Disunion

[Kosmo]

"One-hundred-and-fifty years ago, Americans went to war with themselves. Disunion revisits and reconsiders America's most perilous period -- using contemporary accounts, diaries, images and historical assessments to follow the Civil War as it unfolded.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/category/disunion/"

 

This series is by far the best historical series that I ever seen in a newspaper combining very good information, in-depth commentary and quality writing. I'm interested by this topic, especially by the chain of events that led to this unnecessary war.

[Ursus]

Interesting link .. even if I hate The Civil War.

 

While I obviously abhor slavery, it seems The South had others issues as well. They basically felt that the North was trying to exercise economic hegemony over them, and given some of the tax debates at the time, I think their accusations were not totally unfounded. A few decades earlier New England had lodged some secessionist quibbles over economic concerns as well.

 

Was the North justified in forcefully bringing the secessionist states back in line, to prevent a hostile power, possibly aligned with France and and the UK, arising on its southern border? I can see a geopolitical argument for it. On the whole though, I think if the Southerners wanted to leave the Union, they should have been left to do so.

[Ludovicus]

Had the secessionist states been successful in leaving the Union they not only would have continued the practice of slavery, they would have fought to extend slave holding into the western territories and beyond. The defense of slavery was key to the secessionist fever.

Interesting link .. even if I hate The Civil War.

 

While I obviously abhor slavery, it seems The South had others issues as well. They basically felt that the North was trying to exercise economic hegemony over them, and given some of the tax debates at the time, I think their accusations were not totally unfounded. A few decades earlier New England had lodged some secessionist quibbles over economic concerns as well.

 

Was the North justified in forcefully bringing the secessionist states back in line, to prevent a hostile power, possibly aligned with France and and the UK, arising on its southern border? I can see a geopolitical argument for it. On the whole though, I think if the Southerners wanted to leave the Union, they should have been left to do so.

[Ursus]

Yeah, but ....

 

.. (off topic) .. If the South were its own country I wouldn't have various Southern congressman in DC today trying to advance a social agenda to which I often take exception. Which would be better for me and the Northeast. My apologies to the slaves ... (/off topic)

 

 

... I now return you to the academic and historic discussion of the American Civil War.

[Kosmo]

Was the North justified in forcefully bringing the secessionist states back in line, to prevent a hostile power, possibly aligned with France and and the UK, arising on its southern border? I can see a geopolitical argument for it. On the whole though, I think if the Southerners wanted to leave the Union, they should have been left to do so.

 

The last two articles in Disunion show that significant numbers of Southerners did not want to secede especially in the Upper South and the mountains of Georgia. Most rabid seccesionist was South Carolina but even there one can ask about how legitimate was the decision of the majority of voters when the black majority was not allowed to vote.

The Deep South and the UK had close economic ties but the UK started and promoted abolitionism and would have been displeased by the Confederate plans of Caribbean expansion. After all they could get their cotton from elsewhere, preferably from within their huge colonial empire. France had imperial dreams but was on path to a rude awakening from Bismarck.

Secession would have been a very complicated process and Lincoln was not conciliating towards the South (and he was a moderate Republican) so the war was very likely.

[Ludovicus]

Was the North justified in forcefully bringing the secessionist states back in line, to prevent a hostile power, possibly aligned with France and and the UK, arising on its southern border? I can see a geopolitical argument for it. On the whole though, I think if the Southerners wanted to leave the Union, they should have been left to do so.

 

The last two articles in Disunion show that significant numbers of Southerners did not want to secede especially in the Upper South and the mountains of Georgia. Most rabid seccesionist was South Carolina but even there one can ask about how legitimate was the decision of the majority of voters when the black majority was not allowed to vote.

The Deep South and the UK had close economic ties but the UK started and promoted abolitionism and would have been displeased by the Confederate plans of Caribbean expansion. After all they could get their cotton from elsewhere, preferably from within their huge colonial empire. France had imperial dreams but was on path to a rude awakening from Bismarck.

Secession would have been a very complicated process and Lincoln was not conciliating towards the South (and he was a moderate Republican) so the war was very likely.

 

Just what "Southerners" presumably wanted to do before the onset of the Civil War should always take into account the fact that slaves, poor whites, and freed blacks did not enjoy the right to vote.

On the subject on the anti-secessionist feeling in the South there's an interesting book, The State of Jones. From the Amazon.com review:

Make room in your understanding of the Civil War for Jones County, Mississippi, where a maverick small farmer named Newton Knight made a local legend of himself by leading a civil war of his own against the Confederate authorities. Anti-planter, anti-slavery, and anti-conscription, Knight and thousands of fellow poor whites, army deserters, and runaway slaves waged a guerrilla insurrection against the secession that at its peak could claim the lower third of Mississippi as pro-Union territory. Knight, who survived well beyond the war (and fathered more than a dozen children by two mothers who lived alongside each other, one white and one black), has long been a notorious, half-forgotten figure, and in The State of Jones journalist Sally Jenkins and Harvard historian John Stauffer combine to tell his story with grace and passion. Using court transcripts, family memories, and other sources--and filling the remaining gaps with stylish evocations of crucial moments in the wider war--Jenkins and Stauffer connect Knight's unruly crusade to a South that, at its moment of crisis, was anything but solid. --Tom Nissley

http://www.amazon.co...95887785&sr=1-1

Edited January 24, 2011 by Ludovicus