April 11, 1865
 

Army of Northern Virginia surrenders on this day. Also, the firing on Ft. SUmter was April 12, 1861.

Lee surrendered, I didn't.

YEE HAWW

[quote="Short Hand":27238]YEE HAWW[/quote:27238] rolleyes:

On April 18th, Johnston surrendered to Sherman.

....rofl.

So you're against abolitionism still? LONG LIVE THE COTTON INDUSTRY.

......

hey colnel--these are obviously some people who dont know about the Civil War--especially Tripper

I actually did an entire year of the American Civil War, in the best high school in the country. So, explain yourself, or don't post at all.

Well, first of all the basic idea that the Civil War was fought over slavery is absolutely false. The main cause of the Civil War was the polarization between north and south-caused by the institution of slavery. The main cause for the Union during the Civil War was to hold the Union together. It didnt become a slave war until 1862-When Lincoln freed slaves in states he couldnt control. Why didnt he free the slaves in the border states? Why were there protests daily in the North against emancipation?

Lincoln passed this proclamation for two purposes. One was to make sure the South would not be aided by Brittain. Two, it also gave him more soldiers to send to war. Remember the Union was more antiwar than the south all the way through 1864. If Sherman didnt capture Atlanta, the SOuth would have won-but thats a different discussion.

Wasnt it Lincoln who said "If I could save the union by freeing none of the slaves I would do it; if I could save the Union by freeing some slaves and enslaving others I would do it; It I could save the union by freeing all the salves, then I would do that also" or something along those lines. Also, the typical Southern soldier never owned slaves. Lincoln's wife (Marry Todd or something) owned slaves, and her family had made millions in the slave trade.

The Civil War was not a war over abolitionism or whatever, it was a war over the different ideas in the country. Slavery is wrong-dont get me wrong-but I dont think it was the main cause of the Civil War.

...Yeah, different ideas regarding slavery. oOo:

Im not going to argue with you-but you have no idea what your talking about. Slavery wasnt an issue untill 1862. The Civil War started in 1861 when the South seceeded from the Union. The south suceeded because of states rights and taxes.

If you want to talk about slavery as the cause (even though taxes and states rights were) then what can you say. Are you talking about bleeding Kansas? Sure, this involved slavery a little, but it was mainly over the issue of who controlled the house and senate-salve or free states.

I really dont know what to tell you other than the fact that you are wrong.

Y'all need to lighten up and laugh a little.


BTW - What negative said is correct. I would argue, however, that slavery was not the only thing, nor the main thing, that polarized the country. A shift in the population (and therefore the number of congressman) towards the North allowed Northern politians to ram through legislation that put high import taxes on goods that the South needed from England etc. (other taxes that hurt the South were involved too.) Also the Federal government was becoming stronger and this didn't sit right with the Southern states, who leaned towards the States having more control.

But all of this is for another debate I guess. My original comment comes from a bumper stick that used to be popular in the South, prior to political correctness, when you could joke about taking exception to what was going on in Washington without being thought a traitor.

I am not wrong. That's pathetic, and it's no way to argue. Go back to offtopic if you're going to pull that shit.

You're denying facts if you think the issue of slavery had no bearing at all on southern secession. I'm not saying it's the only issue at all, but you seem to think it has absolutely no relevance.....

The confederates didn't like northerners telling them what to do, in turn taking away their right to their "peculiar institution," a.k.a slavery. The abolition of slavery would hurt the southern cotton industry, which flourished after cotton gin was invented. The issue of slavery was part of the "states rights" that you were refering too.

I suggest you read up about your own countries history some more:
[url:1a481]http://www.swcivilwar.com/cw_causes.html[/url:1a481]

negative is not saying that slavery had no bearing, only that slavery was but one of many issues that led to secession. I think that may be what you are saying too. The difference is the degree of importance. You seem to think it was the number one issue. It was not. I would say that taxes and free trade were the issues that pushed everything over the edge. We may not have gotten to the edge if slavery were not there. But we would not have gotten to the edge if slavery were the only issue either.

One interesting way of looking at it is to think about the debates over the new western states. Some Southerners wanted to move there and take all of their property with them. (this property included slaves). Northerners wanted those states to be more politically aligned (or allied is a better term?) with them and the best way of doing that was to prevent Southerners from moving there. Slavery as an institution, was not an issue debated in terms of right or wrong, but was used as a way to increase political power. So although slavery was an issue in this case, it was the fight for political power that was the cause of the disagreement. If slavery had not been there, the Northern politicians would have used some other issue to gain what they wanted. So, to me, to say that slavery caused the war or that slavery was the reason for the war is wrong in the very critical sense that the war was probably inevitable, even in the absence of slavery.

True, but most Southerners felt that slavery was on its way out eventually. The Southern Constitution even prohibited the importation of new slaves. This was a law in the US but it had never been added to the US Constitution. If the South was so "pro-slavery" why would that have been included in their Constitution? In fact, the New York Times wrote an editorial shortly after the CSA published their Constitution that said that it was such an improvement on the US Constitution that it should be adopted in the North immediately.

Nice site. It is a good idea to read several versions of the events to get a true picture. But be careful, there is alot of revisionist history being written and taught in schools these days. (EDIT - I usually try to read the accounts written by the men who were there. To get a true sense of the Southern perspective you should read "The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government" By Jefferson Davis, The original is a very long two volume set, but you can get an abridged version from the museum store at Beauvoir) I think it is because it makes us look better to have fought to abolish slavery than it does to say with were bickering over taxes and land like a bunch of children and couldn't solve our differences peacefully.

As a little side note..the whole dang war could have been avoided if Dis-Honest Abe hadn't started it. Near the end of the first page of the site, you link us to above, it mentions a supply ship forcing the secessionists hand. What it doesn't say is that a delegation from the Southern States was in Washington at the time trying to negotiate a peaceful settlement. Or that Dis-honest Abe had just told them he would not to resupply the fort. (there was no need to - except for agressive military reasons - the Northern soldiers were freely allowed to come into town and buy provisions, such as food, every day) Or that even after the shelling (in which no one was killed) the delegation again tried to resolve the matter peacefully but Abe had his heart set on war.

Nah, negative believes that slavery had no bearing at all until 1862. I'm simply trying to point out that it did. That's all, really. It obviously seems like I think that's the number one issue because that's all Ive been referencing, but if you take a look back ove rmy posts you'll see that I'm just pinpointing where mistakes have been made and correcting them. I understand that it wasn't slavery that caused a war on it's own. I just think it's silly to totally deny that it had something to do with the polticial climate before 1862.

They didn't just pull it out of their ass in 1862 and say let's fight the war for this reason.

[/quote]

Yeah, like I said earlier, I did a year on the civil war, which also covered reconstruction and then led into black civil rights. Some interesting stuff out there. I have a bunch of books that I had to buy for the class that I've read over. I was warned by my history teacher about revisionist theories when I was preparing for exams, so I'm pretty sure he wouldn't recommend those books if they were....

I'm afraid I must agree with my Birmingham friend, The Southern States were fighting for thier freedom/Independance. It was a matter of Economics and freedom rather than a matter of Civil Rights.

But nearly 200 years later History remembers the dramatic Civil Rights strides made during and after the Civil War, not so much how the war started. That is the nature of history... hind-sight is very keen.

It could even be said that history, as shall be taught to our children in High School will see our current fight in Iraq as a huge step in the fight of terrorism and spread of freedom... they will likley not learn of the contraversies surrounding the reason for the invasion, or the suggestions that Bush has alternative motives.

I'm sure that somewhere on-line you can find real letters, and newspapers of the times that discuss the true feelings and opinions of the people of the time. This is, in my opinion the best way to begin to understand exactly what was going through the minds of the people of a nation at war with itself.

Sad day for the south. annoy:

you want to read a book with a spin on it get "Gettysberg" by Newt Gingrich (my uncle co-wrote it) you southerners would like it. I talked with him about the writing of it and it was very intesting.

Tripper-the only reference to slavery before 1862 was bleeding Kansas, which was about control in Washington. Listen to the people here.

Thought I'd bring some neutrality to the discussion. freak:

As with any war, circumstantial evidence and soldier/politician/civ(historian,etc) memoirs always manifest a different opinion and cause for certain things. So I'm going to go out on a limb here posting a few select paragraphs from a worthy site and show how you're all right. ;)

http://www.swcivilwar.com/cw_causes.html

"At the Constitutional Convention there were arguments over slavery. Representatives of the Northern states claimed that if the Southern slaves were mere property, then they should not be counted toward voting representation in Congress. Southerners, placed in the difficult position of trying to argue, at least in this case, that the slaves were human beings, eventually came to accept the three-fifths compromise, by which five slaves counted as three free men toward that representation. By the end of the convention the institution of slavery itself, though never specifically mentioned, was well protected within the body of the Constitution.

It seemed to Thomas Jefferson and many others that slavery was on its way out, doomed to die a natural death. It was becoming increasingly expensive to keep slaves in the agrarian society of the south. Northern and Southern members of Congress voted together to abolish the importation of slaves from overseas in 1808, but the domestic slave trade continued to flourish. The invention of the cotton gin made the cultivation of cotton on large plantations using slave labor a profitable enterprise in the deep South. The slave became an ever more important element of the southern economy, and so the debate about slavery, for the southerner, gradually evolved into an economically based question of money and power, and ceased to be a theoretical or ideological issue at all. It became an institution that southerners felt bound to protect.

But even as the need to protect it grew, the ability, or at least the perceived ability of the South to do so was waning. Southern leaders grew progressively more sensitive to this condition. In 1800 half of the population of the United States had lived in the South. But by 1850 only a third lived there and the disparity continued to widen.

While northern industrial opportunity attracted scores of immigrants from Europe in search of freedom the South's population stagnated. Even as slave states were added to the Union to balance the number of free ones, the South found that its representatives in the House had been overwhelmed by the North’s explosive growth.

While some in the North hated slavery because they felt that it was wrong, most people held no opinion of it at all, and some even condoned it because abolishing it would be bad for business. Without slaves there would be no cotton. Without cotton the textile industry would suffer. To many it was just that simple.

When Abraham Lincoln was voted in, South Carolina had enough eith Union Politcians. South Carolina, true to its word, seceded on December 20, 1860. Mississippi left on January 9, 1861, and Florida on the 10th. Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas followed.

The sitting President, James Buchanan felt himself powerless to act. Federal arsenals and fortifications throughout the South were occupied by southern authorities without a shot being fired. In the four months between Lincoln’s election and his inauguration the South was allowed to strengthen its position undisturbed.

Lincoln’s inaugural address was at once firm and conciliatory. Unwilling to strike the initial blow to compel the southern states back into the Union, he decided to bide his time. When a Federal ship carrying supplies was dispatched to reprovision Fort Sumter, in Charleston Harbor, the secessionist hand was forced. To forestall the resupply of the fort the Rebel batteries ringing it opened fire at 4:30 a.m. on the 12th of April, 1861, forcing its rapid capitulation.

President Lincoln immediately called upon the states to supply 75,000 troops to serve for ninety days against “combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings.” Virginia, Arkansas, and Tennessee promptly seceded.

The war was on in earnest. Ironically, the combination of political events, southern pride, and willfulness succeeded in paving the way to the abolition of slavery; a condition that no combination of legal action on the part of the most virulent abolitionist could possibly have accomplished.
The war was on in earnest. "

In conclusion, my opinion and that website sees fit that the cause of the civil war had to do with the Slavery a little, but it's roots come from Yankee majority in politics ( Congress to be more specific ) and a few more small econonmic things.

Couldnt agree more with you.

Okay, so you guys all agree that slavery had NO bearing whatsoever, except for "bleeding Kansas" until 1862....?

...Because I disagree, and that's my only claim, which essentially is a counter-claim seeing as negative originally posted it.

Maybe I didn't make myself clear enough in my posts....?

I never agreed that slavery was the soul issue or that it even had a majority bearing on events....Everyone seems to think I did.

I said the exact opposite actually. Either way, there's defintely no "soul" issue as you've said. It stems from many different things.

lol sorry....I kinda sped through your post because I had read that stuff from the site you linked....

....and that means negative fully changed his opinion if he "couldn't agree more" with your post.

you should re-read my posts-why would I change my opinion--I am a Civil War historian cool:

I reread them over and over again.... rolleyes:

.......

slavery is a minute part of the civil war, trippster. although it was tagged the 'war to end slavery' with the signing of the emanciapation proclamation, it was given that coverage to dissuade Britain from intervening on the side of the Confederacy. still, i in no way mean to degrade the image of Abraham Lincoln, he was an abolitionist since day one. point being, slavery has as much to do with the civil war as much as terrorism has to do with the war in iraq.

Besides the fact that I like the enfield rifle over the springfield rifle because i own two of them...Im all for the north.

I'm for Quebec. ;)

Quebec bitches about shit more than I do. Seem like a bunch of hypocrities to me who want so much out of the english speaking, but never do anything for them in return.

When all the seperating shit happened when I was like in grade 5 I didn't care...and I don't care now if Quebec is Canada or not. Plus it would finally hopefully...make Canada a one language country...well one official language.

Well if slavery had pretty much nothing to do with the civil war like you all state, then my history teacher and the books we read out of were all full of shit.

it did play a role, just not the main role its been advertised. i understood what you meant earlier. subject matter varies from nation to nation i guess.

What they're saying that slavery wasn't the main reason for the war (though they are downplaying it quite a bit), it was a contributing issue along with others. After 1862 and the Emancipation Proclaimation the idea of ending slavery was used to gain more support for the cause of the war and thus it became more important.

However, our education system teaches us that it was a war fought over slavery (along with Lincoln liking black people, Columbus discovering America and being friends with the natives, etc...) so perhaps they're downplaying slavery's role over frustration.....

I don't think we are downplaying it past the point of irrelevance. Slavery was a problem in the country at the time but not a cause of the war. I can't see 99.9% of the Confederate army going off to fight so that the other 0.1% can still own slaves. I can't see more than half the US army going off to fight to free slaves that they never have any contact with and could care less about.

BTW - did you know that Ninjas tipped the scale of battle at Gettysburg? http://modernhumorist.com/mh/0303/civilninjas/

awww i wanted to read about the ninjas!

I thought the southern economy was laregly dependent on slave labor at the time...... So would that not be a huge factor in the eqaution ?

[quote="Short Hand":1653c]I thought the southern economy was laregly dependent on slave labor at the time...... So would that not be a huge factor in the eqaution ?[/quote:1653c]that was only for the southern aristocracy pretty much. I forget the figure, but something like 70% (i think it is higher...i dunno) of southerns didn't own slaves. They did alot of subsistance farming and such.

Still, in any society the rich are the ones with the power. Those 30 % could easily make up 80 % of the economy. Just a simple thought really.