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The US Civil War: why was the North so adamant about holding the Union together?

cornsail said:
My view, based on the evidence I've seen, is that the secession was largely about slavery. And the war was about the secession. The north's purpose in the war was preserving the union.
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If proof of that were needed, it is supplied by the additions the CSA made to the US Constitution, reported in #35 by ipetrich.
Its original had referred to slavery indirectly, with euphemisms like "other Persons". The Confederate one was not only explicit, it defended a right to own slaves and to transport them from state to state.

Article I, Section 9:
Quote:
(4) No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed.
Article IV, Section 2:
Quote:
(1) The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States; and shall have the right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with their slaves and other property; and the right of property in said slaves shall not be thereby impaired.
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pipelineaudio said:
The USA is NOT, not not not a democracy. In fact the civil war proved that, thankfully. The USA is a constitutional republic, specifically to protect the minority from the effects of democracy, aka mob rule
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Not this canard again... To define republic and democracy this way, there has never been a democracy on this planet. The USA is a republic and a democracy. They're not mutually exclusiver terms, and are the answers to two different questions.
 
Ryokan said:
Not this canard again... To define republic and democracy this way, there has never been a democracy on this planet. The USA is a republic and a democracy. They're not mutually exclusiver terms, and are the answers to two different questions.
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That canard is taken straight from the John Birch Society....they have been pushing that since the 1950's.
The US is a democarcy with safeguards to keep it from self destructing. Don't know why that is so hard to understand.
 
pipelineaudio said:
The USA is NOT, not not not a democracy. In fact the civil war proved that, thankfully. The USA is a constitutional republic, specifically to protect the minority from the effects of democracy, aka mob rule
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Which "minority" is it designed to protect?
 
Foolmewunz said:
... The Union wanted to stop the cotton shipments from moving out via Mexico ...
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Again, thanks. I'm interested in whether the Mexican-American War (or, from the Mexican POV, the Invasion of Mexico), had any relation to the Civil War. I see it as basically robbing Mexico at gunpoint, despite a purchase price negotiated for Texas, California etc. It fascinates me that these conflicts over labor, agriculture and industry still exist, to some extent. I see it played out in immigration arguments and so forth. When I read books of war history, I tend to get bogged down in the incremental back-and-forth escalation. My instinct is to summarize and maybe oversimplify.
 
Minoosh said:
Again, thanks. I'm interested in whether the Mexican-American War (or, from the Mexican POV, the Invasion of Mexico), had any relation to the Civil War. I see it as basically robbing Mexico at gunpoint, despite a purchase price negotiated for Texas, California etc. It fascinates me that these conflicts over labor, agriculture and industry still exist, to some extent. I see it played out in immigration arguments and so forth. When I read books of war history, I tend to get bogged down in the incremental back-and-forth escalation. My instinct is to summarize and maybe oversimplify.
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Two very distinct and very different wars. Since we're not discussing the Mexican-American, I'll only address the Civil War.

Although a scant few years after, the blink of an eye in terms of world history, it was a very different Texas in 1860. In the 12/13 years after the Mex/Amer war, the population tripled. Of the total 600,000 head count, 1/3 of those were slaves. The "Tejanos" were not really an issue in the Civil War. It was the cotton growers (and that was the big money in the state) in the east of the state who were the heavyweight supporters of the Confederacy. Most had emigrated from the "old south" in the past decade or two. Cattle wasn't king yet; it wasn't even the crown prince. Texas' contribution to the war effort was soldiers and horses.... and, the route to the Mexican "gray market".

The history of Texas in the Civil War is checkered, to say the least. The opening and closing months of the war were largely ignored in history books in Texas and Oklahoma when I was a kid. In the beginning, the supporters of the Confederacy, who were not as dominant as the voting results would say (what with armed thugs running the conventions and meetings) respected the large number of Texans who had Union sympathies. Well, if "respected" means "hunted down and killed". This wasn't in the "heat of battle", but the opening weeks of the war. Rather than "get out!", it was "get out if you can; we're gonna give you a head start".

And the end of the war was anarchy. In spite of the government of Texas declaring that they would continue the war without Virginia and South Carolina and Georgia and Mississippi and Alabama, when word got to the troops of Lee's surrender, they revolted and raided everything that had something worth stealing. The investigation afterwards, by the good old boys of the Confederacy who were still in power just without uniforms, determined that it was not the soldiers but the civilian population that did the rioting, looting, ambushing of supply wagons and robbing of banks. This interesting conclusion is in spite of the comments of the General of the West of the Mississippi (for the Confederates) who when he got back from the front and tried to reinstate order, found that he had no troops to command as they'd all lit out. In fact, he's on record as blaming the deserters and in a wonderful bit of self-serving irony, gave them most hell for not being there for him to command. (It was sort of like the Napoleon character in Age of Empires.... "What??!! 'Ow can I be a zheneral with no troops to command?")
 
dudalb said:
That canard is taken straight from the John Birch Society....they have been pushing that since the 1950's.
The US is a democarcy with safeguards to keep it from self destructing. Don't know why that is so hard to understand.
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No canard, Franklin in no uncertain terms was quite adamant about the dangers of a democracy. I don't know anything about the John Birch society, but I have been a victim many times of democracy, and can feel exactly why the founding fathers were so dead set against democracy.
 
Foolmewunz said:
Two very distinct and very different wars. Since we're not discussing the Mexican-American, I'll only address the Civil War.
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The common thread I detected, perhaps fallaciously, was the concept of Manifest Destiny. Again, this is a phrase I use without in-depth understanding. But if the powers that were in the North (and I include Washington, D.C.) thought that the entire West was up for grabs, couldn't this supposed mandate extend to keeping cotton and other farmland under Union control?
 
Craig B said:
So the winning side in a two way vote is "mob rule"?
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Pretty much by definition, but again, it needn't be a bad thing, if there is a constitution in place to keep fundamental rights from being voted away. Unfortunately, that is often exactly what happens, even in the US when the constitution is supposed to protect us from it.

Here in Hawai'i, one island has allowed a vote on whether or not poor people should be allowed to eat (not that the law was worded like that but that is definitely the effect). Democracy in action
 
pipelineaudio said:
Pretty much by definition, but again, it needn't be a bad thing, if there is a constitution in place to keep fundamental rights from being voted away. Unfortunately, that is often exactly what happens, even in the US when the constitution is supposed to protect us from it.

Here in Hawai'i, one island has allowed a vote on whether or not poor people should be allowed to eat (not that the law was worded like that but that is definitely the effect). Democracy in action
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I don't know about this issue, but one way or the other it isn't "mob rule".
 
pipelineaudio said:
Pretty much by definition, but again, it needn't be a bad thing, if there is a constitution in place to keep fundamental rights from being voted away. Unfortunately, that is often exactly what happens, even in the US when the constitution is supposed to protect us from it.
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There were repeated effort to pass legislation that would effectively return black Americans to slave status in the South after the ACW. The federal government smacked most of them down. The some of the rest remain on the books, albeit unenforceable.
 
Craig B said:
It may simply be a comment meaning "might is right". Or "rights" are what you are strong enough to do anyway.
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That's the way it works out in real life. If the US wants to do something who can tell them nay?
 
Lincolns' Reason

Fellow Traveler said:
I would project if Buchanan had remained Pres, the south would have just walked out with best wishes. The key to the question is the difference between Buchanan and Lincoln. Lincoln said the nation could not have part slave and the other non slave. Also he realized the slave population was getting too great to be servile. Given politcal realities: how could Lincoln's party afford to be associated with the breakup?
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You have no oath in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to preserve, protect, and defend it...
 
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