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This archive covers discussion from April, 2007 through June, 2008. Discussion was placed in this archive as it appeared in the main talk page and thus may not be in chronological order.

This article clearly has an anti-southern bias and needs to be re-written. First of all, there were many, many reasons the south seceded from the union and slavery was just one reason. I'd go as far as to say had slavery been the ONLY grievance the south had, they wouldn't had seceded. It was only after the southern states started seceding that the northern states saw the writing on the wall and that was with the south was inevitable and it was then they started using slavery as an issue to galvanize the northerners to their cause by painting the southerners as barbarians. I really feel it sad that in this day and age I have to even attempt to act like i'm not defending a despicable intuition like slavery lest I be painted as a racist, but we shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater. As someone said earlier, it's intellectually dishonest and we shouldn't disregard something simply because it's historically inconvenient. It's pretty ironic all the "historians" are ones that are anti-southern heritage and famous figures who just happen to be outspoken slavery proponents and didn't speak for the average person of the day. The head general of the CSA, General Lee, was an opponent of slavery but basically said 'The overall good of the state of Virginia was more important than the single issue he disagreed with them on'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Xen0blue (talk • contribs) 04:14, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Your accusation is baseless, for the most part, and moreover, despite the constant caterwauling, I have never seen someone whose complained on a talk page about a Confederate article actually write anything substantial ON a Confederate article. Moreover, your assessment of the leaders and historians quoted showing a "pro-slavery bias", and somehow not representing the "common man" is, like I've said elsewhere on this page and others, an amazingly uncharitable view of people's ability to make political decisions, even in a pre-electronics age. The reality is, most people voted in the fire-eaters and other secessionists, most actively sought to enlist into the CSA, and there is a reason why most people, in the South and even in the north, referred to the Republican party as "Black Republican's". General Lee was not an opponent of slavery; though he only inherited slaves through marriage, his opinion on the issue was amazingly clear. Like Stonewall, he believed in a kind of benign paternalism, whereupon whites would educate blacks until such a point that the institution of slavery shall be lifted. Whether or not any of these things is a BAD thing is up for the reader to decide; the fact that many people interpret them as such is no blame of the article. SiberioS (talk) 04:41, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

I think Lee's own words make it pretty clear how he felt: "So far from engaging in a war to perpetuate slavery, I am rejoiced that slavery is abolished. I believe it will be greatly for the interests of the South.", and then here is another: "My own opinion is that, at this time, they [black Southerners] cannot vote intelligently, and that giving them the [vote] would lead to a great deal of demagogism, and lead to embarrassments in various ways." which was an extremely forward-looking remark for someone in those days...before you try to spin this out of context, what he is basically saying is the slaves are uneducated because they've not been allowed to learn which makes them gulliable and easily lead on. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Xen0blue (talk • contribs) 05:06, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

The first quote, of course, is AFTER the Civil War is over, when Lee was mostly concerned with everyone getting along than continuing some sort of decentralized campaign of harassment against the Federal government (a very real possibility after the end of the war). Like Jefferson Davis, and other higher up who survived the war, their tune changed decidedly from what their own writings and letters tell us were there opinions DURING the war, and more importantly, their ACTIONS. The second of course, is exactly what I said; paternalism.

Here in fact, is the whole quote from Lee that you conveniently excised that I think your alluding to when you say he opposed slavery (it was from a letter to Ms. Lee in 1856}

In this enlightened age, there are few I believe, but what will acknowledge, that slavery as an institution, is a moral & political evil in any Country. It is useless to expatiate on its disadvantages. I think it however a greater evil to the white man than to the black race, & while my feelings are strongly enlisted in behalf of the latter, my sympathies are more strong for the former. The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, socially & physically. The painful discipline they are undergoing, is necessary for their instruction as a race, & I hope will prepare & lead them to better things. How long their subjugation may be necessary is known & ordered by a wise Merciful Providence. Their emancipation will sooner result from the mild & melting influence of Christianity, than the storms & tempests of fiery Controversy. This influence though slow, is sure. The doctrines & miracles of our Saviour have required nearly two thousand years, to Convert but a small part of the human race, & even among Christian nations, what gross errors still exist! Dec 27, 1856 Robert Lee to Ms. Lee as quoted in Freeman, Lee I, pgs 373 [1] SiberioS (talk) 05:37, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Besides, this isn't the article on Robert E. Lee anyway; this is the article on the Confederate States of America. I think the official declarations of independence of South Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia, and Texas; the Constitution of the Confederate States of America; a public speech by a Confederate political leader (the Vice President of the Confederate States); and the views of numerous historians carry more weight than the views of one military leader of the Confederacy--however important he may have been to the Confederate war effort. Robert E. Lee wasn't elected President of the Confederate States, nor was he military dictator, nor did he write the C.S. Constitution. By 1860 there were far more proponents of the "positive good" school of thought which held that slavery was "natural and normal" and a "great physical, philosophical, and moral truth" (the Vice President of the Confederate States) which "should exist in all future time" (the Great State of Texas) than there were of Robert E. Lee's (by then rather old-fashioned) hand-wringing view that slavery was certainly just awful, but there was simply nothing one could do about it except trust that God would somehow sort it all out someday. -- 139.76.64.67 (talk) 21:32, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

I noticed that the "Table of CSA states" uses modern flags. To partially correct this, I will replace the current flags with the ones used during the CSA. I will only look through the articles for the flags of those respective states. I also decided to look through the discussion in order to find a section that may have previously discussed this. Buried in the first archive I found a section titled as above. Its only contents are below: —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.102.210.163 (talk) 21:31, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

"Why are only Union flags in the chart? The old flags should be displayed, too."

I also looked in "Flags of the U.S. states". I am only using the official flags at time of admittance. Florida, Georgia, Arkansas, Tennessee, Missouri and the Arizona Territory did not have their CSA flags mentioned in their articles. Virginia's and Texas' flags seem o have been the same. Alabama's flag had an obverse and a reverse. If no flag was found, I attempted to substitute the flag with a seal (though I still used the template "flagicon image"). If no seal was found, I left the box blank (with "{{flagicon|none}}"). The Missouri seal is also the current seal and I do not know if Confederate Missouri accepted the seal. The Florida flag was only added from information found in Flags of the U.S. states and this information claimed the flag was unofficial. An official flag, if existing, should substitute the current. The seal of Georgia seems to have been the accepted seal. It is uncertain from the article, "seal of Tennessee", weather the current seal of Tennessee was used during its membership with the C. S. A. or not. I did not see any contemporary symbolism for Arkansas or the Arizona Territory. Please feel free to improve. Thank you.--208.102.210.163 (talk) 23:39, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Arkansas did not have an official state flag until after the war. The same goes for Tennessee, and some other states.~ (The Rebel At) ~ 13:39, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

It says on the Wiki article about Montgomery ALA, that it's population in 1860 was 35,904 yet it isn't listed as one of the largest cities in the Confederacy. Can someone verify and fix this?

4.143.235.185 (talk) 09:17, 24 April 2008 (UTC)eric

The bottom said African-Americans did not serve in combat and cites an outdated source. I found a source from the Department of Defense that says it was likely they did serve in the CSA army: http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=40553

Well according to Siberio, that's going to be considered an unreliable source. Sf46 (talk) 23:08, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Except, of course, that I've written a decent article on the use of black laborers and the issue of emancipation the CSA. Despite your constant caterwauling Sf46, I've done the job of portraying the CSA leadership as being more enlightened than most people would be willing to give them credit for. In fact, I went and rewrote bits of it cause I feared some of it was TOO negative. So don't try and pin this on me. I've done more legwork and reading to prove your own arguments than you have. SiberioS (talk) 07:39, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

And what do you know. The Defenselink source pretty much says the exact same stuff I've written. The only specious part of it is the claim that "thousands might have served" (the records are barren for a reason; they simply weren't raised), which is a glaring oversight, considering the 209K that actually FOUGHT in the Union army. SiberioS (talk) 07:42, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I think we can all agree, regardless of our bias, that the Confederacy only used black troops out of desperation not out of some sort of idea of equality. And of course, to a lesser extent, the same could be said for the Union. But hey, I have no sources other than 10 years of studying the Civil War. Beamathan (talk) 14:33, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Why is it that the CSA is often reffered to as the Confederacy instead of the Confederation. Is there a difference between a confederation and a confederacy, and if so, what? Where did it start getting reffered to as the Confederacy, by whom, and for what reason?68.14.159.216 05:07, 7 June 2007 (UTC)Sun Stealer

The term "confederacy" was in use at the time of the civil war. It was used both to refer to a group of "confederates" banding together for common cause and to refer to a political confederation. The German states along the Rhine river formerly a part of the old Holy Roman Empire were sometimes referred to during the 19th Century as either the "Confederation of the Rhine" or the "Confederacy of the Rhine." Other related words and concepts were frequently used the same way. During the 18th Century, patriots in the colonies spoke of "independency" as often as they spoke about "independence." Just as we might use a phrase like "Here in the States" to refer to the entire US, people started using "THE Confederacy" as shorthand for the CSA. You can find it in literature of the time, and it became more common as the years went by. Interestingly, in the North, CSA soldiers or citizens were seldom referred to as "confederates," but usually as "rebels" or "secessionists," usually shortened to "secesh," and used both as an adjective and a plural noun.

Another interesting related note-- in the 19th Century, and I believe even into the 20th Century, it was common to refer to "These United States" rather than "The United States." It sounds very odd to our ear today, but it is actually grammatically correct; a holdover from that age is the Reader's Digest humor section that still today is called "Life in These United States." I always wondered why the RD used that odd phrase, and thought it was just an attempt to be witty or ironic; then I read an article about the history of the pgrase, and it all came together.

---

"These United States" comes from the time of the Articles of Confederation, when the states wanted to emphasize their states as a conferacy not a union.

It was generally conceded throughout the South before the war that secession was an action that could only be accomplished by an act of the people themselves in a convention since it was such a convention that ratified the Constitution in the first place. Missouri held a convention for that purpose and it refused to pass an ordinance of secession. The subsequent action by the government in exile to declare itself as seceded is properly characterized as the actions of a group rather than the state -- edits that suggest otherwise need to be reversed. Tom (North Shoreman) 22:14, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

But the government was not in exile when it passed the ordnance of secession -- the governor convened the convention that passed the ordnance at Neosho, Missouri. The Confederate government seated Missourians to the national legislature and added a star to the CSA flag for Missouri. There is no doubt that Missouri seceded. Check out http://politicalgraveyard.com/geo/MO/ofc/ccrep.html and http://politicalgraveyard.com/geo/MO/ofc/ccsen.html for the names of Missourians in the CSA Congress. CsikosLo 02:23, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

The "government" certainly was in exile for all intents and purposes-- the state's capital at Jefferson City as well as most of the state was under Union control. There also was no state election for convention delegates (an impossibility since only a small portion of the state was under control of the CSA sympathizers) other than the original one and no convention elected by the people of the state ever approved secession. The subsequent recognition of this rump government is covered in the article. The situations in Kentucky and Missouri are significantly different from the situations in the rest of the CSA for the very important reason that loyal Union governments continued to exist and, in fact, controlled most of the state. I am changing the lede back to the way it originally was since the unique situation in these two states is covered in the article and I don't believe it warrants inclusion in the lede. If someone else disagrees, I will not object to the two states being added back into the lede as long as an accurate distinction is made between these two and the first seven and the next four. Tom (North Shoreman) 12:45, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

It appears you define "in exile" differently that I do, and differently than Wikipedia does (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_in_exile). While C F Jackson's government did not hold Jefferson City at the time of the passage of the Ordnance of Secession or afterwards, they were present in Missouri. Missouri's government that passed the Ordnance *was* most certainly elected by the people of the state, although there is a question of whether or a quorum was present. Bottom line though, is that I agree with your last sentence and with a distinction between the contested states (MO and KY) and the other states. All in all, I have no objection to the current article with the exception of the lede. CsikosLo 17:33, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

The steps to secession had three steps. Step 1 -- The legislature calls for a convention and schedules an election for delegates to that convention. Step 2 -- The election is held and delegates are selected. Step 3 -- The convention meets and votes to secede. The existing government of the state had followed steps 1 and 2 but at step 3 refused to authorize secession.

The government in exile (I don't think an unsourced wikipedia article is a very good tool to use in a debate) never even got to step 1. Even if it did have a quorum, all it could do would be to vote to schedule a convention and election -- state legislatures by themselves, under the theory advanced by the Southern states, did not have the authority within themselves to vote to secede. This is certainly the understanding of Missouri since that is the exact procedure the original government had followed. I added boldface to my original comments in this section in case you missed what I had actually said. Tom (North Shoreman) 18:47, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

There is a sentence that says "Britain, in fact, had ample stores of cotton in 1861 and depended much more on grain from the Union states". I don't have any references other than seeing a documentary on the BBC regarding many people who worked in cotton related industries in Lancashire, England and in Scotland that suffered hardship and unemployment due to not getting cotton from the CSA, but the people (mostly) accepted this as they by and large understood that a Union victory would mean an end of slavery (a good thing), which the employers, along with the Church and even labour leaders were keen to emphasise. If this was indeed the case I would request that anyone with a little more knowledge and references on the subject maybe expand on this in the article, if possible. Benson85 15:41, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, I tried to make a start of it; I'm not wild about the sources I found; and there seem to be some more academic articles (which I don't have access to the full text of) which indicate the truth about both the "Lancashire cotton famine" and the English workers supporting the Union over their own economic interests might be more complicated. I left that sentence in, tagged with a "citation needed", which is a little awkward since now we have dueling sentences. 139.76.128.71 22:58, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

I have removed the statement "Britain, in fact, had ample stores of cotton in 1861 and depended much more on grain from the Union states" as there was no citation to support it and it seems to contradict other sources (including other articles in Wikipedia).139.76.128.71 20:33, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Not that it is a major mistake, but im pretty sure Leonidas Polk graduated from West Point, he just did not serve in the United States military very long. Someone should check into this and update the article.

Maj. Gen. Leonidas K. Polk did not graduate from West Point. He dropped out to pursue an ecclesiastical career after joining the Protestant Espicopal Church in the USA.4.252.243.95 (talk) 01:32, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

1. Alexander Stephens didn't speak for the Confederacy at large.

2. None of the causes of the war listed explains why the common southern man risked it all for the confederacy.

3. White Supremacy was far from being a Southern trait. It was world-wide, at the time. These "historians" are ill-informed at best, biased at worst.

4. There is little in the historical record with which one can glorify Lincoln...I don't know why people still insist on doing it.

5 Demonizing the South is not only unjust, it's intellectually dishonest. The North was no better....and in many areas of race relations, quite worse...and still are.

6 Where are historians such as Charles Beard? Where are the foreign accounts of the causes, which are the only ones that can be considered objective?

1. If the men elected to represent the people in their government, well, don't represent the people, than that seems to be a hell of a tautology.

2.That's because the "Common southern man" didn't "risk it all" for the Confederacy. I suggest you go pick up "Rich Man's War, Poor Man's Fight" a book that details the increasing and often significant amount of desertion that plagued the Confederate ranks from 1863 onwards. In it are featured the increasingly irritated and angry letters of the Confederacys high command at the lack of having ample men in the field. People simply went home, mostly because their families were starving or on the outs.

3.But oddly enough, despite most people having less than enlightened views on race relations, most countries had abolished or were on the verge of abolishing slavery. The CSA, and the states it represented were not anywhere near a road to getting rid of slavery; in fact, the CSA had made it even more onerous, with restrictions on manumission, a complicated passport system for both blacks AND whites, and a clamoring to import new slaves from Cuba.

4.You don't mention any substantial criticisms (which there were many, actually) so I'll just skip over to...

5.While the North was no beacon of equality, in many ways (one can think of the racially tinged 1863 draft riots), this argument of "Well he did it more than me!" is not only factually untrue, but is an argument that didn't hold weight even in kindergarten. You don't get a free pass for only being slightly less worse than the other guy. That said, a country that enforced and promoted chattel slavery has no water on the "race relations" side of the equation.

6.Why would only "foreign accounts" be objective? Or do you think that somehow every foreign observer was somehow impartial? In fact, the Confederacy had considerable favor and sway amongst aristocratic classes in European countries, which should be no surprise, since they had similar upper classes, whom did nothing, and just scammed off the people doing the work. The British government at the time had this deep seated paranoia that the civil war was all about the Irish (despite the Irish draft riots) and that somehow this was an attempt to bolster their cause in Ireland as well.

SiberioS (talk) 16:02, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

There is strong consensus about the cause of secession. There is no doubt about the primary stated reason by Confederate leaders, the timeline/causal events, or the Confederate Constitution. However, there are some things that probably should be done to this section of the article. The first is putting a link to the origins of the Civil War article at the top of this heading--the present section is not meant to be an exhaustive treatment of the cause of secession. The second would be to add a short summary of secondary issues in a single paragraph. None of the secondary issues even taken together are anywhere close to sufficient to risk war over. (The nullification crisis had settled that argument already.)

1. Alexander Stephens was V.P. and did in fact speak for the common cause of the CSA.

You seem intelligent enough to know that VPs at the time were the reciever of the minority vote, not the running mate of the Pres.

2. The common man in the Deep South voted for what was perceived to be a stance against a grave economic and social/political threat--eventual emancipation some years down the road.

So I guess the Morrill Tariff had nothing to do with it...or the fact that the South was disenfranchised completely in the election of 1860. Or that the previous 40 years or so had showed the South that the only way they had ANY representation in the government was by winning the Presidency. The South had a seperate culture and seperate values. Only a person with an agenda could say that the South's independence would've perpetuated slavery. Especially with people like Rudolph Diesel in diapers. "Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."...hmmm....why didn't Great Britain fold when the colonies seceeded?

Thats bull. You forget, for a moment that the two presidents before Lincoln were, at best supporters of maintaining the status quo, and at worst, outright slave supporters. You also forget that they managed to get compromise after compromise passed, and its only after they lost the Presidency due to a splitting of the vote, that they picked up their toys and went home.

There is your cause. Leadership of the Deep South then attacked Fort Sumter to draw in the Upper South--a region that was resisting secession.

I was under the impression that Sumter was attacked because Lincoln was trying to reinforce the fort, which I might add was smack dab in Charleston Harbor, one of the largest ports in the Confederacy. I didn't know that it was to draw North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, and Arkansas into the Confederacy? Actually, I was under the impression that these states did NOT join the Confederacy until after Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to put down the rebellion by force--most decidedly not simply after Sumter was bombarded. In fact, I'd like to see your source on this just in case my perception of the events were incorrect.

Here I was thinking Sumter got attacked because it was an enemy force on sovereign land...makes you wonder why Lincoln was so obstinate about keeping it...oh, yeah, forgot, it was a customs house, he needed the income.

What? I'm not even sure what that last bit if even referring to. If you mean, somehow, that Fort Sumter was essential to the Union for commerce, thats demonstrably untrue. The Union, after all, was the only one of the two to maintain its economy in a halfway working state throughout the war, partly because of foreign refusal to recognize the country, and also the inability of Confederate privateers to penetrate the blockade in a major way.

(Those poor folks didn't get to decide as the Cotton States decided for them.) The common man in the non-slaveholding regions of the South was largely Unionist in sentiment (East Tennessee, West Virginia, Northwest Arkansas, North Texas, parts of Central Texas, Northwest Georgia, etc.) They didn't volunteer for the most part...at least not for the CSA. The CSA conscripted them.

It seems you are claiming that non-slave owning whites universally supported the United States. Also, you imply that before the first Confederate conscription act the soldiers making up the Confederate Armed forces were slave holders. So is your argument that Confederate volunteers were all (or largely) slave holders? As they say on the eve-online forums, proof please.

The "STFU" incivility will get you nowhere except banned from editing. Nor are strawman arguments going to help. I didn't imply what you said, you are inferring wrongly. There are far too many sources to list. I suggest you pick up a few books on the ACW history of those regions, look up the county secession votes, and read the wiki articles that cover them as a starter. One doesn't have to be a slaveholder to have a strong vested interest in an institution so widespread and producing most of the income for a region. (Besides, most young men of military age would be less likely to personally own slaves, but even that misses my point.) The sentiment in much of the Upper South and in the Border States was one opposing secession (see their votes in the national election and rejection of secession prior to Sumter for sources) and opposing coersion. I could point to numerous accounts of unreliable conscript regiments from anti-secession/low percentage slaveholding regions of the South. Red Harvest (talk) 00:12, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I am not in disagreement that parts of the Confederacy had strong union sentiment. In fact, as I recall most of the Southern states had regiments in the Federal army as well as the Confederate. This is the part I specifically object to, or rather, question: "The common man in the non-slaveholding regions of the South was largely Unionist in sentiment". You've mentioned, I suppose two specific regions, and qualified this with "non-slaveholding regions." Having said that, largely I still feel that you are using isolated "pro-union" pockets of the South to suggest that all non-slave owners were unionist in sentiment. In addition I find it difficult to believe that the Confederate armed volunteers who were not slave owners were either--not old enough to own slaves, were otherwise slave owners, or were people who felt strongly enough about being tied instrumentally to slavery that they joined an armed rebellion only for the purpose of supporting slavery's existence. I'm a Political Scientist by trade, so I don't have the citation for you, but I'm sure that someone could tell us the exact slave owning population of the Southern states. My intuition is that a good 90% of Southerners were not slave owners, and I'm also guessing that the 10% or so that were did not constitute all, a large majority, or even a large minority of enlisted volunteers in the Confederate army. I could be wrong, and am open to a source that tells me otherwise. Don't just tell me to open A book. Tell me which book, and which pages specifically. Unless I see that, I think your interpretation betrays a strong bias. As for the comment that you suggested will get me banned from editing, I'm new to this so I'll remove it. However, its an idiomatic expression borrowed from another online community. If you can't handle idiomatic expressions such as this (whose widespread use on the internet is well known), my suggestion to you is that you keep your research off of the internet and confined to academic publications. -S

My suggestion to you is to actually study the matter before requesting sources for everything. It is not our responsibility to spoon feed you on discussion pages--especially when the information is available within Wikipedia already. Take the percentage slave ownership for example, it is already available and documented and you are nowhere close to being correct in your assumption. See the Slavery in America page for a source. The source illustrates that slave ownership was 49% of households in Mississippi, 46% in South Carolina, etc. and I've seen the same presented in various peer reviewed books. (And yes, you can readily calculate it yourself using the 1860 Census.) Or if you don't like that source, look up DeBow's Review--a contemporary nationally known Southern editor who published the same result in defense of slavery's importance to the South using the same census data.

At present you are arguing primarily against things that are well documented over scattered sources. Rather than using your "intuition" and demanding that we guide you around, do your own leg work first, then ask about what you can't find. I'm not posting "original research" in the articles. I can and do source the material. Red Harvest (talk) 04:50, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I am not sure how they do things in the Academic discipline known as History, but in the world of Political Science you cannot simply make claims and leave them floating in the air without support. Especially when arguing over specific facts. Your lack of willingness to provide citations, links, etc here leads me to believe that you do little else than appeal to your own authority, ironic considering the fondness you have of accusing others of formal logic fallacies.

Additionally, like it or not, wiki is NOT an academic source, and should NOT be used to support your arguments. If anything comes from this discussion it should be that the nature of wiki pages necessitates a particular use for wikipedia which is NOT as an academic source. Any argument that you make here using citations is original research, even if it appears only as a lit review.

Finally, I will say one more thing and get off of your back. I appreciate your attempt to actually cite particular books, and the 1860 census. However, the burden of proof is yours. It is very poor form to just drop whole books, sets of data, etc as a source. You need to find EXACTLY where these texts support your argument and show me where to find them (i.e. url or page number for articles and books). It is most decidedly NOT my responsibility look for your evidence in vague locations. And for god's sake, don't use wiki as a source meeting academic standards. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Revolutionarythought (talk • contribs) 21:51, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Please sign your comments.

I am not going to spend hours hunting down all the bits that I've read for an audience of one. Since I'm not rewriting an article to include them I'm not going to make your personal Wikipedia for you. When I'm writing an article I hunt down page numbers and quote or paraphrase, and I do so for discussions if the info should be added. While wiki is not a source itself, the sources are in the articles for those who want to look further--that's why I said to look there for the source. The articles provide a starting point and some bibliography for those unfamiliar with the subject.

The onus is actually on you to prove the historical consensus incorrect since the basis and citations are provided in the article. So far we are hearing "intuition", "guesses", and various POV based arguments presented as stating the article was incorrect/non-neutral (often unrelated to the matter of causation such as right/wrong, your personal POV of Lincoln), but you have yet to do the sort of citing necessary to make your points (or make them relevant)--the very thing you are decrying in this discussion and in spite of references being cited in the actual article here and the sub-article.

First of all, get your facts straight before you decide to engage in ad hominem attacks. I have never once offered my point of view on ANYTHING here, other than yourself. I would like you to find a single place where I expressed an opinion about President Lincoln, or anything for that matter other than your poor argumentation. You cannot, because I have not.

The only thing that I have done here is questioned your data and asked for a source--something you have been completely unwilling to provide. When you do provide sources, they are vague, rely on the wiki, or when I actually look at them they provide me with information that seems contrary to your points.

For example, checking the US census data I was able to "do the math for myself." In the slave owning states 36% of whites owned slaves. The 49% you cite, and imply is indicative of the entire south, applies only to two states. The rest of the states, including most of those in the Confederacy, had a significantly lower percentage of the population owning slaves. Including in some states such as Missouri where only 13% of the population owned slaves. However, I'm sure you'll tell me, without sources of course, that this 13% made up most of the population in Missouri that took up arms for the Confederacy.

And we won't even get into the breakdown of who owned how many slaves. You've made your point though right? Without really connecting your statistics to enlistment rolls, just vaguely because you've said so, the majority Confederate volunteers were slave owners and the ones that weren't were "too young" to be slave owners (sic).

You also implied further down that the Confederate constitution made it virtually impossible for the South to ever end slavery. However, actually examining the constitution shows that it is amendable in a similar way to the United States constitution. I'm sure you wouldn't argue that the United States constitution would have made it impossible for the United States to end slavery, change how Senators are selected, or given Women the vote. My point is that you are intentionally misleading with your facts, and as far as I can tell make spurious claims you only vaguely intend on supporting.

You have also made outlandish and completely unsupported statements such as slavery would have continued for the next "80 years" had the Confederacy won the ACW. When asked for support for this bold, and highly speculative claim, you simply ignored me.

You cannot "pass the buck," as it were, to me here. As stated above, I've asked for information, sources, clarifications, and support for your arguments. You've provide a very few. You've also attacked me personally, threatened to have me "banned," repeatedly appealed to your own authority, and thrown about phrases like "straw man." I asked for sources and support for your arguments, and you have a million reasons why you don't have to support yourself, and why I'm such a bad person for asking.

That's not fair, and I'm sure other people here notice it.

I'm also curious why it is so important that I "sign" my posts/edits? You can clearly see that it was I who did the edit, and to be honest I haven't figured out how to "sign" my edits yet. Strangely though, I don't see how that would give you any more information than my edit note (which I've set to appear with every edit I make).

Cheers, Scott (do you want my university association too, since you seem all keen on knowing about me?)

-rev 04:32, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

edit* next time you tell someone to sign their comments, be sure to sign yours. :-P —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.195.83.254 (talk) 04:11, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

—Preceding unsigned comment added bRevolutionarythought (talk • contribs) 03:55, 11 March 2008 (UTC) 

Actually I did sign my comments, but your editing pushed my sig below, so don't blame me for your editing. (If you doubt it, go back and check the logs.) I didn't threaten to personally ban you, I warned you what will happen if you start throwing out "STFU" as a standard tactic. And my facts were straight. I pointed out two states of the Deep South because they were so incredibly high. At least you've finally taken a look at the source to get an understanding of where your intuition/basis was so wrong. By the way, Missouri didn't secede, its convention rejected it 98-1. The exiled legislature had enough of a quorum to pass an ordinance, but the Missouri Constitution did not give them the authority to do so. (And by that time their seats had already been declared vacant by the elected Constitutional Convention.) The records of the Missouri convention, exiled Missouri legislature, etc. are available as free Google downloads and you can see Wiki for articles with citations.

In the CSA Constitution states had no right to end or restrict slavery within their own borders. So only by a vote of 2/3rds of all the CSA states legislatures could slavery be ended in any state. You can dismiss all of that as an insignficant hurdle as you like, but historians do not. There are at least four clauses that firmly intrench slavery.

Again, United States history provides an ample number of counter points to this argument. Nobody ever asserted that there wouldn't have been institutional hurtles to ending slavery. What we are talking about is YOUR assertion that it would have been "night impossible" to end slavery (sic).

That clearly is not the case. Either that or you are equivocating on the meaning of the phrase "nigh impossible."

128.195.83.254 (talk) 05:59, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

As for the diversion on who was in the army, it completely misses the point and is the result of a strawman that wasn't posed by me originally. The war being over the slave system does not require ownership of slaves by all those present (which you or someone said was required). Logical fallacy. It is the dependence of the region that is the primary correlation. The regional distinctions and low percentage of slave ownership in those regions of low slave ownership is well established. (There are no perfect correlations, nor should they be expected.) Read up on each region and you will find I'm not blowing smoke. The beauty of the current age is that you can cross check the distribution versus mainstream historical works by using census browsers to see it county by county. That helps when you doubt statements in a given reference or suspect something misleading.

Perhaps there is room for us to come to an agreement on this point. It was never my intention to challenge the actual cause of the actual acts of succession (though I do believe there were other contributing independent variables other than just slavery). At some point it appeared to me that you were arguing that the people who chose to fight in the Confederate army did so specifically to support slavery. The ones that didn't clearly support slavery you, at some point, suggested were all conscripted. This did not seem right to me, and I asked if you had support for that. You then seemed to try and support that claim by suggesting that all non-slave owning whites in the south were pro-union. That was the genesis of the disagreement.

I doubt it bears repeating, but I think if you are trying to make a claim that those who did volunteer for Confederate service did so because of an instrumental attachment to the institution of slavery, you are going to need a lot more than the 1860 census to support your claim.

128.195.83.254 (talk) 05:59, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

If you weren't the original poster of the other diversion then I'm sorry. Your similar arguments, editing style, and strawmen, and the difficult to follow carving up of comments has made it very difficult to determine who said what.

There you go accusing me of arguments from the position of a straw man again. I dare say, that you should show me where I'm engaging this behavior (support yourself), otherwise it is you engaging in straw man argumentation, and arguments from ad hominem ta' boot. Perhaps it just you have me continually confused with someone else? ;-)

128.195.83.254 (talk) 05:59, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

This has been more caustic than I would have liked, but you set the tone with that STFU that you since edited out. If you had actually done any of what you said the rest of us should be doing for your benefit, we wouldn't be having this discussion. I do expect you to be able to use a browser and check mentioned articles and their references without you having a snit over it. I don't think that is setting the bar too high. I'm not going to list 50 books with page references on each to amuse you when there are articles out there that can accomplish the same. Red Harvest (talk) 05:21, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I did remove the STFU comment once I was aware you were offended by it. You should have paid attention to how it was used, however. It was contained in the idiomatic expression "proof or stfu." That expression is commonly used elsewhere on the internet, and unlike just a floating "STFU" it isn't directed at you personally. You should think of it more like the expression "**** or get off the pot." For the sake of not offending anyone else though, I will refrain from using either expression here in the future.

As far as supporting yourself, I still think you need to do a better job at it here. I understand the desire to not have to write a paper every time you post on the internet, but when you are making claims to make an argument they require factual support. That's the whole point of the discussion page I would think. So its not enough to just say "slavery would have continued for 80 years." I might as well just say that the British government would have made freeing of the slaves a condition for future cotton purchases.

If I said that, I'd hope you'd challenge me on *why* I had that position. And I would hope if I just said "follow the link on wiki pages" you'd challenge me further.

128.195.83.254 (talk) 05:59, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Since my reading of the subject tends to be more granular and state-by-state rather than general, it is difficult to provide any single source for things such as who controlled the majority of CSA or Upper or Deep South state government, yet I could quote several good books on several states to back the claims with accompanying data with respect to individual governments.

As I said from the outset, there are things that probably should be done to tighten up the causes section of this article with a mention of other less accepted views, but that doesn't make what is presented an incorrect description of the historical consensus. Red Harvest (talk) 01:01, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

This is comparable to the North's conscriptions? Or offers to the victims of the potato blight to fight for instant citizenship?

Both sides had conscription. Whats your point?

3,4,5. Are all attempts at externalizing and running off into the weeds. What the Northerners thought of the races is irrelevant to the cause of secession. Northerners and Lincoln in particular stood on the platform of stopping the expansion of slavery into the territories.

It's absolutely relevant when it was widely thought in the South that Northerners were hypocrites...which contributed to the overall division. (see Illinois and Ohio's "black codes") Lincoln stated repeatedly, most notably in his inaugural address, that he intended to protect slavery where it exists. In the Lincoln-Douglas debates he unequivocally stated his position on white supremacy. The War Between the States was about money...as all wars have been before and since. Trying to use an encyclopedic article to paint one side or the other as being on the moral high ground is exactly what the NPOV policy is for.

The fact that North wasn't a paragon of modern day racial enlightenment, doesn't mean the existence of abolitionist sentiment, and in fact, the overhwelming political power of radical abolitionists, was insincere. Admittedly Lincoln was not most abolitionists first pick (he was challenged, vigorously, by a more ardent abolitionist for the Republican nomination in the 1864 election), but in the end he came around and supported the abolishment of the system. Your attempt to portray Lincoln as some sort of static figure, who never changed his mind, is absurd.

6. I don't see how foreign accounts would be better than the reasons given by Southerners themselves leading up to the war.

Perhaps they wouldn't be more objective...but the chances are much better. In the same diatribe it's asserted that the foreigners were aristocratic so they supported the South, yet previously they'd already freed their slaves. Pick one.

No. I said foreign aristocrats were supporters of the South. Big difference. Most of the abolitionist sentiment and support in England came from the working classes, as it did in most other countries.

(Post-war revisionism by Confederates is suspect of course, as would be post-war claims that the North went to war to emancipated the slaves...yet folks aren't making the latter assertion.) Red Harvest (talk) 19:12, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Historical Revisionism is a myth. There is only History. It either happened or it didn't. If this article just stuck to a balance of the facts that either side can present....then it'd be NPOV. Be reasonable, if you buy into the Northern version of history, then you are making three assertions:

1. The South was populated almost completely with evil people...and still is. 2. The North embraced minorities and died in droves simply for altruism. 3. Secession is illegal.

I think logic would dictate that no reasonable person could prove that any of those things are true.

No one's suggesting your convenient strawmen above. But since you've written more in the talk page than actual verifiable, cited material in this or another Civil War article, I'm going to leave it at that.SiberioS (talk) 01:28, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

"You seem intelligent enough to know that VPs at the time were the reciever of the minority vote, not the running mate of the Pres."

That system of awarding the Vice Presidency to the runner-up in the Presidential election had not been used in the United States since the passage of the Twelth Amendment in 1804. The CSA adopted the U.S. Constitution's amended procedure for electing the President and Vice President of the Confederate States (see Paragraph 3, Section 1, Article II of the C.S. Constitution), not the original procedure under which the Vice President was the loser to (and presumably political rival of) the President. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 139.76.64.67 (talk) 01:47, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Italic textI could be wrong here, but I was under the impression that Alexander Stephens and Jefferson Davis were not "elected" as such, but were rather (given the circumstances of the governments formation) chosen by the provisional Confederate congress. This is not to impugn, necessarily, your assertion that Stephens spoke for the "entire Confederacy," just an observation. Its also interesting that Stephens broke with the Davis later during the war.Italic text —Preceding unsigned comment added by Revolutionarythought (talk • contribs) 21:24, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Kindly get an account or otherwise sign your posts so that it is clear who is saying what. I definitely do not want my comments confused with yours and I doubt you want that either. Also, please separate your comments rather than hacking up others" blocks of text.

Now in response to several of your assertions. Historical revisionism by Confederates is no myth; there is a rather strong historian consensus about that as well. But one need not rely solely on the analyses of others. It is sometimes more useful to read folks' comments before the war and after then weigh the comments of later historians.

Your last three numerated points are called "strawman" arguments and none of them are ones I made. 1. You are free to pass your own judgement about whether doing things that supported slavery or a slave based economy (North or South) was good or evil, but one doesn't need to do so in order make an objective determination to conclude the causes as stated by the participants themselves. Rather than indicating a problem in my logic, or the consensus of historians it instead reveals a problems with subjectivity and anachronistic reviews that compel you to defend their actions in today's world or to brand them "evil" yourself. (It is a Catch 22.) 2. Irrelevant. It has not been asserted that the majority of the North went to war to emancipate slaves or because Northerners were fundamentally good, non-racist, etc. It is absolutely certain that both parties believed Lincoln would end the expansion of slavery into the territories. That plank was the initiator of immediate secession by the South. 3. I don't have to conclude whether or not secession was illegal in order to recognize why it occurred. The motive for it was independent of its legality/constitutionality.

Backing up to your counterpoints: A. The Morill Tariff was passed by the Senate March 2, 1861, months AFTER states of the Deep South began seceding and a month after the CSA was formed. It was not mentioned prominently in secession declarations (I recall Georgia being the only one.) B. The South was not at all disenfranchised. They still had over representation thanks to the 3/5ths rule. They still got to vote and have representation. They didn't get to assign their sectional candidate to the Presidency. That's the way elections work, one's own party doesn't always win.

You said, "The South had a seperate culture and seperate values. Only a person with an agenda could say that the South's independence would've perpetuated slavery." Actually, their own self-written (by the Cotton States) CSA Constitution would have made it well nigh impossible to end slavery (read it.) They had become increasingly militant over slavery rather than decreasingly so. If they truly believed that slavery's end was night, then there was no reason to deliver ultimatums about slavery in the territories. And the South was dependent on cheap labor for cotton and peanut production for the next 80 years until mechanical harvesters were finally developed for more challenging crops like cotton. (Living in the Deep South Cotton Belt I'm perhaps more attuned to that.) Most of "Southern culture" appears to have revolved around a planter agrarian economic system and an enforced caste system and aristocratic flare. I've been at a loss to define what made it "Southern" without including those aspects. It was the slaveholding population that held nearly all political offices in the South.

The rest of the things mentioned were irrelevant rehash. Red Harvest (talk) 02:05, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Interestingly, and assuredly off point, I'm interested in the following comment you've made here "the South was dependent on cheap labor for cotton and peanut production." Are the labor costs contained in chattel slavery less than the costs of labor in a capitalist labor market (such as the one used by the Northern states?) My intuition is probably not, as slavery only makes sense in regions where it makes economic sense. This is in no way meant to suggest that slavery was good, or justified.

I also would like a source on your assertion that the South would have necessarily been dependent on chattel slavery, economically speaking "for the next 80 years." Your assertion that the slave holding population held most of the political offices in the South makes intuitive sense, but I'd still like to see a source on this (even the most basic and prima facia true statements need documented proof). Lastly, whether or not the South thought that slavery's end was near, or no, has nothing to do with the number of ultimatums issued regarding territories. Another interpretation of the same evidence could be that it was precisely because they saw the end of slavery on the horizon that slave holding states became militant in regards to the institution, and the loss of political power that came with new "free" states.

Lastly I am going to challenge your assumption that it would be "night impossible to end slavery" under the Confederate constitution. After reading the document, as you suggested, I found two references protecting the institution of slavery; however, the amendment procedure is similar to the United States constitutional amendment procedure. You'd might as well argue that it would have been impossible for the United States to change its rules on the selecting of the president and vice president, or on the election of the Senate. It was not impossible, based on what I've read in said document, for the Confederate constitution to be amended in such a way as to abolish slavery.

Please don't feel that I fall within the group of people who would be collectively known to you as "Southern Revisionists." I am not. I however, do not think that anyone should be given an academic free ride because I'm sympathetic to their position.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Revolutionarythought (talk • contribs) 03:17, 10 March 2008 (UTC) 

We are getting very far afield and well past what should be in a talk page. I haven't provided sources as I'm not changing the text in the article to reflect the points being discussed. Examining basic theory: The labor costs of chattel slavery are certainly less than in an open capitalist labor market, simply because the laborer has no "wage" leverage and no opportunity to advance his wages. Northern laborers did not want this competition as it would depress their wages (search and you can find plenty of sources for that.) Tredegar's proprietor Anderson used slave labor to bust a strike and reduce his costs (reference: Dew's Ironmaker of the Confederacy.) What I've read on the subject points to the barrier being the capital intensive nature of slavery--hence it's application primarily in cash crops to maximize return. This has been explained in various works as the reason that subsistence farmers had little use for slaves, the capital cost made for poor return. With respect to cotton, the South was dependent on a system closely related to chattel slavery for the next 80 years for the production of the same crops. There are a plethora of sources of discussing the semi-feudal/serf like system that persisted until the 1960's--that much you can find in any study leading up to the Civil Rights Era. A search will turn up the date of invention/production of the first successful mechanical cotton harvesters (I first read of the technical aspects in Invention and Technology but the issue is boxed at the moment) as well as when they were implemented.

The slaveholders did also hold most of the Southern political offices according to a study I read of it a few years ago but have not found again (and I've been looking off and on because the result was even stronger than what I suspected and something I wanted to examine further.) To my recollection it showed percentage slave owner in ca.1860 against office holders from state representatives, state senator, and U.S. Representatives and governor all the way to U.S. Senator. The lowest level was above that of the general population and increased with each step to ~95% at the level of U.S. Senator.

The way your are doing frequent add on intermediate edits, failing to sign posts etc, makes it impossible to have a coherent discussion, so I'll end my participation now. Red Harvest (talk) 04:23, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I have to admit that the "reason" given for the war as being slavery is not true. Delaware and Kentucky had slaves until the Thirteenth Amendment ended slavery nationwide. The Emancipation Proclamation (see that page in wikipedia) ended slavery in states that had left the union IF those states did not return to the Union by a set date. What would have happened if those states HAD returned to the Union? Nobody looks at that--wonder why? Federal Power over State power--power unified by a single federal authority that had power OVER the states versus States having power themselves. Slavery was one of those rights the states wanted the right to determine. Note that I do agree slavery is wrong. However, providing false information and "facts" is not justifying outlawing slavery. Give the truth. ----Manos Lijeros

You seem to have forgotten about Maryland and yes even New Jersey who didn't totally give up their slaves until the 13th Amendment was ratified. Oh, I know some of the folks from "the South was Evil" crowd will say "but New Jersey wasn't considered a slave state". Tell that to the poor souls that were still held as slaves there. Tell them how lucky they were to live as slaves in a "Free State". Sf46 (talk) 04:14, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Spare us the crocodile tears Sf46, with you and your "I wish I was in Rhodesia" nonsense on your userpage. I'm not going to bother responding to most of your statements, or the prior poster, since they are dealt with effectively elsewhere. But I will address the issue of New Jersey, and its long road to ending slavery. Unlike other slaveholding states, notably in the deep south, New Jersey's slave population was outnumbered, vastly, by its free black population. Manumission, which had been banned in a number of Southern states, was not only still legal in New Jersey, but was made increasingly easier as time went on. You also forget to mention that by the final adoption of abolition in 1866, there existed almost no slaves in New Jersey. Records for 1850 suggest a grand total of 226 slaves in the whole of New Jersey.

That said, as we all know, the struggle for equality did not end there. Despite the manumission of thousands of slaves, and the eventual abolition in 1866, free blacks still lived under what were comparable restrictive laws until the 1950's/60's when such laws were overturned and rendered null and void. This is not to say northerners are free from the stain of racism, or are saints, or their legislative and governing bodies are equally virtuous. But that says little in the defense of Southern behavior;two people doing the same dumb thing in two geographic locations does not make it right or "understandable". So your moral argument is a wash anyways. SiberioS (talk) 20:30, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

No, I think you just made my argument for me there, Siberio, thank you very much. Sf46 (talk) 00:04, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, actually I have made your argument. I have made your argument before numerous times. One only need look at the work done on the Military History of African American's in the U.S. Civil War, to see, that yes, in fact, I have done a majority of the work on that page, including the debate over slave emancipation in the Confederacy. In fact, your contributions to any page, vis a vis the amount you write on the talk pages in damn near negligible. So yes, I have made yours, and other Lost Cause avengers arguments, because I actually write articles, not merely complain about them on the talk page. SiberioS (talk) 00:13, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

As written, the "Civil liberties" section is incomplete, somewhat one-sided, and even misleading. I think the most important fact not mentioned inthat the CSA was at war. Didn't Lincoln suspend parts of the Bill of Rights during the War? War is an extreme situation, and really no indication of whether or not this would be the norm during peacetime. Some explanation of this from reliable sources needs to be mentioned here. - BillCJ (talk) 00:37, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Neely, who is the source for the brief section on the Civil liberties section, is as reliable a source as any. When you get right down to it, both the CSA and USA were at war, and both sides made comparable decisions with respect to civil liberties. Of course it was the South (with the acquiescence of Northern Democrats) that suppressed the free discussion of abolitionist policy before the war which could be mentioned in the article to provide more context. I believe that separate articles should be written on both sides treatment of civil liberties during the war, and I may at some point get around to doing that. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 00:59, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

My Key word: "as written". Neely's book may be as reliable and objective as they come, but one wouldn't know it from the section. Also, I wasn't infering that Neely wasn't a reliable source, only stressing that I wouldn't just rewrite the comments I gave and stick it in text! - BillCJ (talk) 01:16, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

What is there about the section "as written" that suggests that Neely is not reliable and objective. I'm pretty sure that by the time a reader gets to that section of the article they are perfectly aware that the CSA was at war for its entire existence. Do you disagree with the accuracy of anything that is actually written? Do you have evidence from some reliable source that, in fact, the CSA took unusual efforts in a time of war to protect civil liberties? What sources do you rely on in analyzing the CSA and civil liberties and what do you feel should be added from your review of these sources to bring balance to the article?Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 01:27, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

the CSA took unusual efforts in a time of war to protect civil liberties - What did I say that gave you the impression that that is what I am arguing for? Maybe I should start over:

1. I do not doubt that Neely is a reliable source, nor do I doubt that wht is writen in the piece is true.
2. My only problem is that the section (not Neely's book, which I have not nor ever will read) lacks perspective. Both the CSA and the USA during the CW limited civil liberties. THat was not unusual for the time. The USA rstored civile liberties; the CSA did not exist after the war, and therefore never had a post-war period in which to resotre civil liberties, slavery not withstnding.
3. As written, the section gives the impression that this would be the norm in peacetime. The source's reliability is not my issue here, only the limited perspective given by the quote and section. Perhaps the book is just as limited in its presentation, or perhaps not.
4. I am asking questions that I had from the reading of the section that were not answered by the section. I'm not pretending to know all the answers in any way, nor do I know sources that can redily answer my questions. If I did, I would have simply added in the clarifications myself with citations.
5. You haven't even attempted to answer or refute my questions in any way, but have focused a a defense of Neely, when I haven't even "attacked" him directly. I've never said he wasn't a reliable source, even though I have seen no proof that he is one, nor have I looked for any.

I hope that clarifies my position here, but I somehow doubt it. I seem incapable of communicating my thoughts clearly here. - BillCJ (talk) 02:40, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

The brief section makes the point that (1) the arrest rates of the North and South were comparable and (2) that the restrictions on civil liberties were comparable except for the unique passport system implemented by the South. I don't see how you can conclude that there is a lack of balance. I have already said that I believe the section should be expanded. I don't believe that this expansion should include speculation about what the CSA might have done if it survived the war. If the existence of slave patrols, the restrictions on the mails, the fears of slave revolts, and the physical intimidation of dissent regarding slavery matters that existed throughout the South BEFORE THE WAR is any indicator, I would guess that maintaining slavery after the war (especially with the likelihood that the US would not be returning fugitive slaves and that agitation from the US for abolition would continue) would require some repressive measures. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 14:33, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Well said. There was quite a pre-war record of suppression of dissent throughout the south and amongst pro-slavery members of congress. And we can't speculate about what a post-war CSA might have done. DMorpheus (talk) 15:35, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

I wasn't asking for speculation, merely clarification that we don't know what peacetime would be like. Anyway, you've attempted to answer most of my questions (finally!), so I'll leave this issue alone for now

Btw, I actually found the so-called book by Neely online (I think it's the whole book - it's 28 pages, and not all are text), and will try to read it when I get a chance. - BillCJ (talk) 17:21, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Neely's major work on the subject is his 1999 work "Southern Rights: Political Prisoners and the Myth of Confederate Constitutionalism" (212 pages). He had earlier won the Pulitzer Prize for his work on the Union side of the issue in "The Fate of Liberty:Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties." Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 19:06, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

I removed this text from the article:

Several states, including Virginia, ended slavery before the end of the war^[1].

This cite is a reference to an action by the Restored government of Virginia, which was the pro-Unionist rump government in the areas of Virginia which were under Union control. It was the RGVA's 1864 Constitution of Virginia which abolished slavery in the state (and disfranchised former Confederate government officials). The RGVA also recognized the secession of West Virginia, making the creation of WV legal under the U.S. Constitution's Article IV, Section 3--if, that is, you accept the RGVA's premise that the Virginia state government which voted to secede was "in rebellion" and could thus be lawfully supplanted by a Unionist state government. 68.217.101.19 (talk) 06:51, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I thought I had deleted it.... The new paragraph is filled with half-truths. I deleted most of the rest of it - and may delete the rest about Lee & Jackson too. I grow tired of checking all these false claims - they take far longer than outright vandalism to check --JimWae (talk) 07:18, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

This line is highly specious "Several notable Confederates were not supporters of the cause of slavery (e. g. Robert E. Lee[7] and Stonewall Jackson[8])." Stonewall Jackson OWNED slaves. The fact that he was more enlightened about their treatment doesn't mean he didn't support the instiution. The same goes for Rober E. Lee; while he only came into slave ownership through marriage, his opinion was decidedly muddled about it. If you want an example of a prominent Confederate who either disliked or didn't care enough about slavery to seek its abolishment, see Patrick Cleburne and his attempts at emancipation. SiberioS (talk) 07:09, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

To further prove my point I take this quote from one of the sources that claims that Jackson was not a proponent of slavery "Jackson fought for the constitutional rights of the South and any one who imagines he fought for slavery knows nothing of Jackson. The rights of the South included the slaves and he fought for the South" This has to be the most tortured tautology ever. The South stood for, amongst other things, slavery, yet Jackson, who was not a low level conscript, but a highranking officer, did not somehow approve of one of its own core tenets? Absurd. This kind of beating around the bush allows other such weasel statements to creep up into discussion on the civil war; namely that people "just fought for their homes". This is taking a rather dim view of one's ability, even in an age before television and rapid news, to understand what the political discourse of the country was. Most people knew (in fact they had elected most of their representatives for this reason) what the sectional issues were tearing the country in two. SiberioS (talk) 07:24, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

"The South" was not then, and is not now, a set of tenets. It's a place that doesn't stand for things and has been around since the waters receded. The CSA, on the other hand, was a specific state that existed for a few years. We should try to use the right terminology to avoid misidentifying or over-generalizing. CSA officers may well have been fighting primarily for "their homes", their place in society, their state and its rights, or even just for personal honor and glory. Participating in a practice (such as slavery) while disapproving of it, or even wishing it to be abolished, is one of the great human traditions. Whatever their personal feelings the CSA armed forces were fighting to maintain a pro-slavery government and no one would say that they or their generals did so half-heartedly. In the cases of two of the CSA's most important generals, Lee and Jackson, their personal feelings on the slavery issue were notably (though not loudly) different than that of the political forces for whom they fought. I think it's worth mentioning that even those Southerners who had objections to slavery still rallied to the CSA's flag. However we shouldn't make too much of it. In this article it shouldn't be more than a short sentence or even just a clause. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 08:46, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

For what it's worth, may I suggest we be a lot more cautious about using the term "the south" or "southerners" or even "slave holding states" synonymously with "the confederacy"? Even if we define the south as those states in which slavery was legal and commonly-practiced in 1861 (thus leaving out Delaware, for example) it is clear that at least half the population of 'the south' probably never supported the confederacy. Four border slave states remained in the Union. One-third of the population of the confederacy were slaves. Taken together these two groups are about half of the 'southern' population.

A brief look at the differences between the CSA consitution and the original US one make it abundantly clear what the CSA was about - slavery. That some southern slaveholding states nevertheless would not leave the union to join this coalition says a lot.

The tendency to write "the south" when we mean "the confederacy" obliterates this very important point IMHO.

Regards, DMorpheus (talk) 13:49, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Looking back over what I wrote, ya, I can see where the use of the term "the South" gets all sorts of slippery. I agree that the language that should be consistently used is the CSA, to avoid getting muddled and into larger arguments about what the south is or is not. SiberioS (talk) 17:18, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I added additional material to the cause of secession section. In doing this, I removed the sentence referring to Davis' Inaugural Address. A leap of faith was made that because he did not mention slavery in the speech, therefore secession was about something else. An equally logical conclusion to be drawn from this is that Davs did not intend to discuss the "whys" of secession and that his references to states' rights issues was an attempt to justify the legality rather than the reason for secession. In any event, the primary document (the speech) does not support the conclusion drawn -- a reliable secondary source providing interpretation needs to be provided if the omitted section is restored. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 14:31, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

SF46 readded the material previously reverted. I was about to revert it again but DMorpheus beat me to it. This is the material from the section “Causes for secession” that has now been removed twice:

“Several notable Confederates were not supporters of the cause of slavery (e. g. Robert E. Lee[9] and Stonewall Jackson[10]). Many Confederates simply fought to defend their home communities. Slaves also fought for the Confederacy, knowing that the Union was invading their ground, too[11].”

Unlike Stephens, Davis, the newspaper articles, and the ministers mentioned elsewhere in the article, Lee and Davis never spoke publicly on the merits of slavery -- whatever their private feelings were, they were not part of the public debate. Indeed, as late as January 1865 Lee would write (see http://www.sewanee.edu/faculty/Willis/Civil_War/documents/LeeHunter.html):

“Considering the relation of master and slave, controlled by humane laws and influenced by Christianity and an enlightened public sentiment, as the best that can exist between the white and black races while intermingled as at present in this country, I would deprecate any sudden disturbance of that relation unless it be necessary to avert a greater calamity to both.”

This sounds like Lee’s preference is for the maintenance of the status quo. In fact, Lee’s position on slavery is nuanced and cannot be reduced to a simple sound byte in this article. The same with Jackson -- James Robertson Jr. in his exhaustive biography of Jackson wrote (pg. 91):

“Jackson nether apologized for nor spoke in favor of the practice of slavery. He probably opposed the institution. Yet in his mind the Creator had sanctioned slavery, and man had no moral right to challenge its existence.”

Again, Jackson supported the status quo and, again, Jackson’s position is nuanced and not appropriate for inclusion in this article.

Why individuals may have fought for the Confederacy is irrelevant to why secession occurred in the first place. Obviously if the South had not seceded there would have been no need to “defend their home communities” from anybody. As far as the sentence sourced to Lamb, you have totally distorted what he actually said. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 22:57, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Another thing that should be mentioned, that I brought up before, is that, for the most part, the various fireeaters and other arch-secessionists were either elected or popularly supported by many in the states that would eventually form the crux of the CSA. The general tide of opinion of the public (and realized in the military by increasing desertions) wouldn't change until the middle of the war, when the Confederacy was faltering and issues within started to come to a boil. SiberioS (talk) 02:16, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

It is definitely irrelevant to the cause of secession. "Paternalism" as Lee and others believed in is separate from the decision to secede. There were many in the North who had similar attitudes toward Blacks, but they did not agree with unilateral secession.Red Harvest (talk) 02:54, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

This sentence does NOT need to be added back in, at least not with this cite:

Slaves also fought for the Confederacy, knowing that the Union was invading their ground, too.

The cite given is from here, but here is what the pages linked to actually have to say:

Black soldiers didn't fight in the Confederate army unless they were passing as white--some light-skinned blacks probably did. Some Confederate soldiers, especially officers, brought their body servants into the army, who in many cases had grown up with them and had been very close to them. On occasion, some of those body servants were known to have picked up a rifle and fought. But there was no official recruitment of black soldiers in the Confederate army until the very end of the war, when out of their desperate shortage of manpower, the Confederate Congress finally passed--by a sigle vote in the senate in March 1865--the so-called Negro soldier bill, which provided for the enlistment of slaves to fight for the Confederacy. Appomattox came only a few weeks later, and none of these men were ever put in uniform to fight.

So, the source says that

1.) "Black soldiers didn't fight in the Confederate army"

2.) Some blacks who were "passing" may have fought; but this is clearly purely speculative.

3.) Some Confederate officers had black servants. Occasionally, a slave who was owned by a Confederate officer would pick up a rifle and fight (I presume in the heat of combat).

4.) At the very end of the war, the Confederacy (grudgingly) agreed to enlist slaves, but the Confederates lost before anything could actually come of it.

This hardly supports the sweeping "Slaves also fought for the Confederacy, knowing that the Union was invading their ground, too", which sentence needs to stay dead unless someone can come up with a LOT better source for it. -- 68.217.101.19 (talk) 02:33, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't think you'd be happy with any source. The fact is, 30,000 to 60,000 blacks served freely with the Confederate forces; an uncomfortable fact for many. Too many people want to ignore the fact that not everyone who fought for the South liked slavery.--Bedford 02:41, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

If it's a fact, then give us a source. Those pages from Lamb's book linked to above certainly don't say anything about 30,000 to 60,000 blacks serving freely with the Confederate forces. -- 68.217.101.19 (talk) 02:45, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

I've yet to see any credible claim that "30,000 to 60,000 blacks served freely with the Confederate forces." Red Harvest (talk) 03:08, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

I'd love to see a cite for that as well. I'm wracking my library, but can't find a number in Amman or the OR. BusterD (talk) 03:59, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Northshoreman, you asked me to participate in this discussion, so here's what I have to say. We've had similiar discusions on the articles about: Confederate States Army, Confederate States Navy, Military history of African Americans, (did I miss any?). In each of these articles you, SiberioS, and Red Harvest have consistently deleted and reverted every shred of information I've added to those articles that did not fit your revisonist view of history. You at first stated that the information I added was not sourced. I sourced it. You then stated that it wasn't what you considered to be reliable sources. I then sourced the information with books as you suggested. You then stated that these books weren't to your liking either. The basic idea that I have from you is that if the information is not from the 1 or 2 sources that you deem to be acceptable AND does not fit your viewpoint, then it WILL be deleted. SIDENOTE: the last bit of information that was deleted was someone else's contribution to the article that I simply cleaned up the wording and sourced. I really think that at this point some type of controversy (or opposing) viewpoint section needs to be added to each of the 3 articles above that I listed and you need to ALLOW those who don't agree with you to express their opposing view in that section. Sf46 (talk) 20:17, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Wiki is not a soapbox. It's not there so one can put his/her personal spin on history (particularly in light of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.) Citing poor or extremist references, posting known fake images, misrepresenting what the sources say, and adding/re-adding information that is not relevant to the subject being discussed is a waste of everyone's time and effort in providing an article with NPOV. The claims made so far of many 10's of thousands of Blacks in Confederate service as combat troops are still unsupported. (Let alone the "freely" claim.) All the supposed sources cited so far have made wild extrapolations from a few handfuls of men. Credibility is at the core of the problem with the sources you cite. And the known Black state militia companies/regiments? The CSA would not accept them into Confederate service--yet even after this distintinction was established in discussions with you, you repeatedly added the CSA regiment category to the 1st LA Native Guard. Red Harvest (talk) 23:18, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

You say "Wiki is not a soapbox. It's not there so one can put his/her personal spin on history...." So why are YOU using it as a soapbox and forcing your personal spin?? Sf46 (talk) 01:44, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

It is not my personal spin. It is the mainstream historical view backed by a preponderance of evidence. If one is determined to make contrary claims about tens of thousands (not to mention extrapolating about "freely" or combat role) then one must be prepared to provide the requisite proof. So far that hasn't happened. Red Harvest (talk) 02:15, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

I've never used the numbers tens of thousands. If you check back through all the edit logs, you'll see that some other user first placed that information. I don't claim to know an exact number, but it is evident from all the sources I've used (and that you've deleted) that the number is greater than the "zero" number you want people to believe. Sf46 (talk) 02:34, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm not making a case for zero. I will however, use the CSA's own communications about the subject to maintain the number in a combat role was inconsequential and not sanctioned by the CSA. I will not apologize for removing obvious misrepresentations in your edits. Red Harvest (talk) 02:31, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Neither have I ever asserted zero. In fact, my edits (in fact my whole article) on the Military history of African American's article states, in the first paragraph, that the contribution of slave labor to the Confederate cause. What you want to do, Sf46, is neuter this whole discussion by either 1)removing the issue of black peoples status in the Confederacy or 2) suggesting that it was a more regular occurrence than it was or 3) making slaves look as almost in approval of slavery or Confederate policy towards that issue, something that not even the biggest slavery proponents believed by the end of the war. So yes, as long as there edits of that nature, I, or someone else, will revert them. SiberioS (talk) 04:37, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

However, when all the information is taken together, the points that you're trying to make are completely outweighed by contemporary historical research, past historical research, and even of-the-times military, governmental, and personal communications from both the North and the South. Yes, there was an example of an all-black company being raised in Richmond late in the war, however this was a small number (under 100), the war ended before they could fight, and the whites of Richmond came close to violent protest over the notion of blacks serving with their boys for their defense. Trying to make any claim that slaves served in the Confederate military in anything other than inconsequential numbers (i.e. - excluding personal servant and those forced to follow their masters) is completely against all records we have on the time period and the huge amount of research done on the topic of the Civil War.

As others have said, Wiki is not a soapbox meant to expound one's one revisionism or personal beliefs, and with all the information taken together, trying to claim that slaves fought for the Confederacy is almost the definition of soapboxing, especially when one looks at the almost 200,000 freedmen who fought for the Union during the war and the tens of thousands of slaves who following Union armies following their liberation. If, by some chance, you do find a source that shows that there were even so much as a few dozen slaves served the Confederacy willingly (beyond the training stage), that still wouldn't amount to such a broad statement as was originally made. For instance, there's an example of a New Englander who served as a Confederate general during the Civil War (whose name I just realized that I cannot remember), but that wouldn't mean you could make a credible statement about New England being a ready supplier of Confederate general officers.

Face it, you stance has no real grounding in reality, and you should actually count your position quite lucky that there isn't a far more negative stance on Wikipedia about the Confederacy's motives being almost overwhelmingly slavery-oriented rather than the myth over states rights intrusions, as many contemporary historians are beginning to see. Wikipedia's stance on the issue is actually fairly moderate when compared to the unsubstantiated claims you're making and the very scathing positions many are finding backing for today. RPH (talk) 05:41, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

The Confederacy never officially surrendered. Abraham Lincoln's emancipation proclamation did not free a single slave, but only a clever ploy to destroy the South's economy. I love it when Yankees try to gain affection from African Americans that Lincoln was pro-black. The Confederacy never surrendered, therefore it is still a country by any definition, and will be rebuilt. 128.32.77.88 (talk) 02:42, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

You have been warned on your talk page about the three revert rule -- the text you keep changing has been restored now by two different editors. i suggest you refrain from ay further editors until we see if anyone actually agrees with you. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 02:54, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

It is a widespread misconception that "Abraham Lincoln's emancipation proclamation did not free a singe slave", see the Emancipation Proclamation article on this point. PatGallacher (talk) 02:56, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

The website reference given: Confederate Government is about as legitimate as one of my favorite sites: Rhodesian Embassy in Iceland]. Both of these websites are devoted to telling the history of their respective countries from the point of view of that country and its citizens. While both are very interesting websites and may have some valid information that might be able to be used as a reference from a historical point of view, they are both just that historical sites for countries that no longer exist, be it for good or bad. Sf46 (talk) 03:02, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Few Wikipedians are as sympathetic towards the Confederacy as me, so let me make a few points.

1. The CSA was arguably recognized by the Vatican
2. It's been confirmed that Jefferson Davis conceded that the War was lost on May 2, 1865, after his remaining staff insisted it was.
3. Lee a traitor to the South? All he ever did was tell others to go home, that it wasn't worth the struggle.
4. The CSA, like Kosovo recently, may once again achieve independence, but WP is not a crystal ball.
5. True, the CSA was not racist (there were Latinos, Chinese, Free blacks, and Indians), but due to so many needing to believe it was, the issue has to be equivocated for now.--Bedford 03:09, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure what has to be "equivocated", a statement that seems to suggest that theres some for blind obstinance on the part of some editors that is either factually wrong or simply not backed up. If that, supposedly, is the case then certainly you must have the references and the evidence to prove otherwise. Complaining about it, when wikipedia is editable by all, seems a bit ridiculous. SiberioS (talk) 07:04, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

A state formed for the purpose of promoting and protectiong state-sanctioned, race-based slavery is by definition racist. Look at the Confederate Constitution if you doubt the primary purpose of secession. Racist does not apply to all inhabitants or soldiers any more than the reverse applies to the Union. Also, I should point out that Free Blacks had been ordered by Arkansas to leave the state as part of a new law. Rather than "so many needing to believe it was" racist one should be asking why so many of its modern defenders are inclined to claim it wasn't when it so demonstrably and verifiably was?Red Harvest (talk) 18:08, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

South Carolina and Virginia had outlawed free blacks long before the war; SC went so far as to prohibit the presence of black sailors, citizens of other states. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:29, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't think we are talking about quite the same thing. Virginia had 58,000 "free colored" persons as of the 1860 Census, South Carolina had 9,900. I'm not aware of a law kicking either population out of the state, but would be interested in reading about it. Arkansas had only 144 and soon passed an act ordering them to leave the state. Perhaps you are referring to laws to prevent free blacks from migrating into the state? Red Harvest (talk) 22:15, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

That was the declared rationale of the SC legislation, I believe, although compelling black sailors to sleep on shipboard seems excessive for immigration control. Are you really attempting, to return to the original topic, to claim that such legislation is not as racist as the Chinese Exclusion Act?

There was a grandfather clause in Virginia; the law did not automatically apply to slaves emancipated before about 1804, or their descendants, although in practice they could be removed. See Israel on the Appomattox : a southern experiment in Black freedom from the 1790s through the Civil War by Melvin Patrick Ely for one of the few exceptional colonies. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:29, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Immigration control is different than actually kicking those already legally there out of the state. That is what Arkansas was in the process of doing in 1860. Arkansas' law would make it so that all Blacks in the state would be slaves, no questions asked, no grandfathering or future births of current freedmen to confuse racial matters. (Yes, we have drifted off topic.) Red Harvest (talk) 05:38, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

That is stronger than what Virginia had long since done; but freed slaves had six months after emancipation to leave the state. Septentrionalis PMAnderson (sig added later)

For the record, Indiana also outlawed free blacks from inhabiting the state, and I do believe other northern states did as well. It wasn't just a southern thing to outlaw free blacks from residing in one's state.--Bedford 02:26, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

In Indiana there were over 11,400 in 1860, about 80 times as many as in Arkansas...a slave state. Red Harvest (talk) 02:54, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

More to the point, theres a false equivalence at play here. That if the North did something racist, it absolves the South of having chattel slavery. No ones arguing that the North was full of rainbows and daisies. What we ARE arguing however, is that the CSA supported supported slavery, sought its expansion into new territories, and increasingly restricted any attempt of dissent from slavery as an economic system. The North on the other hand, for a wide variety of reasons ranging from moral outrage at slavery to economic arguments, had moved away from it. SiberioS (talk) 22:43, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Let's not mix terms here though. There were slave states in the Union and the North such as Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware, and even in New Jersey (who was still ending slavery through attrition until 1865). If the whole entire or even major reason for the war as abolition, why allow these states on the Union side to continue slavery until the 13th Amendment? Sf46 (talk) 00:16, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

The Union wasn't fighting for abolition, not at the start at least, but the Confederacy was all about the preservation of slavery from the very beginning. And this isn't the article about the Union or its war aims, this is the article about the Confederate States of America. -- 68.19.119.190 (talk) 01:47, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

As stated above, the Union wasn't fighting for abolition (although some individuals were), but the CSA did secede in order to preserve slavery. And Siberio is correct about the false equivalency that gets trotted out every time this subject arises. In no war that I can think of has everyone on one side been inherently good and on the other everyone has been evil. Rather than trying to analyze this in a highly subjective individualistic way (good/evil), focus on the verifiable events and statements of the period and consider common motivations that drive all men--particularly preservation of perceived self interest whether economic, security, social, religious, or political in nature. Red Harvest (talk) 02:20, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

And again, I wrote "The North was moving away from it", and thats exactly why most of the border states ended up the way they did. The fact that many of them were moving towards either gradual emancipation or encouraging manumission etc paints them in direct contrast to many of the CSA states, whom either outlawed manumission, made illegal distribution of abolitionist materials, or otherwise reinforced slavery as an economic institution. Its notable to point out that many border state slaveholders would release their slaves into the military, take the piddly amount of cash they were offered for them (nowhere near their actual value, which would have probably bankrupted the US Treasury), and wash their hands of it. Most of them saw the writing on the wall and figured it was best to get out while the getting was good. Contrast this to CSA slaveholders, who were oft reluctant to let their slaves act as bondmens even though they were paid a considerable amount of money for them. The lack of a financial reward for manumission is probably one of the reasons why so many slave owners didn't agree to emancipation when the CSA finally did ask for slaves as troops. SiberioS (talk) 02:43, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

It should be noted that the cause for secession wasn't the cause for the war. The two are seperate issues. Typo26 (talk) 06:09, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

What? If there was no secession there would have not been a war of that scale. Hence, the cause of secession was the de facto cause of war. Are you ok? Beamathan (talk) 15:09, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

They are certainly not entirely separate issues, although Typo26 has a point. Sucession was not *sufficient* cause for war on either side. Once the initial group of states secceeded and formed the CSA, both sides then hoped that if war broke out it would happen in such a way as to favor their side. The CSA blundered by committing the first overt act of aggression, (firing on Sumter) and the war was on.

Having said that, the goals of the confederate government, as documented in their constitution above all, are clear enough. Succession and war were merely closely-related means to that end. DMorpheus (talk) 15:20, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Very little seems to be written in regard to the tariff and state's rights issues. Sf46 (talk) 16:08, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Maybe because they are mere smokescreens for the real issues. There is a lot of content on this and other talk pages. Regards, DMorpheus (talk) 16:10, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

It is not a "critical" point. Yes, the CSA could have refrained from attacking United States property and forces and could have tried a course to avert war, but it did not do so. The states of the Deep South chose unilateral secession and attempted to secure it through war. They could have chosen a different route to achieve their ends, but did not. Did they secede and go to war because of Tariffs? No. (The Nullificiation Crisis proved that wasn't worth it, the bluff was called.) Did it do so because some "States Right" that had been trampled on? No. The point of contention was slavery, other aspects were secondary. See the Crittenden Compromise--it's constitutional amendment proposals were all geared toward protecting slavery and trampling on the states rights of others with regards to the Fugitive Slave Law. The CSA constitution, written by the states of the Deep South reinforced slavery along the same basic lines as the Crittenden Compromise, but it did not eliminate tariffs, etc. Red Harvest (talk) 01:28, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

More to the point, when people harangue about tariffs, they conveniently forget to mention why it is the South hated tariffs. And thats because they grew cash crops that they would export, at a premium abroad, to be refined/manufactured. They were able to grow these crops at such a fantastic profit margin because of their use of slavery, which until mechanization, was the arguably the only way to produce such quantities at the prices they were sold. The tariff issue, in fact, BUTTRESSES the argument that secession was about maintaining a very specific economic system;cash crop agriculture using chattel slavery. SiberioS (talk) 04:38, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Many of you seem to contend that the issue is settled and while I've not changed the article out of fairness, I would like to point out that there is sufficient opposition to your northern-central version of history to warrant both sides being represented. As many of you are so quick to point out, the goal of wikipedia is not to be a display-case of personal opinion...and the issue of the causes of secession (slavery)...aren't the same as why the South fired on Ft.Sumter (trespassing.) No one can argue that by 1860 the North and the South had become two entirely distinct cultures. Throughout world history, situations such as these warrant secession. (recently, even, as in the balkans and the U.S.S.R.) What is unusual about this particular secession is that the parent country claimed to be a government of the willing, prior to the South's wanting disunion. Lincoln himself endorsed the right of secession early in his career. We must ask ourselves why there was such an imperative to maintain union? Why didn't the North simply walk away? Emancipation was not a war goal until well into the war. Why was union suddenly so imperative? New England states had threatened secession before. It wasn't even questioned whether or not they had the right to do so...all that was at issue was how to appease them to maintain the union. Rebellion? How is it rebellion when an overwhelming proportion of a population wants to self-govern? When someone asks you, "What caused the Civil War?" the correct answer would be: The South saw itself as a sovereign and independent country, and as such, the federal forces occupying charleston harbor were seen as not just trespassers, but invaders.

Having said that, allow me to say this: I'm not a revisionist. I KNOW that the reason for secession was the South's wish to perpetuate the institution of slavery. However, seceeding is not the same thing as rebelling...and it certainly doesn't automatically mean war.Typo26 (talk) 14:48, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Typo26, there is some to agree with, but you essentially walked a circle on the cause. "North-central version of history" is inaccurate and incorrect. In looking at the causes one must look at the South's reason for secession--that's not north-central, but south-central. If the Northern motivation for the war had been abolition then the focus would need to be on the North, but since that was not the motivation for most in the North to go to war the focus is instead on the side that started shooting. As you admit the purpose of the side that started shooting was to "perpetuate the institution of slavery." Federal forces had not invaded the Deep South in response to secession. Red Harvest (talk) 16:41, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

"Two distinct cultures" is not really accurate. It recognizes only the permission or abolition of slavery. The Upper South, Border States, and much of the Midwest were a blend or different altogether. There was however a distinct plantation culture that was completely dominant in the Lower/Deep South, still dominant in much of the Upper South and to a lesser degree in the border states.

To understand why the North would consider maintaining the Union imperative one need only consider whether an aggressive slave holding South could co-exist with the United States. Put yourself in the place of folks in each of the Northern and border states. Would you feel that your nation and future were severely threatened by that? Furthermore, if your candidates won a legitimate election and the supporters of the other candidates took actions not granted them in the Constitution, did not wait for adjudication, threatened you, etc. would you be inclined to let them do as they pleased? Or would you attempt to hold them responsible to their prior committments and agreements? Remember: The sticking point was over the expansion of slavery into the territories, not the maintenance of it in existing states. With that forming the basis for leaving, why would a Northerner believe that Southern states would not seize U.S. territory? (And in fact that is exactly what they attempted to do.) What is missing is any demonstration of the original CSA states (the Deep South) to peacefully co-exist rather than attempt to supplant or rend apart those unwilling to join them. Furthermore, most Northerners and even many if not most in the Border States and Upper South did not recognize a Constitutional right of secession (such as Robert E. Lee.) Most believed in a right to revolution against tyranny...but where was the tyranny? Revolution was of course outside the actual bounds of the Constitution.

As for "trespassing". You can't trespass on your own property, and Fort Sumter was Federal property. The attack was unprovoked and demonstrated that there was no chance for peaceful coexistence. Southern interests had seized most other Federal property at gunpoint already, but the Federal caretakers had not resisted. Red Harvest (talk) 16:41, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

It was made quite clear to the Lincoln administration that any attempt to resupply Sumter would be considered an act of war. So how again was it unprovoked? Typo26 (talk) 00:04, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Thats the equivalent of stealing an apple from someone, and then threatening to shoot them when they take it back.SiberioS (talk) 06:47, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

It is unprovoked because the ships were only resupplying, not taking offensive action. Your approach is the same as calling the Berlin Airlift an act of war. Barring offensive action by the fort or its supply vessels, neither South Carolina, nor the Confederacy had any right to deny passage of Federal ships to it. By the logic you are using, Typo, the fort would have been just as justified in firing on South Carolina for building siege works or anything else deemed treasonous. South Carolina was not allowed by the Constitution to make treaties with any foreign entity or to cooperate one in taking military action against the United States or inividual states. Whether or not SC felt it had repudiated its own word in ratifying the Constitution, there were many more parties involved in the agreement, and only a small portion of them agreed with SC...including four that would later secede and get a star, and two that would get a star without standard secession. The problem in all of the cases you have presented for Sumter is that they have NO CONSIDERATION FOR THE OTHER PARTY. You can't do an objective analysis that way. While you are accusing others of failing to consider CSA POV (when in fact they have), you yourself are not even applying the simplest "is this reasonable" tests. Posturing is one thing, but issuing ultimatums for force surrender are quite another. (Had Lincoln taken the same approach as you are taking, unilateral action, the border states would have left the Union, and probably the Midwest as well.) Red Harvest (talk) 04:14, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

One of the hardest things in the world to do, especially when one has devoted time to study, is to admit another's point of view may have validity. Sir, the issue of the legality of secession was NOT in question until Lincoln's administration. The issue of the South's wanting to expand slavery was NOT questioned, I freely admit that. However, trying to say that the Union had exclusive rights to the territories denies that the South had anything to do with obtaining them. In fact, the South has always contributed more than its fair share, per capita, to the armed forces, before and since the War Between the States. The South's paying of protectionist tariffs was a large source of income that propped up the United States government. These monies disproportionately came from Southern states and disproportionately were spent on "public" works largely in the North. Ft. Sumter was NOT federal property the moment South Carolina decided to break the VOLUNTARY bonds of union. And besides, they did not fire on Ft.Sumter until Lincoln decided to attempt to re-supply the fort, which was seen as an act of war. The issue of State Sovereignty was hotly contested then and now. For you to arrogantly proclaim that you've got the issue settled and the other side deserves no representation is precisely the prevalent attitude that intensified the divisions that existed then. For you to say that slavery was the only dividing issue between North and South is grossly misinformed. The South had a unique dialect, was more conservative (for the time), was more steeped in traditions, had a different diet, had a completely different economy, and numerous other traits that were unique to it alone...a large portion of which still exists to this day. Northerners were then considered arrogant, rude, and hypocritical...and you've done nothing to disprove the stereotype in this and many other dialogues I've seen. The South even had different roots in the old world. While the North was settled predominately by German and Irish immigrants at the time, the South was largely Scots-Irish and French. Our modern conception of "The United States of America" cannot be applied to their time. The country was still in its infancy. The things we were brought up to believe as a given in the United States were new concepts then. As for tyranny, a major impediment to Southern enlightenment on the issue of abolition was the fear of the aftermath. Lincoln and the Republican party were solidly abolitionist. The fact that they tried to appease the Southern States in degrees wasn't fooling anyone. To say that their only goal was to stop the expansion of slavery is incorrect, sir, and cannot be backed up by the historical records extant. So, it (the Republican party) was not a "percieved" threat to slavery, it was a de facto threat to slavery. When a large section of a country did not cast hardly a vote for a candidate and that candidate still gets elected, no wonder that they felt threatened and unrepresented. They exercised their right to self-govern, one of our most cherished principles. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Typo26 (talk • contribs) 00:33, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Except of course, for the slaves, who had no rights to self-govern. Or did you forget about them in your winding dissertation? SiberioS (talk) 01:22, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Relevance? Both the North and South weren't talking of giving blacks suffrage, so, your point is moot. Your passive-aggressive (cowardly) implication that I am somehow ignoring slavery tells me that either you haven't read what I've written or your reading comprehension needs work. Typo26 (talk) 01:48, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Relevance is that your poor attempt at making justifications for the CSA on some sort of hilarious moral or patriotic grounds is bumpkis. They were not practicing "cherished" values, or any other sort of flag waving clap trap. It was pure economic greed, plain and simple. SiberioS (talk) 03:16, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Ahh yes...I keep forgetting. To imply that the issue wasn't simply the moral North conquering the evil slaveholding South is anathema.

Whether the North was moral not is consistently irrelevant as regards the actions and policies of the CSA. Simply pointing out the flaws and qualms of the North, and claiming equivalence is similar to kindergarten children that whine when caught doing something wrong that "So and so was doing it first!". SiberioS (talk) 06:47, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

And may I also point out that your statement that the South has contributed "more" than the North before or since militarily is absurd on its face. The Revolutionary War was fought overwhelmingly in the North, using Northern troops in most of the formal, large scale fighting, as was the War of 1812. The idea that the South also contributed more people in raw numbers during the era of conscription, especially from WWI to Vietnam is also absurd, due to the fact thats its population was far smaller than either the North, or especially, the West Coast and Mid-west. SiberioS (talk) 01:35, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

That's a wonderfool observation on your part, and would be a good point, if not for my use of the words "disproportionately" and "per capita." But I appreciate you contributing your knowledge. Typo26 (talk) 01:59, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

I advise you to take the personal attacks somewhere else, Typo26. They are not helping your argument, only hurting it. Red Harvest (talk) 03:05, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

I advise you to apply your standards to everyone, not just those that disagree with you. I never draw first blood. Typo26 (talk) 23:59, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Complete falsehood on your part. You've done nothing but attack other editors in this thread. Yes, I'm calling you a liar, flat out. Red Harvest (talk) 04:14, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

I have made bold where I was patronized or insulted...and owe you an apology. I shouldn't have lumped all my opponents into the same category. Typo26 (talk) 07:10, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Except what you said still isn't true. The Revolutionary War was fought "disproportionately" in the north (you can substitute disproportionate for the word I used, overwhelmingly) as was the War of 1812. And during the draft era, raw numbers is all that matters, since certainly the draft boards weren't playing favorites amongst the states (though they might have been on socio-economic status). AFTER the draft, certainly you can make an argument, but certainly not WHILE it was still going. SiberioS (talk) 03:12, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Good point. So by your logic anyone that was drafted shouldn't be counted in this argument. That makes it even easier to prove me right. Typo26 (talk) 00:08, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

No I'm not saying they shouldn't be counted. What I am saying, however, is that individuals from all parts of this country, from all walks of life, and in point of fact from all ethnicities (black Union soldiers had a vastly higher mortality rate than either white Union or CSA soldiers for instance) have contributed equally to the military forces of this country. The fact that they were drafted/conscripted doesn't make their contribution any less than those who actively volunteered. Only AFTER Vietnam, and the rejection and repeal of the draft, do we see a change in the make up of the Army significantly. And its hard to say that the volunteer rates are born out of some sort of undying patriotism; the reality is most people come from the South because it happens to also be the consistently poorest region of America, and the economic incentives and possibilities of the Army are alluring. Army ad's about college tuition being paid aren't being put on TV for no good reason. SiberioS (talk) 06:47, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

So let's see, typo26, you are calling me a northerner, "arrogant, rude, and hypocritical." I was actually being nice about it and focusing on your points, the personal problems appear to be a better representation of your response. There are so many parts of your post that are flat out wrong that it is impossible to respond to them all. I'm actually a border stater, not a northerner and I've lived most of my adult life in the South (presently the Deep South.) You've made a lot of poor assumptions so let's go on: I've never denied the Southern paranoia you speak of with respect to the end of slavery, and consider it the Deep South's reason for secession and launching a pre-emptive war. I have little trouble understanding what motivated Southerners and their POV, that doesn't mean I agree with their motivations or judgement. (I could say the same about various abolitionists, etc.) I also have not said that slavery was the only difference, those are your words. I did not proclaim that I had the issue settled and that no other view should be presented (in fact I inserted some mention of that other view rather than suppressing it.) If folks can write something coherent and that can stand reasonable challenge, they are free to do so. Slavery was the defining difference, but as I said I don't agree with the claim of two distinct cultures. The electoral results and the secession votes in the border states and Upper South don't support the claim. Also, there was nothing tyrannical about stopping the expansion of slavery to the territories. If or when the United States actually took actions against Southern states or the institution, then the tyranny claim might have started to show some merit. As it was there were plenty of protections for the "peculiar institution" and plenty of ways to resist any changes within the system.

I would love to see the evidence for this statement: "so many parts of your post that are flat out wrong." Being a "border stater" as you put it, doesn't any more qualify you to be an authority than I. The problem here is you guys' failure to understand that you don't have to agree with me on anything. The fact is, there is a substantial portion of this country that believes as I do and can produce just as many primary sources and contemporary accounts to back up our assertions as y'all can. For that reason, it deserves representation in the article. If I can get you guys to see the light on this, I'd be more than willing to do the writing, sourced, and submit it in here prior to editing the article. Typo26 (talk) 00:10, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

I actually provided the evidence, and you even quoted some. Not that I expect you to understand it. What some people choose to believe does not make fact. You have not even yet acknowledged that there was a far broader spectrum than the two POV's you tried to pigeonhole the country into. There are people that believe the Earth is flat, the WMD's being sought were found, there was no Lunar Landing, etc. The burden of proof is on them to provide coherent and verifiable arguments for their claims. And that's precisely where the current issue runs into trouble. Red Harvest (talk) 04:14, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

The South demanded overrepresentation and veto power, particularly South Carolina. No section of the country then or now has that right. The Southern states were self-governing and still had greater representation than the men of other states (guarranteed by the Constitution), they just weren't allowed to pick the president as they had become accustomed to. Why? Because they lost a fair election (their sectional candidate losing by over 10% of the total vote, the reverse of the 1856 election.)

Contrary to your opinion, the right to secession was not assumed, certainly not by the majority of the nation as it turned out. (And modern ACW historians overwhelming rejected it as well in a recent survey.) I pointed out Lee's rejection of the claim because his Upper South views were representaive of a large swath--including border states who had slavery. The States rights argument then and today is weak because it is used by either side to support their claim when the Federal government is in opposition to that group's view. No state or section holds a monopoly on it. It is taken up and dropped when convenient by each group--producing incredible hypocrisy.

Do you have any links to this survey you speak of? Typo26 (talk) 23:59, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

I could have when I posted and nearly linked it then, since I had read it within the previous 24 hours, pure coincidence as I was looking for something else. I'll have to see if I can find it again, I thought it was on "North and South" magazine's site but am not seeing it at the moment. (Spent the past two days hiking battlefields so my recall of websites needs refreshing.) Red Harvest (talk) 04:14, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Found it [[2]], 25 historians polled, 2 said there was a right to secession, 17 said there was not, 6 unclear. Red Harvest (talk) 03:03, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

I, personally, would've given pause before posting that one. For one, polls don't decide history...For two, it refers to whether or not there is a right of secession now, not then. That should be a question for legal scholars. Three, such a tiny sampling? Who were the 25? Typo26 (talk) 09:03, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Of course you would have given pause, it refutes your assumptions. Historians studying the period don't see the Constitutionality of unilateral secession. The South never showed any willingness to let a Southern friendly Supreme Court rule on the matter. The vast majority of the country didn't agree with secession...even many in the South. It took actual war for the Upper South to secede, and that was more of a matter of picking sides in conflict rather than determining that secession was Constitutional. Red Harvest (talk) 14:58, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

But I do believe (and have said many times before) that the states should have been allowed to go in peace IF they could demonstrate that they were not a threat to the other states. Security for all the states was integral to the original Articles of Confederation and later Constitution. Secession by South Carolina (not even yet ruled upon by the only authority that could, the U.S. Supreme Court) did not give them title to the shared property of the other states: Fort Sumter. South Carolina had no right to deny access to the property. If the fort had committed actual hostile acts, things would have been different. Likewise, the territories were possessions of the United States, not of the individual states. If the states wanted something they would have had to work out a treaty for it. Red Harvest (talk) 02:58, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

While I appreciate that you are probably more open-minded than some, I'd remind you that this talk page isn't a blog for us to argue the finer points of right/wrong. This article is about the Confederate States of America, and if a user can produce sources that are reliable and in context, then there is no reason to exclude the information from the article unless this article is to be determined by our personal bias. I'm done discussing whether or not I'm right or wrong. The primary sources and contemporary accounts support everything I've said here. I apologize for not letting my history be given to me by northern novelists (McPherson, Stampp.)Typo26 (talk) 00:06, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Funny that you are treating it as a blog for your opinion then, rather than actually editing something with verifiable content. I'm less interested in arguing right/wrong than putting things in the context of their time. Unfortunately for your POV, the contemporary CSA voices, timeline, and legislative actions run entirely counter to what you are strenuously pushing. If instead of applying your modern sense of right/wrong you instead applied a contemporary view of it with regards to slavery then you would have little trouble in understanding what motivated folks North, South, and in between. Don't judge them, understand them. Red Harvest (talk) 04:14, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Strange that you just spoke word for word my usual retort to others when they demonize the South. Typo26 (talk) 07:10, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

As a side note, I find it more than a little convenient that the honorarium that McPherson recieved in 2007 is from the same family that contributes a lot of money to the SPLC. Follow the money, my grandpa always said. Typo26 (talk) 09:07, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

McPherson's opinions don't figure much into this for me. Ironically your fixation on them and "Northern novelist" statement reveals your own bias. Instead I've paid more attention to contemporary Southern statements and accounts, and those are rather damning to your claims. Red Harvest (talk) 15:03, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

And what "claims" would that be? Typo26 (talk) 22:50, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Considering McPherson wrote most of his major works almost over 40 years ago, its hard to imagine how his participation in an award ceremony in 2007 had a profound influence on his opinions. And the attempt to smear an individual on the basis of his other activities is ridiculous; Herbert Aptheker was an ardent Stalinist, amongst other things, but his writings and statistical work on slavery still holds up (though its been advanced substantially since he wrote it), regardless of his personal opinions outside of his work.SiberioS (talk) 00:11, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

His bibliography of works doesn't agree with you on the 40 year number. His substantial works were published considerably more recently than that, but no matter. Typo26 (talk) 11:51, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I will begin working on the additions I would like to make and submit it here for each of you to pick apart if you can. But remember, because something doesn't agree with your interpretation of events, if it can be sourced properly, it overrules any objections you can come up with. This isn't your personal sounding boards. Typo26 (talk) 23:59, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

I hope you familiarize yourself with Wikipedia:No original research#Primary, secondary, and tertiary sources before you start posting your own conclusions, unsupported by reliable secondary sources, on the significance of "primary sources and contemporary accounts". Characterizing leading historians of the era as "northern novelists" suggests to me that you probably have nothing of value to add to this article, but we'll see, won't we? Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 00:59, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Your contempt is noted. I hope I don't dissappoint, however, somehow I suspect your judgement has been rendered already. Oh, and here's a link for you to study until I post my suggestions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem Typo26 (talk) 06:29, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Why is it that people like you always invoke "ad hominem" after engaging in a slew of them? Saying "ad hominem" is like invoking Hitler. When you do it you illustrate that you have nothing worthwhile to add. Red Harvest (talk) 04:14, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

It's very similar to unsolicited advice against insulting people...people are just people. It's something I'm passionate about, and I suspect we share that much in common. Typo26 (talk) 07:10, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Shouldn't there be a note under the map in the infobox explaining what exactly the difference between areas highlighted in green and light green is? --ANONYMOUSPUSSY 11:00, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Image is now replaced and given an accurate legend. Red Harvest (talk) 17:12, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

The legend is inaccurate. Confederate Arizona and the Indian Territory were both controlled by the CSA and made formal acts of separation from the USA (an ordinance of secession for Arizona and treaties with the CSA for the Indian tribes in the Indian Territory). 71.178.20.98 (talk) 01:46, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

They were both territories that the CSA claimed. The claims had no more weight than those of the rump governments in Missouri or Kansas (or if France claimed them through a rump secession movement.) They were disputed territories. It is appropriate to show them as disputed rather than Confederate, like West Virginia and for similar reasons. It is impossible to display the intricacies with only two colors, but this map replaces a completely wrong predecessor that had Maryland and Delaware as CSA. Red Harvest (talk) 04:53, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

More importantly, the dates and the sequence of the image do not match those of the article. For some reason the image has Tennessee seceding and joining the Confederacy before North Carolina, and as I know this is backwards. DruidODurham (talk) 02:28, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Link to the main article of causes is now provided. I added a brief, general statement of intertwined secondary issues. As such the POV tag has been removed. Red Harvest (talk) 17:12, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

To basically say that 'Slavery was THE major cause and there was no other' is dishonest and blatently not NPOV. If you want to truely be honest about it, say "These were the causes" and don't regelate one cause "Primary" and all the other causes to "Secondary". A cause is something that was the catalyst or origin for an event to happen, and slavery only became the "Primary" issue AFTER the south had already seceded and the northern Republicans used it as a tool to rally the the North together.

Lincoln's letter to Gustavus Fox on 1 May, 1861, makes it clear that he was pleased by the result of the firing on Ft Sumter..." You and I both anticipated that the cause of the country would be advanced by making the attempt to provision Ft Sumter, even if it should fail; and it is no small consolation now to feel that our anticipation is justified by the result. "

"The Northern onslaught upon slavery was no more than a piece of specious humbug designed to conceal its desire for economic control of the Southern states." Charles Dickens, 1862

When asked "Why not let the South go in peace?" Lincoln replied: "I can't let them go. Who would pay for the government?"

"The [Emancipation] proclamation has no constitutional or legal justification except as a war measure." Letter to Sec. of Treas. Salmon P. Chase; 3 Sep 1863

"We didn't go into the war to put down slavery, but to put the flag back; and to act differently at this moment would, I have no doubt, not only weaken our cause, but smack of bad faith..."--Abraham Lincoln Typo26 (talk) 12:15, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

"Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right, which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government, may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can, may revolutionize, and make their own, of so much territory as they inhabit." -- Abraham Lincoln

"What then will become of my tariff?" - Abraham Lincoln to Virginia compromise delegation, March 1861.

Lincoln blamed blacks for the Civil War, telling them, "But for your race among us there could not be a war, although many men engaged on either side do not care for you one way or another." Typo26 (talk) 12:24, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Your characterization of this latter quote reveals an amusing personal bias of your own, because it doesn not really blame blacks but their presence...which was not exactly voluntary.

woah...slow down there, chief...I didn't write any of the above, merely copy and pasted with the goal of finding the original sources (if they even exist). The characterization wasn't mine and I don't agree with it...we don't even know with whom he was talking. I'm trying to find out if these quotes are real or fabricated. Typo26 (talk) 22:47, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

But what is your point? Dickens is irrelevant. Lincoln's statements support the current interpretation in the article. Revolution is a different matter from consitutionally recognized secession. The paying for govt quote seems to have some problems (such as lack of context), and still would be irrelevant (see Nullification Crisis again.) Most of what you posted comes straight from SCV websites which have a deplorable record with regards to historical accuracy. Red Harvest (talk) 15:50, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

They may be found on SCV websites, but that isn't where I got them. I'm concerned more with their being real or fake. Typo26 (talk) 22:47, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Go to a library and search the official record. I think there might be a searchable version online as well. Its nigh impossible to ascertain the validity of these quotes, except for maybe the first one, without more information on where they could possibly be from. SiberioS (talk) 00:21, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Aren't all the quotes in this section irrelevant to this article anyway? If the North waged war out of a desire to eat Southern babies, that does not change the fact that the Southern states seceded and formed the Confederacy out of the fear that there was a threat to slavery, and out of a desire to preserve and perpetuate slavery. This is plainly evident from the statements made by the seceding states themselves, in some cases the official proclamations on behalf of entire states (the declarations of causes)--though I suppose someone will claim that it is "original research" to simply point to, for example, the Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union.

The "Causes of Secession" section simply focuses on Confederate motives in an article about...the Confederacy. In the section "Relations with the United States", the article as currently written simply states "For the four years of its existence, the Confederate States of America asserted its independence and appointed dozens of diplomatic agents abroad. The United States government, by contrast, asserted that the Southern states were states in rebellion and refused any formal recognition of their status." No one can possibly argue with that, can they? Whether or not the Northern states should have recognized the independence of the Southern states, they obviously didn't. -- 67.34.9.79 (talk) 01:11, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

The "should have" point is, I think, obviously whats at stake. Just glancing over most of the discussion that has dominated this discussion page, most of the arguing has been over the legality of secession and firing on Fort Sumter has and whether, on a political and moral level, said actions were "right" rather than what people at the time, both for and against such things, actually said, and what historians think about their perspectives in the context of the time. SiberioS (talk) 01:45, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you both. They really aren't relevant (that's what I was getting at.) The only way provisioning Fort Sumter was an "act of war" is if the United States recognized secession (and was also denied access to its property there--which it still would have had a right to at least for a time even if unilateral secession was ruled constitutional and the property was to be surrendered as a result.) The U.S. was under no obligation to recognize secession. The CSA did not have to fire on ships engaged in what was under U.S. law a peaceful act. The CSA did not have to bombard the fort either, but it did. The U.S. then declared an insurrection (undeniably a constitutionally valid act) and the CSA declared war. Red Harvest (talk) 02:02, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

The real problem here is exactly what I suspected, and why I've confined myself to the talk page. Any information presented, no matter how valid or relevant, that disagrees with the northern perspective gets discarded. I suspect that any attempts at editing the article itself, no matter how well sourced with primary and contemporary documents, will immediately be removed if it doesn't fit the northern perspective. A few of you have convinced yourselves of your intellectual superiority on the matter and have made it quite obvious that any information presented that disagrees with you is somehow not as good as your information. I find it strange that a handful of editors can control wikipedia on a topic that clearly is farrrrrrrrr from being settled. I will do some more research. I will come back and make edits that are consistent with any scholarly standard and properly sourced. We'll see how it is recieved. G'day. Typo26 (talk) 02:42, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Poppycock. The article in fact presents the Southern perspective, which is perfectly valid in an article about the Confederate States of America. It's just that, as a matter of fact, not opinion, the Southern perspective in 1860 was "Slavery is a positive good and the cornerstone of our civilization and way of life; the Republicans are clearly and admittedly an anti-slavery party, elected by wicked, slavery-hating Northerners; therefore we are seceding in response to this threat to our entire society". Because slavery and white supremacism are now reviled by just about everyone, this seems like an awful slander against Southerners, invented by bigoted Yankees, but it really isn't. If the article spent lots of bytes talking about how cruel and unjust slavery was, and how wicked slave-owners tore families apart and sold children down the river and flogged their slaves; or if the article went on for paragraphs about how unilateral secession is illegal and unconstitutional, that would be presenting a biased POV (even if one happens to hold both those opinions). But the article as written doesn't do any such thing.

Many people revere the Confederacy as the noble "Lost Cause" and a fight by brave, outnumbered "rebels" to defend their genteel, civilized Way of Life against overwhelming odds. I suspect most of those same people sincerely have no love for slavery or white supremacy. That in turn creates an unsolvable cognitive dissonance, since the revered "Lost Cause" was all about preserving slavery and white supremacy against perceived and actual threats to same. But that cognitive dissonance isn't my problem, or the problem of this encyclopedia. -- 67.34.9.79 (talk) 03:44, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

All the back and forth is irrelevant on the issue of whether anything was legal, right, wrong, moral, or immoral. The only duty we have, is to present the sides, using primary sources backed up with analysis from secondary sources, on this issue. Pointing out that the CSA seceded due to slavery, and potentially the secession was illegal, is not an attempt to portray the CSA negatively. Whether someone believes slavery is right or wrong, and thus whether the CSA was right or wrong, is their own decision to make. The fact that some people may decide that is an exceedingly poor reason to throw out those statements in the article. SiberioS (talk) 04:10, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Yep. Red Harvest (talk) 04:12, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Where have I ever suggested anything but that the South seceeded for slavery? I merely contend that the war wasn't initiated over slavery and that Lincoln knew full well what he was doing when he attempted to resupply ft.sumter. http://books.google.com/books?id=ap7oeq8IdIMC&pg=PA41&lpg=PA41&dq=lincoln's+letter+to+gustavus+fox&source=web&ots=lYDOlODE9o&sig=EZMo7vKJfb4b2SfQHrx7AU7zBJM&hl=en#PPA41,M1 I think you guys must have me confused. Typo26 (talk) 05:51, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

And thats exactly why what I said above is relevant. Trying to parse it that finegets away from the overwhelming cause of the war ie: the contradiction in positions on slavery. And that contradiction is what caused the war. The fact that time elapsed, and an increasingly unstable game of brinkmanship was played over Ft. Sumter, does not erase that contradiction, and trying to boil it down to just that risks losing the forest for the trees. We can highlight another, similar scenario, in the Cuban Missile Crisis. While that event had important individual moments, writing an article about it without mentioning its role and context in a larger Cold War would fall way off the mark. The same applies here. While the individual decisions and actions of the players involved within Ft. Sumter are important, they would have never happened, nor be especially relevant, without the backdrop they were conducted in. SiberioS (talk) 06:27, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Since I agree totally with the above paragraph, I guess my only complaint is that no mention is made as to the jump from secession to war. The article as written implies that the South seceeded over slavery, gets characterized as white supremacist, never mind the fact that the whole Western World at the time was predominately white supremacists, The North merely tries to bring some food to the fort, and then the evil South reduces the fort...and thus sparks the greatest tragedy in American History. My earlier assertion that slavery was NOT the only divisive issue between the North and South, that the North and South had developed two distinct cultures, is easily ascertained by the historic record...and is even espoused by Kenneth Stampp in his definitive, although hardly southern, Causes of the Civil War. None of this gets mention in the article, however. Additionally, there are many cases(5 that I know of) throughout history of New England states threatening secession. No argument was made against the right or legality of secession then. These fine points, while certainly not excusing the South, by today's morals, deserve mention in the article. They do not take away from what has been written whatsoever, merely augment. I've chosen to make my suggestions here to avoid an edit war. Since this is an article about the CSA, their contemporary viewpoints, whether modernly right or wrong, should be represented. Typo26 (talk) 08:05, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

But it WAS white supremacist. I'm not pointing this out to make a value judgment, something you yourself are reading into the article. In fact most of your assertions of the South being painted as big and bad is your own assessment of the facts provided in the article; an individual could walk away with a very different view if they were so inclined, and in fact, numerous people do. Historical events, and especially the people involved, are generally nuanced things. It is not our judgment call here to decide whether the fact that the South was racist (an undeniable fact) is a good or bad thing, but simply to present the fact and the accompanying views on that issue. Like I've mentioned before, every couple of weeks, someone else wants to rewrite the article to mitigate or neuter facts that they feel are insulting (as indicated by your rhetoric above of the article blaming the South) based on what, mostly, they read into the article, not whats actually there. There is generally very little moralizing or judgment in the article as it stands. SiberioS (talk) 20:03, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

But you haven't posted anything, even on the discussion page, to actually back up any of these assertions about "two distinct cultures". The only things you've posted have been about the alleged reasons why the North opposed secession rather than just letting the Southern states leave, which are irrelevant to the motives for the South in wanting to leave in the first place. That other regions threatened secession for other reasons says nothing about the causes for which the South chose secession.

If there were all these other differences motivating secession, why didn't the South speak of them? Did the South produce manifestos about how the Southernese language was being wiped out in favor of Northernish? Well, no; North and South both spoke the same language (albeit with different accents). Did Southern monks hold protests over the forcible replacement of the Church of Southernianity in favor of the Church of Northernism? Again, no; both North and South were predominately Protestant Christian, and the mid-19th Century was a period of pretty widespread religious piety on both sides of the Maxon-Dixon line. Of course, we do have a link in the article to a pro-seccesion sermon by a Southern preacher--but the sermon is all about how Southerners have a duty as Christians to "conserve and to perpetuate the institution of domestic slavery as now existing". There were, of course, "economic differences" between the Southern states and the rest of the Union--namely, the South, especially the Deep South, had an economy based on slavery. The secessionists did complain, here and there, about tariffs and "internal improvements", but they unashamedly made it clear that their cause was overwhelmingly about slavery. That was the "contemporary viewpoint" of the secessionists--unless you can find something to show otherwise. (Quotes from Lincoln and Charles Dickens are obviously not the "contemporary viewpoint" of the Confederates.) -- 67.34.9.79 (talk) 08:49, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

The South did speak of them. No one listened. We shared a language with England as well. You ignore too many facets of the southern culture that have survived even to today. No one's questioning the role that Slavery played. And several before you have convolutedly tied Slavery to every sectional issue that arose prior to the war. This is arguable, but not my concern. I've stated exactly why I've not edited the article, yet. Typo26 (talk) 09:14, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

There is nothing "convoluted" about how the key sectional issues revolve around slavery. Many of the assertions: agrarian vs. industrialist (one you have made) don't adequately characterize either. Most northerners were still rural, particularly in the West...but they lacked the cash crops that made slavery economically viable. Saw an exhibit in Kennesaw's "Southern Museum" this weekend that reinforced all this using 1860 census data. The ratios of farms to people was not that different overall. What was notably different was what would be similar to "corporate farms" today: the number of large farms in the South was many times that of the North. This was a direct result of the plantations of the Deep South. Red Harvest (talk) 12:27, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps, but what about states' rights? On the one hand, the northern cabal says that states' rights was merely another way of saying slavery...yet in this very article it is discussed how adherence to the states' rights ideaology might've contributed to the failure of the CSA. So, apparently, the support of states' rights was also a notable difference, to a fault even. You can't have your cake and eat it too. Typo26 (talk) 12:48, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

You are transposing cause and effect. States rights was the vehicle of choice whenever majority opinion (U.S. legislation) went against sectional sentiment. Slavery increasingly fell in that category.

I went back, and could not find where I'd made any statements concerning agrarian vs. industrialist. Perhaps you're confusing me or I've missed where I wrote this?Typo26 (talk) 13:16, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

It was my mistake, another ACW article had taken the same bent by another poster in the previous few hours. Red Harvest (talk) 17:30, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Also, the agrarian vs. industrialist difference is less pronounced, but still true. The 1860 census also shows that the South was overwhelmingly rural with far fewer towns and smaller ones at that. No doubt that the plantations were the "big business" of the South, as comparable to the industrial tycoons of the North. Each one quite rich, each one exerting influence on politics. The sectional nature of this is wholly attributable to climate, however, and length of growing season. Typo26 (talk) 13:09, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

The agrarian/industrialist assertion fails as an explanation because it really only works when comparing to the Northeast. The rest of the North was more agrarian, and similar to the Upper South and border states minus slavery. You are close on climate, but it takes climate, geography, and cotton to really explain the difference. Southern regions that didn't have the right combination could not economically justify slavery over the long haul. It was the cotton states that seceded and started shooting. The Upper South balked until the war was underway. Red Harvest (talk) 17:30, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

More to the point, calling the South merely agrarian is being too general. It was a very specific type of agrarian system. It was not say, the subsistence agriculture of the peasantry in parts of Mexico, nor the feudal relationship of landowners to smaller land holders in China, or the serfdom of Russia. It was a mixture of cash crop agriculture run by very large plantations using a workforce of slaves, buttressed by smaller landholding but non slave holding farmers, who often either supplied plantations with various foodstuffs, or provided other essential services. SiberioS (talk) 20:13, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

So here we are, come full circle, back to my original points...which I believe I can back up with primary and secondary sources. I contend that The North provoked the war knowingly. This is illustrated by Lincoln's letter to the asst. secretary of the Navy. I contend that secession was also avoidable at several stages of the conflict and that war was never, at any point, the only option the North or the South had. I contend that white supremacy was a nationwide problem, and thus bears little on the matter. I contend that economics played a larger role in the divisions than what is currently presented. I contend that secession was legal, the constitution is silent on the matter so one must look to other documents and precedence. I contend that the South, right or wrong, had developed a different culture, even if that culture often revolved around slavery. This is easily ascertained using Kenneth Stampp's works, and he is certainly not a revisionist or southern-friendly. And I contend that the reasons for secession were often not, necessarily, the motives for fighting...and that this should be made clear. One can find numerous records of confederates fighting for independence, freedom, protection from invasion....one rarely (I've not seen a single instance) finds any soldier stating in his letters that he is fighting for slavery or even to protect slave interests, although, one can find many politicians stating as much. Typo26 (talk) 00:55, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

In other words your whole basis is your opinion. Red Harvest (talk) 01:26, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely. It is my opinion...but I'm certainly not the lone ranger. Wikipedia has guidelines on original research, so I will simply quote published works that state my opinion for me. G'day. Typo26 (talk) 01:34, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Then you mustn't be looking very hard. There are numerous instances of military leadership down to common soldiers arguing for the preservation of slavery, and it plays a key role in the debate about enlisting slaves, possibly, into the Army. In fact, Patrick Cleburne makes an argument not unsimilar to yours, way back in 1863, and gets promptly shot down by the combined forces of Howell Cobb, Beauregard, Patton Anderson. Lee was relatively neutral on the idea, until man power issues forced him to support the idea in the fall of 1864, which then led to the passing of the legislation to enroll slaves (though not without their masters permission) into the CSA Army. You can't find a better illustration of the internal forces at work in the CSA than the debate over emancipation and enlistment of blacks. SiberioS (talk) 14:13, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

You mean this Patrick Cleburne? "If the south should lose, it means that the history of this heroic struggle will be written by the enemy. That our youth will be trained by Northern school teachers, will be impressed by all of the influences of history and education to regard our gallant dead as traitors and our maimed veterans as fit subjects for derision." - Patrick Cleburne Typo26 (talk) 23:29, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Much of the harshest invective of the war was hurled against those who might emancipate slaves. In reading the personal letters of men like John Mercer Brooke one finds various references to this for example. The concerns of many Missouri Confederates was about their slaves and how to keep them from running away or leaving with Federals. If these men weren't fighting for slavery then they had a very strange preoccupation with "abolitionists" and "Black Republicans" throughout their correspondence. Plus another thing of note in their personal correspondence and in govt. policy was the unmitigated hatred spewed toward Frémont and Hunter because of their attempts at early emancipation. The CSA warned it would execute them if captured. For Southern secessionists property rights far outweighed any other considerations in the Constitution. (Interestingly, that was another thing that was also mentioned in the exhibit at Kennesaw recently.) This explains the incredible hatred of Sherman as well. He didn't kill that many, but he was hell on property. Killing all the men folk would have been fine apparently, but he burned the barns, took/shot/ate the livestock, and the slaves left following his army. Red Harvest (talk) 14:50, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, we agree on something. To Southerners land/property was everything. I have an interesting quote from Sean Wilentz in his book on democracy in america. It sums up very well this condition...I don't have it memorized, you'll have to wait until I return home for me to post it. This is understandable considering the hardships faced and how muched their very lives depended on the land. Combine that with the influence of the civilized native americans and their thoughts on the "great mother", and you've got the makings of a people completely rooted in the earth. This is also why expansion or the lack thereof was seen as such an insult. To deny slave access in the territory was percieved to be denying their children the fruits of their toils. Typo26 (talk) 23:21, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Full circle again. It's all about slavery. Red Harvest (talk) 23:51, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

“What are you fighting for anyhow?” “I’m fighting because you are down here.” Confederate prisoner to Union soldier.

"I am with the South in life or in death, in victory or defeat. I never owned a negro and care nothing for them, but these people have been my friends and have stood up to me on all occasions. In addition to this, I believe the North is about to wage a brutal and unholy war on a people who have done them no wrong, in violation of the Constitution and the fundamental principles of the government...We propose no invasion of the North, no attack on them, and only ask to be let alone."- Patrick R. Cleburne, May 1861

"The Civil War wasn't just a victory of North over South; it was a victory for centralized government over the states and federalism. It destroyed the ability of the states to protect themselves against the destruction of their reserved powers. Must we all be happy about this? [Abraham] Lincoln himself -- the real Lincoln, that is -- would have deprecated the unintended results of the war. Though he sometimes resorted to dictatorial methods, he never meant to create a totalitarian state. It's tragic that slavery was intertwined with a good cause, and scandalous that those who defend that cause today should be smeared as partisans of slavery. But the verdict of history must not be left to the simple-minded and the demagogic." --Joseph Sobran (syndicated columnist)

"A nation preserved with liberty trampled underfoot is much worse than a nation in fragments but with the spirit of liberty still alive. Southerners persistently claim that their rebellion is for the purpose of preserving this form of government." -Private John H. Haley, 17th Maine Regiment, USA

"If the right of secession be denied...and the denial enforced by the sword of coercion; the nature of the polity is changed, and freedom is at its end. It is no longer a government by consent, but a government of force. Conquest is substituted compact, and the dream of liberty is over." --Albert Taylor Bledsoe, from Is Davis a Traitor?

"If I thought this war was to abolish slavery, I would resign my commission, and offer my sword to the other side." --Ulysses S. Grant

"I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so."--Abraham Lincoln. March 4, 1861 Inaugural address

"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and it is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union." --Abraham Lincoln in an 1862 letter to Horace Greeley on his justification for the Northern War of Aggression against the constitutional secession of the South. In September 1862, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation (effective Jan. 1, 1863).

"The Gettysburg speech was at once the shortest and the most famous oration in American history...the highest emotion reduced to a few poetical phrases. Lincoln himself never even remotely approached it. It is genuinely stupendous. But let us not forget that it is poetry, not logic; beauty, not sense. Think of the argument in it. Put it into the cold words of everyday. The doctrine is simply this: that the Union soldiers who died at Gettysburg sacrificed their lives to the cause of self-determination -- that government of the people, by the people, for the people, should not perish from the earth. It is difficult to imagine anything more untrue . The Union soldiers in the battle actually fought against self-determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of their people to govern themselves." --H.L. Mencken

"People separated from their history are easily persuaded." --Karl Marx

"The predicament in which both the Government and the commerce of the country are placed, through the non-enforcement of our revenue laws, is now thoroughly understood the world over....If the manufacturer at Manchester [England] can send his goods into the Western States through New Orleans at less cost than through New York, he is a fool for not availing himself of his advantage...If the importations of the counrty are made through Southern ports, its exports will go through the same channel. The produce of the West, instead of coming to our own port by millions of tons, to be transported abroad by the same ships through which we received our importations, will seek other routes and other outlets. With the lost of our foreign trade, what is to become of our public works, conducted at the cost of many huindred millions of dollars, to turn into our harbor the products of the interior? They share in the common ruin. So do our manufacturers...Once at New Orleans, goods may be distributed over the whole country duty-free. The process is perfectly simple... The commercial bearing of the question has acted upon the North...We now see clearly whither we are tending, and the policy we must adopt. With us it is no longer an abstract question---one of Constitutional construction, or of the reserved or delegated powers of the State or Federal government, but of material existence and moral position both at home and abroad.....We were divided and confused till our pockets were touched." ---New York Times March 30, 1861

"The Southern Confederacy will not employ our ships or buy our goods. What is our shipping without it? Literally nothing....It is very clear that the South gains by this process, and we lose. No---we MUST NOT "let the South go."" ----Union Democrat , Manchester, NH, February 19, 1861

"That either revenue from duties must be collected in the ports of the rebel states, or the ports must be closed to importations from abroad....If neither of these things be done, our revenue laws are substantially repealed; the sources which supply our treasury will be dried up; we shall have no money to carry on the government; the nation will become bankrupt before the next crop of corn is ripe.....Allow rail road iron to be entered at Savannah with the low duty of ten per cent, which is all that the Southern Confederacy think of laying on imported goods, and not an ounce more would be imported at New York; the railroads would be supplied from the southern ports." ---New York Evening Post March 12, 1861, recorded in Northern Editorials on Secession, Howard C. Perkins, ed., 1965, pp. 598-599.

"The principle, on which the war was waged by the North, was simply this: That men may rightfully be compelled to submit to, and support, a government that they do not want; and that resistance, on their part, makes them traitors and criminals. No principle, that is possible to be named, can be more self-evidently false than this; or more self-evidently fatal to all political freedom. Yet it triumphed in the field, and is now assumed to be established. If it really be established, the number of slaves, instead of having been diminished by the war, has been greatly increased; for a man, thus subjected to a government that he does not want, is a slave. And there is no difference, in principle --- but only in degree --- between political and chattel slavery. The former, no less than the latter, denies a man's ownership of himself and the products of his labor; and asserts that other men may own him, and dispose of him and his property, for their uses, and at their pleasure." – Lysander Spooner (Nineteenth-Century lawyer, abolitionist, entrepreneur)

"If by the mere force of numbers a majority should deprive a minority of any clearly written constitutional right, it might, in a moral point of view, justify revolution." – Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), First Inaugural Address, 4 March 1861

"I tried all in my power to avert this war. I saw it coming, for twelve years I worked night and day to prevent it, but I could not. The North was mad and blind; it would not let us govern ourselves, and so the war came, and now it must go on till the last man of this generation falls in his tracks, and his children seize the musket and fight our battle, unless you acknowledge our right to self government. We are not fighting for slavery. We are fighting for Independence, and that, or extermination" President Jefferson Davis, Confederate States of America

"If centralism is ultimately to prevail; if our entire system of free Institutions as established by our common ancestors is to be subverted, and an Empire is to be established in their stead; if that is to be the last scene of the great tragic drama now being enacted: then, be assured, that we of the South will be acquitted, not only in our own consciences, but in the judgment of mankind, of all responsibility for so terrible a catastrophe, and from all guilt of so great a crime against humanity." -Alexander Stephens, Vice President of the Confederate States of America

"I saw in States’ rights the only availing check upon the absolutism of the sovereign will, and secession filled me with hope, not as the destruction but as the redemption of Democracy…. Therefore I deemed that you were fighting the battles of our liberty, our progress, and our civilization, and I mourn for the stake which was lost at Richmond more deeply than I rejoice over that which was saved at Waterloo." -Lord Acton, in a letter to Robert E Lee right after the war

" In our government-controlled schools we are taught that Lincoln was our greatest president because his war ended slavery and saved the Union. As usual, the other side of the story – the side that reflects poorly on the government – somehow gets lost." – Richard J. Maybury, The Abe Lincoln Hoax

"So the case stands, and under all the passion of the parties and the cries of battle lie the two chief moving causes of the struggle. Union means so many millions a year lost to the South; secession means the loss of the same millions to the North. The love of money is the root of this as of many many other evils … the quarrel between North and South is, as it stands, solely a fiscal quarrel." – Charles Dickens, as editor of All the Year Round, a British periodical in 1862

"The American people, North and South, went into the [Civil] war as citizens of their respective states, they came out as subjects … what they thus lost they have never got back." – H.L. Mencken

"The Union was formed by the voluntary agreement of the States; and these, in uniting together, have not forfeited their Nationality, nor have they been reduced to the condition of one and the same people. If one of the States chose to withdraw its name from the contract, it would be difficult to disprove its right of doing so "… – Alex de Tocqueville, Democracy In America

" If [the Declaration of Independence] justifies the secession from the British empire of 3,000,000 of colonists in 1776, we do not see why it would not justify the secession of 5,000,000 of Southrons from the Federal Union in 1861." – New York Tribune, December 17, 1860

" The error is in the assumption that the General Government is a party to the constitutional compact. The States … formed the compact, acting as sovereign and independent communities." – John C. Calhoun

"The procedure of secession was to have an election for delegates to a state convention, to meet in convention, and to adopt ordinances of secession. This was done in accord with the Southern understanding of what would be in keeping with the United States Constitution. It had, after all, been ratified by the states acting through conventions. Could they not "un-ratify" it – secede from the Union – in the same fashion?" – Clarence Carson, A Basic History Of The United States

"It is stated in books and papers that Southern children read and study that all the blood shedding and destruction of property of that conflict was because the South rebelled without cause against the best government the world ever saw; that although Southern soldiers were heroes in the field, skillfully massed and led, they and their leaders were rebels and traitors who fought to overthrow the Union, and to preserve human slavery, and that their defeat was necessary for free government and the welfare of the human family.

"As a Confederate soldier and as a citizen of Virginia, I deny the charge, and denounce it as a calumny. We were not rebels; we did not fight to perpetuate human slavery, but for our rights and privileges under a government established over us by our fathers and in defense of our homes." - Richard Henry Lee, Confederate Colonel

"Any society which suppresses the heritage of its conquered minorities, prevents their history, and denies them their symbols, has sewn the seed of its own destruction."-Sir William Wallace, 1281

"The contest is really for empire on the side of the North and for independence on that of the South." -London Times, November 7, 1861

"If the South had only wanted to protect slavery, all they had to do was go along with the original 13th Amendment, offered in early 1861 after several states had seceded, which would have protected slavery for all time in the states where it then existed. This was not inducement enough to bring South Carolina or any others back into the fold. The States of the Confederacy, even today, could block the passage of the 13th Amendment, and certainly could have then. This is why the slaveholders wanted to stay in the Union. Their "property" was protected by the Constitution." -Charlie Lott, historian

"The Union government liberates the enemy's slaves as it would the enemy's cattle, simply to weaken them in the conflict. The principle is not that a human being cannot justly own another, but that he cannot own him unless he is loyal to the United States."- London Spectator in reference to the Emancipation Proclamation

"In saving the Union, I have destroyed the republic. Before me I have the Confederacy which I loath. But behind me I have the bankers which a fear."- Abraham Lincoln

"They (the South) know that it is their import trade that draws from the people's pockets sixty or seventy millions of dollars per annum, in the shape of duties, to be expended mainly in the North, and in the protection and encouragement of Northern interest . . . These are the reasons why these people do not wish the South to secede from the Union. They (the North) are enraged at the prospect of being despoiled of the rich feast upon which they have so long fed and fattened, and which they were just getting ready to enjoy with still greater gout and gusto. They are as mad as hornets because the prize slips them just as they are ready to grasp it." - New Orleans Daily Crescent, January 21, 1861

"The war between the North and the South is a tariff war. The war is further, not for any principle, does not touch the question of slavery, and in fact turns on the Northern lust for sovereignty."- Karl Marx, 1861

"The assertion that the South fought for slavery is Yankee propaganda and a monstrous distortion." -Jefferson Davis

"The past is not dead. It isn't even past." William Faulkner

"(A legitimate union of states) "depends for its continuance on the free consent and will of the sovereign people of each state," and "when that consent and will is withdrawn on either part, their union is gone. Any state forced to remain in a union by military force can never be a coequal member of the American Union and can be viewed only as a subject province.""-Daily Union, Bangor, Maine, November 13, 1860

So, as you can see, the issue is far from being as settled as you'd have it. To ignore the other point of view is not only wrong but not in keeping with wikipedia's goal of NPOV. Typo26 (talk) 01:21, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

So you've thrown a bunch of cluttered, generally unsourced quotes on a page, with no context, and certainly no attempt at wrestling with their relation to each other, and you say the jig is up? By the way, in response to your statement on Cleburne, well, flatly, he was a minority voice. Theres a reason why Jefferson Davis suppressed his call for slave emancipation, and the top brass of the military howled at the idea. He is certainly an interesting example of someone very different from the other officers around him, and certainly his stance is noteworthy as a prominent example of dissent. But that doesn't make what he said the going concern for everyone else involved, or denies the basic stated policies and decisions of the CSA. I can highlight to you any number of military men in any number of wars who were either prominently or significantly opposed to certain policies that they ostensibly fought under; that doesn't somehow nullify that they did, or that the state, kingdom, whatever they fought for still held those very same positions. SiberioS (talk) 02:45, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

What would it take to convince you? I imagine nothing in this world could. You and others have made your minds up and that is that. Tragic but true. I state my opinions, they are just opinions. I post quotes and sources, they're cluttered with no context. I don't need to tell you that I'm not alone in these interpretations or opinions...far from it. I can see the talk page has been a waste of time. I should've just initiated an edit war, because that's what it would be, wouldn't it, SiberioS? You and Red Harvest and the kind get to decide this article, no? What gives y'all the right? I'll just make my edits and additions. Revert them when y'all change them...leave it to arbitration. I've asked for no unreasonable concessions, merely to have the other side of the story presented, without taking away from anything else in the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Typo26 (talk • contribs) 03:00, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

You post unsourced quotes, with no context, indicating you've merely trawled the web for a smattering of lines that you can put on here. You have neither illustrated using scholarly articles nor books, with specific page citations, your position. You have insisted that the corpus of history is somehow tainted with Northern "novelty" and then turn around and throw up quotes by Dicken's and Karl Marx, as if they were authoritative writers on the civil war (Of which I'm specifically amused about the Marx quotes; I'm fairly confident you wouldn't like anything else he wrote outside of those mined quotes). Go to a library. Search through the Official Record. Scan through journals and books. You see this page (Military history of African American's in the U.S. Civil War)? You see how many citations there are for the Confederate section alone? Do hard research. SiberioS (talk) 03:12, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Rarely does one see so much quoted with so little understanding of what it means by the author. Red Harvest (talk) 03:10, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Rarely does one see such double standards for research, intellectual arrogance, hypocrisy, and lack of substance. Typo26 (talk) 03:37, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree, that describes your approach perfectly. You've contradicted yourself incessantly. This is going nowhere so I'm not going to continue arguing against your circular logic. Instead, I will await something coherent in the way of an article edit. If you determine an actual theme and can find reputable sources for it then it will improve the article. If not, it goes in the bit bin. Red Harvest (talk) 04:41, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

In order to correct vandalism that had been missed, I reverted to a much earlier "good" edit. Also changed, inadvertantly, was Watie's birth state back to Georgia. While my change was appropriate, whoever had made the original change probably did so in good faith and my edit summary (which I can't correct) implying that all the changes were vandalism is incorrect and I apoligize. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 22:52, 27 April 2008 (UTC)