Some random thoughts on the American Civil War, North/South relations, and racial issues

[ghoststrider]

So I ran across an interesting post over at Outside the Beltway about the Civil War, which had a very interesting comments section. I had a few thoughts about the Civil War myself, though knowing they were probably very controversial and likely to spark a lot of wank, I kept them to myself on my personal LJ.

Well, mahnmut and underlankers encouraged me to post it

Comments

[weswilson]

So would you be willing to put yourself and your children into slavery for the chance that their children might have slightly better race relations? What kind of foresight must one have to think that 4 million people in chains in an acceptable cost for something so nebulous?

I'm also highly skeptical that economics is what would have brought down the South. We see how economics works when entire nations don't have to pay large portions of their citizens adequate paychecks, and that is more foreign trade.

But yes... almost all Southern pride stems from the Civil War.

[montecristo]

Behold the Fallacy of the Efficacy of Evil. Evil is feared because it works, don't you know. Oh please. Outside of Haiti and the United States slavery was ended peacefully everywhere else. Why? Opportunity Cost. It's why the South lost the war. For an economic analysis of slavery and the Confederacy read Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men: A History of the American Civil War. Very few actually wanted passionately to end slavery in the North. The abolitionists were essentially the libertarians of their day, despised as impractical dreamers, not merely by people in the South but in the North as well. Had the South merely paid the tarrifs, Lincoln and the Republicans would have been more than happy to "allow" them to keep "their" slaves. Some of the Northern industrialists just realized that owning people collectively, through a corporatist federal government was much more lucrative than allowing a smaller aristocracy to own people directly. The outcome was, in one important sense, a victory for liberty: no more chattel slavery, but

[sealwhiskers]

The abolitionists were essentially the libertarians of their day

Good lord, are you even aware of how many fractions the abolitionists had?
Which abolitionists are you talking about, the radical ones, the Whigs&democrat coalition as the Free soil party, the Garrisonians, the Liberty party, the Republicans or the feminists?
All these had rather big differences, but they were all Libertarians?

How utterly convenient with such revisionism.

[montecristo]

It isn't revisionism. The abolitionists of all stripes were often regarded, in both North and South, as impractical, ideological extremists who didn't understand the Realpolitik. Everyone wants to claim them, now, but they were the Ron Paul "kooks" of their day. To be specific though, I refer to those ideological abolitionists who were against the institution of slavery on grounds of universal human rights and liberty and natural law. For example, take Lysander Spooner, who was vehemently anti-slavery and wrote that the Constitution, as it stood even before the thirteenth amendment, could not be reconciled with the practice of slavery, and yet who was also vehemently against the Northern invasion of the South. Many people, South and North profited from slavery and firmly were of the belief that people with more melanin in their skin were of a different, inferrior species, even if they were against slavery on other grounds. The war was not so much a clear-cut morality play that many wish to believe it was.

[ghoststrider]

I'm absolutely certain it is just that, and let them do their thing. Their idiocy will, eventually, burn itself out.

[3fgburner]

I run into this at Jamestown, frequently. Particularly around Thanksgiving, I get asked if I'm a Pilgrim.

After the War, most textbook publishers were up in New York and New England. They re-wrote the history books to be more Yankee-centric. It's better now, but there's whole generations of people who think that European-American history starts in 1620.

It's fun watching the visitors' heads go all splody, when you tell 'em that the Pilgrims are those late-comers up at Plymouth, in Northern Virginia.

[telemann]

By extension, however, there is the question of Southern pride in the post I linked to. The question is, what is there to be proud about in the south? (Now here is where I get REALLY controversial.) Basically, most, if not all, of southern pride is somehow linked to the Confederacy. Confederate flags, Lee-Jackson Day, southern "gentility" (which comes from the slaveholding southern aristocracy's notions of etiquette), etc. etc.

Well, as a Virginian, my "Southern" pride has never been based on any of those things really. I mean a lot of folks make it a "us versus them" thing, but I don't get that. If it wasn't for Southern culture (and I mean all of it including African American, Creole, Cajun, Native American), we'd all still be swinging and swaying to Sammy Kaye (as Little Richard said many years ago), there certainly wouldn't be any rock-n-roll. Never mind the influence of Jazz, and Blues or Ragtime, or Southern food (it definitely sounds like you definitely haven't had any soul food). People may not do the "A gracious good

[telemann]

And please know some of this was in jest, y'all.

[the_rukh]

Fried foods.

[kylinrouge]

In terms of historical scale, it was absolutely necessary. You say The Confederacy probably would've collapsed within 40 to 50 years or get reabsorbed into The Union? Not likely. The weakened US would slow its progress to a crawl, and 50 years of development would go down the drain and put the country permanently behind Europe et all. The US as we know it would become a Banana Republic or worse, get invaded by a bigger power, or even Mexico (who would undoubtedly have an easier time taking the entire West Coast).

It's optimistic to say things could've resolved themselves, but let's be real here. There have been very few splits in history that didn't just ruin one or both halves of the country. North Korea is a hellhole, East Germany was in shambles, and there's no reason to assume that dividing your own goddamn economy and destroying the types of relations that people rely on would ever lead to a positive outcome.

The Civil War was necessary for so many reasons it gives me a headache.

[mrbogey]

'You say The Confederacy probably would've collapsed within 40 to 50 years or get reabsorbed into The Union? Not likely. The weakened US would slow its progress to a crawl, and 50 years of development would go down the drain and put the country permanently behind Europe et all.'

The Civil War is what weakened the US. War is never good for those engaged in it unless the losers have enough wealth to offset the cost to the winners. The South didn't.

'North Korea is a hellhole, East Germany was in shambles, and there's no reason to assume that dividing your own goddamn economy and destroying the types of relations that people rely on would ever lead to a positive outcome.'

How was South Korea and West Germany? Should West Germany have fought East Germany to force reunification?

[montecristo]

Do you know what answer you will get if you ask one of the ex-Trotskyist neo-conservatives that last question of yours?

[underlankers]

And this is why an independent USA will not re-absorb the CSA unless the CSA shoots first *again* and is in the process of complete collapse. CS generals will be more realistic about the relative economic, political, and military weakness of the CSA than CS politicians would be, while the USA sees *that* trainwreck unfolding in slow motion and will simply adopt the "Hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil" approach to evil regimes falling apart at the seams until it loses any opportunity to do otherwise.

[eracerhead]

I don't believe the civil war affected racism one way or the other.

[the_rukh]

On a high level it definitely did. Simply black people were no longer property to be bought and sold. That's a fairly big change. We weren't there before so we can't directly experience how big a chance, but I imagine that also was a drastic change. After that they were just an inferior species.

[eracerhead]

Then how do you explain racism in the north and racism not involving black people? Racism isn't just a black/white issue.

The civil war had everything to do with the institution of slavery. It had nothing to do with racism and wasn't fought to abolish it. Some justifications for slavery involve racism, but not all, and racism does just fine with or without slavery.

[the_rukh]

Racism isn't a dichotomous thing. There is a whole lot of varying levels and situations.