|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
There was an episode on a TV show (I forget which one) in which an immigrant is being asked to answer what the cause of the civil war was and he launches into a dissertation on the various factors until the examiner cuts him off. “Just answer slavery.”
The official citizenship exam answer key lists “slavery, economic reasons” and “states’ rights” while admitting that there may be other answers, but just use these.
But we’re back to this nonsense with the controversy over Nikki Haley being asked what the cause of the civil war was.
Of all the questions you ask a presidential candidate, this isn’t one of them. I’m no fan of her, but she’s probably right that this was a plant. And her answer was a Kamala-esque word salad when she should have just ignored it and moved on.
The media is making a big thing out of it, as did the questioner, by insisting that the right answer is slavery. It’s not.
The Civil War wasn’t fought over slavery, except among the fringes on both sides. To the extent that it was fought over slavery, it was fought over the political and economic consequences of slavery. (I wonder if there would have ever been a civil war at all if the South hadn’t insisted on counting slaves for the purposes of political representation.) But we tend to forget how divided America was at the time, and how the industrial revolution and the changing economy was creating winners and losers.
Railroads vs steamboats was not much of a competition. Masses of immigrants arriving in Northern cities to work in factories and to settle the West, all but doomed the South. Some slavery advocates offered an alternative vision of expanding through Texas and down to Latin America with chains of plantations and an economy reliant on the traditional resource harvesting and exports.
That vision had lots of problems with it.
The Civil War was in some ways the final showdown between Jefferson and Hamilton over what kind of economy we would have.
Hamilton’s vision of industrialization and tariffs over lots of cheap exports to industrial powers like the UK won out. The Civil War was just the concluding act of the drama in which a lot of Southerners decided to go out on their feet rather than on their knees.
And what was the alternative except becoming the North with urbanization and immigration?
Nikki Haley, ironically enough, is the product of just such a process. She’s certainly not the old South or anything it would even recognize. She’s a technocrat and the product of immigration. And there is a certain absurdity in her inability to cope with the question.
All wars are fought for money. Some say power but power leads to money. The South did not keep slaves for fun. There were no tractors at the time, which means that a manual farmer and wife and children could probably feed themselves. In good years there was some product left to sell. So to get large returns slaves were necessary. The North had tenant farmers that paid their rent with labor and leftover crops. They were sustenance only.
The tariffs taxed industrial goods from England. This and whiskey tax were the only sources of money for the government. The South was the source of 70% of the taxes collected for the entire country. No wonder they had a short fuse.
The other contributing factor was the idea of nullification of federal laws (tariffs) the state did not agree with. Andy Jackson said no and that was that. Nobody crossed him and was the better for it.
Today there are around 450 governmental entities that ignore immigration law. Hmmm? I wonder if … no “our democracy is at stake.” What a joke!
Ms. Haley seems to be the finished product of the modern American education system. No grounding in Latin, Greek, the Bible, the founders’ writings, or the post-Renaissance history of the Western world. Perhaps she acquired technical knowledge in her schooling, but she was neither articulate nor informed. The average 10th Century Roman in Constantinople could have formulated a logical and informed response to the question asked about a comparable issue of the recent history of the Eastern Empire. The average 19th Century American school child could have explained the principles at work in the US Constitution regarding slavery, because our schools then were much more like classical schools than the government monopoly indoctrination centers in America today. Unless parents take steps to fill the gaps in schooling and to overcome the falsehoods being inculcated in today’s students, our republic will fall woefully short of the lifespan of Rome.
I think it’s already too late for America. It’s definitely too late for American education, which is government education. Put the government in charge of pretty much anything and you get waste or crap or both. Put the Dirtbagocrats in charge of the federal government with regional RINOs as henchmen and you get disaster.
The Dirtbagocrats and lefties are right that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer but it seems pretty obvious that they’re the cause. And the RINOs who give lip service to the diminishing middle class help the D-Bags diminish it every step of the way.
Agree. And when I state this or post such sentiments I become even more unpopular with the cheering patriots out there. Cheering is nice but it doesn’t fix anything and at this point it’s delusional. I mean Hamas supporters in the streets and citizens say naught?
Yes, just when I thought nothing could surprise me anymore, Hamas is allowed to rampage in our streets. They attacked the lighting of the big Christmas tree in NYC and mayor Boogie Adams had his police let them get away with it! And NYC wonders why Christmas and New Year’s Eve celebrations are now more popular in Orlando and other cities, which also happen to be much less expensive.
The left will never stop surprising us patriots with its anti-Americanism.
Yeah, the historians are still arguing about the causes. Mechanization is a key factor, but how do you explain that with a one-liner to a mass audience on TV? Also, the South could have won.
Yes and it’s obvious that agrarianism was never going to be wiped out by industrialism. There’s more agrarian land and production in America than ever and farmers have long been the wealthiest “class” of Americans on average. People will always need food and clothing. And slavery isn’t a factor.
There are small farmers in the Central Valley getting the short end of the stick by the D-Bag government in CA but the Valley is still the most productive and varied agrarian area on the planet.
Then as now, the Dirtbagocrats’ lust for power damaged the entire country. They should never have formed the Confederacy and started a war back then, just like they should never have opened the southern border to 15 million Third World rejects and counting today. Their lust for power has degenerated the peace and prosperity of the Trump presidency exponentially since they cheated their way into power in 2016.
And the RINOs have helped them every step of the way. Traitors, all.
Thanks Jeff!!!!
the South assumed that the Civil War would be a repeat of the American Revolution with the Union as the British
that was a profound miscalculation
unlike the British, the Union was never going to go home
a prolonged military campaign was not going to tire out the Union which had more manpower, especially thanks to immigration, and, efforts to enlist the British or disgruntled Democrats on the South’s side failed, leading to a fairly inevitable outcome
the only way the South could have won is if Lincoln had lost, leading to reunification under a Democrat president
Thanks Daniel, Lincoln losing the election was the main thing I was thinking about.
Another factor was the South having the best officers. Especially Lee, but with the drawback that he was so well educated militarily that he was stuck in the past to a certain extent, while poorly educated officers like Grant learned from their experiences and better understood the new age.
Another key factor was that the era of the Musket ended and the era of the Rifle began, the Rifle being much more accurate and having much longer range, leading to changes in tactics.
Having superior generals only gets you so far when there are basic strategic disadvantages. Lee was a great chess player, but the Union ended up bringing in hammer and tongs men like Grant and Sherman who just smashed up the board.
The only realistic Southern plan for victory was for the Union to fold. And it didn’t. Instead Lincoln solidified power and the Democrats shot themselves in the foot with riots and conspiracies that helped turn the country against them.
At some point Lee and everyone with any sense understood that it was just a question of how much bleeding there was going to be. And that was the message Grant and Sherman delivered in what became a very ugly war.
The Union did have technological superiority, but it was Lincoln who was the gadget nut. The Union military leadership was fairly staid. Consider the resistance to the use of Gatling guns.
Exactly right.
Sherman’s doctrine of “total war” against the Confederate economy supporting the Southern army was the beginning of the end of the war.
Sherman’s name is still anathema in many parts of the South.
I believe the more correct answer is that the Civil War was fought over the issue of the expansion of slavery throughout the country, which the infamous Dred Scott decision seemed to authorize. It is clear that the Southern Democrats intended to expand slavery into the territories before they became (free) states. Did they believe that once they had sufficient numbers they could continue the expansion throughout the northern free states?
That is hard to say, but certainly that is what Lincoln feared (see his “House Divided” speech). And even Northern Democrats couldn’t go along with the expansion of slavery into territories where the people did not want it and where, prior to Dred, it was believed that Congress had the power to prohibit it (this was the correct constitutional interpretation, but Dred overruled it). That is what split the Democrat Party and thereby allowed Lincoln to win an Electoral College majority in 1860.
Lincoln explained the Republican position on slavery as follows: that while they viewed slavery as evil and hoped to see its extinction, they did not think they had the power to abolish it in the South, but they absolutely refused to allow it to expand outside the South into the Western territories. The refusal of the Southern Democrats to agree to any such compromise (recall that Dred had also invalidated the Missouri Compromise that had held the peace since 1820) made conflict inevitable.
Also, the Southern economy (and social system) was largely feudal and I don’t think it should be called “Jeffersonian” even though it is certainly true that Jefferson preferred farming to industrialization – an understandable but unrealistic preference.
the South would not have expanded slavery into the North, but it was the Western farmers who were the most opposed to the expansion of slavery, a lot of Northerners benefited from the expansion of slavery, it’s why New York City proposed to secede in support of the South
Western farmers rightly worried about plantations moving in and being ground under by cheap votes and cheap labor
Lincoln wasn’t a Northerner after all. He was born in Kentucky to a struggling farmer who was having trouble competing with slave labor.
“I wonder if there would have ever been a civil war at all if the South hadn’t insisted on counting slaves for the purposes of political representation.”
You nailed it right there.
The only reason the Dirtbagocrats formed as the save party was for power and profit. New House Representatives in the Westward growth of America was good for power and the retention of slavery was good for agrarian profit. When that didn’t work out, they formed the Confederacy, which definitely had expansionist ambitions.
Lefties invariably claim slavery was the cause of the Civil War and slavery was established based on anti-black racism but lefties are invariably wrong about everything.
The Civil War didn’t destroy America but I bet the Dirtbagocrats and “woke” culture will. They haven’t changed a whit in all these years. And the RINOs will go right along with them.
It seems pretty obvious to me.
The Civil War fractured, but also united America.
Still in an alternate history, we might have instead gotten that invasion of Canada that the manifest destiny types and some of the Irish wanted and headed off the Civil War.
The third British-American war never happened, but it would have been less costly than the Civil War.
Yes, and the Canadians might have had something to say about that.
If Westward Ho Americans wanted to freeze to death they should’ve just moved to Buffalo.
They did. The Fenian raids helped bring us closer to war.
But Canada was also smaller and more unstable then. The British avoided a Canadian version of the American Revolution by cutting deals and defeating a limited revolution in the 1830s. But there were still tensions.
Absolutely, and there are still tensions here ( in Canada) that I believe will lead to a civil war. The tensions are getting much, much worse thanks to our version of the mushhead Biden, our own Dear Leader, Justin Troodle. Trudeau is angry at those who fail to fall in line with his totalitarian nonsense Our old, entrenched, largely old money ruling class in Toronto and Montreal see themselves as the rightful heirs of rule in Canadaand they are frightened of losing their position. Their thinking goes something like, “We built it; it’s ours.” It’s about money and power that has shifted away from central Canada and their eastern sycophants.. We live in perilous times on both sides of the 49th.
The Irish. You can always count on them to start fights.
“What caused the Civil War?” is a loaded question with a loaded answer.
In today’s ‘civil’ climate, everything, public and private, has been politicized. So why not history? Politicize the context of the past and implant it into the twilight zone of the present.
Asking this question is part of a calculated, political manoeuvre to keep alive the key foundational element of Obama’s attack on America: resurrection blitz propaganda campaign of supposed unchecked ongoing and systemic racism. MLK and the Civil Rights Movement was erased in an Obama instant, and, in its stead, BLM, the new anti-racism cloaked racism, burst forth. BLM was big for 2020; but may not be enough for ‘24. Racism strategy needs a big boost towards the Nov. ‘24 finish line. So – demand reparations. Civil War. Hmm….Reparations!
Lots and lots of money needed for reparations. Make reparations more important than any other policy. Reparations must dominate the economy and drain America. America must eat itself up.
So it’s not blue against grey, or white against white, but it must be exclusively black against white. It’s not creating a two country solution, but turning all the United States of America into one big hostage State.
This, the most popular song during the Civil War, aptly sums it up:
Its background:
The politics of the situation is fascinating and complex, but the actual cause of the war was slavery. If you look at the amount of slavery in each state, it not only tells you which states will secede, it almost exactly matches the order in which they seceded. South Carolina and Mississippi were the first two states to leave are also the two states where whites were actually in the minority. The four slave states that stayed are the same four that had the least amount (proportionally) of slaves.
There were echoes of the Federalist/industrialization versus a Jeffersonian/agrarian society but the two sides were more similar than different. There was still plenty of agriculture in the North, and industry in the South. Richmond was indispensable to the Confederacy, not because it was the capital (which could have been put anywhere), because it had the Tredegar Iron Works.
Many of the founders of the Republican Party were Jeffersonian Democrats like Gideon Welles of Lincoln’s cabinet. The ‘slavocracy’ was the ultimate ‘interest group’/faction that corrupted everything.
All left-wing canards. Trollfail.
Of all the hundreds of thousands Confederate soldiers who fought against the North, how many owned slaves? It doesn’t seem logical these men would fight and die so a few wealthy plantation owners could live their lavish lifestyles. There had to be other considerations. Perhaps the idea of being taken over by the Yankees and the release of the slaves that would create chaos in the South.
Anyone who believes the Civil War was fought exclusively over slavery need to read Lincoln’s letter to Horace Greeley. Lincoln himself said slavery was not the main issue.
https://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/greeley.htm
Personally I don’t care about Nikki Haley any more than I care about Pope Francis and his delusions. Going back further to China and what they’re thinking. You can imagine trade means peace if you want to.
If Hatun Tash has mental health issues that would be understandable dealing with fags’r’us.
Look where all this talking got us baby. Talk on.
Our “Best of British” Police secret police.
Something much more important than how much you love your compatriots to ever fight. We’d have to examine how much the North loved the South and vice versa
We already know how much you love each other to a dead end already concluded.
We’re bored with your fights but we cover that by picking a side which is Disney.
Anything that spares us realisation of ourselves which is empty nothing besides rhetoric.
So if we can’t do class struggle we’ll do race struggle. Whatever remains to our nothing.
What we really resent is that you might survive our meaningless(us).
We can’t find any meaning in our meaningless UK garbage. You shouldn’t be able to find any meaning beyond us either.
I mean there is no meaning besides their demise. Enquire if you want to find out.
They’re supposed to commensurate something greater than their existence which they don’t commensurate exactly.
They don’t even believe in that. What they believe in supposedly is the creative import of the trash they’ve always despised, They don’t believe in that.
They believe in their power to flatter that. It’s worked out really well for them
But they couldn’t have stupider base could they?
The cause of the Civil War was the failure of the central government to halt the spread of slavery to the western territories, and to contain it where it was already lawful. The war began in Kansas, not Ft. Sumter, SC.
It was not a civil war. It was a war for Independence. It was for the rights of certain states to break away from the United States and form a new nation.
Delving into the complexities of history! The cause of the Civil War is no simple answer, and it’s certainly not your typical presidential candidate question. For those intrigued by nuanced discussions, u7buy.com is a hub where diverse perspectives unfold. It’s not just about gaming; it’s a journey through knowledge and curiosity. Explore more than you imagined!