James Ford Rhodes
Hugh Lawson
*heard* it said that he emphasizes pro- and antislavery as causes of the
war.
Can anybody verify this?
It's an interesting question. It is sometimes said that the idea that
slavery caused the war went into eclipse for a long time. I doubt that
such an eclipse occurred, just as I doubt that pro-rebel versions of the
war prevailed in northern (aka "national") explanations of the war.
I will grant that it was always a debated question, which war goal was
more important for northerners, (a) to destroy the CSA or (b) to end
slavery.
HL
Ray O'Hara
"Hugh Lawson" <hu.l...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:87zkkkp...@gmail.com...
the Union goal was to destroy the CSA. and destroying slavery was a
necessity in achieving that goal.
this has been explained to you ad infinetum.
The United States was on the whole willing to wait slavery out and let it
die a natural death..
pro-slavers started the war. pure and simple.
you would dare claim that the US started the War with Japan by reacting to
Pearl Harbor but that is exactly what you are doing re Ft Sumter/
David H Singanas
> "Hugh Lawson" <hu.law...@gmail.com> wrote in message
~~~~~~~~~
There were 3 Federal reservations in the Charleston harbor vicinity.
The Hawaiian Islands were not in the vicinity of Japan.
Counting Midway as the extreme tip of the chain, it was still not in
the vicinity of the Japanese home islands.
My info is that Japan military was divided on whether to bomb the
Panama Canal first or bomb the U.S. fleet at Pearl.
David H
Ray O'Hara
"Hugh Lawson" <hu.l...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:87zkkkp...@gmail.com...
> Has anybody read James Ford Rhodes on the ACW? I have not, but I have
> *heard* it said that he emphasizes pro- and antislavery as causes of the
> war.
>
> Can anybody verify this?
>
read it here
http://www.bartleby.com/252/
Hugh Lawson
> the Union goal was to destroy the CSA. and destroying slavery was a
> necessity in achieving that goal.
That doesn't answer the question I'm raising.
[ snip of remaining irrelevancies]
Hugh Lawson
[ snip ]
> you would dare claim that the US started the War with Japan by reacting to
> Pearl Harbor but that is exactly what you are doing re Ft Sumter/
Ray reports a thought in his mind concerning what "Hugh" *might* say.
This is Ray's own affair, and has no relation to any of my projects.
HL
slotrot
Hugh Lawson
Thanks for the reference. I'm pretty busy right now with Vergil's
Aeneid, so I was hoping someone else had already read this work.
HL
Wiregrass Willie
<raymon...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>you would dare claim that the US started the War with Japan by reacting to
>Pearl Harbor but that is exactly what you are doing re Ft Sumter/
There was a lot of difference between Pearl Harbor and Ft Sumter.
(1) Pearl Harbor was not in Tokyo Bay.
(2) American soldiers were not sneaking around Tokyo Bay posing a
threat to local women and children.
(3) Pearl Harbor was attacked by the elite of Japanese forces.
(4) Ft Sumter was fired on by college boys. Drunk ? Probably.
(5) Over 2,300 Americans and Hawaiins were killed at Pearl Harbor.
(6) Nobody was killed at Ft Sumter.
(7) There had been no other attacks on American posts or property
prior to Pearl Harbor.
(8) In the four months preceding the eviction notice served on Ft
Sumter -- 13 other U.S. forts, garrisons, arsenals, ships,
ordnance stores and hospitals had been fired on, shot at,
horse-whipped, cussed-at, spit-on and expelled from the South.
Nobody claimed they were acts of war.
Conclusion --
Best I can figure, the same corporate entities that owned the
Republican party today, owned it in 1861. Those speculators and
war profiteers were just as anxious for a war in 1861 as they were in
2003.
slotrot
>
> - Show quoted text -
Multi-tasking Hugh. That is unless you are trying to translate as
well as read.
Hugh Lawson
> On Mon, 11 Jul 2011 22:46:08 -0400, "Ray O'Hara"
> <raymon...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>>you would dare claim that the US started the War with Japan by reacting to
>>Pearl Harbor but that is exactly what you are doing re Ft Sumter/
>
> There was a lot of difference between Pearl Harbor and Ft Sumter.
I don't take Ray seriously on this kind of issue. He is just being ugly.
HL
Hugh Lawson
>> Thanks for the reference. I'm pretty busy right now with Vergil's
>> Aeneid, so I was hoping someone else had already read this work.
>>
>> HL- Hide quoted text -
>>
>> - Show quoted text -
>
> Multi-tasking Hugh. That is unless you are trying to translate as
> well as read.
The text of the Aeneid I'm trying to read is in Latin. But I spend a lot
of time consulting dictionaries, and translations. In October, I will
have been studying Latin for two years, two or three hours each day.
The joys of retirement!
HL
Ray O'Hara
"Wiregrass Willie" <wiregrass_...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:afbp17t8nnm3144d4...@4ax.com...
> On Mon, 11 Jul 2011 22:46:08 -0400, "Ray O'Hara"
> <raymon...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>>you would dare claim that the US started the War with Japan by reacting to
>>Pearl Harbor but that is exactly what you are doing re Ft Sumter/
>
> There was a lot of difference between Pearl Harbor and Ft Sumter.
>
> (1) Pearl Harbor was not in Tokyo Bay.
>
> (2) American soldiers were not sneaking around Tokyo Bay posing a
> threat to local women and children.
>
> (3) Pearl Harbor was attacked by the elite of Japanese forces.
>
> (4) Ft Sumter was fired on by college boys. Drunk ? Probably.
>
> (5) Over 2,300 Americans and Hawaiins were killed at Pearl Harbor.
>
> (6) Nobody was killed at Ft Sumter.
>
> (7) There had been no other attacks on American posts or property
> prior to Pearl Harbor.
>
> (8) In the four months preceding the eviction notice served on Ft
> Sumter -- 13 other U.S. forts, garrisons, arsenals, ships,
> ordnance stores and hospitals had been fired on, shot at,
> horse-whipped, cussed-at, spit-on and expelled from the South.
> Nobody claimed they were acts of war.
no they weren't, they were illegally occupied. there was no firing/
at sumter they fired and the traitors duped the average moron southron in
following them down the road to war and defeat.
Wiregrass Willie
wrote:
>I will grant that it was always a debated question, which war goal was
>more important for northerners, (a) to destroy the CSA or (b) to end
>slavery.
My totally unscientific poll indicates that had this question had been
put to a vote by 1,000 random Yankees in 1861, the results would
have been:
(a) 998
(b) 2
(Assuming of course -- that there was at least one free black in the
crowd who was permitted to vote. )
Ray O'Hara
that illustrates the problem debating with you.
you just make shit up that satisfies your politics.
to you and most lost causers and to Hugh also it's not about studying and
debating something that happened 159 years ago its about your modern
political agenda.
Hugh Lawson
But as time passed, they added the goal of abolishing slavery, for
several reasons:
1. out of belief in abolition as an ideal;
2. out of desire to sacrfice fewer white soldiers by putting blacks
in the line of fire;
3. out of desire to further unsettle affairs in rebel-held territory, by
encouraging runaways;
4. and this may have been the most important: out of desire to destroy
the economic foundation of the slave-holding class, and thus to remove
this threat to the new northern hegemony;
5. as the US armies advanced, the slaves ran away from their owners;
only the US and its army could restore slavery. Since slavery was being
broken down, why mend it? Why not go ahead and sweep it away, once and
for all, especially in view of the value to northerners of undermining
the old slave-owning class?
Thus the situation with respect to slavery changed over time.
Next question: Why in 1865 when the US had crushed the rebs, didn't the
Republicans establish equality for blacks on a firm legal foundation?
HL
Wiregrass Willie
wrote:
You know, that is a question I never thought about until recent
years. And to tell the truth, I wonder about it. Maybe it was
because during Reconstruction the free blacks became the GOP's labor
supply. As such, they wanted the same control over that supply as
the slave masters had earlier. There's nothing like making an easy
dollar to change a man's views of things.
Wiregrass Willie
<raymon...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>"Wiregrass Willie" <wiregrass_...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>> (7) There had been no other attacks on American posts or property
>> prior to Pearl Harbor.
>>
>> (8) In the four months preceding the eviction notice served on Ft
>> Sumter -- 13 other U.S. forts, garrisons, arsenals, ships,
>> ordnance stores and hospitals had been fired on, shot at,
>> horse-whipped, cussed-at, spit-on and expelled from the South.
>> Nobody claimed they were acts of war.
>
> no they weren't, they were illegally occupied. there was no firing/
>at sumter they fired and the traitors duped the average moron southron in
>following them down the road to war and defeat.
>
According to James Epperson's web page -- there was some violence
while evicting the Yankees.
http://civilwarcauses.org/secesh.htm
I've always found Mr Epperson to be reliable.
rwalker
wrote:
>slotrot <rtau...@rogers.com> writes:
I'm "only" 53 and have been trying to study Latin in my spare time.
Unfortunately the way things are going, I probably won't get to retire
for about 20 more years. My hat's off to you.
MITO MINISTER
> Wiregrass Willie <wiregrass_willieO...@yahoo.com> writes:
> > On Mon, 11 Jul 2011 21:40:38 -0400, Hugh Lawson <hu.law...@gmail.com>
>
> - Show quoted text -
They did. See "Reconstruction Amendments", you fucking white racist
slaver bastard!
PrinceGunter
wrote:
> On Mon, 11 Jul 2011 21:40:38 -0400, Hugh Lawson <hu.law...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> >I will grant that it was always a debated question, which war goal was
> >more important for northerners, (a) to destroy the CSA or (b) to end
> >slavery.
>
> My totally unscientific poll indicates that had this question had been
> put to a vote by 1,000 random Yankees in 1861, the results would
> have been:
>
> (a) 998
>
> (b) 2
>
No need for unscientific polls, there's a reason we call Congressmen
"representatives." What was the breakdown of Congress in 1861 along
the lines of Democrat, Republican, and radical Republican?
PrinceGunter
>
> Next question: Why in 1865 when the US had crushed the rebs, didn't the
> Republicans establish equality for blacks on a firm legal foundation?
Someone else posted this elsewhere:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
First, for most of 1865 following the death of Abraham Lincoln and
Andrew Johnson becoming president, congressional Republicans had no
opportunity to do anything until Congress convened in December. There
was no Republican party in the South, and Johnson’s plan of
Reconstruction left the issue of civil rights and suffrage in the
hands of white southerners in a series of constitutional conventions
in seven states (four other states — Louisiana, Virginia, Arkansas,
and Johnson’s own Tennessee — still operated under governments
established during the war). At this time “civil rights” was a
concept largely defined by the states: the Bill of Rights restricted
the federal government but not state governments (this was about to
change). In short, prevailing notions of federalism as well as
political circumstances left the Republicans with very little they
could do, although they could refuse to seat representatives elected
by the former Confederate states as a sign that they disapproved of
the refashioned state constitutions. That is in fact exactly what
they did when Congress met in December 1865, the same month the
Thirteenth Amendment was ratified.
It was not until 1866 the Republicans were able to pass legislation
concerning civil rights. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 was the first
effort to protect civil rights on the federal level, and even then it
came into play only in cases where southern states did not establish
or protect equal civil rights. It only became law over President
Johnson’s veto, the first time Congress overrode a presidential veto
of significant legislation. The Fourteenth Amendment, with its
definition of citizenship, represented yet another step in the same
direction of federalizing civil rights. It would not be until the
following year that Republicans turned their attention to black
suffrage, an issue that’s already been discussed on this blog.
In short, Republicans did establish legal equality for blacks on as
firm a legal foundation as was possible at the time, especially given
concepts of constitutionality and federalism. In 1875 Republicans
would go further with a second civil rights act, but that would be
largely dismantled by the Supreme Court in 1883 precisely because the
Court claimed it went too far.
So the question posed above is flawed in a number of ways. A more
useful inquiry might be: Why did Republicans prove unable to preserve
and protect what they had established?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hugh Lawson
> They did. See "Reconstruction Amendments"
See US v Cruikshank, Civil Rights Cases, Plessy v. Ferguson, Giles
v. Harris.
It is true that the US House of Representatives up to the 1890s, when
under Republican control, expelled some 30 newly elected Congressmen
who had been they judged elected by fraud and violence. The problem was
that the Democrats controlled the HR much of the time between 1877-1896,
and AFAIK during that time no Democrat ever voted for a civil-rights
action.
Moreover, AFAIK also, when the Republicans got continuous congressional
control from 1896 for several sessions, for some reason they stopped
their efforts to pass civil-rights laws. This was exactly the time
period when they great wave of disfranchisement and racial segregation
measures were passed at the state level, about 1895-1905.
Northern federal judges and politicians thus acquiesced or even connived
at what the southern Democrats were doing to establish white supremacy.
This aspect of the story is not very well known.
"This is the saddest story. . . ." to borrow from Ford Maddox Ford.
HL
Hugh Lawson
> So the question posed above is flawed in a number of ways. A more
> useful inquiry might be: Why did Republicans prove unable to preserve
> and protect what they had established?
Yes, that is a better way to put the question.
HL
Wiregrass Willie
I would never make the mistake of "debating" the Civil War with any of
the regular posters of this group. Y'all know more than I do.
However, I do feel quite qualified to make an occasional observation
pertaining to human nature.
scott s.
Another possibility:
As Union armies moved south, rank and file had their first close-up
experience with southern life and culture, and didn't like it.
In trying to come to grips with it, they decided that slavery was
degrading to the white man. Thus, removing slavery was the first
required step in restoring the southern white man to his proper
condition to make him suitable for civic life in a republic. Because
of this, what happened to the black man after ending slavery was
of secondary (if any) consideration.
True, there was dislike of the aristocracy as the instigator of
disunion, but I don't think retribution was primary, other than
the concern that the common white man was being taken
advantage of by the aristocracy. To the extent that the aristocracy
was viewed as anti-republican (little r, not the party) it was viewed
as dangerous.
scott s.
.
scott s.
news:6a28a0b1-f6ef-4808...@a31g2000vbt.googlegroups.com:
>
> So the question posed above is flawed in a number of ways. A more
> useful inquiry might be: Why did Republicans prove unable to
> preserve and protect what they had established?
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
Remember that Lincoln had left the Republican Party and was nominated
by the National Union Party in 1864. In so doing he abandoned radical
VP Hamlin in favor of former Democrat Johnson. So you probably need to
study how the radicals reacted in 65 and following, and how they ended
up morphing into the liberal Republicans by 72. Note that Grant
supported use of federal troops in the south to enforce reconstruction,
but ulitmately the liberal Republicans were successful in changing the
terms of the debate to reform and hard money which won the day in
the disputed victory of 76.
scott s.
.
Hugh Lawson
> True, there was dislike of the aristocracy as the instigator of
> disunion, but I don't think retribution was primary
I think revenge, retribution, punishment were *never* primary. So far as
the power-politics motive is concerned, the US didn't abolish slavery or
impose Reconstruction to punish the rebels.
Emancipation dissolved an economic class that had been troublesome to
the victors. Slavelords disappeared, to become landlords, even if
the slavelord and landlord were the same human being, at different
times. [ See Gavin Wright, Old South New South] Never again would there
be a secessionist movement based on the economic interests of
slaveholders. Never again would slavery-in-the-territories be a
political issue. And so on.
Moreover, from the power politics standpoint, giving blacks the vote was
*not* done to humiliate or punish the ex-rebels. It was done, as a
power-politics move, to build a Republican party in the South.
Note that the above concernes the power-politics motive. There were
always those who wanted to do these things out of idealistic
motives.
No doubt many of the victorious northerners *enjoyed* witnessing the
ex-rebels' distress, lecturing them that they were lucky to be let off
so light, and so on. But that was lagniappe as they say in New Orleans.
Ray O'Hara
"PrinceGunter" <slippymi...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:6a28a0b1-f6ef-4808...@a31g2000vbt.googlegroups.com...
I believe unwilling should replace unable.
Hugh Lawson
[ snip ]
Ray quoting:
> So the question posed above is flawed in a number of ways. A more
> useful inquiry might be: Why did Republicans prove unable to preserve
> and protect what they had established?
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
Ray replies:
> I believe unwilling should replace unable.
You have a point, Ray, I'm glad you made it. Slippymississippi's
"unable" bothered me too, after I had thought about it a little more.
HL
MITO MINISTER
> PrinceGunter <slippymississi...@yahoo.com> writes:
> > So the question posed above is flawed in a number of ways. A more
> > useful inquiry might be:
Why did Republicans prove unable to preserve
and protect what they had established?
Southern White obstruction, terrorism, lynchings and mob violence.
Next question!
MITO MINISTER
Again with the "You're no better than we are, so we're better than
you" Southern White bullshit argument.
Hugh Lawson
Why wasn't this overcome by enforcible and enforced laws?