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The Civil War

Who was right: North or South?

  • North

    Votes: 34 77.3%

  • South

    Votes: 6 13.6%

  • Neither

    Votes: 4 9.1%
  • Total voters
    44
Kandahar said:
Oh come on. The value of those forts was minimal compared to the cost of the war, especially considering that the north itself was more than willing to shell them and/or burn them down once they were in Confederate hands.

To answer your question, why did they attack the forts: Umm, because they were at war?
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They were not at war. War was started by the attack on the forts. The only way to regain the fort and the states, is to attack them. The north damn well knew this, and they are the ones that started the war by those acts.
 
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DrunkenAsparagus said:
I'm a pretty strong Unionist, and the South's seizure of Federal property without compensation would be reason enough for my support of the North.
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The union is made up of willing members and the idea that forts were federal property that would call for a war that killed thousands seems odd to me. The fort is just a building, the property that is on it is the important thing to consider. Still, I'm not going to support going war over something like this. To small and useless.
 
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Let's try an analogy:

If Rick Perry turned Texas into his personal fiefdom and started gunning down his political opponents, would the president be justified in sending in the military to provide for the common defense and guarantee a republican form of government, as per the Constitution? I would hope that we would all agree that the answer is yes. What if Perry then responded by seceding from the United States (against the wishes of most of Texans)? Should the federal government just throw up its hands and bow to "states' rights"? Of course not.

Is this hypothetical situation somehow different from the situation in the south during the Civil War?
 
Henrin said:
The union is made up of willing members and the idea that forts were federal property that would call for a war that killed thousands seems odd to me.
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It seems odd to me too, which is why I don't buy your theory. If the Union was that concerned about getting its property back, it wouldn't have destroyed the forts when it was more convenient to do so.
 
Kandahar said:
It seems odd to me too, which is why I don't buy your theory. If the Union was that concerned about getting its property back, it wouldn't have destroyed the forts when it was more convenient to do so.
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Its not a theory, its a fact that they argued that the forts were federal property, and they wanted them back.
 
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I would've been an abolitionist, so.....North.
 
I would have been on whatever side my family was on. Or whichever side paid better.
 
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Henrin said:
They were not at war. War was started by the attack on the forts. The only way to regain the fort and the states, is to attack them. The north damn well knew this, and they are the ones that started the war by those acts.
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They seized many government buildings and property. They never compensated the North.
 
ElCid said:
Slavery would've died out, eventually, anyway. Even Brazil gave it up, late in the 19th Century.
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DrunkenAsparagus said:
Personally, I think that slavery would have died before 1900 if not much sooner.
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How on earth can we morally say that it would have been alright for slavery to continue even one day longer than it did?
 
Henrin said:
I would of fought for state rights, but I would of never allowed Lee to lead that didn't understand you don't fight to fight, but to win. He was a cocky little man that didn't understand anything about war.

Though lets all remember the south didn't start aggression.
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Lee was ordered to fight a defensive strategy. It was the concensus of most of the senior generals in the Confederate Army, except for Lee and Jackson and a few others. His disagreement with the strategy is the reason that he invaded Maryland in '62 and Pennsylvania in '63.
 
Paschendale said:
How on earth can we morally say that it would have been alright for slavery to continue even one day longer than it did?
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They think states rights trump a man's freedom.
 
Blackdog said:
North, I am black and don't see any point in extending slavery any longer then it was. **** the south.
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What if you were a freedman working land that you owned in Virginia, or any other Confederate state?
 
apdst said:
Lee was ordered to fight a defensive strategy. It was the concensus of most of the senior generals in the Confederate Army, except for Lee and Jackson and a few others. His disagreement with the strategy is the reason that he invaded Maryland in '62 and Pennsylvania in '63.
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I don't understand that decision if it called for avoiding offense over fighting meaningless battles.
 
Blackdog said:
They think states rights trump a man's freedom.
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It annoys me that people think the war was actually about slavery or that they left because of it. While its true they were against any actions to be taken on it, they didn't leave because of it. They left because they was shrinking say of the states in issues and while slavery was part of that, it was merely one of many issues of the day it was happening in. To the south slavery itself represented property, and while that mindset doesn't make any real sense, it was similar to other issues of the day that dealt with lose of property rights for states. As I have said, to belittle the issue to just slavery is missing the point of why they left the union.
 
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ElCid said:
Who was right? Which side would you have fought for, knowing what you know today? Explain, please.
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To answer your question: both sides were right. The South was fighting to protect it's rights. The North was fighting to preserve the Union.
 
apdst said:
What if you were a freedman working land that you owned in Virginia, or any other Confederate state?
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And what if pigs fly? I don't care. They supported slavery, end of story. They wanted to keep it going, enough for me to say **** em.
 
Your Star said:
No state should have to the right to allow slavery within it's borders.
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But, it should have the right to abolish it itself, without the threat of military intervention by a central government. Yes?
 
Henrin said:
It annoys me that people think the war was actually about slavery or that they left because of it. While its true they were against any actions to be taken on it, they didn't leave because of it. They left because they was shrinking say of the states in issues and while slavery was part of that, it was merely one of many issues of the day it was happening in.
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I know it was not, but I don't care. Slavery is abhorrent and cannot be justified for any reason in a so called civilized nation.

So again I say **** the south and all who supported it.
 
Blackdog said:
And what if pigs fly? I don't care. They supported slavery, end of story. They wanted to keep it going, enough for me to say **** em.
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Even freed men who owned land and some of whom served in the Confederate Army? It wasn't about slavery.
 
Blackdog said:
I know it was not, but I don't care. Slavery is abhorrent and cannot be justified for any reason or so called civilized nation.

So again I say **** the south and all who supported it.
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Getting personal about it, and ignoring that violence was not the answer will solve nothing.
 
apdst said:
To answer your question: both sides were right. The South was fighting to protect it's rights. The North was fighting to preserve the Union.
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Why fight to preserve something that is only to exist from free will?
 
apdst said:
Even freed men who owned land and some of whom served in the Confederate Army? It wasn't about slavery.
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So what? They wrote it into the Constitution, what does that tell you? I don't care any who served em, **** them to. If they were to stupid or misinformed to know what they were fighting to preserve, so what?
 
Kandahar said:
In 1860, half the wealth of the south was in the form of slaves. That's a pretty strong economic incentive. You're right that eventually it would have died out, but it could have easily taken another 50 years or longer. It is unacceptable for a nation to tolerate such grotesque human rights abuses within its own borders.
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Human rights violations like what was going on in the Northern factories? A worker was paid less than it cost to live and had to run a line of credit at the company store. He couldn't leave for a better job, until he paid off the company store, which would never happen. If he left the job, he would be imprisoned, then sent back to the same factory to go back to work.

Sounds alot like slavery, to me.
 
Henrin said:
Getting personal about it, and ignoring that violence was not the answer will solve nothing.
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Violence was absolutely the answer. When the South seceded they should have seen the writing on the wall.
 
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