Was the Civil War Worth 600,000 Dead Americans?

[JakeStarkey]

The south's insistence in refusing their legal and moral duty to adhere to constitutional, electoral government occasioned the disaster, nothing else.

Of course it was worth it. We would not be the super power we are today if we were 2 separate countries. Who knows where we would be, if we would have then had to turn and fight other countries who saw us as easy colonies to conquer.

By that same reasoning slavery was woth it because it helped lead to the rise of America as an economic power.
By that same reasoning, the trail of tears was worth it because the indians are making millions off of casino's.
No, I don't think so. There are positive outcomes in every historical disaster. That doesn't make the disaster right.

Not allowing the county to be broken apart during such a crucial time in our history was the right choice, IMO. It has shaped us into who we are today.

 

[Sallow]

Absolutely.

Additionally..the North should have punished the South much worse then it did. Jefferson Davis and Robert E Lee should have been publically disemboweled and their heads should have been put on pikes until they became desiccated fly blown husks. Then they should have been ground into powder and flushed into a sewer.

One of our countries top universities.

However, your argument on the merits is a value judgement, absent of logic.




.

Benedict Arnold..who's crime wasn't even a fraction of the crimes of these men is viewed in much harder light then Lee and Davis. And the soft heroism attributed to these men has led to some really screwed movements in this country.

When the Turks were bent on conquering all of Europe they sent emissaries to a tiny country they thought they could intimidate into capitulation. The two Turks traveled on a road littered with the bodies of the impaled still on their poles. When the reached the leader of the country..he greeted them while eating bread and dipping that bread into human blood. He sent those emissaries back to where they came from with their Turbans nailed to their heads. Vlad "the impaler" is still considered a hero in Romania today..and still feared by most everyone else. He's called "Dracula".

This might help clarify things..

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6tV1yfEPTk]Apocalypse Now: Horror Monologue By Marlon Brando - YouTube[/ame]

 

[jillian]

No price is too high to pay when sweeping aside an outdated republic and instituting a centralised leviathan state.

yokie dokie...

 

[Sunni Man]

To our detriment, Lincoln's unconstitutional "War of Northern Agression" against the south was a success and saddled us with the bloated and repressive Federal government we enjoy today.

 

[Publius1787]

That was not Lincolns stated ends (See below).

I have no idea why you ended that quote immediately before Lincoln's concluding line in that letter: "I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every where could be free."

There was obviously a heavy moral component to the war, as Lincoln the man obviously recognized. Indeed, in issuing the declaration explaining and justifying its decision to secede, South Carolina cited Lincoln's well-known personal views:

A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that "Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free," and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction.

The United States was worth preserving. And the scourge of slavery was worth eliminating.

The Civil War was more than worth it.

You cannot prove, nor is it true that the North invaded the South to free slaves. Nor can you say that Abraham Lincolns stated ends of the war was exclusively preserve the union and free the slaves. However, there is a good argument that the Emancipation Proclamation was written to incite a slave rebellion to attack the families of Confederate Soldiers. Which is partially why the Emancipation Proclamation did not apply to boarder states. The emancipation was a war time act designed to hurt and punish the enemy, not to free anyone on the merits of freedom. The black vote was what the Republicans were after, which is the primary reason for expelling the Sounthern States from Congress, even after they voted to impliment the 13th Amendment. So that the Republicans could figure out a way to off set the fact that each slave no longer counts as 3/4ths of a person for the basis of representation in congress, effectivly giving Democrats more congressional seats than Republicans wanted. Thus, the Southern states were not allowed back in until after they ratified the 14th Amendment, which gave the U.S. government the authority to deny seats in Congress if they excluded blacks from voting. Note that they did not forbid the south to exclude blacks from voting. So son't tell me that the ends of the civil war, with respect to freedmen, were anything but political.

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

The United States will always be worth preserving.

Can't say I agree with that. I'm not optimistic about what tomorrow holds for the good ole U.S. of A.

 

[Greenbeard]

You cannot prove, nor is it true that the North invaded the South to free slaves.

I realize convincing Confederate apologists of the wrongs of the traitors with whom they sympathize is virtually impossible. I'm merely answering your question: "Was the Civil War Worth 600,000 Dead Americans Just to Preserve the Union?"

Along every dimension one can imagine--including the moral, economic, and political--it was.

The end of slavery is just one of many reasons the war was more than worth it.

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

Was the Civil War Worth 600,000 Dead Americans Just to Preserve the Union?

That is a question that cannot be answered as we don't know what would have happened had the southern states been allowed to secede without war and the Confederate States of America were a nation today. What would have happened in WWII? How would each American nation have developed differently over the past 150 years? We can only speculate.

 

[Publius1787]

You cannot prove, nor is it true that the North invaded the South to free slaves.

I realize convincing Confederate apologists of the wrongs of the traitors with whom they sympathize is virtually impossible. I'm merely answering your question: "Was the Civil War Worth 600,000 Dead Americans Just to Preserve the Union?"

Along every dimension one can imagine--including the moral, economic, and political--it was.

The end of slavery is just one of many reasons the war was more than worth it.

Value judgements and unsubstantiated claims do nothing to further your point. And the Civil War did not end slavery. Yet another, possibly more bloody war ended slavery.

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

The end of slavery is just one of many reasons the war was more than worth it.

But you assume that slavery would not have eventually been snuffed out anyway in the Confederate nation down the road, had it been allowed to live and besides, even after the emancipation of blacks in this country by all intents and purposes they remained second class citizens who weren't treated much better than slaves for about another 100 years anyhow.

 

[Publius1787]

The south's insistence in refusing their legal and moral duty to adhere to constitutional, electoral government occasioned the disaster, nothing else.

By that same reasoning slavery was woth it because it helped lead to the rise of America as an economic power.
By that same reasoning, the trail of tears was worth it because the indians are making millions off of casino's.
No, I don't think so. There are positive outcomes in every historical disaster. That doesn't make the disaster right.

Not allowing the county to be broken apart during such a crucial time in our history was the right choice, IMO. It has shaped us into who we are today.

Would you describe Thomas Jefferson in those same terms?

 

[Greenbeard]

Value judgements and unsubstantiated claims do nothing to further your point.

Value judgments aren't welcome in a thread predicated on asking if the Civil War was "worth it"?

 

[JakeStarkey]

Jefferson, when thwarted in his attack on the Federalist judiciary, accepted defeat and followed the process. So, yes, TJ acted legally and morally, instead of threatening to break up the union. He understood the union and the constitution were bigger than the sections.

 

[Publius1787]

The United States will always be worth preserving.

Half the country votes to secede in peace and 600,000 deaths of her own citizens is justified in preserving it? Is that an emotional arguement or a logical one?

It’s the Constitutional one.

Texas v. White

With 5 Supreme Court justices appointed by Lincoln and rubber stamped by a strictly Republican Congress, the opinion should not have come as a surprise. however, if it is true, and constitutionally speaking, the 14th Amendment was unconstitutionally ratified. The constitution says that every state in the union shall enjoy sufferage in the federal legislature. That was the case for the 13th Amendment, but not the 14th.

 

[JakeStarkey]

14th Amendment penalized states that did not guarantee suffrage (Section 2).

 

[Publius1787]

Value judgements and unsubstantiated claims do nothing to further your point.

Value judgments aren't welcome in a thread predicated on asking if the Civil War was "worth it"?

Defending your value judgements? Well throw logic and reason out the window then. Why debate anything at all? There is nothing wrong with coming up with a conclusion based on reason or a logical thought process. There is something wrong with unsubstantiated claims and value judgements.

 

[Greenbeard]

Defending your value judgements? Well throw logic and reason out the window then. Why debate anything at all?

Debate? I didn't realize there were even two sides in this thread.

Has someone put forth an affirmative thesis that the Civil War was not worth it?

 

[Publius1787]

14th Amendment penalized states that did not guarantee suffrage (Section 2).

That’s right. However, it did not forbid those states to take away voting rights to freedmen, nor did the 14th Amendment apply to women, though it was discussed. Why? Because after the 13th Amendment the 3/5ths clause was null and void. The Republicans did not want the Democrats in the South to benefit from the increase in representation in the House. Exclusion from Congress and the 14th Amendment was the remedy. If they didn’t allow freedmen to vote then the South would be denied the extra seats. If the South did allow the freedmen to vote, Republicans would have a shot in Southern municipalities, districts, and state legislatures. It had nothing to do with being the right thing to do. It had everything to do with Republican power in Congress, and among the states formerly in rebellion. You disagree with this?

 

[antagon]

I think it can be well determined that the South was defending and the North was attacking. Therefore, the context of the question could be regarded as was Lincoln's goal of unity worth wasting 600,000 lives.

The south (the confederate gov't) was on the offense as they occupied all the seceded states... US territory.

The states seceded via vote by democratically elected officials in their state. That’s the same way they entered in the union. That’s hardly the occupation you describe. Elected officials who execute the will of the people do not occupy. No new outside force entered to lay claim to the Southern States until northern invasion. The people who were in those states were the same people who have always been there. Occupation? If the American Revolution could be justified via the will of the people then why couldn’t secession be justified by the will of the people? Why was war necessary? For defense? To redress a grievance for a loss? Why?

No, buddy, if you want a new country you have to leave and find one, or steal the land from the original, bearing the consequences fully.

England was most justified going to war with a belligerent colony. We are righteous chiefly because we won that conflict. Same applies with the Civil War. The land the belligerent south occupied, taxes from its produce and the allegiance of its residents belonged to the US, notwithstanding the opinion-making process which concluded otherwise.

Now, you've aimed to shelter your argument on aloofness, but vs England or vs the Union, the belligerents were not aloof. They armed themselves to defend their land-grab.

 

[Publius1787]

Defending your value judgements? Well throw logic and reason out the window then. Why debate anything at all?

Debate? I didn't realize there were even two sides in this thread.

Has someone put forth an affirmative thesis that the Civil War was not worth it?

Playing stupid also gets you nowhere.