier and earlier as more research is done.

But that really has nothing to do with my argument. The point of my scenario was not to attack those who choose to have an abortion, but rather to point out a modern issue that has close parallels to the slavery issue. Despite my own feelings about the immorality and wrongness of abortion...which, I guess, would place me in the "abolitionist" camp with regard to the issue...unlike the anti-slavery abolitionists of the 1860s, I would never support a federally-imposed ban on it. I think it should be up to the people of the individual States to decide for themselves. And I think that, if it ever did become a sectionally-based issue, as the slavery issue did, the "abortionist states" should have the right to secede if the anti-abortionist majority tried to impose such a ban, or even if the anti-abortionist majority took control of the national government and thus gained the power to impose such a ban.
 
Let's not forget that Lincoln would've been willing to let slavery go on if he could save the union by that. The Southern governments, however, were willing to break away and even start a war (now that really meant people would be killed) to preserve slavery.
 
That is a matter of opinion. I, and probably a majority of people in the United States at this time, believe that abortion is, in fact, "killing babies," as you put it. There may be a small window in the early weeks of pregnancy when it would not be that, but medical science itself is not agreed on exactly when that point arrives...and it seems to be getting earlier and earlier as more research is done.
Odd, actual viability seems to remain well in the second trimester (about when I start supporting restrictions)

Not to mention the distinction between that and sentencing entire segments of the population to the legal status of cattle to be abused and killed on a whim.
But that really has nothing to do with my argument. The point of my scenario was not to attack those who choose to have an abortion, but rather to point out a modern issue that has close parallels to the slavery issue. Despite my own feelings about the immorality and wrongness of abortion...which, I guess, would place me in the "abolitionist" camp with regard to the issue...unlike the anti-slavery abolitionists of the 1860s, I would never support a federally-imposed ban on it. I think it should be up to the people of the individual States to decide for themselves. And I think that, if it ever did become a sectionally-based issue, as the slavery issue did, the "abortionist states" should have the right to secede if the anti-abortionist majority tried to impose such a ban, or even if the anti-abortionist majority took control of the national government and thus gained the power to impose such a ban.
So you do think rising in revolt over losing an election is a good idea.

HTG
 
htgriffin, on the issue of secession(not revolt) when you lose an election, you need to remember that the separatists first destroyed the majority party through their own actions, said party still receiving 61% of the popular vote under three different candidates.

With 90% of the popular vote going for the three candidates opposed to secession, I might add, and the remaining 10% to a fellow who showed his true colors when he deserted his own state and elected office to serve the CSA, after Kentucky chose not to secede.

Then, instead of waiting to see what happens, trusting in their own power in Congress, particularly the Senate, along with their northern Democrat allies plus control over the Supreme Court, the simply seceded over an election which they made certain to lose.
 
Odd, actual viability seems to remain well in the second trimester (about when I start supporting restrictions).

Not to mention the distinction between that and sentencing entire segments of the population to the legal status of cattle to be abused and killed on a whim.

Hmmm, if the slaves were treated so badly as you claim, why is it that the American South had the lowest slave mortality rate of any slaveholding region in the Americas? Indeed, everywhere else in the Americas, the slave population was not self-sustaining because the mortality rate was so high that it actually exceeded the birth rate. Once imports from Africa stopped, the slave population quickly fell in those other areas. Only in the American South did it not only not fall, but increased rapidly after imports stopped.

This is not to say that slaves had a good life. Far from it. Slavery as an institution surely was (and is) wrong. But when the chief complaint of the slaves is not the cruelty of their masters, but rather the lack of control over their own lives, as it was in the American South, then compared to the situation everywhere else at the time, you are looking at a relatively benign form of slavery.

And compared to the wholesale murder of children being committed in the U.S. each year (by the way, were you aware that nearly 150,000 abortions in the U.S. each year are performed in the second and third trimesters...the period when you consider that the child might be an actual human being, in the sense of being viable?), 19th century American slavery represents a far lesser degree of evil, at least to me. You, of course, are welcome to differ.
 
So you do think rising in revolt over losing an election is a good idea.

HTG

I think it is a measure of last resort. But I do believe that the right of secession, or if you prefer, the right of revolution, is an inalienable right of th people, to be used by them when THEY decide it is warranted, not when the government they are seceding (or rebelling against, if you prefer) from decides it is warranted.
 

Faeelin

Banned
Hmmm, if the slaves were treated so badly as you claim, why is it that the American South had the lowest slave mortality rate of any slaveholding region in the Americas?

Because the south doesn't have endemic malaria the way places like Brazil and the so forth do?
 
Because the south doesn't have endemic malaria the way places like Brazil and the so forth do?

Oh, that's right. There aren't any mosquitos in the South, are there? That must be why several of my ancestors in Georgia died of malaria or yellow fever. Or why they had outbreaks of these diseases in cities all over the South during the summertime up until there was a concerted effort made to reduce the mosquito population by spraying, in the mid-to-late 20th century.
 

HueyLong

Banned
You are, for the most part, correct. Slavery in the USA was more humane than elsewhere at the time, and did allow a sufficient breeding population- part of this was because diseases were less prevalent and deadly in the American South, but another part was, overall, better conditions for the slaves.

Also notable were the nearly complete lack of slave barracks- American slaves usually had family based shacks, and actively encouraged slaves to have children and raise families.
 

Keenir

Banned
I think it is a measure of last resort. But I do believe that the right of secession, or if you prefer, the right of revolution, is an inalienable right of th people, to be used by them when THEY decide it is warranted, not when the government they are seceding (or rebelling against, if you prefer) from decides it is warranted.

In a democracy, where is the line between "the people" and "the government" drawn?
:D


Because the south doesn't have endemic malaria the way places like Brazil and the so forth do?

(me being silly)
Heat, humidity, a great many bodies of still water (from puddles to lakes)....yeah, I can't see anything that would make the region attractive to mosquitos.

plus, its not like there was any signifigant population of warm-blooded animals for the females to feed on, or fruit and nectar for the males.
(/me being silly)


Then, instead of waiting to see what happens, trusting in their own power in Congress, particularly the Senate, along with their northern Democrat allies plus control over the Supreme Court, the simply seceded over an election which they made certain to lose.

You're assuming that humans are always rational, and never make emotional or fear-inspired choices.
 
In a democracy, where is the line between "the people" and "the government" drawn?
:D


In the United States, as originally intended, the will of the people was supposed to be primarily expressed through their State governments. That's why, with the exception of the House of Representatives, every branch of the federal government was elected by the States, either directly or indirectly (the Senate, by the State Legislatures; the President, by the State-based Electoral College; and the Supreme Court, because appointments have to be ratified by the Senate) ...not by "the people" directly. And this is also why the Bill of Rights consisted, before the 14th Amendment changed everything, on a list of prohibitions on action by the FEDERAL government, not of the States.

And so, logically, it is at the level of the State versus the central government that this line should be drawn...as indeed it was during the American Revolution itself.
 
I think the reason slavery in the US was (relatively) humane (this in comparison with the Caribbean or Brazil, which the former IIRC was Hell on Earth) was b/c the slaves could not easily be replaced by imports.
 
I think the reason slavery in the US was (relatively) humane (this in comparison with the Caribbean or Brazil, which the former IIRC was Hell on Earth) was b/c the slaves could not easily be replaced by imports.

Not to justify chattel slavery, but that's true to some degree. It is true that African slaves had a much higher survival rate than European "indentured servants", simply because they were worth 4-5 times as much.
Here's a little thing I wrote a while ago in another thread that's relevant to your question:

In most cases in the early colonies, there was no distinction between European and African slaves. The practice of chattel slavery originated in Barbados and the other Caribbean colonies, where the mostly Irish slaves were replaced with Africans, who were believed to be better able to withstand the conditions. Since the expense of enslaving and importing Africans was higher than that of importing Europeans, Africans became enslaved in perpetuity (the visible racial distinction between Africans and their masters was also a factor). The brutality of how indentured servants and Irish slaves were treated was very often worse than the treatment of enslaved Africans, since there was no economic incentive to let a European survive the terms of his indenture, and rarely any legal incentive to treat slaves of any color well at all. African slaves cost four to five times as much as European bondsmen, since the Europeans' children would not also be slaves, and whites were not considered an investment. The practice of chattel slavery was brought to Charleston from Barbados, where it went in hand with the whole plantation economic system.
Meanwhile, in the other colonies, the offspring of various enslaved or indentured people (Africans, English, native Americans, Germans, Scots-Irish, Irish, and the Iberians who were the ancestors of the Melungeons), as well as those whose indentures had expired, drifted to the hills and intermingled. Their descendents are most of the peoples of the American interior, the "hill-billys", as well as more conspicuous groups like the Melungeons and Lumbees. The 'one-drop' color line, as part of the plantation system, originated in South Carolina. In Louisiana and Latin America, people of mixed descent could rise to the highest parts of the social order, and intermarriage was quite common in New York and New England prior to the Revolution. The political influence wielded by the Southern planters after the revolution (among many other factors) managed to split Americans into the categories of 'black', 'white', and 'Indian', into which huge numbers of Americans could not comfortably be fit, and setting the stages for the ensuing tragedies of American history.


Of course, I fail to see how the "relative humanity" of American slaveowners has anything to do with the current argument about the Confederate cause.
 
Of course, I fail to see how the "relative humanity" of American slaveowners has anything to do with the current argument about the Confederate cause.

It doesn't. It is part of a "side argument" between myself and htgriffin which began when Mr. Griffin chose to be "offended" because I made an analogy between the slavery issue and the abortion issue.
 

Straha

Banned
Dixie is in the correct climate zone for Malaria. The difference is that unlike mexico Dixie is part of a first world nation so measures would be taken to remove malaria from it.
 

Faeelin

Banned
Oh, that's right. There aren't any mosquitos in the South, are there? That must be why several of my ancestors in Georgia died of malaria or yellow fever. Or why they had outbreaks of these diseases in cities all over the South during the summertime up until there was a concerted effort made to reduce the mosquito population by spraying, in the mid-to-late 20th century.

Good point.

Let's turn it around.

When did sugar production take off in Louisiana, and how did it compare to the death rate in the Carribean or Brazil?
 
Let's not forget that Lincoln would've been willing to let slavery go on if he could save the union by that. The Southern governments, however, were willing to break away and even start a war (now that really meant people would be killed) to preserve slavery.
While black Lincoln gets most of the PR.
The Southern States were also looking at the large numbers of abolitionists, Elected at other levels of Government across the North, And a Now or Never attitude propelled the Secession.
 
You know what I just wondered? What would happen if someone (a politician? Improbable) would tell the people (blacks and white Southerners together): "Listen folks, the damn war is over for 140 years, all the former slaves are dead, all the slaveholders are dead, all the rebels are dead, even all the rebel widows are dead, slavery is gone and will never return, king cotton is dead and will never return, Jeff Davis and General Lee are dead and will never return, the CSA is dead and will never return, blacks have the vote and the same rights and will keep them, so now quit complaining and get on with your life, goddammit!"
 
Top