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Loyd: I try and stay away from political matters here in this forum. However in this case I feel that a response to you is in order.

By you using the the following terms,

Perpetrated by our government

Drive by media

You let your your far far right Republican conservative
slip show. Those terms are used by the screw ball drug addict Rush Limbaugh and the far right wing wackos that work for Fox.


John F. Shireman

You've misjudged me, John. I merely use terminology that seems to fit. In point of fact I have little interest in partisan politics other than for their amusement factor. Taking the propaganda and misinformation spewed at one daily and designed by a bunch of self-serving, power hungry charlatans to inflame the public in one direction or the other so that one party or the other can position itself to retain power and to slop more effectively than the other at the public trough would drive me crazy if I took it seriously. My only concern with professional politicians and government is the same as I have for strong-arm men and bunco artists. They're ALL (regardless of, "party," affiliation) out to take something that I have and, generally, to use it for, at best, questionable purposes. I just want to know how best to protect myself from them.

Quote:

As a foreigner and a student of history it is my impression that the southern states did secede in the 1860s and nobody did anything to stop them. They joined together into the Confederate States of America. Then the Confederacy started a war with the Union by attacking Fort Sumter, a Union stronghold.

The war was avoidable, it did not become inevitable until the first shotted gun was fired (according to a contemporary commentator) and that gun was fired by the Confederacy.

When the war ended 5 years later the Confederate states rejoined the Union. But so far as I know, the individual states never gave up the right to secede.

So, there is no reason any state can't secede and go their own way peacefully as long as they resist the temptation to attack the United States.

I believe the US government is and has been way overstepping its constitutional boundaries. A CW2 is not out of the question; maybe that's why gun and ammo sales are out of sight.

On a more local and Packard level, our local city council in Pahrump, NV --one of the last bastions of independence in the USA and an "open carry" state--has decided that despite the fact that there are no zoning laws that THEY can make you remove any inoperable unlicensed vehicles from your property if they meet certain criteria. I think I can wiggle out of this if ever confronted because I'm in the process of "restoring" all these Packards (and Pontiacs). But this is just one more example of a certain political segment of our current society deciding that you need to conform to their values...if not they will make you comply.

Not going to happen here...with me.

Craig

Actually, Rusty, the attack was provoked by Lincoln. He wouldn't remove the troops from the Fort, and despite being told not to attempt to supply the Fort, he deliberately sent a ship of supplies. I suppose in a way you are right, they could have just ignored the situation for a period of time.

Sounds like the politics of today and the politics of always. I wonder what they called "spin doctors" in those days?

Quote:

My impression is that Fort Sumter was Union property, and the Confederacy was no longer part of the Union. So as a foreign government they had no right to tell Lincoln anything.

I have pondered the question of what would have happened if those shots had not been fired and the war had not happened. I suspect the Confederacy would have done away with slavery within 20 years anyway. But it would have been too late to save the Union. There would now be a United States and a Confederate States. In terms of international relations the Confederacy would be about on a par with Australia and the United States would be about half as important as it is now.

Rusty, there was sort of an unofficial and uneasy truce until General Beauregard decided, more or less on his own, to interfere with the resupply of Ft. Sumter in Charleston Harbour. The Federal Government in Washington never recognised the right of the southern states to secede and, well before Ft. Sumter, President Lincoln had called for 100,000 volunteers, presumably to put down what was considered by the Washington government to be a rebellion. Maybe he was just nervous. Both raising an army with which to invade the south and the resupply of a Federal fort located within a Confederate harbour (which one would assume was within Confederate territorial waters) could be considered acts of war, in and of themselves, as I suppose the resupplying of Ft. Sumter was by the South Carolinians and General Beauregard. The Federals had pretty much made it known that they weren't going to allow the southern states to secede, peacefully, and the Confederates had made it pretty plain that they intended to fight if interfered with. In the climate of the times war was inevitable from the time that the first southern state passed the first secession resolution. It was just waiting for a spark to set it off.

There was, about 50 years ago a book (I read it in serial form in the old, "Saturday Evening Post," magazine) called, "If the South Had Won the Civil War." I cannot recall the author's name but the book was quite well researched and logically posited the Army of Northern Virginia having flanked the Federal forces at Gettysburg, making an end run on Washington, capturing the Federal government and forcing a Union surrender. It also theorised the end of slavery within a short span of years, both because it was dying anyway and to facilitate foreign recognition of the CSA. Its author, however, theorised that with slavery no longer an issue and having so many common interests that the two nations would've reunited, if I remember correctly, under the depredations of German unrestricted submarine attacks on Allied and American shipping and the Imperial German government's plan to assist Mexico in reoccupying California, Texas, Arizona and New Mexico in return for their help should either American nation join the war on the side of the Allies. The Kaiser's foreign ministry did, in fact, make such an offer to the Mexican government before the United States entered World War I.

All conjecture, of course, but interesting nonetheless.

Quote:
Is that a back-handed compliment, or what?

As a supposed distant, very distant, relative of J.E.B. Stuart could be a connection there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J.E.B._Stuart

The South's gonna rise again!

http://www.yamelo.com/clip/claude-king/29633_claude-king_the-burning-of-atlanta.html

Lloyd - Your post contains some assumptions that I am not sure you are aware of. The statement that Lincoln called for 100,000 troops "with which to invade the south" is one of them.

It would make more sense to assume they were to defend against a Confederate attack. This is not guesswork. The south had the upper hand for the first 2 or 3 years in the war and the south penetrated northern territory long before the north invaded the south. Southern guns were within earshot of Washington at one time.

As for raising an army and resupplying a fort being acts of war, this is a stretch. Didn't the south raise an army? Didn't they supply their troops? Were they acts of war?

Can you give me an official statement by Lincoln or Congress before the Fort Sumter attack that indicates they were prepared to go to war without provocation?

This is not an argument. I an asking for information. I seriously believe that the south could have seceded peacefully and the details could have been negotiated without bloodshed.

The handing over of Union property on Confederate soil, such as forts, post office buildings and other government property were such details.

Ozstatman, that was not a crack. Without the southern states the US would obviously be smaller, with less population, less wealth and therefore less influence in the world. For one thing what would happen to the gross national product without Texas oil, itself an immense source of wealth and the fuel that drove the economy for the last hundred years? For another what about the people of the south? Where would the US be politically, culturally , militarily if you removed all the southerners?

Looked at from the other direction, where would the south be without the north? In terms of land, population and wealth and therefore influence in the world?

Looked at objectively it would have made unimaginable differences to world history of the last 150 years, if one of the world's great powers wasn't there.

"The handing over of Union property on Confederate soil, such as forts, post office buildings and other government property were such details."

What? By definition, "on Confederate soil" means it is most surely not Union property.

No one is expecting that we will resurrect the war between the states. The principles, however, remain as true as ever. The war was won by force, not by principle.