The North -- More Evil Than The South?

Lincoln said he would let slavery stand if it meant keeping the union together.

Of course as usual you and the others want to ignore the fact that the South never gave Lincoln that chance seeing as the South start seceding before Lincoln was even sworn into office.

Perhaps the south would have been smarter to wait until Lincoln was actually the President and then to see what he actually did in regards to slavery. Maybe the whole war could have been avoided.

But Lincoln never got that chance.....

And it's a shame that you keep lumping yourself in with Muad Dib and Black Dove two of the biggest fools when it comes to the Civil War and its history. You're smarter then that....

You're guessing dead wrong. He didn't "gloss over" anything. He never claimed that innocent women and children weren't killed. I never implied as such.

Although it is interesting that he said Yellow Bird fired the first shot. The way I heard it, he was inciting the conflict, but didn't actually shoot the first shot himself.

Of course, Lincoln was elected but not yet sworn in so your point here is moot. ;shrug:

If anything, you're lumping me in with them. In some ways, that's OK as they're not entirely wrong and that's been my point all along about the South and the Civil War. But striving mightily to put square pegs into round holes doesn't accomplish much of anything.

Which is exactly what he said.

And no, it isn't moot. The President elect doesn't make policy. Yes, that is a relevant point - the South seceded without any passage of either new laws against slavery or new tariffs. Period.

Now you're really digging and reinforcing what I've already said about how you can't let any point won, even a small one go by.

Technically, you're correct. In practical terms? Not so much.

Lincoln won the election and the South saw the handwriting on the wall. They bailed on the Union while the getting was good. As I've said before, the right of self-determination was primary, followed by all the other issues: good, bad, and ugly. The North could't let them leave with all those tax revenues (ill-gotten gains and the North knew it if you believe those who say the war was about slavery) so there was bound to be a fight.

The problem, and why most of the officers at that Death Camp were later hanged, was that even before the shortages they fed them only a starvation diet then when there were shortages they simply stopped feeding them declaring the food should go to their own people first. They could have evened things out if they wanted to, they didn't want to, and that's why they rightly were hanged as war criminals.

The south went into a panic based on a complete fantasy which existed only in their own minds which was completely out of touch with all reality. It seems they still haven't learned because their modern heir, the special interest funded tea bagger movement (as in bowel movement), has done the exact same thing.

Lincoln and the Republicans were "tax and spend" Liberals and one of the leading editorialists during the war who was saying that the war was over slavery was none other than Karl Marx.

I never dreamed that Demi and Zombie were tax and spend Marxists.

I want my General Sherman Day as A federal holiday to annoy pro southerner folk.

who cares?

Andersonville didn't exist that long. Starvation was already a fact of life when it started. As far as that goes, the average CSA soldier was pretty much on a starvation diet by that time of the war, too. It's practically a guarantee that guards at a prison camp were next to the bottom on the rung of valued people. (Anyone got info on how well off the losing side in any 18th century war fared?) It's not really a surprise that POWs would get brutal treatment.

I'm not defending it and I'm certainly not arguing for leniency for the guards but the winners of the war were not likely to have much sympathy for people who'd treated their fellow soldiers like that.

And again, it's a lot more complicated than the black and white, one side is good and one bad issue I hear in a lot of posts on the subject.

It was all about the cotton trade. The Yankees wanted the cotton shipped up North so they could run it through their mills and make a bundle. They wanted to stop it getting shipped to England to run through their mills. They blockaded Southern shipping ports. That was the attack on Ft Sumter and the war. Slavery was brought up after the fact as a tool to keep the Britain and her royal Navy from joining the cause of the South.
Had the Southern bunch politicked a bit more to Brits, it might have been a whole different story.

The best idea in this whole retarded thread.

Jesus Christ, you are an abominable idiot. The south did everything short of offering their virgin daughters up to be gang raped in Piccadilly Circus to the British but the British weren't interested because 1) The Union had a battle hardened 1 million man army. 2) They had a navy just as large as the royal navy including the world's only fleet of fully functioning ironclades. 3) The British, then as now, were the largest investor in the US so they feared the US government would confiscate all those investments if it came to war. 4) Last but not least the British planted massive amounts of cotton in Egypt shortly after the war started so they didn't need your slave grown cotton.

Yes, most states did indeed want a high tariff to encourage growth in domestic manufacturing but so did virtually every other state in the world during this period. Plus said tariffs were all legally passed by Congress and then as now the south was just a bunch of whiny poor losers because they got out voted. Fuck'em.

RE: The OP.

Sorry for taking so long to get back to this thread. You raised an interesting point and I wanted to be sure I understood it correctly before responding. As I understand it, your point is: The South wasn't so bad because, relative to the US Government's treatment of Indians, owning slaves was a pretty humane thing.

Sorta like Hitler wasn't such a bad guy, because Stalin killed some 3 million more people than Hitler did. Is that it?

OH, and let's not forget that the higher tariffs (well, the second tariff bill of that period) were all passed after the south had already cried and taken their marbles home. It's hard to blame southern bad behavior and retardation on a bill which passed AFTER they had already attacked and started a war.

As is anyone who responds to an EP post with anything other than:




Don't waste your time.

For fuck's sake, you don't even have the chronology straight. Fort Sumter happened after secession ... and in the months leading up to the battle, southern forces were blockading the fort to prevent supply ships from the legitimate government from reaching the people stationed there.

Wall Street was very opposed to the abolitionist movement because Northern cotton mills were making a fortune off of Southern cotton.

Obamacare was also legally passed by Congress. So was the Patriot Act.

As for the Morrill Tariff, it was passed because the Northern states that were in favor of it and would not have to pay it outnumbered the Southern states who were opposed to it and would have to pay it, and several Southern states had already left the Union and had no representation in Congress to vote against it.

Fort Sumter actually happened during secession. The border states seceded after Fort Sumter. You don't have your own chronology straight.

1) Yes, like I said the before it passed the south had already cried and ran home with it's marbles so it is hard to blame the tariff for starting the war since the war was already occurring when the tariff bill was passed.

2) Why exactly would people in the north not pay the tariff? Were they magically getting their imported goods through some secret unexplained way? Let's face it ALL citizens who purchase foreign made goods pay the tariff not just southerners. Or do you think those rich northern bankers, industrialists, and shipping magnets you complained about earlier didn't buy their wives French dresses, English china, or things like coffee/tea?

1. The tariff issues had been going on for half a century with the South bearing 85% of the tax burden, but the money was being spent to improve infrastructure in the North. The South was not reaping the benefits of all the taxes they were paying.

2. The North didn't have to pay the tariff because they were manufacturing the same things at higher prices. The South could import the same goods from Europe and have them shipped across the Atlantic cheaper than they could buy them from up North.

Hence the term "Protectionist Tariff".

Can I see some sort of link backing up the 85% figure, please? It would also be nice to see some sort of evidence that all the money was going to improve infrastructure in the north as I highly doubt that was the case.

He look, Liet Lite is back.

Certainly! Here and here.

That should get you started.

Judging by those book titles I think it is safe to say those authors have an agenda.

Care to find something from an unbiased source?

Sure!

Another classic