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

[Keenir]

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!"

what's the point of alternate history?

 

[Max Sinister]

I don't mind us folks here discussing ACW AH. But all the people who won't let old grudges die...

 

[Keenir]

I don't mind us folks here discussing ACW AH. But all the people who won't let old grudges die...

good point.


*to all* Let's just get back to doing a DBWI, okay?

 

[Xen]

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 said it before and I will say it again. I believe fully the south had the right to secede, I believe it then, I believe it now. I think this is what Jefferson had in mind when he helped draft the constitution. However, what the south DID NOT have the right to do is fire upon the Union. I honestly believe the south were the aggressors in the war, they fired upon any ship that would resupply Ft Sumpter, then on the Fort itself. That and it moved its capital to Richmond, while Virginia was part of the USA, so in ways the south invaded the United States.

Truthfully the Union does not have to sell Forts it built, to me it is alot like Gibraltar. If Spain opened fire on Gibraltar to take it back from Britain it would be wrong and foolish, as Britain would tear Spain a new one. Same thing here. If the South would have been smart enough (or led by smarter leaders) then the whole war could have been avoided. If Lincoln wanted to reoccupy the south, he would have one hell of a time doing so, before Fort Sumpter, support for a war was not popular in the north, and in time Lincoln would have been booted out of office, and a President that would recognize the independence of the south would be in office. What happened to the south can be laid at the feet of its leadership for not just being fools, but for being damned fools.

 

[htgriffin]

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.

So you hail Nat Turner as a great hero then?

HTG

 

[htgriffin]

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.

Life as, at best, valuble livestock to be bought and sold at will does not appeal to me sir.

Tell you what, picture yourself in such a life... in such forever... well aware that efforts to become free or even mere impertinence will mean toruture and death at the master's whim.

Meditate on that concept, and then ask yourself if those who would defend same as a joyously wonderful way of life deserve to be spoken of in the same sentense as 'freedom loving revolutionaries'.

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.

If I may be so bold, where do you find your numbers?

More to the point, what are the reasons for said abortions? Catastrophic birth defects (look up ancephaly) and threats to the mother's health justify such measures.

In addition, I wonder how comprehensive your plan to prevent unwanted pregancy is. Places with better sex education and access to birth control seem to have less abortions, let the most vocal segments of the Pro-Life movements oppose both of those as well.

HTG

 

[robertp6165]

So you hail Nat Turner as a great hero then?

HTG

I respect him for the goal he was trying to accomplish. I have serious problems with the methods he used (wholesale murder of every white man, woman, and child they could get their hands on). Were he a bit more civilized in his methods (being a true revolutionary instead of a mass murderer), I would indeed "hail" him.

 

[Filo]

I belive reunion of the two nation impossible at least if the war during until '65 too much blood is gone because they call brothers again(Obviusly if Confederacy win, Richmond will start to sing this song too much blood...and Usa is the invader...).
So only some counties in Tennessee, Texas or Arkansas will think to rejoin in the Union but why?
I belive also that a winning confederacy will go energy to other secessionist movement in the Union...

On secession iusse...they have right to try to secede(also if the motivations are not all good) as Ireland was right to rebel against England and Corsica against Frence and Cececia to rebel against Russia.
When people don't belive that is ruling government is doing its well is morally motivated to leave this government.
As Slovacchia when seceded by Cechia.

On revanchism:Usa surely will have some revanchism ideas but exista a consistent part of public opinion fabvorable to the south(Coppeheads) and a more greater that not only don't want a new blood bath but also dislike black peolple.
Usa will create a colonial empire in competition with England(perhaps siding Germany) and forgot completly the southern country cousin

 

[Keenir]

Life as, at best, valuble livestock to be bought and sold at will does not appeal to me sir.
HTG

Can we please return to the DBWI ?