Civil War Debate

The issue is States Rights.
What are some examples of States Rights?

The Right To Secede
Legalization of Marijuana
Same-Sex Marriage
Voting Age
Taxes (Nevada has no State Income Taxes)
Gambling
Exotic Pets
Nudism
Prostitution
Gun Control
Death Penalty
Adoption
Abortion
Minimum Wage

Only an idiot would believe the only issue involving States Rights would be slavery.
The Civil War was NOT about slavery, any more than it was about the right to take a salt bath, or to turn right at a red light.

Whereas the original U.S. Constitution did not use the word "slavery" or the term "Negro Slaves", but used instead "Person[s] held to Service or Labor" which included whites in indentured servitude, the Confederate Constitution addresses the legality of slavery directly and by name.

Article I Section 9(1)
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.

In other words, The Confederate Constitution made it illegal to import slaves from foreign countries, while allowing interstate trade.
This pissed off the North, who were apparently invested in the Atlantic Slave Trade.
New Jersey, for instance, still had thousands of persons legally enslaved in the 1830s, and did not finally abolish slavery by law until 1846. As late as the outbreak of the Civil War, in fact, there were northern slaves listed on the federal census.

It was all about money and greed, not specifically to "free the slaves".
Unless declaring war for that bogus reason would allow the North to attack, and cripple the Southern Economy.
How does burning homes and stealing silver candlesticks free a person? Especially when the slaves were left behind after the looting?

Even after the Civil War ended (Reconstruction) did nothing to bring blacks out of the South.
But the South WAS taxed to high Heaven!
(You can fit gold jewelry boxes in carpet bags, but you can't fit people in one.)

Baltimore was a major center of the sale of slaves between 1800-1860.
People want to argue that importing slaves was outlawed in 1808, but since when did the North follow the law?
The fact that the North kept breaking laws regarding the US Constitution was a major reason South Carolina decided to secede.

this one has been done before

Wow. Slavery argument debunked? Really?

You're going to go there with that tired old bullshit?

Let's start with the easy one: Cornerstone Speech. go read it.

Move on to the easier; the articles of the confederate constitution. I want to you read the consitution they put together and focus on Article I Section 9(4) and Article IV Section 3(3) and explain to me how that's not about slavery.

Now, let's go with the slightly harder but still easy; Go read the declarations of secession from South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, and Texas and explain to me how their explicit mention of slavery as the reason they're separating from the Union is not about slavery.

Instead of reading the articles of secession, show me the articles pertaining to why the Union occupied Fort Sumter, or why they imposed protective tariffs, or why, even after the Civil War Ended, they made no moves to take black people out of the South. (Ever hear of Sharecropper's Debt?)
40 acres and a mule did not mean they were given land in Kansas. Even though the government was giving away land in the West for free in the "Land Runs" of the late 1800's.
44d7kr.jpg (click to show)

It's clear from your language choice that you fully support the Confederacy.

If this is the case, you support treason.

Let's start with that.

Now, let's answer some questions!

1) Why did Anderson move to Fort Sumter? Because he and his men had been stationed at the US Army fort, Fort Moultrie. He had a choice to stay there- Moultrie was difficult to defend- or move to a more secure and defensible location. He had a choice between Castle Pinckney which was closer to Charleston or the unfinished Fort Sumter. He selected Sumter because it offered better control of the harbor and was easier to defend.

2) the US started protective tariffs to shield the growing raw material industries in the being-settled west. This forced the southern states to buy from more expensive US sources than the cheaper foreign suppliers.

3) Why did they "leave" the newly freed slaves in the South? That's a complicated question that is still being discussed to this day. There's a great book called Slaves Without Masters: The Free Negro in the Antebellum South. Also, it's really hard to relocate people. Especially when those people are in the 100's of 1,000s. Additionally, I am sure there are some elements of revenge here. Like, "you enslaved them, now you're going to have to deal with them" elements. And, just because they wanted to abolish slavery, it doesn't mean they weren't super racist. Consider Oregon. They made slavery illegal- if any slave was brought across state lines, they were immediately freed. But then that slave had to immediately leave the state. They made it illegal to be Black there.

Srsly, go look it up. Oregon exclusion laws. It really happened.

So, yeah, it's entirely possible to be against slavery and still racist AF.

Also, go learn real history not that racist Confederatist nonsense you've been force-fed.

Oh, hey, go look up who actually fired the first shot at Sumter. Like the actual person who "pulled the trigger." He wasn't some random artillery captain. They brought in a specific guy to fire that first shot as a symbol.

They picked him for a reason. hint: it was about slavery.

First of all it was the Union who committed treason. Let's start with that.

Anderson occupied Fort Sumter because the Union promised to protect Charleston Bay following the war of 1812.

But they soon turned the fort into a checkpoint, prevent the South from trading directly with Europe.
"Pay the toll, or we will fire our cannons at your ships."

As far as leaving the Negros in the South, the North and the West didn't want black people in their neighborhood. They were separatists. Racist AF.

You claim it was hard to relocate people? But they gave land away for free in the West to the Irish during the Land Runs of the late 1800's.
How hard was it to relocate them?

The reason the Militia fired upon Fort Sumter was because the Union Army was supposed to vacate 3 months earlier, but wouldn't budge.
They were even trying to ship more supplies to them.

You need to learn more about history before you doubt my memes.

Which group seceded? It wasn't the Union.

And let's be super clear; you advocate that the secessionist government of the Confederacy was a legitimate government. A government that wanted to continue to enslave people.

You are advocating for a group of horrible people. People that wanted to treat other human beings like property, and profit from their labor until that person died.

The south seceded because of the election of Lincoln- partially because he was a Republican and partially because he swept into office without the vote of a single southern state. Within three months of Lincoln's election, seven states had seceded from the Union.

The south seceded because they saw the end of their odious lifestyle coming.

And this whole "Pay the toll, or we will fire our cannons at your ships." is nonsense. Only the outer defensive wall on Sumter was finished. There were no armaments. No buildings for stationing troops at Sumter. It was a shell of a fort.

It was impossible for it to be used as a "pay the toll or we'll fire on you!"

South Carolina seceded on December 20th, 1860. Anderson abandoned Fort Moultrie and took up position in Sumter on December 26, 1860.

6 days.

So much for that "they had to leave 3 months ago!!!"

On January 9, 1861, when a ship called the Star of the West arrived in Charleston with over 200 U.S. troops and supplies intended for Fort Sumter. South Carolina militia batteries fired upon the vessel as it neared Charleston Harbor, forcing it to turn back to sea.

A number of other U.S. military facilities in the Deep South had already been seized, and Fort Sumter was viewed by many as one of the South’s few remaining hurdles to overcome before fully accomplishing its treason.

The north and the west were not separatists. That would be the south. When they...come on, you know this one....that would be the south when they....seceded from the Union to form the Confederacy.

But, yes, many many many people in the north and west were racists AF. Yes. Again, it is possible to be against slavery and still be a racist. AGain, I refer you to Oregon and the Black Exclusion laws.

Want to know why there weren't many Black families in the Boomer/Sooner rush? You should look that up. It's pretty interesting. Part of the early plans for Oklahoma was to have Black families move there and start farming and form communities of their own.

Ans what do you mean "there were no armaments at Fort Sumter"?
They exchanged cannon fire with the Confederate Militia for 34 hours.

You also claim they couldn't have turned their cannons toward Charleston.
Fine. Let's pretend they didn't.
In that case, they shot Southerners in the back as they were leaving Charleston Bay.

They also prevented foreign trade ships from entering Charleston to do business. (So it wasn't the initial protection from attack, as intended following the War of 1812.)

But keep bringing up slavery. Because as I said, that's the only argument you've got.
Slavery was a tiny detail within State's Rights, but the reason for secession was not for a tiny detail.

You might as well claim Thanksgiving Dinner is all about cranberry sauce.

There were no armaments until Anderson moved in.

it was an empty shell of a fort. And most of the emplacements for cannons and artillery faced out towards the Atlantic. There were few spots to put large guns facing towards Charleston.


So, it was the South Carolinian militia that shot Anderson's men in the back. Specifically, at 4:30 a.m. on April 12, 1861.

Anderson was able to bring a total of 60 guns to Sumter. Only 21 of those were able to be positioned to fire into the bay. From memory, he had 200 men. I can be wrong about that though.

By comparison, Beauregard, leader of the South Carolina militia, built-up overwhelming strength to challenge Fort Sumter. He had three 8-inch Columbiads, two 8-inch howitzers, five 32-pound smoothbores, and four 24-pounders. He seized the US Army Fort Moultrie (the one that Anderson had abandoned).

Outside of Moultrie were five 10-inch mortars, two 32-pounders, two 24-pounders, and a 9-inch Dahlgren smoothbore. The floating battery next to Fort Moultrie had two 42-pounders and two 32-pounders on a raft protected by iron shielding.

He also seized Fort Johnson, another US Army fort. Fort Johnson on James Island had one 24-pounder and four 10-inch mortars.

At Cummings Point on Morris Island, Beauregard had emplaced seven 10-inch mortars, two 42-pounders, an English Blakely rifled cannon, and three 8-inch Columbiads, the latter in the so-called Iron Battery, protected by a wooden shield faced with iron bars.

He also had about 6,000 men were available to man the artillery and to assault the fort, if necessary, including the local militia, young boys and older men.

So much for that "oh, those poor Southron boys, just tryin' to defend their homes from those Northern aggressors!"

They brought in Roger Pryor, a noted Virginia secessionist and super supporter of slavery, to fire the first shot. You don't get more symbolic than having a rabid supporter of slavery firing the first shot at US troops than that.

it was 100% about owning slaves. The southern economy was built on slavery. Their treasonous statements of secession specifically listed slavery as a primary motive.

it was about owning people, their children, and their children's children and profiting from their forced labor.

Look up the legal terms: "Trespass, Conversion, and Nuisance".

https://study.com/academy/lesson/trespass-conversion-and-nuisance-definition-and-examples.html#:~:text=Both%20require%20that%20the%20trespassing,enjoyment%2C%20either%20public%20or%20private.

Yeah. Cause tresspass laws apply to Federal troops being housed in a Federal building on Federal land.

Try again.

It's State land, not Federal land.

So. Federal forts built by the US Army Corps of Engineers as part of a national defense system weren't federal land?

Yeaaaaahhhh. You really need to learn history and learn to think on your own. You've been spoonfed a bunch of racist nonsense in an attempt to justify the abhorent practice of slavery and the South.

The reason the South wanted to secede from the union is within the name, "Confederate".
Con (as in pros and cons) means "against".
So the South was AGAINST having a Federal Banking system, which would allow the North to take money earned by the South's export market, and apply it towards welfare for the lazy Socialists in the North.

As far as the South was concerned, they were the ones who earned money, therefore they had a say in how it would be spent:
Improvements in agriculture,
Shipbuilding so they could control their own exports,
Universities and hospitals in the South,
And, yes, even dissolving the need for slave labor.

But the North hated the idea of losing their cut, so they spread false rumors (Uncle Tom's Cabin was a work of fiction) and propaganda, to prevent Europe from interfering with the North's invasion of the South.

They waged war, blocked Southern shipping ports, bombed railroads, burned crops, raided homes, raped Southern women, and cut off supply lines of food, forcing the South to give in to their bullying.

But even after the Civil War, the abuse didn't end.
The South wasn't given adequate representation in Government.
Western migration was blocked so any new states would belong to the Democrat Party's Socialist platform, further hampering the Southern Capitalists' political voice.

And whatever wasn't stolen during the Civil War was "Taxed" by the Northern Carpetbaggers, leaving the South in ruins.

Now you know.

What kind of Grand Wizard KKK half-literate nonsense is that? "Con (as in pros and cons) means "against".
So the South was AGAINST having a Federal Banking system, which would allow the North to take money earned by the South's export market"

Srsly? Who told you that nonsense? I want you to go find a lawyer. A good one. Then sue the person who fed you that moronic idea because damn.

A confederation is a union of sovereign groups or states, united for purposes of common action. Let me see if I can find a "random" example in history... totally random here...

Oh, I know!

The Articles of CONFEDERATION. Huh. Would you look at that. The government of the United States of America that ran for years until the States decided to disolve it and adopt the Constitution we have today.

So. Weird. It uses the word Confederation.

They picked the word Confederate because it's a synonym for United (they couldn't pick that one!). They were the Confederate States of America.

So. No.

Also. It's not because they were against federal banking system for the lazy socialists in the north.

Why?

Because there was no central bank in the US. Jackson had destroyed it back in the 1830's. He directly caused the panic of 1837. There were no national banks until...wait for it...wait for it...

1862.

After the Civil War had already started. Until then it was the Free Bank era, when banks could literally print their own money.

Theoretically, you could use bank money anywhere. Except, in reality, you could only use it withiin your town. And not every bank note had the same value. So shop owners would have to calculate an exchange rate.

It was a real mess.

Srsly, assume everything your family or whoever told you about the Civil War and the south is wrong. (because, so far it has been). Go learn real history. With dates. And documentation of original sources.

And you advocate pirates.

Slavery was legal. Piracy was not.
You had to purchase a slave, and provide them with food, housing, and medical care in exchange for their labor.
Pirates illegally invaded, pillaged and plundered, and often tried to hide their misdeeds through propaganda.
Uncle Tom's Cabin was a work of Fiction.

You are advocating for slavery.

Know what you are and what you support.

Better a pirate than a slaver.

The problem with the North is they couldn't finish what they started.
The North participated in Slavery for hundreds of years, but they couldn't turn a profit like the South.
So instead, they imposed taxes and tariffs, forcing the South to pay them a percentage.
Up to 48 % to be frank.
The North's economy was based on Socialism, while the South's economy was Capitalism.
Socialism can't support itself.
So the North lies, steals, twists laws, and ultimately wages war.

By the way, War isn't initiated by "Who fired the first shot".
War is initiated by invasion.

In fact, here's an article explaining the main causes for a Civil War.
Notice "Slavery" isn't on the list.
http://www.peacebuildingdata.org/research/liberia/results/civil-war/root-causes-civil-war

Go back to original sources. The cornerstone speech and the documents written by the people who were doing the seceding directly say that slavery was the reason.

Original sources. The people who where there. The people who were doing it wrote down extensive documentation clearly stating they were doing it to keep owning slaves.

The Articles of Confederation had the same meaning during the Revolutionary War as they did during the Civil War.
Con (as in pro / con) means "against".
The original 13 colonies were against unfair taxation, and under-representation.
The Southern States were against unfair tariffs and under-representation.

The Civil War was about the unfair treatment of the South by the North, through it's "Protective Tariffs".
The North didn't like the fact that the South was profiting from the Cotton Industry.
The South was getting their imports from Europe.
The North couldn't survive economically.

Those facts are indisputable.
It's childish for you to continue to claim it was all about slavery.

Once again, look at this article explaining the main causes for a Civil War, and you will see that "slavery" isn't on the list.
http://www.peacebuildingdata.org/research/liberia/results/civil-war/root-causes-civil-war

By the way, the shipping that the North blocked with their War Ships, were NOT carrying slaves.
They were carrying trade goods the South was buying more cheaply from Europe, than the over-priced goods from the North.
How dare the South avoid the North's price gouging!

Can...are you...are you not able to read?

Look at the URL. LIBERIA. That's about the root causes of the civil war in LIBERIA!. No shit there's not slavery on that list.

Damn.