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Did the Southern U.S. have the right to secede?

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Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#326: Nov 20th 2015 at 9:07:12 AM

The war was inevitable from the moment the Constitution was signed. Discussing the minutiae of its provocation is pointless. The South would never have settled for a political solution that didn't allow them to keep their slaves. The North would never have settled for a political solution that did. Arguing about who fired first is a way to trivialize the major issues and squabble about tit-for-tat, which is exactly how perpetual feuds sustain themselves.

I'm tempted to sympathize here with King whats-his-name from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, who famously offered, "Let's not squabble and bicker over who killed who."

edited 20th Nov '15 9:10:49 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
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#327: Nov 20th 2015 at 9:16:39 AM

[up]

The war was inevitable from the moment the Constitution was signed. Discussing the minutiae of its provocation is pointless. The South would never have settled for a political solution that didn't allow them to keep their slaves. The North would never have settled for a political solution that did.

Might a Civil War have still happened if the Thirteen States hadn't declared independence from The British Empire?note 

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Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#328: Nov 20th 2015 at 9:17:27 AM

Well, if they hadn't, then the Empire might have had to step in and fight a war against its American colonists anyway to get rid of the whole slavery thing. Then you'd have the slave-owners screaming for secession from the Brits, and the whole thing is off again.

Slavery was the defining factor of American politics since before the Declaration of Independence was signed, and remains it to this day.

edited 20th Nov '15 9:18:30 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Nihlus1 Since: Jul, 2015
#329: Nov 20th 2015 at 9:29:08 AM

[up][up]The British didn't ban slavery in their colonies until 40 years after the northern states (i.e. 70% of the US's population) did. That aside, if the USA never became independent until the 20th century (which would need so many Alien Space Bats and cause such an enormous butterfly effect that the modern world wouldn't be recognizable), a war would still happen. The southerners REALLY loved slavery and racism; so much so that some are still mad that they lost 150 years later, and still trying to deprive minorities of human rights. Why do you think there are CSA flags and monuments to those traitors everywhere?

If certain states were made independent today, and they didn't immediately collapse, they'd probabaly act like France. Where 70% of the prison population is Muslim, the National Front wins popularity, about a half of the "brown" population is below the U.S. poverty line, 1/4 of immigrants don't even have hot running water or bathrooms, and L'Oreal can say "no blacks allowed" for its employment ads and get what can't even be described as a slap on the wrist as punishment.

edited 20th Nov '15 9:36:03 AM by Nihlus1

AmbarSonofDeshar Since: Jan, 2010
#330: Nov 20th 2015 at 10:25:23 AM

I would reiterate at this point that I do not oppose breaking up a country if there genuinely are irreconcilable differences (or at least differences that would take so long to reconcile that a whole lot of people are going to suffer in the meantime). This is even more true when the states and peoples in question were joined via conquest rather than choice. Southern Ireland leaving the UK, for instance, was a perfectly valid instance of secession, and I have no difficulty sympathising with the Irish-Catholics who wanted out. Similarly, I have no difficulty sympathising with the Tibetans who want the hell out of China.

The former Confederacy is a very different case from those instances, however. Its individual members joined the Union of their own volition, and for years, ran the Union to their liking, only to rise in revolt when votes started going against them. They tried and failed to create a nation-state of their own, in the process oppressing millions of members of their own population. They then lost the war, and have spent all the years since complaining about it, and, in many cases, finding ways to put their minority population back in bondage (Jim Crow laws, anybody?).

If we ignore Fighteer's arguments about force and look at whether there is a moral right to secede, the South loses out there too. They didn't try to secede because they were being repressed, as in the Irish instance (I will again add a note here saying that I refer only to the original Irish secession from the UK; everything the IRA has done since is a crock). They tried to leave because they were afraid they would not be allowed to repress others. And regardless of what those pro-secessionists in the thread say their personal motives are, the modern secessionist movement is ultimately a Neo-Confederate one, shot through with all the hate, xenophobia, and pro-slavery arguments that one would expect. These are not people you put in charge of a nation-state, and so long as those are the people arguing for secession, the US government has a moral obligation to refuse to let them pull it off.

Achaemenid HGW XX/7 from Ruschestraße 103, Haus 1 Since: Dec, 2011 Relationship Status: Giving love a bad name
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#331: Nov 20th 2015 at 11:02:13 AM

They key for me is simply the opinion of Southern black people, ie slaves. One can probably safely assume that they would not have voted to secede from the United States to perpetuate their own enslavement. Once their opinion is factored in, Southern slavery becomes entirely undemocratic.

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Aszur A nice butterfly from Pagliacci's Since: Apr, 2014 Relationship Status: Don't hug me; I'm scared
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#332: Nov 20th 2015 at 11:05:24 AM

I need to ask. Is anyone outside of really stupid and racist bigots websites wielding the argument that the Southern U.S during the tmes of the U.S Civil war have the "right" to secede?

I limited myself to speaking about secessions in general because...the answer is just to obvious and I myself am not sure anyone here is defending the actions of the U.S south during the civil war, their reasons to open war, or the de facto admittance or implicit acceptance of slavery.

or am I wrong in that there is anyone defending the U.S South during those times who is currently here...?

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes
dRoy Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar from Most likely from my study Since: May, 2010 Relationship Status: I'm just high on the world
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#333: Nov 20th 2015 at 11:07:20 AM

Okay, I have to know this.

By the right to secede, are we talking about in the standards of that period or right now?

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Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#334: Nov 20th 2015 at 11:10:42 AM

[up][up] There remains a lot of apologia that is framed in that detestable "states' rights" argument — the idea that the South had the democratic right to self-determination and the North had no right to impose its will on them. Then you get all kinds of screwy arguments about who provoked what and who shot first.

As seriously as those arguments' proponents take them, it's all window dressing on the hateful racism beneath, even if they don't realize it or aren't willing to realize it.

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#335: Nov 20th 2015 at 11:19:31 AM

You didn't mention the unarmed steamer that the CSA fired the first shots of the war at in your post. Only the armed fleet.

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Hodor2 Since: Jan, 2015
#336: Nov 20th 2015 at 11:31:58 AM

I'm also kind of confused by the insistence that it was a Casus belli by the Union for the United States to send troops to a fort that to it and which had been taken over by some breakaways who joined the Confederacy.

Achaemenid HGW XX/7 from Ruschestraße 103, Haus 1 Since: Dec, 2011 Relationship Status: Giving love a bad name
HGW XX/7
#337: Nov 20th 2015 at 11:57:52 AM

@Aszur

Non-Anglophone scholarship tends to be saturated with the economic determinist argument that the war was primarily economic in nature, simply because they haven't caught up (as Anglophones won't have with non-Anglophone stuff).

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andersonh1 Since: Apr, 2009
#338: Nov 20th 2015 at 11:59:35 AM

You didn't mention the unarmed steamer that the CSA fired the first shots of the war at in your post. Only the armed fleet.

The unarmed civilian steamer with 250 soldiers hiding on board was named the "Star of the West", mentioned in my last reply to you. And once it was held and used by the military, it was a legitimate military target.

And if firing on civilian targets bothers you, what must you think of Sherman's March to the Sea? Or Sheridan's razing of the Shenandoah Valley? Not to mention that after both men got through robbing, raping and killing Southerners, they then went out after the war and did the same to the Native Americans. Both times with the full assent of the government of the United States.

I'm also kind of confused by the insistence that it was a Casus belli by the Union for the United States to send troops to a fort that to it and which had been taken over by some breakaways who joined the Confederacy.

It all depends on what you believe about the issue of state sovereignty. I hold with Jefferson's compact theory, though I'll acknowledge that the Civil War put an end to that theory of United States governance and consolidated power in the central government.

Who wanted war here? The Confederate States had offered to compensate the United States for the federal property they occupied. Whether you agree that they had a right to do that or not, it should be clear that they were trying to take a conciliatory approach. In the end, with one attempt to resupply and reinforce the fort having been attempted, and another stronger one on its way, the choice was to allow it or reduce the fort before it could be strengthened. Lincoln would not deal with the CSA envoy. He refused to recognize them as legitimate.

edited 20th Nov '15 12:09:16 PM by andersonh1

dRoy Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar from Most likely from my study Since: May, 2010 Relationship Status: I'm just high on the world
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#339: Nov 20th 2015 at 12:00:28 PM

When I was a grade schooler, I was taught that basically South broke off over the issues of slavery, and North fought because they wouldn't have none of them.

My country was a bit skimpy in history and pro-America, so...yeah.

Now...I actually have no idea what exactly was the cause.

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Aszur A nice butterfly from Pagliacci's Since: Apr, 2014 Relationship Status: Don't hug me; I'm scared
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#340: Nov 20th 2015 at 12:03:36 PM

I am aware that people outside wield this argument. I am just wondering if anyone here, in this thread, is defending the Confederate states of the u.s civil war era

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes
dRoy Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar from Most likely from my study Since: May, 2010 Relationship Status: I'm just high on the world
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#341: Nov 20th 2015 at 12:04:49 PM

...You know, I've thread hopped significantly here, how exactly can it be defended again?

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andersonh1 Since: Apr, 2009
#342: Nov 20th 2015 at 12:12:11 PM

When I was a grade schooler, I was taught that basically South broke off over the issues of slavery, and North fought because they wouldn't have none of them.

That's what I was always taught, in addition to Abraham Lincoln being the greatest President ever because he "saved the Union". The reality is a lot more complicated.

Nihlus1 Since: Jul, 2015
#343: Nov 20th 2015 at 12:12:55 PM

[up][up][up][up]Your school was accurate. The south broke off because of slavery, the north (and west!) squashed them to maintain the Union (with the plan to soon end slavery, as they had been doing since the nation was formed). See here.

[up]It's really, really not. The Confederacy fought because they wanted a broken country and slavery. The Union fought because they wanted a united country with no slavery. Both factions made this abundantly clear.

And if firing on civilian targets bothers you, what must you think of Sherman's March to the Sea? Or Sheridan's razing of the Shenandoah Valley? Not to mention that after both men got through robbing, raping and killing Southerners
Sherman didn't "murder and rape" southern civilians. His troops limited their destruction to relevant targets and absolutely prohibited murder and rape of civilians (despite the fact that isolated incidents still happened, as they do in every war). In fact they were so popular that their army was larger at the end of the march than it was at the beginning. By contrast, southern troops raped and slaved (as in, they'd kidnap African-Americans to sell them into slavery back in the south) as a matter of policy.

Got any more slanderous bullshit you want to spew about a great man? Maybe you'd like to label Grant as a butcher next?

edited 20th Nov '15 12:22:03 PM by Nihlus1

dRoy Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar from Most likely from my study Since: May, 2010 Relationship Status: I'm just high on the world
Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar
#344: Nov 20th 2015 at 12:14:12 PM

...West?

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Nihlus1 Since: Jul, 2015
#345: Nov 20th 2015 at 12:15:36 PM

Yeah, California and Oregon sided with the Union. Everyone forgets about them, even though California gold was pretty important to financing the war.

dRoy Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar from Most likely from my study Since: May, 2010 Relationship Status: I'm just high on the world
Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar
#346: Nov 20th 2015 at 12:20:20 PM

Yeah, this is literally the first time I'm ever hearing about West's involvement. XP

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Greenmantle V from Greater Wessex, Britannia Since: Feb, 2010 Relationship Status: Hiding
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#347: Nov 20th 2015 at 12:27:11 PM

Wasn't there some Confederate Commerce Raiding far outside the US?

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Achaemenid HGW XX/7 from Ruschestraße 103, Haus 1 Since: Dec, 2011 Relationship Status: Giving love a bad name
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#348: Nov 20th 2015 at 12:38:52 PM

If Sherman's troops robbing and raping is contemptible, then so is the institutionalized robbing of millions of African-Americans of the products of their work, for centuries, before slavery was eradicated.

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andersonh1 Since: Apr, 2009
#349: Nov 20th 2015 at 12:40:32 PM

Sherman didn't "murder and rape" southern civilians. His troops limited their destruction to relevant targets and absolutely prohibited murder and rape of civilians (despite the fact that isolated incidents still happened, as they do in every war). In fact they were so popular that their army was larger at the end of the march than it was at the beginning.

If you seriously believe that, you'll believe anything.

Got any more slanderous bullshit you want to spew about a great man? Maybe you'd like to label Grant as a butcher next?

You might want to take that up with the northern press of the day, or with Mary Lincoln, who applied that label to him. I don't know that he was any worse than any other general when it comes to expending the lives of his men. The amount of casualties in that war was appalling.

If Sherman's troops robbing and raping is contemptible, then so is the institutionalized robbing of millions of African-Americans of the products of their work, for centuries, before slavery was eradicated.

I completely agree.

edited 20th Nov '15 12:48:37 PM by andersonh1

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#350: Nov 20th 2015 at 12:44:37 PM

And the institutionalized robbing and raping of them for the 150 years since the war, just slightly less overtly.

edited 20th Nov '15 12:44:51 PM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

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