The Civil War - The version they don't teach in school

Here's the history of the Civil War they don't teach you in school and there are way too many people who are ignorant to what actually happened because they have only been exposed to the government's version of history (properly educated people are dangerous to governments and elite aristocrats). Slavery was not the primary reason the Civil war happened, but that economic clashes were the primary reason. Lincoln didn't care about freeing slaves (he was a white supremacist), he only cared about preserving the union in whatever way possible, even if it meant freeing the slaves (or NOT freeing the slaves).

The states wanted to secede because they found that importing textiles and other manufactured items from Europe were much cheaper than importing them from the northern states. So the Republicans in Congress decided to do away with the free market and levy a huge tariff on all European goods that were competing with big northern manufacturing businesses. Since there was no competition for northern businesses anymore, they just charged the southern states as much as they possibly could for textiles and manufactured items. Not only that, but European countries reacted to the tariff by stopping the purchase of southern cotton.

Both of these factors CRUSHED the southern economy, and on top of that, there was pressure from the north on the south to get rid of their slaves, which WAS their labor force at the time (and therefore what little economy they had left). They wanted to secede because the north was destroying them economically. It had little to do with the right to own slaves. It's a classic example of how Collectivist economies subvert the free market: they always enrich one group of people at the expense of another.

Nobody in the north cared about the Civil War because in the beginning it was only about business interests. So it was no surprise that the Union was badly losing the war at the beginning. Since people in the north hardly cared about fighting a war for rich white elite businessmen, the Union had to figure out how to 1) get people to care, and 2) convince them to pay for it. Of course you KNOW these minor inconveniences were solved by the simple expediency of violating the Constitution. Lincoln decided to convert the Civil War from being seen as a rich elitist white man's war into an anti-slavery crusade through some good old fashioned government propaganda called the EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION. (People are more likely to support unnecessary wars if they think FREEDOM is at stake. History tends to repeat itself - are you catching on yet?) Congress was not consulted; Lincoln just took it upon himself to pass it. This psychological tool created a surge of enlistments in the Union military.

Eventually even the Emancipation Proclamation stopped getting soldiers to care enough to re-enlist and risk dying for slaves that didn't really affect their own well-being. So Lincoln compensated for this other minor inconvenience by shredding the Constitution again and instituting a MILITARY DRAFT. But don't be mistaken, if you were rich enough, you could avoid the draft by contributing a sum of money to the government, or by hiring someone to take your place. So in a CLASSIC government style, only POOR people were drafted and forced to die for the government. This outraged many people in the north and violent riots erupted in Ohio, Illinois, and NYC. Lincoln's Union Army was called in and killed and wounded over a thousand protesters just by firing randomly into the crowds in NYC. Nice.

Lincoln responded again by, you guessed it, taking a (*)(*)(*)(*) on the Constitution. He straight up PEACED habeas corpus, which allowed the government to imprison critics without due process of law or formal charges brought against them. So under the guise of slavery opposition, Americans were killed by their own government on their own streets, thrown into jail without due process, and the poor were forced to fight and die in a war they didn't support. Herein lies a classic example of Collectivist hypocrisy. Americans were enslaved so that the slaves could be freed. Nice. It was done for the greater good of the greater number, but it does not matter to Collectivists that the Individual's rights are violated. Violating individual rights also is not good for the greater number, and destroys both the individual and the greater number.

There was also the minor issue of funding the war. The government wasn't about to allow the Constitution to get in the way of this one either! So an income tax was established, directly violating the part of the Constitution that prohibited federal income taxes. On top of that, war bonds were sold. But even this wasn't enough revenue, and Congress knew that raising income taxes would be dangerous to an already angrily anti-war northern population. So they had two options: either terminate the war, or create money out of thin air to pay for it. Let's be honest here, which one do you think Lincoln and his Republican Congress picked?

So they violated the Constitution again by having the Treasury emit bills of credit called the Greenbacks, and declared them as legal tender for all private debts (the public were forced to use them as currency in private transactions but had to pay taxes in real money). Some BANKERS did not like being cut out of the money creating scam Lincoln and Congress were doing. This led to the NATIONAL BANK ACT which established many nationally chartered banks who could create money out of thin air and purchase government bonds...bonds which paid them interest. Interest on money they created. Interest on nothing. The Confederacy basically did the same thing except the Confederate people had it much worse. They saw price increases of 9,100% due to the devaluation of fiat Confederate currency which was obviously in hyperinflation. Taxpayers on both sides picked up the tab in the form of inflation/higher prices; their savings and purchasing power was destroyed while bankers profited and the wheels of the war machine kept turning. (History tends to repeat itself - are you catching on yet?)

If the Constitution had been obeyed in the first place, the Civil War probably would have never happened. The North wouldn't have economically destroyed the south. The South would have soon abandoned slavery anyway in favor of more economically efficient machines as the north had been using. The Union Army wouldn't have killed its own people. Americans wouldn't have had their wealth confiscated and transferred to bankers and government through inflation. The Union would have been preserved without war. (On a side note, the National Bank Act locked the nation into perpetual debt and also set the stage for a more efficient piece of legislation that would centralize those nationally chartered banks into one collective unit called the FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM.) In conclusion, Protectionism and Tariffs are the main reason the Civil War happened, not slavery.

 

I will admit there was a lot more to it than slavery, but slavery was a big part of it. Along with the other you mentioned. Also the South felt they were losing power in the government and that didn't sit to well with them either.

 

Wow, where do you guys get this revisionist pap from anyway? Do you just sit around making it up in your heads?

The Civl War started shortly before Missouri Compromise. Every single time a new State came into the Union, pro-slavery and anti-slavery groups would flood into that new territory in order to influence whether that State would be a slave state or not.

Both the South and the North saw the writing on the wall. The North figured all it had to do was just wait until until enough anti-slave States were created and at some point(probably around 1900) and anti-slavery amendment to the Constitution would be possible.

The South was absolutely determined to stop that from happening under all circumstances. When the South realized that it was impossible to create enough slave states to keep an abolition amendment from occuring at some point in the future, they started to seriously consider secession.

The Civil war was not over the economics in the South, but over the continuing creation of non-slave States in the West that would eventually lead to an abolition amendment in the Constitution.

The war was not about "freeing the slaves" it was over the South realizing that at some point in the future it was inevitable an abolition amendment would happen. Those southern plantation owners were absolutely convinced it was ordained by God that they own slaves in perpetuity and they were determined to either keep slavery in America in perpetuity, or die fighting.

 

Again, I agree that slavery played a big part in it. I said that before. But there was much more to it than slavery. I had my Great Grandfather and three Great uncles fight in the Civil War for the South and they weren't fighting for slavery. None of them even owned slaves.

 

Lincoln suspended habeas corpus long before the draft riots of 1863...in fact, as early as 1861. Many of his arrests included editors and politicians that spoke out against the war. The following (Northern) newspaper editorials show the sentiment for Lincoln's war.

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"Mr. Lincoln saw an opportunity to inaugurate civil war without appearing in the character of an aggressor." ~ Providence Daily Post, April 13 1861

"We are to have civil war, if at all, because Abraham Lincoln loves a [the Republican] party better than he loves his country.... [He] clings to his party creed, and allows the nation to drift into the whirlpool of destruction." ~ The Providence Daily Post, April 13 1861

"If this result follows – and follow civil war it must – the memory of ABRAHAM LINCOLN and his infatuated advisors will only be preserved with that of other destroyers to the scorned and execrated.... And if the historian who preserves the record of his fatal administration needs any motto descriptive of the president who destroyed the institutions which he swore to protect, it will probably be some such as this: Here is the record of one who feared more to have it said that he deserted his party than that he ruined the country, who had a greater solicitude for his consistency as a partisan than for his wisdom as a Statesman or his courage and virtue as a patriot, and who destroyed by his weakness the fairest experiment of man in self-government that the world ever witnessed." ~ The American Standard, New Jersey, April 12, 1861, the very day the South moved to reclaim Fort Sumter.

"The affair at Fort Sumter, it seems to us, has been planned as a means by which the war feeling at the North should be intensified, and the administration thus receive popular support for its policy.... If the armament which lay outside the harbor, while the fort was being battered to pieces [the US ship The Harriet Lane, and seven other reinforcement ships], had been designed for the relief of Major Anderson, it certainly would have made a show of fulfilling its mission. But it seems plain to us that no such design was had. The administration, virtually, to use a homely illustration, stood at Sumter like a boy with a chip on his shoulder, daring his antagonist to knock it off. The Carolinians have knocked off the chip. War is inaugurated, and the design of the administration accomplished." ~ The Buffalo Daily Courier, April 16, 1861.

"We have no doubt, and all the circumstances prove, that it was a cunningly devised scheme, contrived with all due attention to scenic display and intended to arouse, and, if possible, exasperate the northern people against the South.... We venture to say a more gigantic conspiracy against the principles of human liberty and freedom has never been concocted. Who but a fiend could have thought of sacrificing the gallant Major Anderson and his little band in order to carry out a political game? Yet there he was compelled to stand for thirty-six hours amid a torrent of fire and shell, while the fleet sent to assist him, coolly looked at his flag of distress and moved not to his assistance! Why did they not? Perhaps the archives in Washington will yet tell the tale of this strange proceeding.... Pause then, and consider before you endorse these mad men who are now, under pretense of preserving the Union, doing the very thing that must forever divide it." ~ The New York Evening Day-Book, April 17, 1861.

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A notable arrest was of Francis Howard Key, grandson of Francis Scott Key.

The grandson of Francis Scott Key, Francis Key Howard, the editor of the Baltimore Exchange, was arrested as well as others who wrote against Lincoln. While he was imprisoned at Fort McHenry, he wrote the following words. The date was September 13, 1861...... 47 years to the day!

"When I looked out in the morning, I could not help being struck by an odd and not pleasant coincidence. On that day, forty-seven years before, my grandfather, Mr. F. S. Key, the prisoner on a British ship, had witnessed the bombardment of Ft. McHenry. When on the following morning the hospital fleet drew off, defeated, he wrote the song so long popular throughout the country, the Star Spangled Banner. As I stood upon the very scene of that conflict, I could not but contrast my position with his, forty-seven years before. The flag which he had then so proudly hailed, I saw waving at the same place over the victims of as vulgar and brutal a despotism as modern times have witnessed."

When he was finally released on November 27, 1862 he wrote:

"We came out of prison just as we had gone in, holding the same just scorn and detestation [for] the despotism under which the country was prostrate, and with a stronger resolution that ever to oppose it by every means to which, as American freemen, we had the right to resort."

From......"Fourteen Months In the American Bastiles" by Francis Key Howard

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"Freedom from arbitrary arrest, guaranteed in the writ of habeas corpus, has long been a centerpiece of American civil liberties. During the Civil War, however, President Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus and arrested antiwar protesters to suppress dissent. Under presidential orders, the federal government required residents to carry passports, organized a secret service, and cooperated with local police to apprehend suspects. The government also circumvented the civil liberties of political prisoners. Although federal officials usually detained suspects for only short periods, they did so without any regular hearings.

Furthermore, the federal government sometimes used military commissions to try civilians for their crimes. Although the Supreme Court did not question the power of such commissions during the war, their use outside the war zone for the trial of civilians was declared unconstitutional after the war. High-ranking politicians were not immune from conviction; federal agents imprisoned several prominent politicians, including the mayors of Baltimore and Washington, D.C., Congressman Henry May, and former Kentucky governor Charles S. Morehead, as well as many Northern newspaper editors. Historians do not know exactly how many people the government arrested for antiwar protests during the Civil War, although estimates vary from just over 13,000 to as many as 38,000. Chief Justice Roger B. Taney and other jurists questioned Lincoln's actions and held that only Congress could suspend habeas corpus. The president, however, defended his position in a series of open letters and continued to arrest antiwar protesters, even after 3 March 1863, when federal lawmakers required the government to release or subject political prisoners to regular judicial procedure."

From.....Dictionary of American History...2003 edition


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If one wonders when our liberties began to be lost, no need to look any further than A. Lincoln.

 

As a matter of fact, one uncle worked and lived on a plantation working the farm. Having more slaves could have put him out of work and out of a place to live.

 

Not over economics, you say?

"But what am I to do in the meantime with those men at Montgomery [meaning the Confederate constitutional convention]? Am I to let them go on... [a]nd open Charleston, etc., as ports of entry, with their ten-percent tariff. What, then, would become of my tariff?" ~ Lincoln to Colonel John B. Baldwin, deputized by the Virginian Commissioners to determine whether Lincoln would use force, April 4, 1861.

 

So what? A minor tarriff issue does not cause a giant war to explode across the Continent. The South had no right to secede, once you become a State of these United States you are in it for good. Period.

The Slave States tried to reneg on a deal made by their grandparents to become one nation and they paid the consequences and while I admire the bravery and fortitude of the Southern Soldier and the Armies they were a part of. I refuse to agree that the South had any right to fire on Ft. Sumter and the supply ships moving into Charleston harbor or that their independence was legitimate.

 

Prove that the South had no right to secede. Go ahead, find it somewhere in the Constitution. You won't, because it isn't there. But, if you somehow think it was implied that a state couldn't leave the Union, consider this.

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Would the Constitution have been ratified if there had been a 11th Amendment that read as follows:

Section 1. Notwithstanding the Guarantee Clause and the 9th and 10th Amendments, no State may ever secede from the Union for any reason.

Section 2. If any State attempts to secede without authorization by the Federal Government, the Federal Government shall invade such State with military force and suppress the attempted secession.

Section 3. The Federal Government may require the militias of all States to join in the use of force against the seceding State.

Section 4. After suppressing the secession the Federal Government shall rule said State with martial law until that State accepts permanent federal supremacy.

Section 5. After suppressing the secession, the Federal Government shall force said State to ratify a new Constitutional Amendment which gives the federal government the right to police the States whenever it believes those States are violating the rights of their citizens.

Section 6. The President may, of his own authority, suspend the operation of the Bill of Rights and the writ of habeas corpus, in a seceding State, or a loyal State, if in his sole judgment such is necessary to preserve the Union.

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The states were sovereign states entering into a voluntary agreement to form the Union. You do agree with that, right?

Now consider that we voluntarily entered the UN as a sovereign nation. Nowhere in the UN Charter does it specifically prohibit or allow a member nation to leave, just as the US Constitution doesn't in relation to the member states.

So, by your logic, we cannot leave the UN and the UN would be fully justified in using military force to compel us to stay.

Would the US have joined the UN had it understood it couldn't leave?

 

The war was like all wars for economic interests, no more than that. And yes the South was cotton depending, and it was based in a slavery system. While the North was more industrial and they didn't need the slaves.

The war was more complex, and was a mix of the reasons said by DrRight... and the rest. But I don't believe that all that is taught in education in the required level. Obviously in school you can't teach everything, and you give a general vision and the most important.

 

OP is old as (*)(*)(*)(*). He was alive during the Civil War. He's telling us how it went like he remembers it.

 

Umm... because it's the truth? Lincoln even said if he could keep the Union as is and still have the Blacks as slaves he would do it.

"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; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union."

"I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the white and black races – that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied everything."

 

I've proven this wrong a million times over the last couple years on this forum. Historians say that the in 1860 the question was "iffy" on legality, but in the end did the Southern States sue in the Supreme Court for secession rights? No they did not. Did they bring out their best lawyers and rhetoricians to plead their cases before the Supreme Court and explain to the Judiciary why they were so keen on seceding and accept that arbitration? No they did not.

They threw the entire system out and tried a rebellion and a rebellion is a contest of arms solved not with lawyers and legislators but powder, lead and steel and the rebellion failed which solved the question for all time, because now we have the 14th Amendment and Supreme Court precedent to back it up that Secession is NOW illegal.

Show me where the Southern States made a single attempt to pursue a legal avenue through the United States Supreme Court. You can't, becuase there isn't one.

 

Where is this requirement for a State to perform a Lawsuit against the Federal Government to back out of the Union? This is entire setup would be similar to that of the country of the EU backing out of it and no longer being part of it... yet trying to setup a court case to assert their own National Sovereignty. Honestly... Good luck trying to be a Major player in the EU and try to get a "Fair" Trial from the Authoritarian Super Government to secede. We use the term States and not Provinces for a reason because every State is a Nation of itself but, it appears the Republic has drifted further towards a Democracy/Despotism so of course no would rationally see a State in today's term being that of a Nation.

 

A nation where a portion of it can just tear themselves away at will isn't a viable nation.

Seems to me you would've been happier under Articles of Confederation than a Constitution.

These views are long dead and no longer accepted as valid under any circumstance. Geez what is it with the resurgence of fossilized remnants of Conservatism lately? These dinosaurs died 150 years ago why are people trying to bring them back to life?

Do you just hate the USA that much?

I mean really do you just hate the idea One Nation, Indivisible that badly? Why do you hate the Country that bore you so much and feel no loyalty to it?

You are not some Daniel Boone pioneer out on the edge of the wild frontier. You live in a modern society, start acting like it a little bit.

 

My primary objection to what is being taught is that generally speaking it wasn't a civil war at all. The Southern states withdrew from a contract (the US Constitution) based upon a belief that the contract was being violated. They formed their own government and it was not a rebellion attempting to overthrow the US government. It was, in reality, an invasion of one nation by another nation as two independent governments existed at the time.

Of course it was ultimately over slavery but it wasn't really a civil war. The US Constitution simply failed to provide the provisions where States could withdraw from the Union (a dissolution clause) and all contracts should contain such a clause.

 

It's a formation of smaller nations banding together for mutual protection... It's a Republic. This isn't Knights of the Old Realms carving out Kingdoms and Lords ruling over the Lands kneeling before their Masters.

It seems you do not understand what a Republic is and clearly wish to put words into my mouth.

Well you're an Imperialist/Authoritarian/Jihadist so the possibility of individual freedom and state sovereignty never come to your ideal world as being rational.

Still putting words into my mouth... Clearly I just hate the Republic and the Laws it has that tries to make us as Peaceful as possible while still respecting the Individual Rights of others. I'm sorry people such as yourself seem to feel the need to hijack the Government with your morals and personal conquests that poison the Republic to the point of being nothing more than Democracy.

I hate the idea of "One Nation" being run by Mob Rule for their own Morals and personal Conquests. While I also hate the fact that the Government uses force against a persons individual rights (Actions that do not impact others) yet, since the Government is hijacked enforce the Morals of the Majority that use force against Individuals.

Living in Modern Society is equivalent to bending my knee to whatever the Government supports or whatever Nation I'm born to? Sorry I don't my knee to something that inherently is against me... I'm just glad the Rule of Law is still in place to remove the infection of Authoritarians that poisoned the Republic so much this Century.

 

It was under the State Law to secede from the Nation because States themselves previously were recognized as their own Sovereign States. Under New Hampshire Law there is still the ability to the Rebel against the Local Government even when that is an act of Secession.

 

So you insult me and my integrity because I state a few facts that contradict your historical prejudices?

You need to figure out that over 200 years compromises on individual freedom have been made for the greater good and our society is no longer the same one that the Founding Fathers created. America was built on compromise, not indiviudalistic self rule alone and has changed permanently. There is more Statism and less frontier mentality. You are just going to have to accept that fact or you will be miserable angry and mean your whole (*)(*)(*)(*) life and look at the "mainstream" as the enemy.

No one is trying to tyrannize you as an individual but when you absolutely refuse to consider the public good even a little bit then you are nothing but some kind of crazy nutjob separatist like Ron Paul. If his ideology is so correct why aren't libertarians in control of this nation?

 

Historical what? You ranted about myself being for the AoC & Disloyal to the USA.

Greater good? Clearly you sound like an Authoritarian and I'm sorry it pains you to see what you truly are. You call people Liberals when they call for the Greater Good but, here you are saying just as what they would say. Isn't ironic you see to combat the ideology of your "foes" such as Liberals & Jihadists but, follow closely to how they present their cases and how they're willing to go about doing so. I'm quite surprised at times you don't take my "name calling" of Authoritarian/Statist/Imperialist with more delight considering you seem to support it without wavering from it.

What kind of crap are you spouting? The Greater Good ideology is nothing but a case for the Majority to take away the rights and property of others. It would be similar to the Government using eminent domain to purchase land from one private owner to give it to another private handler simply because it would be for the Greater Good. You stand for nothing of what a Republic is... The Greater Good means sacrificing the Individual and that is a Collective State. Are you a Collectivist?

 

Just wanted to point out a flaw I see in this logic; what caused the United States to pull away from England? I believe it was a small tariff issue of the Tea Act that started the hostilities and frustration with the Boston Tea Party and the rest soon followed. Taxes CAN start wars.

 

You can read the Declaration of Independence and there were an entire slew of issues besides Taxation. That was just a rallying cry but there were far more heinous things going on besides that.

The problem is people aren't reading real history, they are reading what some neo-confederate website puts up with an agenda towards denying the truth, similar to holocaust denial.

I challenge anyone here who thinks the Confederacy was legitimate to go to Historynet.com or any of the real history forums and try and make these arguments. Those legitimate historians would tear apart these arguments like tissue paper.

 

The north didn't "need" slaves cause the common man was paid at "slave wages".

 

There were grievences, but as you stated, it was the rallying cry of taxes that ignited the revloution.

What makes these places that you believe as "real" history sites? Is it the part where they leave off other information to make you think it was all about slavery? Is using Licolns own words that shows that he was never anti-slavery enough to pursuade you that there was MORE to the situation than an anti-slavery movenment?

Why are the considered "real" historians? Cause the federal government gives them that title? This is the internet, and not like O'Reilly show where the one with the loudest mic "wins" the argument.

 

There are some statements being made that are directed at other members and that are derogatory in nature (i.e. personal insults/attacks) and this needs to stop immediately. I haven't deleted those statements but they are there for anyone to see. If it continues I will take actions and will ban the member from this thread at the very least.

Please address the topic, statements made and not other members.

Thank you,
Shiva_TD
Site Moderator