Was the Civil War Stupid? The Revolutionary War?

[AZrailwhale]

The civil war in truth was a result of Corporations getting too much economic influence in our government and over the Southern states.
The Southern states were producing more and more raw materials but getting less and less for them without any means to escape the economic oppression of the Northern corporations. And what is worse is that our Federal tax dollars gave northern corporations grants for business development.....

90% of the shipping was controlled by these same corporations who would refuse to ship the southern materials of cotton, tobacco, corn, sugar, and molasses (rum/distilled spirits)

The slave labor was the South's only recourse to try and survive economically. Not that they enjoyed the situation.....they would have preferred machines to do the labor intensive work and ONLY after the war were any tax dollars in grants used to create the machines needed to reduce the labor needed for agricultural production.

The South had the support of the best military minds....without a doubt. (Which is why military bases are named after Southern Generals....no other reason) The Northern Generals were mostly suck ups with pedigrees and wealthy families instead of real experience and knowledge.

The lack of a Navy and lack of industrialization was the downfall of the South. The South literally ran out of gunpowder and bullets....not the will to fight. Sherman's March was literally the worst and never really helped the North.

After the War....things got worse. Roaming bands of pirates killed, raped, and destroyed more than the war did. The soldiers imprisoned at Andersonville made a mess everywhere they went....enraged by PTSD, desperation, and starvation.

So much ignorance in a single post. In 1860 there were no large corporations with the kind of monopolistic power you are claiming. Most ship owners owned less than ten ships. Mills in the North were privately owned, and foreign ships were happy to carry Southern products. In fact, most of the South's cotton went to the UK, NOT the North. Slavery existed in the South long before mercantilism became a factor in the north. The South ran out of everything. By the end of the war it was starving, its railroads had been destroyed by overuse, its best weapons were imported on British owned blockade runners. The South would never have a navy, the same imperative that southern gentlemen felt to become soldiers worked in the North for the navy. The US Navy in 1860 was an integrated force officered by upper class whites.

 

[Cassandro]

I think you misunderstand why most Southern Whites fought for the "Peculiar Institution".

It wasn't because they owned a slave, it's because they didn't want to equally compete with black men for work, and they didn't want black men dating their sisters.

Most Southern Whites were fighting to protect their home states from invasion by the North. That is exactly why Virginia joined the Confederacy after Lincoln's call for 50,000 federal troops.

One of the main reasons the North didn't want the Southern States to secede was to preserve the federal government's main source of revenue: Taxes and duties on imports and exports. The Confederacy planned to make all Southern ports duty-free, which would also take away business from Northern ports. That is why Fort Sumter was fired upon, and why the North's first priority was to take over Southern ports.

The Civil War was stupid because slavery was already becoming uneconomical and was completely abandoned throughout the Western Hemisphere within the next 20 years. Because of it, many Northern States passed laws after the war prohibiting former slaves from relocating and taking jobs away from whites, and other discriminatory laws persisted for the next 100 years. There could have been a better way to resolve these issues.

The Revolutionary War was not stupid because it produced a new nation that became the envy of the world.

 

[JoeB131]

No, most fought because they were drafted.

Not quite. The vast majority were volunteers and there were loopholes in the Confederate (and Union) conscription laws.

 

[whitehall]

Most wars are the result of one regime invading and trying to take over another, such as we have today in Ukraine. The attacked country is certainly justified in trying to fight off the invading forces, and perhaps even more.

But the U.S. Civil War was stupid. A bunch of states decided to break away from the original country. Nothing in law or the Constitution prohibited such an action. And the fight to force the seceding states to remain cost three-quarter million lives, both sides combined. ******* insane, if you ask me. Surely, mature adults on the two sides could have come up with a solution short of mass casualties and incalculable cost.

For those who believe that the war was fought to end slavery, I would only point out that only a tiny fraction of the combatants owned slaves, and the northerners of common stock would have mutinied massively if they had been told early on that they were fighting to free the slaves.

Revisionist historians claim that Lincoln preserved the Union but the Union fell apart under his watch. Lincoln was apparently dealing with personal problems and failed to understand what was at stake if Southern states decided to leave the barely 100 year old Union. It's possible that he authorized the attack on Ft. Sumpter to encourage the North to go along with a war that he assumed would last barely longer than a single summer.

 

[Quantrill]

Revisionist historians claim that Lincoln preserved the Union but the Union fell apart under his watch. Lincoln was apparently dealing with personal problems and failed to understand what was at stake if Southern states decided to leave the barely 100 year old Union. It's possible that he authorized the attack on Ft. Sumpter to encourage the North to go along with a war that he assumed would last barely longer than a single summer.

Yes, Lincoln destroyed the Union that was. We have ever since been united by bayonet only. What a union. And here we are divided more than ever.

I don't think Lincoln failed to understand what was at stake. I think from the very beginning he knew a war was inevitable and always purposed to make sure the South was seen as the initiator of that war.

Lincoln most certainly did send relief expeditions to both Fort Pickens in Florida and Fort Sumter in South Carolina. And all was done through lies and deception on Lincoln's and Seward's part. To the point of even deceiving their own people, so as to cover their tracks as to who was responsible.

Slavery was the agitation used for the war. But why should there be a war, when slavery was protected by the Constitution?

No, the war was about simply destroying the South, as the North and South were always at odds about everything. And the coasts of the South were too great to let it act on its own. Before long the South would have the greatest ports because they were free trade and the North was tariff. New England states wouldn't stand for that.

Money and power. The 'house divided' would be solved by the 'irrepressible conflict'. Promised by Lincoln and Seward before the War.

Quantrill

 

[whitehall]

Yes, Lincoln destroyed the Union that was. We have ever since been united by bayonet only. What a union. And here we are divided more than ever.

I don't think Lincoln failed to understand what was at stake. I think from the very beginning he knew a war was inevitable and always purposed to make sure the South was seen as the initiator of that war.

Lincoln most certainly did send relief expeditions to both Fort Pickens in Florida and Fort Sumter in South Carolina. And all was done through lies and deception on Lincoln's and Seward's part. To the point of even deceiving their own people, so as to cover their tracks as to who was responsible.

Slavery was the agitation used for the war. But why should there be a war, when slavery was protected by the Constitution?

No, the war was about simply destroying the South, as the North and South were always at odds about everything. And the coasts of the South were too great to let it act on its own. Before long the South would have the greatest ports because they were free trade and the North was tariff. New England states wouldn't stand for that.

Money and power. The 'house divided' would be solved by the 'irrepressible conflict'. Promised by Lincoln and Seward before the War.

Quantrill

A Union is a concept of government that relies on the Constitution and the will of the people. Lincoln was a frontier lawyer but he apparently had little concept of the Constitution and his personal issues prevented him from grasping the concept of states rights and a civil war which he apparently took lightly

 

[Quantrill]

A Union is a concept of government that relies on the Constitution and the will of the people. Lincoln was a frontier lawyer but he apparently had little concept of the Constitution and his personal issues prevented him from grasping the concept of states rights and a civil war which he apparently took lightly

And that concept went to hell when the North labeled the Constitution a covenant with death and an agreement with hell.

Again, I don't think Lincoln ever took it lightly. He always knew it would be war and he was willing to go to war to solve it.

Quantrill

 

[Admiral Rockwell Tory]

Just for historical context. When the southern states seceded, the north under Lincoln didn't go charging in. The south formed their own armies, a mistake on their part since each southern state wanted control of their own forces, so they had no central command. Once they quickly formed their own armies, a "southern" army attacked a union fort, Fort Sumter. The north didn't attack first.
The Republican Party was formed as an anti-slavery party, which the Democrat Party objected to. Lincoln had a Democrat, Andrew Johnson be his running mate in an effort to promote and maintain unity. A mistake, because after Lincoln's assassination, Johnson, returned the "good ole boys" in the south, back in power.
The war was definitely about slavery. It was the economics of slavery. The leaders in the south during the war, including senior officers, were slave holders. It didn't have to be a large number who were actual slave holders. There were blacks in the south who had slaves and they sided with the Confederacy. The low income whites who fought for the south, did so because they were told that the north (Yankees) were coming to take their land. Had they not seceded, they would have lost one major thing, the buying and selling of human beings as if they were livestock.
Slavery ended in Mexico in 1829 as they recognized its evil, England followed in 1838, France in 1858 and of course, the US in 1865. The last nation to end slavery (at least on paper) was Mauritania in 1981. Prior to those years, it was a worldwide scourge, and the white Europeans weren't the first to start it. It began millenniums ago. Even whites became slaves in Islamic nations. It was what it was.
Should we have separated from England? Yes. If we were still part of England, we would be a failing nation, as England is now.

Nice elementary school level analysis you did there. When are you going to get an education on the subject?

 

[Zincwarrior]

Not quite. The vast majority were volunteers and there were loopholes in the Confederate (and Union) conscription laws.

Not for poor people and immigrants.

 

[JoeB131]

Yes, Lincoln destroyed the Union that was. We have ever since been united by bayonet only. What a union. And here we are divided more than ever.

I don't think Lincoln failed to understand what was at stake. I think from the very beginning he knew a war was inevitable and always purposed to make sure the South was seen as the initiator of that war.

Lincoln most certainly did send relief expeditions to both Fort Pickens in Florida and Fort Sumter in South Carolina. And all was done through lies and deception on Lincoln's and Seward's part. To the point of even deceiving their own people, so as to cover their tracks as to who was responsible.

Slavery was the agitation used for the war. But why should there be a war, when slavery was protected by the Constitution?

No, the war was about simply destroying the South, as the North and South were always at odds about everything. And the coasts of the South were too great to let it act on its own. Before long the South would have the greatest ports because they were free trade and the North was tariff. New England states wouldn't stand for that.

Money and power. The 'house divided' would be solved by the 'irrepressible conflict'. Promised by Lincoln and Seward before the War.

Quantrill

Guy, no. The South seceded and started mobilizing before Lincoln was sworn in.

The South were not the victims here.