Why Did The South Secede?

[rightwinger]

The South Seceded so they could create a conservative utopia

A society run by white males that enforces a pool of free labor. A society that doesn't recognize human rights. A society built to ensure the dominance of the white race

The correct answer might be that they seceded as a matter of economics. Thinking that the British would step in to help them implies that they thought the BRITISH still ruled the world.

The traitorous south built a society on the economics of Free Labor

The southerners were peaceful patriots who wanted to be left alone, but were forced to fight when their homeland was invaded.

The slaves wanted to be left alone also....how did that work out?

 

[paperview]

The north made it an issue..the south responded directly. Constitutions can be amended when a law becomes obsolete....but that doesn't work with your narrative....

Do you seriously believe that as the dawn of the industrial revolution occurred before their very eyes, anyone really wanted to keep slaves rather than use modern, efficient, low cost machines?

Do you seriously believe that had the south been allowed to peacefully withdraw there would still be negroes out in the fields today chopping cotton?

The dawn??

Hey fucknutz, the Industrial Revolution had been in full swing for many decades by the time of the Civil War, and it was the Cotton Gin, (a part of that Revolution) that was responsible for enslaving more than anything else, and even further established and embedded slavery in the culture of the south.

 

[Mr Natural]

The southerners were peaceful patriots who wanted to be left alone, but were forced to fight when their homeland was invaded.

"Peaceful Patriots" who opened fire on a US Government installation.

 

[Coloradomtnman]

Of course "slavery" is mentioned. The north used it as a weapon to inflame people. The south would naturally reply.
Slavery was a legal, but fading practice and everyone knew it.... but an intrusive federal government used it as an excuse to selectively violate its' own laws to achieve political gain...(like siccing the IRS on political enemies)....

If the war was fought to "free the slaves" as you have been indoctrinated to believe, why didn't lincoln do it on the first day of his presidency?...why wait until the north was losing to do it? Why didn't he emancipate all slaves everywhere simultaneously?...why did he make exceptions?

Wrong.

From Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution of the Confederate States:

"Sec. 9. (I) The importation of negroes of the African race from any foreign country other than the slaveholding States or Territories of the United States of America, is hereby forbidden; and Congress is required to pass such laws as shall effectually prevent the same.

(SNIP)

(2) Congress shall also have power to prohibit the introduction of slaves from any State not a member of, or Territory not belonging to, this Confederacy."

 

[Rotagilla]

The traitorous south was on the outside looking in at the dawn of the industrial revolution. Their economy was built around king cotton and there was no automated picking tool on the horizon
The traitorous south went into a panic that with Lincoln as President, they would lose their supply of Free Labor. So rather than concede the inevitable end of slavery, they created their own nation built upon the backs of slave labor

You ignored everything I said and all the points I raised and returned to your "traitorous south" chant.

It's resolved, my points stand as valid.... your "opinion" of what the "traitorous south" was doing and their motives is irrelevant. Stick to facts.

The industrial revolution was occurring and slaves were impractical and more trouble than they were worth. That's a fact.

The war of northern aggression was not about freeing or retaining slaves.

 

[Rotagilla]

Of course "slavery" is mentioned. The north used it as a weapon to inflame people. The south would naturally reply.
Slavery was a legal, but fading practice and everyone knew it.... but an intrusive federal government used it as an excuse to selectively violate its' own laws to achieve political gain...(like siccing the IRS on political enemies)....

If the war was fought to "free the slaves" as you have been indoctrinated to believe, why didn't lincoln do it on the first day of his presidency?...why wait until the north was losing to do it? Why didn't he emancipate all slaves everywhere simultaneously?...why did he make exceptions?

Wrong.

From Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution of the Confederate States:

"Sec. 9. (I) The importation of negroes of the African race from any foreign country other than the slaveholding States or Territories of the United States of America, is hereby forbidden; and Congress is required to pass such laws as shall effectually prevent the same.

(SNIP)

(2) Congress shall also have power to prohibit the introduction of slaves from any State not a member of, or Territory not belonging to, this Confederacy."

Yes..the south knew slavery was fading and didn't want to import any more...The north wanted to inflame and use the issue to gain support.

Why did lincoln wait until late in the war to "emancipate" the slaves? Why didn't he do it on the first day he took office as president? Why did he only do it in certain parts of the country and not others?

 

[paperview]

The southerners were peaceful patriots who wanted to be left alone, but were forced to fight when their homeland was invaded.

"Peaceful Patriots" who opened fire on a US Government installation.

Opened fire on Union ships three months earlier, and seized arsenals and forts all over the South starting in January of 1861.

Hostilities were well underway by the time Lincoln put his hand on the bible to take the Oath in March of 1861.

 

[Coloradomtnman]

Of course "slavery" is mentioned. The north used it as a weapon to inflame people. The south would naturally reply.
Slavery was a legal, but fading practice and everyone knew it.... but an intrusive federal government used it as an excuse to selectively violate its' own laws to achieve political gain...(like siccing the IRS on political enemies)....

If the war was fought to "free the slaves" as you have been indoctrinated to believe, why didn't lincoln do it on the first day of his presidency?...why wait until the north was losing to do it? Why didn't he emancipate all slaves everywhere simultaneously?...why did he make exceptions?

Wrong.

From Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution of the Confederate States:

"Sec. 9. (I) The importation of negroes of the African race from any foreign country other than the slaveholding States or Territories of the United States of America, is hereby forbidden; and Congress is required to pass such laws as shall effectually prevent the same.

(SNIP)

(2) Congress shall also have power to prohibit the introduction of slaves from any State not a member of, or Territory not belonging to, this Confederacy."

Yes..the south knew slavery was fading and didn't want to import any more...The north wanted to inflame and use the issue to gain support.

Why did lincoln wait until late in the war to "emancipate" the slaves? Why didn't he do it on the first day he took office as president? Why did he only do it in certain parts of the country and not others?

Just admit it: you wish black people were still slaves.

 

[Wry Catcher]

The irony of your post is excruciating.

Let me ask you this: whose right to self-determination was the North not allowing? Slave owners, right? Not allowing slave owners to own human beings. What else did they stop slave owners from doing? Hm, can't think of anything else right now. I guess it's just that ONE thing.

Now, whose right to self-determination was the South not allowing? Oh, yeah! The slaves themselves! And what were the slaves not allowed to do? Nothing other than be slaves! Just that ONE thing, right?

The world will be a much better place when you and your racist ilk finally go extinct.

Slavery was a dying practice and the southern leaders and most of the citizens knew it.

The north needed an issue to pretend to sieze the moral "high ground"..."emancipating" some (not all) of the slaves made lincoln look good...and further destabilized the south.
If lincoln wanted to "free the slaves" he could have done it the day he took office...instead he waited until late in the war to do it in order to exploit it and use it as leverage...

The north was losing on the battlefields...there were draft riots in the north..People didn't want to send their kids to fight to keep the south in the union. "Let our erring brothers go in peace" was a popular sentiment...The war effort was losing support and lincoln needed SOMETHING to "justify" the earlier illegal invasion of Charleston...

Wrong:

"A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union.
In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.

That we do not overstate the dangers to our institution, a reference to a few facts will sufficiently prove.

The hostility to this institution commenced before the adoption of the Constitution, and was manifested in the well-known Ordinance of 1787, in regard to the Northwestern Territory.

The feeling increased, until, in 1819-20, it deprived the South of more than half the vast territory acquired from France.

The same hostility dismembered Texas and seized upon all the territory acquired from Mexico.

It has grown until it denies the right of property in slaves, and refuses protection to that right on the high seas, in the Territories, and wherever the government of the United States had jurisdiction.

It refuses the admission of new slave States into the Union, and seeks to extinguish it by confining it within its present limits, denying the power of expansion.

It tramples the original equality of the South under foot.

It has nullified the Fugitive Slave Law in almost every free State in the Union, and has utterly broken the compact which our fathers pledged their faith to maintain.

It advocates negro equality, socially and politically, and promotes insurrection and incendiarism in our midst.

It has enlisted its press, its pulpit and its schools against us, until the whole popular mind of the North is excited and inflamed with prejudice.

It has made combinations and formed associations to carry out its schemes of emancipation in the States and wherever else slavery exists.

It seeks not to elevate or to support the slave, but to destroy his present condition without providing a better.

It has invaded a State, and invested with the honors of martyrdom the wretch whose purpose was to apply flames to our dwellings, and the weapons of destruction to our lives.

It has broken every compact into which it has entered for our security.

It has given indubitable evidence of its design to ruin our agriculture, to prostrate our industrial pursuits and to destroy our social system.

It knows no relenting or hesitation in its purposes; it stops not in its march of aggression, and leaves us no room to hope for cessation or for pause.

It has recently obtained control of the Government, by the prosecution of its unhallowed schemes, and destroyed the last expectation of living together in friendship and brotherhood.

Utter subjugation awaits us in the Union, if we should consent longer to remain in it. It is not a matter of choice, but of necessity. We must either submit to degradation, and to the loss of property worth four billions of money, or we must secede from the Union framed by our fathers, to secure this as well as every other species of property. For far less cause than this, our fathers separated from the Crown of England.

Our decision is made. We follow their footsteps. We embrace the alternative of separation; and for the reasons here stated, we resolve to maintain our rights with the full consciousness of the justice of our course, and the undoubting belief of our ability to maintain it."

Of course "slavery" is mentioned. The north used it as a weapon to inflame people. The south would naturally reply.
Slavery was a legal, but fading practice and everyone knew it.... but an intrusive federal government used it as an excuse to selectively violate its' own laws to achieve political gain...(like siccing the IRS on political enemies)....

If the war was fought to "free the slaves" as you have been indoctrinated to believe, why didn't lincoln do it on the first day of his presidency?...why wait until the north was losing to do it? Why didn't he emancipate all slaves everywhere simultaneously?...why did he make exceptions?

Lincoln stated goal was to preserve The Union. Lincoln did free the slaves (Emancipation Proclamation), see:

Featured Document The Emancipation Proclamation

Which makes the statement by Rotagilla a half-truth and thus dishonest by omission.

 

[paperview]

Yes..the south knew slavery was fading and didn't want to import any more...The north wanted to inflame and use the issue to gain support.
...

Man, with every post, you show how truly poverty-ridden of history you are.

Import?? Importation had been banned since 1808 for chrissakes.

They were breeding them. There were actually breeding farms in the south and they were making a shit ton of money breeding them like cattle for the strongest and most enduring, and putting them up on the auction block.

It wasn't dying. It was booming. And the amount of money in concentrated wealth in those slaves made those southerners fucking richer per capita than the northerns....they were soaking in it.

It was literally the blood that fed their economy - and they were bound and determined to keep it chugging.

 

[paperview]

...

Why did lincoln wait until late in the war to "emancipate" the slaves? Why didn't he do it on the first day he took office as president? Why did he only do it in certain parts of the country and not others?

Idiot.

Stupid.

Fucking.

Idiot.

 

[rightwinger]

The traitorous south was on the outside looking in at the dawn of the industrial revolution. Their economy was built around king cotton and there was no automated picking tool on the horizon
The traitorous south went into a panic that with Lincoln as President, they would lose their supply of Free Labor. So rather than concede the inevitable end of slavery, they created their own nation built upon the backs of slave labor

You ignored everything I said and all the points I raised and returned to your "traitorous south" chant.

It's resolved, my points stand as valid.... your "opinion" of what the "traitorous south" was doing and their motives is irrelevant. Stick to facts.

The industrial revolution was occurring and slaves were impractical and more trouble than they were worth. That's a fact.

The war of northern aggression was not about freeing or retaining slaves.

Quite to the contrary

The industrial revolution was occuring and those automated looms needed an ever increasing supply of cotton. The only way to pick cotton was by hand. The traitorous south was making millions off the cotton trade.....should they share it with those actually doing the work?

We know the answer to that one

 

[Rotagilla]

The southerners were peaceful patriots who wanted to be left alone, but were forced to fight when their homeland was invaded.

"Peaceful Patriots" who opened fire on a US Government installation.

They offered to let the troops in the fort peacefully evacuate...like the many other federal institutions had done that were in southern territory.

Lincoln refused to allow that because he knew that a federal fort in charleston harbor would never be tolerated.
Might as well have a russian fort in new york on the hudson river..Not going to happen.


April 15 1861 Lincoln issued an order for 75,000 volunteers to subdue the south..after originally saying that he endorsed secession regarding texas seceding from mexico. and in 1845 he also said.

Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable - a most sacred right - a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world.Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people, that can may revolutionize and make their own of so many of the territory as they inhabit."

but lincoln still needed a casus belli as an excuse to invade the south and wage war on his fellow americans.
Some in the north were not against the secession of the south.."Let our erring sisters depart in peace"
Fort sumter was where he provoked the attack that gave him the excuse he needed.
Fort sumter could not continue to exist in the harbor of Charleston..a foreign fort on southern soil. It had to be surrendered like the other federal forts on southern land or in southern waters.
In exchange the south offered to pay not ONLY for the properties, but also to pay the south's portion of the federal debt of the United States.(!)

Lincoln didn't want to hear any of that. He wanted a war.
He refused to meet with southern representatives sent to discuss the crisis despite the intervention of 2 associate justices of The Supreme Court on the south's behalf.

He decided he would not let the south secede..despite the wording of the Declaration of Independence which the u.s. used to secede from britain, and which he naturally supported.

So now fort sumter which was built to protect americans from foreign attack was now to be used AGAINST americans exercising their legal rights to be free from federal authority and to form their own nation.

Fort Pickens in Pensacola and Fort sumter were the only 2 major forts in the confederacy that hadn't peacefully surrendered to the CSA and been evacuated.

Lincoln ordered Fort Sumter not to comply.

Ratcheting up the tension, on april 6 1861 lincoln announced he was sending men and supplies to fort sumter..which by now wasn't part of the united states any more.

The south knew that if they wanted to take possession of the fort with no bloodshed, they couldn't wait until it was reinforced.
On 12 april 1861 Gen P.G.T. Beauregard opened gentlemanly negotiations with the fort commander, Maj. Robt. Anderson. When negotiations broke down Beauregard ordered his artillerymen to fire on the fort for effect. 2 days later we took the fort..NO ONE WAS KILLED

The south won the stand off against a foreign occupied fort in its territory but now lincoln had the excuse he needed..To "put down the rebel insurrection"..which HE HAD PROVOKED.


The jewish bankers and manufacturers of the North went into a tizzy and ordered Lincoln to force the South back into the Union.
After 2 years of war, the South was winning, even though they were greatly outmanned.
Morale was low and desertions were high in the North. There were anti-draft riots. Nobody wanted to fight for the bankers.

That's when Lincoln changed his strategy and said the war was to free the poor oppressed slaves of the South and issued the Emancipation Proclamation. European support for the South wavered after that because they were anti-slavery. The South suddenly became the bad guys. Lincoln used his new, high moral ground as an excuse to commit immoral atrocities against Southern cities and citizens.
Lincoln had vowed to collect "duties and imposts" or tariffs in the south.
The South seceded basically over Free Trade. The North couldn't compete with the cheaper and better European goods coming into Southern ports, so they imposed the Morrill tariffs in 1860.

The poor Whites of the South couldn't afford Northern goods or to pay the tariffs, so they ignored them.
The Federal government controlled by the North sent troops and tariff collectors to Southern ports.
This was intolerable to the economic well being of the South, so they seceded from the Federal Union and ordered the evacuation of all Federal officers and troops from the Confederacy.


Tariffs amounted to 95% of the federal revenue and the Morrill Tariff signed in 1861 by Pres. Buchanan had MORE THAN DOUBLED TARIFF DUTIES on the south.
The south opposed the tariff..the north, naturally supported it and now that south carolina had left the union lincoln decided to ENFORCE the tariff..a further provocation.


In is inaugural address lincoln had said;

"We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

but purposely seeking to wage war on his fellow americans isn't actually a reflection of "the better angels of our nature".

Lincoln thought the mexican-american war was wrong even though it gained the u.s. california, utah, nevada, arizona, parts of colorado wyoming and new mexico, but thought it was just fine to wage total war against his fellow americans who were exercising a legal right.

If the south seceded today, how many of you think it would be ok to send tanks across the potomac, blockade southern ports and carpet bomb american cities?
Killing civilians, destroying and burning their property, killing or stealing their livestock, wrecking their infrastructure and waging a war of scorched earth..against fellow americans?
I'm sure some of you keyboard jockeys and the more immature among you will claim it's just a fine idea...but seriously...What goes around most assuredly comes around..think of YOUR home and city destroyed, your possessions stolen and your friends and family dead...

Robert E. Lee, a great patriot and a West Point graduate was offered command of the Union Army and declined. A man who had honorably served the flag of the U.S. his entire adult life;

On April 20th, 1861 Lee wrote two very important letters.
One was addressed to the Secretary of War tendering his resignation from the United States Army; the other to his mentor, General Winfield Scott, explaining his decision.
Lee’s resignation had come after much deliberation.
Tensions between the north and south had been high for many months when in January, 1861 Lee wrote to his wife from Texas that “As far as I can judge from the papers we are between anarchy and Civil War. May God avert us from both.”

In a letter to his son Jan 23 1861 he wrote;

....I see that four states have declared themselves out of the Union; four more will apparently follow their example. Then, if the border states are brought into the gulf of revolution, one half of the country will be arrayed against the other. I must try and be patient and await the end, for I can do nothing to hasten or retard it.

The South, in my opinion, has been aggrieved by the acts of the North, as you say. I feel the aggression and am willing to take every proper step for redress . It is the principle I contend for, not individual or private benefit. As an American citizen, I take great pride in my country, her prosperity and institutions, and would defend any state if her rights were invaded. But I can anticipate no greater calamity for the country than a dissolution of the Union. It would be an accumulation of all the evils we complain of, and I am willing to sacrifice everything but honor for its preservation.

. . . Still, a Union that can only be maintained by swords and bayonets, and in which strife and civil war are to take the place of brotherly love and kindness, has no charm for me. I shall mourn for my country and for the welfare and progress of mankind. If the Union is dissolved, and the government disrupted, I shall return to my native state and share the miseries of my people; and, save in defense, will draw my sword on none.

 

[Rotagilla]

...

Why did lincoln wait until late in the war to "emancipate" the slaves? Why didn't he do it on the first day he took office as president? Why did he only do it in certain parts of the country and not others?

Idiot.

Stupid.

Fucking.

Idiot.

Great rebuttal..You dodged everything and called me names. Your debate tactics are impeccable..LMFAO...

 

[paperview]

The slaves wanted to be left alone also....how did that work out?

;/ Not too well. Why do these White Supremacists never consider the other parts of the Southern population (stupid question, I know...)

South: 1860. ---> Apprx 9 million people.

Slightly less than 4 million of these were slaves. No vote. No citizenship status. No representation. We can be pretty certain these people wanted to be left alone.

But to continue...

Balance: 5 million.

Approx half women, children. No vote. No representation.

2.5 million :: Balance. Many of which were not accorded true representation in votes for secession.
....
Hey, forget about them...just leave us alone.

******.

 

[PoliticalChic]

says PC the fool!

And you even have to imitate my posts????

So....you have no shame; goes with no brains.

Rather than defend the premise (notice, I did not say her premise) PC once again and always defaults to attacking others. It is an example, once again, of someone seeking attention by trolling - even negative attention is gleeful to someone starved for it.

What????

I never attack others, you dirt-eating, insignificant,wart-faced baboon!!

 

[PoliticalChic]

Electing Buchanan calmed these crazy ass Southerners down a bit, and he was every bit the suckass they wanted him to be.

Lincoln getting elected was what it took. They never even waited for him to take office to officially secede and commence hostilities.

The south didn't start the war.
Lincoln (illegally) sent troops and ships to invade Charleston (fort sumter) after the south had seceded...invading a foreign nation is an act of war. Any nation would be right to defend themselves from invaders.

Not so.

I showed in post #208 that that Jefferson Davis began the war.

 

[JakeStarkey]

 

[paperview]

...

I see you've been spamming that same post all over the web by a half dozen names that have banned you -- I'm guessing the white Supremacism started eeking over too much, but that's just a guess.

Either that or you're lifting it from another idiot.

No matter, you've shown you're a troll with a poor grasp of history -- at least some of your Lost Cause revisionist comrades have a better grasp of the basics, like when the Industrial Revolution started, that the Importation of slaves was halted in 1808, and who the fuck fired the first shots.

 

[Wry Catcher]

Of course "slavery" is mentioned. The north used it as a weapon to inflame people. The south would naturally reply.
Slavery was a legal, but fading practice and everyone knew it.... but an intrusive federal government used it as an excuse to selectively violate its' own laws to achieve political gain...(like siccing the IRS on political enemies)....

If the war was fought to "free the slaves" as you have been indoctrinated to believe, why didn't lincoln do it on the first day of his presidency?...why wait until the north was losing to do it? Why didn't he emancipate all slaves everywhere simultaneously?...why did he make exceptions?

Wrong.

From Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution of the Confederate States:

"Sec. 9. (I) The importation of negroes of the African race from any foreign country other than the slaveholding States or Territories of the United States of America, is hereby forbidden; and Congress is required to pass such laws as shall effectually prevent the same.

(SNIP)

(2) Congress shall also have power to prohibit the introduction of slaves from any State not a member of, or Territory not belonging to, this Confederacy."

I doubt these sections of the COTCS were anything but self serving. First, the COTUS imposed a $10 fee for all "such persons" imported (but not migrating); and, by prohibiting the migration of free black men into the South they protected themselves from spys and the 'Trojan Horse', i.e., free black men organizing revolt and sedition against the white slave owning class.