>I think this topic shows how far neo-confederate propaganda has
>penetrated popular thought.
>
>And this would have killed slavery. Chattel Slavery could not have
>survived with all the special advantages and subsidies withdrawn from
>it.
>
>And this is the heart of the mistake made by revisionists who think
>that the South should have been left to "withdraw in peace".
>
>If the South had simply wanted to be left alone, no withdrawal would
>have been neccesary. The dynamic chattel slavery of the old South had
>this in common with modern capitalism. It was an expansionary dynamic
>system, which had to grow or die. The first shots of the Civil war
>were fire by the South, not by the North at Fort Sumter. I know that
>defenders of the South may argue that they were provoked, that the
>South should have been left to take the U.S. armory, the U.S. treasury
>and go in peace. I personally find it impossible to imagine that if
>they had been let go in the peace that they would not have soon found
>some excuse or other to have declared war on the U.S. -- perhaps by
>demanding a return of "stolen property" i.e. runaway slaves.
How is this a mistake? I would think the fact that slavery couldn't have survived on its own would argue in favor of letting the South seccede, since you could have obtained the same result with less conflict and bloodshed. I admit that slavery may not have ended so soon in this case, and this is certainly a factor to consider in the discussion. In any case I would never argue that the attack on Fort Sumter was provoked, but the North could have made it known that it didn't want to fight with the South, and that it would be willing to negotiate a secession "deal." Perhaps the South would have declared war on the North anyway, but then the situation would have been different - the South would have been the aggressor. But that's the whole point, really - the South would have been forced to give up slavery eventually anyway, probably sooner rather than later. The North certainly could have sheltered runaway slaves and in other ways pressured the South to eliminate slavery.
>In short it may be true that slavery would have died away naturally,
>in "fair competition" with capitalism. (I'm not convinced of this, but
>others on this list have dealt with this poin in much more depth than
>I'm qualified to do.) But there is little question that the
>slaveocrats had little intention of submitting to a "fair
>competition", any more than capitalism will ever willingly submit to a
>"fair competition" with a socialist society.
I don't think the slaveocrats would have been in much of a position to undermine this "fair competition." Not that they wouldn't have wanted to, but that they wouldn't have been powerful enough to do anything about it.
>The confederate governement did not itself practice the States right
>principle it used as justification. To take just one example, when
>South Florida tried to withdraw from the confederacy, it was returned
>to the confederate states by force.
Well, sure, but so what? This really isn't relevant to the question of whether or not the North should have let the South go peaceably. In any case, I'd also argue that the confederacy should have allowed South Florida to seccede too.
>On the one hand I do not want to see the civil war refought on this
>list. But on the other, a great deal of neo-confederate proganda is
>built into our eductational system. (I grew up with textbooks that
>would have led me to the conclusions many on this list have stated.)
>This post does on begin to challenge all the widely believed myths
>about the civil war that are widespread in this society, and to which
>members of this list are not immune.
Then a good deal of neo-union propaganda is built into our educational system as well. I grew up in Chicago, and I remember that it shocked my sensibilities when I first heard that in the South they called the Civil War the "war of northern aggression." We all "knew" it was all about slavery, and that the South was in the wrong. But with a little bit of effort and an open mind its easy to see through this kind of propaganda and come to your own conclusions.
When I say I think the South should have been allowed to seccede, I'm not trying to defend the institution of slavery. I'm trying to say that things could have worked out better in the long run if the Civil War had been avoided. Its somewhat equivalent to the situation today. I'm appalled at some of the things that go on in other countries, for example in Afghanistan or East Timor. But that doesn't mean I think we should invade Afghanistan or Indonesia to stop this stuff either (although I would advocate less intrusive means of pressuring these countries to change their policies).
Brett