War of Northern Aggression

The South had its chance.

vague regional differences exist everywhere and are never the real reason for wars. The south didn't ceceed because of tarrifs or the same urban vs rural rivalry that exists in every society or any other silly reasons like honor or anything. It's always economic factors dressed up in ideological camouflage, and in this case the south held a collection of some of the last slaves on Earth in a world where most civilized societies had already abolished slavery. Naturally these were cherished and expensive commodities at this point and the south didn't want to give up their exclusive little slave society and lose money on having to actually give their workers a decent wage and treat them like human beings. In the fallout of the war, it was racial divides that hammered the nation hardest; for the next 100 years the true colors of the conflict showed themselves beyond any doubt. To try to mask your little rebellion as anything more than YET ANOTHER group of slave owners resisting the flow of the world for their own selfish gain is fooling nobody but yourselves

I always fail to understand why Lost Cause sympathizers continuously refer to this quote to "help" their argument. If anything, it proves the significance of slavery as a cause of the war.

>vague regional differences
The difference between the North and South was night and day, though. We're not talking about the minor regional differences you see today. In 1860 they were, for all practical purposes, two separate nations living in the same state. We're talking Scotland and England levels of different. It had been that way in America since day one and the divide had only grown over the 90 years proceeding it.

>for the next 100 years the true colors of the conflict showed themselves beyond any doubt
Historian's fallacy.

In every Civil War discussion there is always the handful of Northerners that claim the moral high ground and it never ceases to make me laugh

>Implying Northern factories paid their workers a 'decent' or even livable wage
>Implying the North wanted racial equality
>Implying there weren't any Northerners fighting for the Union that didn't own slaves

To quote an anonymous Pennsylvania private upon hearing of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863: "We thought we were fighting for the stars and stripes, but found out it is for the damned nigger"

If anything, it paints Lincoln as a man who tried bending over backwards in an ill-fated attempt to appease southern interests until their belligerence forced him to fight back.

The main thing you need to know is that it's the war that made this song a national symbol of the USA.

youtube.com/watch?v=Ai3_pTg560U

>who tried bending over backwards
He didn't do that, though.

>trying to appease Southerners

It was always a mistake. They're as whiny and rage-prone as the G*rmans. They were given concession after concession, and it was never enough for them. Even killing 1/3 of their military-age male population and burning half their cities to the ground only temporarily stemmed their autistic rage, which has continued to this day.

The logic is that if the war was ONLY bout slavery, then why wouldn't Southern politicians simply hear Lincoln out. There were Southern fire-eaters who would have wanted secession no matter what but they were the 19th century equivalent to the alt-right or SJWs; radical in their views, very vocal and in the minority

>America is obsessed with black people and will always find a reason to make them the focus of a conversation.
americans are obsessed with race in general desu, its like everybody's secret pet topic down there. left wing, right wing, really doesn't matter.

t. non-american.

>muh states rights.........................to own slaves

That's because everyone else just sort of accepts being racist.

there is literally nothing wrong with owning slaves

...

It's true, though. Southerners left upon Lincoln's election because they saw a United States which was continually moving away from their interests and further stripping them of proper representation. The primary interest happened to be slavery, but really that's irrelevant because it wasn't the actual driving force for secession but the excuse. Had Lincoln lost the election and certain compromises been upheld some years back, then the Union would have been preserved. Instead, the opposite happened and the South felt it was in their better interest to leave the Union which they felt no longer properly represented them and continually (and often purposely) hurt their interests in favor of the North.

Weren't southern politicians running roughshod over the north?

>To quote an anonymous Pennsylvania private upon hearing of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863: "We thought we were fighting for the stars and stripes, but found out it is for the damned nigger"

this is pretty close to the truth of the matter. the north largely fought for the sake of preserving the union and it's democratic institutes in a world where it was very much far from the norm and more progressive than nearly anywhere else on the planet. half of europe under absolute monarchs, the other have not too far from it beyond the UK and handful of others, nevermind the rest of the planet.

as to why the war is always boiled down to 'muh slavery' in pop culture, it is because depicting it as fighting for preserving the integrity of the union and the ideals it stands for is a concept abstract to begin with and very remote from contemporary america. loads of democracies out there with respect for personal rights, america is less unique in this regard than it used to be. so, an easier-to-digest depiction was found: the war was fought to abolish slavery.

Yeah, in fact the South had always been very highly overrepresented from the conception of the nation. They even were able to push the North into wars they didn't want (Mexican-American War was very unpopular, and New England literally threatened secession over the War of 1812) and push their laws on Northern states (Fugitive Slave Act being the most famous example).

Wasn't enough to stop their chimp-out. Again, trying to reason with Southerners is a mistake.

They were running roughshod over the West in an attempt to hedge against the North. Ultimately it didn't matter because when Southerner controlled territories would petition for statehood, they would be denied while Northerner controlled territories were regularly being accepted which meant the South was quickly losing control and an even representation. It was a race to status quo and the South was quickly losing.

ehh maybe on a personal level they can rationalize themselves being racist, but they always have a ton to say about the others (be they left, right, or whatever) being racist.

Many Union soldiers themselves saw it that way, that's part of why the Emancipation Proclamation was such a genius PR move.

Listen to any of the marching songs from that era. Easily half of them mention slavery as a reason for the fight. "John Brown's Body", "Battle Hymn of the Republic", "Battle Cry of Freedom", etc.

>Mexican-American War was very unpopular
This is false.

>New England literally threatened secession over the War of 1812
You mean Connecticut. The War of 1812 was caused by popular sentiment.

>Fugitive Slave Act
You realize that it just affirmed an Article in the Constitution, correct? Even then, it was only a compromise.

emarotta.com/protective-tariffs-the-primary-cause-of-the-civil-war/

NYfag here.

Forest: slavery
Trees: states' and territories becoming states' rights to decide whether they would allow slavery and the Feds abusing their power.

The Constitution lays out the Federal Government's power. Anything not specified is left for the states to decide.

I grew up pro-yankee but now realize that the south (while their views on slavery were deplorable) were in the right and were in fact obligated by the Declaration, Constitution, and the American premise of limiting a central, federal government to secede ad resist.

Slavery shouldn't be a choice left up to the states.

Except slavery was codified in the constitution. The federal government had no right to touch it.

So the constitution shouldn't be modified even in the case of slavery?

You would require 2/3rds state approval. The federal government can't axe the constitution just because your feelings are hurt. In fact, it's entire purpose is the exact opposite of that.

which bits

Article 4 Section 2 Paragraph 3
>No person held to service or labor in one state, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.

If you give slave owners the constitutional right to reclaim their slaves, you give them a constitutional right to own slaves.

ThisAlso nice state's rights meme. Friendly reminder that the confederate constitution explicitly enshrined slavery, forever prohibiting any state in it from being a free one, because states rights.

Also, demographic changes resulting in the south being unable to control federal government policy even with their jacked up 3/5ths representation for property through an otherwise fair and equal democratic body does not count as political repression.

And it's not politically repressive to demand states to not be politically repressive. "Muh limited central government" is a non-issue compared to having your own human underclass with the rights of cattle.

Virginian here, I appreciate that we have some common ground. 20/20 hindsight shows us that slavery was an immoral institution and a major cause of the war but ignoring the constitutional issues raised by the South erases context and oversimplifies the conflict. What annoys Southerners the most today is what annoyed us back then; Urban Northerners thinking they are better than us and claiming moral superiority while completely ignoring their own ethical failures. Getting called an ignorant redneck by a Philadelphia hipster is just as infuriating as getting lectured on the ethics of slavery by a factory owner that uses child labor and wage slavery

>What annoys Southerners the most today is what annoyed us back then; Urban Northerners thinking they are better than us

So we show it by painting giant rebel flags on our beat up pickups.

>If you give slave owners the constitutional right to reclaim their slaves, you give them a constitutional right to own slaves.

It simply means that escaped slaves cannot be relinquished of their status by escaping to a different state. It makes no mention of their change of status by other means, such as a constitutional amendment that does not directly contradict the clause in question. Namely, the 13th.

>It makes no mention of their change of status by other means
I'll say it again: If you give slave owners the right to reclaim their slaves, you give them the right to own slaves. You're not wrong by stating it can't be taken away by an amendment (just as it was, whether or not that amendment was forced at gunpoint upon certain states aside), but to say that it can be taken away by anything other than that is wrong.

I'll take that over this pretentious crap any day of the week

do you ever get a sick feeling in your pit when you realize our founding fathers knew exactly the kind of evil going on right in front of God when they drafted the Constitution but didn't end slavery? Wasn't it NOT the norm for blacks to be held as slaves by europeans around that time? Weren't black men generally not a slave race during the Roman Empire? As in, you had to really fuck up to become a slave.

>I'll say it again: If you give slave owners the right to reclaim their slaves, you give them the right to own slaves.
It gives them the right to reclaim their slaves in the instance of which they attempt to change their status by relocating to a different state. It does provide for reclamation when that change in status is by other means. The 13th amendment did not take away this right, it merely made it redundant.

Most of the country that still shits on the south/southern pride are not hipsters.

that's politispeak. Lincoln's whole mantra was abolition and he was often chided for it by political opponents during debates and what not. The only reason Lincoln said things like this on record was to give the impression of him being a centrist and balanced, when in fact everyone knew it was only a matter of time before slavery was abolished if he became president. He was called Abolitionist Abe in the South leading up to his election, which is why the South was in such a roar and why they started the Civil War even before he had a chance to emancipate the slaves.

So don't be fooled by this quote. Trump does similar things where he says something to sound balanced, but we all know his true stance on issues.

The constitution was written in the 1770's. African slavery still existed in England and all of her colonies (America, Canada, India, etc.). It also existed in Portugal, Spain, the Carribean and most of South America at this time.

>Trump does similar things where he says something to sound balanced, but we all know his true stance on issues.

There's no need to mention Trump on the matter. As you said, it's politispeak, and this is something that is general to those hoping to have a career in politics. Or, more bluntly, everyone does it, man.

>>Implying Northern factories paid their workers a 'decent' or even livable wage

The Northern factories didn't have to litteraly hold their workers captive

And most Southerners/Southern pride people aren't ignorant rednecks, but hey whatever makes you feel morally superior Yankee Bill. You guys were always the best at talking down to others after all.

do you think our founding fathers saw the freedom of blacks and nonwhites in the Roman Republic as part of the reason it fell to degeneracy?

Most of the founding fathers were slave owners and few actually had moral qualms about it. All men can be created equal. Some men can be free and others in bondage. That does not prevent them from being created equal.

Except that's not how American law works and it's the reason Dred Scott lost (along with Article II of the constitution). Slavery had been codified in the Constitution through the rights of slave owners explicitly stated in the Constitution. As such, the federal government had no place to abolish slavery without constitutional amendment. The only thing the federal government could do about it was legislate interstate slave trading which is why the only laws passed were regarding that. I have no idea why you're debating this. It's the sole reason the 13th amendment was an amendment and not some congressional bill. The law would be unconstitutional otherwise as it deprived slave owners the rights granted to them in the constitution.

The Constitution was written in 1789.

>slavery being a matter of feelings

I never said they were ignorant rednecks.

I've lived in Mississippi and north Florida (which is southern as fuck). You can't deny that the ones that are most in your face about southern pride are fucking trashy.

>What annoys (blacks) the most today is what annoyed us back then; (Redneck Whites) thinking they are better than us and claiming moral superiority while completely ignoring their own ethical failures

just trying to draw a super simplified connection to the present. Not here to talk about him, just pointing out how this kind of politispeak thing has been going on...people use the abe lincoln quote a lot to defend their racist viewpoints but lincoln was truly one of the morally pure presidents we've had. Our founding fathers had pretty racist pasts, but Lincoln is in a league of his own. I have yet to see any true stories about him which bring his question into character

The issue of slavery is literally a matter of feelings.

Except they did.
>Factory owner/industrialist builds a housing complex for workers
>Charge $12 a month for rent
>Pay workers $10 a month
>Workers become indebted and cannot leave
>Work 12 hours a day in hazardous conditions to pay off factory owner while just getting deeper in debt
>The ultimate Catch 22

How is that any better than Southern slavery

>Slavery is not wrong because morallity is a spook
>Attacking slavers is morally reprehensible. How could they do such a thing those yankee monsters!?!
Every time

Realized my mistake a minute after posting, was thinking of the Declaration

The part where the factory owners couldn't legally rape their workers and rip families apart on a whim.

>getting lectured on the ethics of slavery by a factory owner that uses child labor and wage slavery

How many average yankees have you talked to who are okay with wage slavery and child labor? Better yet, how many factory owners have you talked civil war politics to, ever? Because that sounds like a really lovely strawman that would feed right into your persecution complex.

Also, wage slaves can wield political power, and have legal rights, making their position pretty objectively superior famalam. That meant that they could and did eventually usher in reform in the progressive era. 13th amendment and civil rights would have never happened without the south being dragged along kicking and screaming via reconstruction and liberal courts.

Flipping your tendies and throwing away 2% of the population in war in order to prevent completely constitutional, legal, and morally righteous federal laws from possibly stopping your institutionalized denial of human rights to people living in your territory will never be anything even parallel to a noble cause, no matter how imperfect the northern states were on other issues. If people calling it as it is without derailing into irrelevant non-civil war related issues bothers you, I suggest you decouple your ego from the actions of your ancestors as though it's relevant to you and base your ego on the actions of yourself instead.

>Slavery is not wrong because morality is a spook
>Butthurt southerners getting BTFO'd by a superior force is also okay because morality is a spook

your strawman is a failure

There are arguments for slavery outside of the moral. There are no arguments against slavery that don't come from morality.

> Slavery had been codified in the Constitution through the rights of slave owners explicitly stated in the Constitution
You've given me one paragraph, and you originally argued it to be implicit as opposed to explicit. Which is it?

Ah, yes, Dred Scott. Would you be so kind as to be the one to elaborate on the decision taken by the court?

I'll concede to that.

>l-law isnt a spook

what did southerners mean by this

Read the Jungle by Upton Sinclair

You seem to forget the part where whenever we have these threads, southern apologists always pass off slavery like it is nothing but claim that the north not accepting their secession is a crime against humanity.

Just off the top of my head, i know it stagnates innovation and that any economic gains from it will not be unavailable to large swathes of the population rendering it useless.

I have. Northern factories are still not anywhere as bad as southern slavery.

It was pragmatism, pure and simple.

It's not so much that most of the founders liked slavery, although a disappointing amount of them viewed it more of as a bad habit rather than an evil and massive hypocrisy in a republic.

It's that slavery was going to exist no matter what, and they had to play ball with the southern states to unify the country. They knew they were just kicking the can down the road though.

>You've given me one paragraph, and you originally argued it to be implicit as opposed to explicit. Which is it?
Please do not make me say it a fourth time. I know you're capable of basic reading comprehension.

>Dred Scott
> Finally, territories or states where slavery had been abolished were not entitled to free slaves, because this would be a deprivation of a slaveholder's "property" rights
Oops. It's almost as if this property right was codified in a certain Article of the constitution which I enumerated previously.

>i know it stagnates innovation
Cotton gin. Also myth of progress.

>that any economic gains from it will not be unavailable
I'm assuming you mean available. I'm also guessing that slave owners do not require goods and services beyond their slaves in your world.

Many of them may have been slaveholders themselves but they also knew the way the wind was blowing and a huge faction supported trying to restrict slavery in the Constitution.

It was the 'norm' but by 1789 things were changing in society. Industrialization was really taking hold by this point and many foresaw an eventual end to slavery as bare worker productivity began to increase so dramatically (they didn't realize at this point that industrial inventions could also help slavery like the invention of the cotton gin or industrial textiles serving as great sinks of demand for slave-produced products). Enlightenment ideals also saw the rise of the rights of man and every citizen stuff take foothold among the elite and the philosophers.

By the time they had taken their turns ruling the country, after the Missouri Compromise people like Jefferson and Adams began to foresee the far black clouds that was their failure to conclusively settle the slavery question on the horizon but could do little about it.

>Cotton gin
Ooooh one invention. The scientific prowess is astounding.

>I'm assuming you mean available. I'm also guessing that slave owners do not require goods and services beyond their slaves in your world.
So what you are saying is that you will consider it a prosperous society by just pretending that the non-prosperous parts don't exist.

What benefits can you name for slavery?

>and I intend no modification
It's really simple Cletus. All things being equal he wanted all men be free. But he was willing to throw niggers under the bus to preserve the Union. But you had to do your autistic screeching and you lost your slaves, when Lincoln was willing to compromise and let you keep slaves even though he didn't like slavery.

>Ooooh one invention. The scientific prowess is astounding
Not an argument. Also, again, myth of progress.

>So what you are saying is that you will consider it a prosperous society by just pretending that the non-prosperous parts don't exist.
You're pretending that a society is non-prosperous by pretending that the prosperous parts do not exist.

>What benefits can you name for slavery?
Greater production of raw goods for use in production which leads to cheaper goods and a more productive and prosperous society. An individual's right to own property or become property if they so choose.

>when Lincoln was willing to compromise and let you keep slaves even though he didn't like slavery
It's almost as if the war was about more than slavery, even if it was a (or even the) primary component.

>productive and prosperous society
But putting value to production and prosperity are spooks.

>individual's right to own property
but property rights are spooks

If those things are spooks, along with morality, then you have no argument against slavery.

>Lincoln elected
>Says he will not take away slaves but probably wont allow them in new states
>southerners get mad they can't own human beings anymore
>draft a declaration about there reasons for leaving
>literally 3/4s of it is about slaves and how they want to take away new state's rights ;^) to own slaves
>despite having economic dominance over northerners lack industrialization and transportation due to their sheltered agricultural state
>Literally the only reason their """""secession"""""" isn't put down in three months is because of great generals, some of whom were conflicted about the war and sided with confederates only because of their state
>Lose as soon as northern generals start to push them in
>Botched reconstruction leads to south still being the cousin-fucking idiots they are today
>People like OP try to pretend the Civil War was about "muh heritage"

>It's almost as if the war was about more than slavery, even if it was a (or even the) primary component.
Who cares? Here are the facts:
>Slavery is evil
>Lincoln was a relatively moderate Republican who although he was an abolitionist, held the pragmatic view of simply stopping slavery from spreading
>the south chimped out before he ever even took office, let alone did anything to harm them or their precious black bulls
>the south got their asses handed to them

>Slavery is evil
Not an argument.

>held the pragmatic view of simply stopping slavery from spreading
People had a right to choose whether slavery would be legal in their territories.

>the south chimped out before he ever even took office
Because it was evidence to the South that the Union was no longer representative of their interests, including slavery, so they left.

>the south got their asses handed to them
Blatantly false.

And you have yet to provide any proof that it is beneficial.

I already did using the standards you set before me. If those standards are spooks then you have no argument.

You claim human rights to safety and security against violence is a spook yet claim that such a nebulous idea as property rights to be not only tangible but sacrosanct . You claim to be above base emotional arguments but you use them yourself.

>>i know it stagnates innovation
>Cotton gin. Also myth of progress.

Slavery did not cause the cotton gin. It was imported from England and led to the revitalization of the slave trade, but slavery had no hand in starting it.

>Not an argument.
Whatever
>held the pragmatic view of simply stopping slavery from spreading
Black people deserved the right not to be eternally enslaved.

>Because it was evidence to the South that the Union was no longer representative of their interests, including slavery, so they left.
It was a stupid move and likely led to slavery being destroyed faster than if they'd fought back through conventional political means.
>Blatantly false.
The south surrendered unconditionally and was occupied by Union forces. Also, pretty much all of the physical and economic damage of the war was suffered by the south since it was fought there. They didn't come out better for it.

>having a child's perspective of history

I envy your innocence

Please, do not make me say it a fourth time. And I'm only on the second, aren't I?

let me give you an example of explicit and implicit: say it was written in the constitution "no laws will be passed that prohibit or restrict slavery within the territories that constitute the United States of America" would be explicit. Implicit would be "no man can be deprived of his livelihood without justifiable cause", in which case we could get an implicit conclusion based on our interpretations of the terms "livelihood" and "justifiable cause". These are all fictitious of course, but I hope they've been educational.

>Oops. It's almost as if this property right was codified in a certain Article of the constitution which I enumerated previously.
Sure, if Chief Justice Roger B. Taney had cited your single paragraph in his decision. But given that it was not explicit, he had a rather roundabout way of going about it, didn't he?
And in any case, Taney argued that the fifth amendment covered the matter of the right to property, not article 4 section 2 paragraph 3.

I'm not arguing against myself. I simply used the standards you set before me to counter your arguments. The only actual argument you've made that can't be countered is one of morality which is, in fact, the only argument AGAINST slavery. Either my arguments are spooks and so are yours, in which case you have no argument against slavery. Alternatively, the standards you set are not spooks, in which case you lost the debate. Congratulations, you played yourself.

Not an argument

Successfully fending off a superior force for four years isn't getting your ass handed to you, especially while maintaining that positive K/D ratio

>Black people deserved the right not to be eternally enslaved
You realize that not all blacks in the United States were slaves, correct?

>that positive K/D ratio

Why is it that Cuckfederates always like to pretend POWs aren't a thing? Same with Wehraboos.

>especially while maintaining that positive K/D ratio
What's so great about a positive K/D ratio
when you lose anyways
war isn't a vidya game bruv

Your original point was that the argument for slavery has points that don't involve morality but when asked to list them you went straight for intangible factors based in value judgements.

>K/D ratio
Fuck off with this dumb meme.