Originally posted by: Nitemare
Originally posted by: BlinderBomber
The War of the Northern Aggression was fought because the North told the South how they were going to do things. The South refused, declared States Rights over Federal Rights. North got bitchy, South seceded. North could not handle it because they still needed the South's cheap raw goods manufactered by slavery, so they declared war on the South...
This is what they did not teach in history class.
Christ, what kind of teachers do you have? Northern agression in the sense the South left the union and they had no right do so and thus the North invaded. [please see two posts ago for continued argument]
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Reread the Declaration of Independence, this was the South's stance. They felt the North was oppressing them through high tarriffs as well as cutting their resources "slave labor". Think of it this way, you own a business, the utilities and landlord make you pay more for everything and say you have to pay your workers more? The plantation was a business, albeit one based on slavery which everyone knows now is highly wrong...this was not always the case as good old "Honest Abe" tried to save his butt and preserve the union...Yankee revisionists later claimed the Civil War was all about slavery and it looks like they have succeeded due to the brain washed masses posting in this thread
Benjamin Franklin "History is written by the winners."
Napoleon Bonaparte "History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon"
Honest Abe
I would disagree with the Southern stance, however. Although the Constitution does not explicity say that the states cannot leave the union, I will take the approach Earl Warren did, by asking
what the hell is the point of a contract in which you can back out of it if you don't like it? to me, that is no contract. That's absolutely nothing. I would also argue, as I said before, that that the Consitution DOES (implicitly) imply that the federal government has the right to maintain the union. I would draw that, as said before, from Article 4, Section 3.
The declaration of independence doesn't matter. It was nothing more than a declaration. Although the South attempted to use an argument from it, that doesn't make it legal in itself. The Constitution is the "Supreme Law of the Land" and what is interpreted from it is the highest form of law we have.
This is the same stuff the British would be saying if we had lost that War of Independence.
If Lincoln had not ordered the invasion of the South there would have been no war. Why not let a state leave is they want to?
I will tell you the problem. If one state decides to leave because they don't like it, then that sets a precedent. Then any state can leave at any time because they are unhappy. Even if that unhappiness is short-lived. The country would fall apart in months. Thus, a state can't just leave, or the country will fall apart.
[OPINION]Plus, that's not what America was about. The 13 colonies were not homogoneous, they were dynamic and diverse. They wanted different things. The Constitution was born out of compromise, and many of our laws have been and will continue to be. That is what helped shape this country into what it has become. [/OPINION]
Finally, I would like to add one more thing. I don't believe anyone's opinions will be changed by an argument down these lines. I would like, however, to EVERYONE to realize this is why the civil war became a war and not just a debate. The Union held the same position I do, that the South violated the Constitution. The South holds the same position that Nitemare and tm37 take: that the states rebelled legally. This is what ultimately lead to an actual war, combined with other factors which have been named.
I have appreciated this debate/conversation much. You guys really make me think quite a bit
😉
