Hey guys, this is an issue that I have been dealing with recently. I can see poitns for both sides. I also came across this article on www.capmag.com Let me know what you guys think. Thanks
I think casus discidi would be proper - "cause of separation".
Pro Christo et Libertate integre!
Check out this video http://millercenter.org/scripps/digitalarchive/forumDetail/3668 for a good explanation of the causes of secession (although some of his remarks are statist claptrap). I think it sounds pretty plausible and jives with a lot of other stuff I've read. He basically says that a minority of "fire-eaters" (fanatically proslavery) were able to cleverly convince the more moderate southerners to secede (with a little help from Lincoln's beligerence).
I must add that Jeffrey Rogers Hummel's Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men is the best libertarian history of the period and comes to a somewhat similar conclusion as Freehling as to the causus secessioni. I think Adams When in the Course of Human Events is good but doesn't go deep enough. Another gripe with Adams' book is that he calls the hardcore abolitionists "lunatics" (they were heroes) and even implies that slave revolts were not justified. He sometimes seems to be more in love with the old South than he is with liberty.
Len Budney: Yeah, you're right again. I was thinking of the "reasons for the war" from the southern side, but the south didn't wage war, they peacably seceded. Casus secessioni?
Yeah, you're right again. I was thinking of the "reasons for the war" from the southern side, but the south didn't wage war, they peacably seceded. Casus secessioni?
secessionis
μὴ παραχώρει τοῖς κακοῖς ἀλλ' εὐτολμώτερον ἀντιβάδιζε.
scineram:and the CSA should have expanded after secession even at the expense of the USA to make for new slave states. Is this false?
Yes and no.
There was a provision for the admission of new states into the Confederacy but it was different from the US constitution.
The biggest problem with admitting new states is same problem that occurs when allowing secession. It suddenly creates new political majorities and minorities. The first big North/South dispute took place over the acquisition of the Louisiana territories. Later North and South argued over admitting Texas, and then argued again over the Mexican war. One of the major defects of the US constitution is that it provides for the admission of new states but does not provide for the acquisition of new territory. The founders thought the Ohio territories would become states and they thought existing states would divide themselves, but the constitution is silent beyond that. So descisions to acquire territory and to create new states were made on ordinary simple majority votes in the House and Senate, as if this were like any other piece of legislation. As a result, most of the serious sectional disputes were about the disposition of new territories as the empire moved west.
The confederates recognized the problem and stipulated in their constitution that a two thirds vote was needed to admit any new state. This may or may not have been an impediment to admitting new states from the western territories. I suspect New Mexico and Arizona would have quickly been added. But I think sectional factions would have arisen in Dixie just as they had in the US. After all, Virginia is nothing at all like Texas. I don't think the Confederacy would have expanded very much.
majevska:I think Adams When in the Course of Human Events is good but doesn't go deep enough. Another gripe with Adams' book is that he calls the hardcore abolitionists "lunatics" (they were heroes) and even implies that slave revolts were not justified.
The hardcore abolitionists were lunatics, not heroes. Read anything about the history of John Brown to see what I mean. The moderate abolitionists - the ones who wanted to secede - were the most sober and principled faction in the whole slavery dispute. But the extremists were nuts.
Where does he imply that slave revolts were not justified? I don't remember that.
scineram:Of course the South seceded mostly over slavery.
You've been lied to.
Lincoln promised to leave slavery alone if only the south did not seceed, but they did anyways. The south seceeded in opposition to the Whig policies that Lincoln brought to the Whitehouse, abolitionism not among them.
JonBostwick: scineram:Of course the South seceded mostly over slavery. You've been lied to. Lincoln promised to leave slavery alone if only the south did not seceed, but they did anyways. The south seceeded in opposition to the Whig policies that Lincoln brought to the Whitehouse, abolitionism not among them.
It's been a long time since I read The Real Lincoln, so I was wondering, did the Mississippi government list slavery as their reason for secession simply to win over the masses, despite the real reason being for tariff collection?
shazam:It's been a long time since I read The Real Lincoln, so I was wondering, did the Mississippi government list slavery as their reason for secession simply to win over the masses, despite the real reason being for tariff collection?
Kind of like "weapons of mass destruction" as a stalking horse for a project to transplant democracy throughout the middle east?
shazam: JonBostwick: scineram:Of course the South seceded mostly over slavery. You've been lied to. Lincoln promised to leave slavery alone if only the south did not seceed, but they did anyways. The south seceeded in opposition to the Whig policies that Lincoln brought to the Whitehouse, abolitionism not among them. It's been a long time since I read The Real Lincoln, so I was wondering, did the Mississippi government list slavery as their reason for secession simply to win over the masses, despite the real reason being for tariff collection?
I'd guess to bring the other slave states into the confederacy.
I'm not saying that Slavery was not important. But to say that the Civil War was about slavery is like saying the Revolution was about taxes. It misses the greater context.