[tomder55]

That was a Civil war because those southerners decided they didn't want to be part of the same country the northerners were for a number of reasons.

The Political correctness movement wants to pretend it was about freeing slaves....that was done more to punish the south than for any other reason.

Funny from someone who has an avatar of William T Sherman.

[paraclete]

Tom as I recall the War started as a result of the provocative acts of the US President in sending a naval force to reinforce the fort. Sth Carolina had succeeded months earlier and wanted the US forces to withdraw. So if there was a war to be fought it was between Sth Carolina and the US and others should not have been brought into it, but were as soon as it became apparent land forces were to move through other states sympathetic to the southern cause.

The prudent course of action would have been to remove the forces from the fort, forces who had unilaterally taken over the fort, and negotiate, rather than escalate the conflict

[tomder55]

Nonsense . Fort Sumter was US property ;and South Carolina was in rebellion... it was not independent from the US.

[paraclete]

Tom there were even negotiations to sell it to Sth Carolina, but matters were allowed to escalate even though Anderson had indicated he would surrender on April 15. If Davis and Lincoln had stayed out of it, it would have been surrendered without a shot being fired.

Buchannan was of the opinion there was no provision for a state to withdraw from the union, neither was there one preventing it, so it was hardly rebellion

[tomder55]

There was either a disolution by consent of nullification , or there was revolt. The northern states did not agree to the disolution of the United States therefore there was rebellion.

Andrew Jackson during the Nullification crisis made it clear that there was no provision for a state to individually disolve the Union .

But each State having expressly parted with so many powers as to constitute jointly with the other States a single nation, cannot from that period possess any right to secede, because such secession does not break a league, but destroys the unity of a nation, and any injury to that unity is not only a breach which would result from the contravention of a compact, but it is an offense against the whole Union. To say that any State may at pleasure secede from the Union, is to say that the United States are not a nation because it would be a solecism to contend that any part of a nation might dissolve its connection with the other parts, to their injury or ruin, without committing any offense. Secession, like any other revolutionary act, may be morally justified by the extremity of oppression; but to call it a constitutional right, is confounding the meaning of terms, and can only be done through gross error, or to deceive those who are willing to assert a right, but would pause before they made a revolution, or incur the penalties consequent upon a failure.

And James Buchannan ;although a fecklessly weak executive in fact drew a sharp line in the sand about secession .

In order to justify secession as a constitutional remedy, it must be on the principle that the Federal Government is a mere voluntary association of States, to be dissolved at pleasure by any one of the contracting parties. If this be so, the Confederacy is a rope of sand, to be penetrated and dissolved by the first adverse wave of public opinion in any of the States. In this manner our thirty-three States may resolve themselves into as many petty, jarring, and hostile republics, each one retiring from the Union without responsibility whenever any sudden excitement might impel them to such a course. By this process a Union might be entirely broken into fragments in a few weeks which cost our forefathers many years of toil, privation, and blood to establish.

[smoothy]

funny from someone who has an avatar of William T Sherman.

I'm a Southerner by choice (and by the providence of employment)... but a Yankee by Birth. I've actually spent most of my adult life south of the Mason-Dixon line (except for a number of years in Europe). The last 19 of that in Virginia.

[paraclete]

Old Vaginny, Eh, well I sympathise with you for the desecration that was done to your state during the civil war. Damn near won it all by yourselves

[smoothy]

Old Vaginny, Eh, well I sympathise with you for the desecration that was done to your state during the civil war. Damn near won it all by yourselves

None of my ancestors were on this side of the Atlantic during that time frame... they were being abused by the British in Ireland and Scotland or by the Kaisers in Germany. They all immigrated here after 1900 as far as I can determine.

[paraclete]

None of my ancestors were on this side of the Atlantic during that time frame......they were being abused by the British in Ireland and Scotland or by the Kaisers in Germany. They all immigrated here after 1900 as far as I can determine.

Yeh, mine left Ireland in 1822, that's as much as I know. The British have had a thousand years of abusing the Irish, it seems to be a passtime with them, I guess they might have been afraid the Irish would get the ascendency