Re: Was that the real cause?

and according to the south secession was over slavery. who are you to argue
with them?
your argument is circular.
northern military response was until the south had attacked the union at ft
sumter. the union was legally at ft sumter as they had built it built the
land on which it stood and held legal deed to it from south carolina. so
that in no way could be constued as invasion. secessionists were stealing
federal property all around the country, they were not make any pretence of
legality. they brought nop suit of eminant domain in any court. the law and
principle of eminant domain was long established. it was created to prevent
government from just seizing property from its owner. can you point to any
case brought before any court where the south made any such suit?  the south
acted in a completely tyrnnical way. in its acts towards the property rights
of the people of the united states.

No slavery was economical in the sense that slave owners made a profit
off it, and continued to do so until the late 1880s in Cuba and a
little earlier in Brazil where it continued to be legal.

Regardless the north was not willing to fight a war to end slavery, and
said so, as did Lincoln.  According to the Union the war was over
secession, according to the south the war was over being invaded by the
north, which was over secession.  Who the heck are you to argue with
them.

Yes the argument that led to secession was over expansion of slavery
into new lands in the west, so what?

Many racists and bigots (who indeed are discriminating) are incredulous
when confrounted with facts that do not conform to their prejudice.

So what?

----------snip

snips

Al wrote:

I boggled:

And said:

Al responded:

I am very confused.  Slavery was economical in 1860, but no one can
show it was still economical by Ft. Sumter?  What the heck happened to
it during the interim to make it uneconomical?  The only thing I can
think of was secession ...

But seriously, which way is it?  Both?  I think you'll find most
discriminating readers somewhat incredulous over such a stance.

I'll wait for further comment until Al provides some clarification.

Dave

No.  They knew they had a right to seceed and had already seceeded, and
these stupid yankees had not gotten the point yet and were refusing to
leave peacefully.

They did not.

No the tenth amendment clearly states that the states and/or people
have the right to do whatever is not forbidden.  They held it was not
forbidden and so it would have been up to the Federal government to
take it to the court if it held them to be in error.

That is what you do when you think a state legislature has passed a a
law that violates the US or state constitution, you challenge it in
court, you don't start shooting, or refuse to obey law enforcement
officiers charged with enforcing state laws.

Show me where a state legislature asked a Federal court if the law was
constitutional before passing it.

When has a state legislature EVER asked a Federal court for
pre-verification of a law?  EVER?

It would be up to the Federal Government to challenge the legality of
acts of secession in court, not the state to ask, "Mother may I."
Generally a legislative body is presumed to have acted correctly if no
one challenges the legality of the act.

Which Lincoln did not do as I think he was afraid of the answer he
might get from SCOTUS.

I think you are.  It could have gone either way, but for Lincoln and
the Republican parties bull headed insistance that secession was
treason, and/or that the southerners were bluffing (before Sumter),
then traitors (after Sumter).

I balance 620,000 lives against having a political union maintained by
force and it is a no brainer that a political union maintained by force
against people who do not want to be in it is worthless set next to the
lives of 620,000 young men.

Non-violent economic means would have ended slavery if used, like
boycotts of slave made products.  This worked with apartide and worked
in the period before the the Revolution in forcing the merchants of the
UK to side with the Revolutionaries.

So what?  I agree that the argument that led up to the fight was over
slavery.  The actual fight was over right of secession.

Slavery WAS economical as of 1860.

You surely cannot belive that people would keep slaves working in an
industry that was more that 50% of all US exports (measured in US$)
every peacetime year from the early 19th century up until the 1920s if
it was not profitable.

Sorry dude this was not a bunch of bozos who did not know what they
were doing.  Their exports were more that 50% (by a wide margin when
you add in tobbacco, sugar, and other slave labor crops) of all US
exports.  Slavery was not about BDSM games or sex or power or some
other BS it was about making money, lots of it.

Read Fogle & Engerman or any other serious economic analysis of
southern slavery.

----snip

So South Carolina and the newly formed Confederacy fired on Ft. Sumter
to see if they had the right to secede?

Why would anyone start a war over that?

Hmm.  So as the parties alleging the right to secede, I'd think that
the southern states would have stepped forward and have done the
honorable thing - petition the courts over the right.  After all, they
didn't *have* to secede, but at least find out the legality of it ...

How did these ordinances get verfication in the federal courts?  The
Supreme Court?  What is there in the Constitution that discusses the
legality of a state ordinance?

I think you're misreading antebellum history.

A large fraction of the Northern population was willing to let the
Southern states go - not because they felt they had the legal right,
necessarily (I doubt most wasted brain cells over it) - but because
they weren't worth the effort.  Thank goodness the majority felt
otherwise.

Can you have failed to read the actual ordinances of secession?  State
after state explicitly stated they were seceding over the right to own
slaves - that their "right," they felt, was being challenged.

Given the wealth and power structure slavery afforded the fire-eaters
in the South, it's understandable they were willing to engage in
revolution to maintain their right to own other human beings.

snip

<boggle>

Then why didn't the South free the slaves upon secession?  Why keep an
uneconomical process in place?

You surely can't believe this?

So, in effect, you're arguing that the South seceded to maintain their
right to an uneconomical way of maintaining an economy?

I think most of us give them more credit than that.

</boggle>

Dave

While the argument that lead up to secesson of the south was centered
around slavery, the war was started and fought over the difference as
to whether states had the right to seceed.

Had both sides agreed on the issue of whether secession was proper or
not, then the war would not have happend, at least not starting in 1861
the way it did.

If the south agreed with the north that secession was improper and
treason, then they would have done otherwise (perhaps violently tried
to take over the federal government, which is more common in civil
wars, I am not asserting them to be saints).   The fact that they went
throught the legal motions of state ordinences of secession points to
the fact that a majority of them felt it to be legal.

Had a larger fraction of the northern people, or at least a larger
fraction of the educated people agreed that secession was legal and
proper (as some did, see some democratic party editorials in the north
after the 1860 election), and had this view prevailed over the Lincoln
Administation, then the south would have been allowed to leave in
peace.

That is my basic argument that the war was fought over secession.
Union soldiers said as much in calling southern troops "secesh".

It is possible that the war might have started later directly over the
slavery issue had both sides agreed on the secession issue, but we will
never know.

Slave ship??  Is that what you mean.

The one single person most responsible is King James I of England, he
and his navy took over the slave trade (by force) from the Spanish and
Portugese, and then forced British colonies in the New World to
legalize chattle slavery whether they wanted to or not.

I don't think anyone can show that as slavery was still economical as
of the start of the war.

---snip

Dear Group,
   Many people say that the Civil War was fought over slavery, and then
again many say that it was fought over States Rights.  My question is, what
do you think is the correct answer?  Or is either of the answers correct?
   I am asking this because, slavery existed in this country for over 200
years prior to the Civil War.  Not once did a Confederate flag fly over a
flag ship.  So who is really to blame for those men, women, and children
being in bondage?
   However, since the Confederacy started to realize that it was no longer
economically sound to keep slaves, wouldn't slavery been a thing of the past
before to long?  Was the North really fighting to preserve the Union?  Were
they really fighting to free those in bondage?
   What about Lincoln's plan to colonize those in bondage in a different
country, would it have worked?  What do you think?

Nate