What Side is Responsible for the Civil War?

[Brambila]

It's totally the North's fault. They put pressure on the south for years and opposed every attempt the south made to industrialize because they didn't want competition. THe north really were jerks.

[Brambila]

You're absolutely correct. Lincoln just wanted to keep the North as the monopoly. He didn't want any competition from the south. God forbid they become industrial.

[Brambila]

You kill your brother over infrastructure and tariffs?

Actually, it wasn't the south that started the killing. It was completely legal for a south to seceed from the union-- this comes from the Lockean belief that all have the right to rebel from the government. However, the north didn't like it. President Buchannan refused to give the southern forts to the southerners, so the southerners seized them (Fort Sumter).

In addition, Kentucky, Missouri, Delaware, and Maryland all were divided on the confederacy issue, and could have joined it had the union not used military pressure. Then, the northerners decided to use more military pressure on the south at Bull Run, where they lost miserably.

So is it the southerners' fault? Clearly not. The north was the one who started the bloodshed, the north was the one putting pressure, and Lincoln was the one who stopped a secession that was perfectly legal.

[Brambila]

Who fired the first shot?

The South.

Therefore they decided the way to resolve the issue wa sthrough violence first.

That's a very ignorant statement. Who fired the first shot in World War II? The Americans/British. Does that mean it was therefore the American's fault?

[Brambila]

Good post. You didn't mention Locke though :-D

[Brambila]

Who fired the first shot?

The South.

Therefore they decided the way to resolve the issue wa sthrough violence first.

That's a very ignorant statement. Who fired the first shot in World War II? The Americans/British. Does that mean it was therefore the American's fault?

The British invaded Gernamy before Germany invaded Poland?  The things I never knew I never knew.

That's irrelevent. On D-day, the Americans fired the first shot.  Now World War II is suddenly America's fault?

[Brambila]

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I know that Germany declared war on the US- right after Pearl Harbor when the US declared war on Japan, Germany's ally. However, Tredrick is saying simply because the south fired the first shot it's their fault. Even if he meant declaring war, the US has declared war on many occassions. That doesn't make the war our fault.

[Brambila]

Tredrick, war is not justified by who started it, and why. War is justified by the premis of the matter. Take into consideration that the Americans started the Revolutionary War, and that clearly was very just. The English were oppressing the American colonies by heavily taxing them, raising tariffs, and a load of other actions. Similarly, the Northerners were oppressing the south by restricting their industrial capacity. When the South LEGALLY seceeded from the union, they had the rights to all the forts on the beaches, but the Union refused to let them go. In return, the southerners forced themselves into Fort Sumter. But that wasn't the start of the war- I believe Bull Run is the start of the war. That is when the Northerners invaded the south.

[Brambila]

Tredrick, war is not justified by who started it, and why. War is justified by the premis of the matter. Take into consideration that the Americans started the Revolutionary War, and that clearly was very just. The English were oppressing the American colonies by heavily taxing them, raising tariffs, and a load of other actions. Similarly, the Northerners were oppressing the south by restricting their industrial capacity. When the South LEGALLY seceeded from the union, they had the rights to all the forts on the beaches, but the Union refused to let them go. In return, the southerners forced themselves into Fort Sumter. But that wasn't the start of the war- I believe Bull Run is the start of the war. That is when the Northerners invaded the south.

The question of secession being legal or not had never been taken up by the US courts.  Until it wended its way through the courts it cannot be said it was legal or illegal.  Some schools in NC still teach that segregation is legal under teh Constitution, despite court rulings against them.

Based on your past arguments it also seems you are saying that the US and Britan should have recognized the Nazi conquest of EUrope.  You do this when you blame the Allies for the war because they invaded on D-Day.  Do you believe that?

You may believe the war began at Bull Run, but most peopel educated in the matter say it is Ft. Sumter.  The first shots were clearly fired by the South.  The North did not invade except as a reaction to Southern hostility.

Tredrick, John Locke clearly states in his Second Treatise that the citizens have a right to rebel against the government, and this right was passed onto the United States. Secession was very legal. When the Union refused to leave Forts that belonged to the CSA, they were in essence starting the war. The Union attacked again in Bull Run.

For your second argument, I'm sure the US and Britan had recognized that the Nazis were conquering Europe, and they wanted to stop that. Do I blame the allies for the war because of D-day? No! That's what you're arguing. But this isnt' a good analogy. A better one would be the revolutionary war, since like the Civil War was a revolution.

The southerners wern't being hostile- they were takign what was theirs. Those Forts BELONGED to the south.

[Brambila]

The reason why the south invaded Fort Sumter was not some sort of arbitrary invasion. When the south seceded, Jefferson Davis met with Lincoln on several occasions to discuss everything, and Lincoln had agreed to give several military bases in the south, except for two- Fort Sumter and Fort Moultrie. Davis tried very hard to get Lincoln to peacefully hand the forts to the south, but Lincoln refused. Instead, Lincoln sent several thousand forces to Fort Sumter, which initially had next to no soldiers present at the fort- and the ones who were present were being supported by the south with food. General Scott had even advised Lincoln to give Davis the Forts, but Lincoln refused, and sent even more soldiers to the Fort. Davis saw this as a threat- if all these Union soldiers were present, they could easily lead an assault on the major city of Charleston. So in that sense, Ernest, it’s not like Guantanamo Bay. It’s like the Cubans holding Fort Richmond, which is about 5 miles away from San Francisco.

Tredrick, that is not the idea at all. Locke said explicitly that if your government is oppressing you, as the North was doing to the South, you can rebel:

Secondly: I answer, such revolutions happen not upon every little mismanagement in public affairs. Great mistakes in the ruling part, many wrong and inconvenient laws, and all the slips of human frailty will be borne by the people without mutiny or murmur. But if a long train of abuses, prevarications, and artifices, all tending the same way, make the design visible to the people, and they cannot but feel what they lie under, and see whither they are going, it is not to be wondered that they should then rouse themselves, and endeavour to put the rule into such hands which may secure to them the ends for which government was at first erected, and without which, ancient names and specious forms are so far from being better, that they are much worse than the state of Nature or pure anarchy; the inconveniencies being all as great and as near, but the remedy farther off and more difficult.

My point in explaining World War II was that the United States took the first shots at the Germans. The Southerners also took the first shots, but that doesn’t mean they started the war. I mean, obviously them rebelling sparked the war, but it was quite peaceful in the beginning between Davis and Lincoln.

[Brambila]

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You're missing the point entirely. I don't doubt that the Union won the civil war, and that the south is part of the United States. Yes, you're correct; the Union won, and therefore the south is part of the union, legally. However, the southerners seceding from the union in the first place was not unconstitutional, and Locke supported such measures. I'm not saying the government should role over and play dead, but since the government was oppresive the south's cause was just. The constitution makes no law saying states cannot seceed.

Also, some New England states actually threatened to secede from the union in the 1800s. Nobody tried to stop them. However, when the south seceeded, Lincoln started a war.

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Had the Confederacy left the Northerners at Fort Sumter, they would have taken Charleston, easily. More lives would have been lost. As a matter of fact, only three lives were lost at Fort Sumter, but not because of the confederates, but because of misuse of a cannon for a flag ceremony. Jefferson Davis did not want to be considered the one who started the war, but because of the immense pressure from Lincoln, he had to invade the fort. For instance, if North Korea started stationing thousands of soldiers suddenyl in a fort in South Korea, do you think the South Koreans would simply allow them to do that? Of course not. The invasion of Fort Sumter did not lose a single life; the Northerns started the slaughter at Bull Run.

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That's not always the case. We start the physicality of the war if he start the shooting, but for instance, who started Vietnam? The Northern Vietnamese. Who started the Korean war? The North Koreans. However, the Americans were the ones who took the first shots against them.

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Yes! So your entire premis of "the south fired the first shots they started the war" is ignorant! After all, the south didn't declare war on the north until Lincoln declared war on the south before Fort Sumter at his inaugural address. I found an newspaper Article from the Richmond Enquirer written on March 5th 1861:

"Mr. Lincoln's Inaugural Address is before our readers--couched in the cool, unimpassioned, deliberate language of the fanatic, with the purpose of pursuing the promptings of fanaticism even to the dismemberment of the Government with the horrors of civil war. Virginia has long looked for and promised peace offering before her--and she has more, she has the denial of all hope of peace. Civil war must now come. Sectional war, declared by Mr. Lincoln, awaits only this signal gun from the insulted Southern Confederacy, to light its horrid fires all along the borders of Virginia. No action of our Convention can now maintain the peace. She must fight! The liberty of choice is yet hers. She may march to the contest with her sister States of the South, or she must march to the conflict against them. There is left no middle course; There is left no peace; was must settle the conflict, and the God of battle give victory to the right!" (SOurce)

It est, the north declared war; not the south.

[Brambila]

Where are your sources? I have a hard time believing many of your points. I have to go to the store, but let me pick at your post a bit.

I did make a mistake- Davis did not meet Lincoln, or any periods that I know of. It was his Secretary of State, William Sweard, who met with them. What had happened in the meeting was that Seward told the southerners that the north wasn't going to make any effort to send relieve trrops the fort, but the truth was Lincoln was already sending the troops to the south. When the southerners discovered this, they decided hesistantly to invade the fort before more troops were stationed in it.  (According to The March of Democracy, pgs 24-25).

okay, I need to go.

[Brambila]

I also get some sources from Paul Johnson's History of the American People, even though Johnson is extremely anti-CSA, and also from a video called "Let the South Speak Out".