Why the Confederate sub Hunley sank ...

[clintonhater]

Well CH, Britain COULD have decided to recognize the South during the Civil War, or to break the Union naval blockade. Lord knows they had the ships to do it. Yet they decided against doing these things.

Because they could see the handwriting on the wall--blockade or no blockade, the South had no chance, ultimately, against the industrial might of the North, once it was brought fully to bear.

You're a simpleton if you don't see the OBVIOUS point--it was completely within the power of the sanctimonious hypocrites who condemned slavery, but profited from its products, to end it by economic pressure. With no buyers for the mainstay of the Southern economy, what choice would planters have had, however much they hated doing it, but to free their slaves & begin paying them for their labor.

[Art]

[QUOTE=clintonhater;533365]
You're a simpleton...QUOTE]

So now the name calling starts. Great.

I'm a libertarian leaning conservative which means I agree with Togor on very almost nothing but his above post is not that of a "simpleton." I grew up in the post reconstruction South with all of the post reconstruction south propaganda about slavery, black people and what the "war between the states" was about. Obviously you have bought in on it and no amount of evidence will ever break you off your devotion to "The Glorious Cause."

I have friends in Mexico who believe that the United States consumption of illegal drugs is responsible for the current condition of Mexico. The argument they give is, rhetorically speaking, exactly the same as yours.

I can't believe I let myself get dragged into this discussion again but I did. Shame on me.

[JB White]

Well CH, Britain COULD have decided to recognize the South during the Civil War, or to break the Union naval blockade. Lord knows they had the ships to do it. Yet they decided against doing these things.

The reason they decided not to do it was due to that strategic little Emancipation Proclamation. It didn't free any slaves. Only said they should be free as Lincoln had no power over the CSA. It did keep England and France from violating their own laws. They were both on the verge of recognizing the CSA and breaking the Union blockade to bolster their own economies via a divided America.

As far as cotton from Egypt and India goes, there was a difference in quality between those cottons and North American cotton. Hence the demand. Yes, it was also much closer to the English textile mills which were about 20 years ahead of the American textile industry at the time. They could easily afford to pay the extra $4 per bale and the northern states, through lopsided representation in D.C. inflicted price controls and impounds in retaliation. And now we've come right back to one of the main causes of the War...which led to the development of the CSS Hunley.

[clintonhater]

I can't believe I let myself get dragged into this discussion again but I did. Shame on me.

Shame on you is right, but not for being "dragged into this discussion"--for deliberately twisting my condemnation of the self-serving hypocrisy of Britain & the North--which is absolutely undeniable--into "devotion to the Glorious Cause." Not one syllable in support of slavery did I utter, but the means of ending it, without warfare, that I described are irrefutable.

And your friends in Mexico aren't far wrong--gov't corruption is inevitable when vast amounts of un-taxed money flood into such a poor country as Mexico.

[togor]

CH, Art is right. Not that an endorsement from me will make his day, LOL. But he is.

[clintonhater]

CH, Art is right. Not that an endorsement from me will make his day, LOL. But he is.

What is your "endorsement" but the confirmation of his error?

[togor]

CH your argument boils down to: "Slam dunk. Sanctions work." Do they? Plenty of contemporary evidence to suggest they're mixed at best. And even then in your formulation they are a coercive external action upon the south, apparently to get it to do the thing which it should have done (end slavery), but was unable to do itself. And why is that? Because slavery was enormously profitable and they didn't want to!

Art has your number in this discussion. No amount of conversational whack-a-mole will persuade you.

[clintonhater]

CH your argument boils down to: "Slam dunk. Sanctions work." Do they?

Ask the whites of S. Africa, now "foreigners" in the country they built.

And even then in your formulation they are a coercive external action upon the south, apparently to get it to do the thing which it should have done (end slavery), but was unable to do itself. And why is that? Because slavery was enormously profitable and they didn't want to!

So what's your counter argument? That with little market for their cotton because Northern & foreign mills stopped buying it, they'd have gone on growing it merely to torment their slaves? Where, then, would those "enormous profits" be coming from?

[togor]

CH, instead of hopscotching from one argument to another, tell me a simple thing: was Slavery in the South, in your opinion, morally wrong? And do you today believe that the arguments ginned up then to justify the institution, that blacks are lower on the development scale and better suited to manual labor and servitude as their natural condition, are accurate? If you dance around these questions, as I expect you will, then you prove Art's point.

[JB White]

Bottom line is nobody went to war over a single issue. Each state that seceded had their own reasons but they shared a common ground. More populated states dictating how things would go the way they wanted and other states rights be damned. Some states sympathetic to the Southern Cause opted not to secede for other reasons.
To hypothetically say "IF" the cotton stopped selling there would have been war/no war is totally off base no matter the viewpoint. The cotton WAS selling and in demand so there was no IF about it. It was what it was.

The Northern newspapers created the fury over abolishing slavery immediately. Everyone with common sense knew that would crumble economies and unleash a Negro population unable to contribute or care for itself as a whole. Frederick Douglas himself knew that and even preached that. Slavery as an institution was already waning. It would just take time. The Confederate Constitution forbade the importation of slaves. They knew the time was passing.

In one big lump, the secession began over States Rights. The War began when the muscle flexing and sabre rattling went out of control.


...and that eventually led to the CSS Hunley and why we have a mystery today

[clintonhater]

CH, instead of hopscotching from one argument to another, tell me a simple thing: was Slavery in the South, in your opinion, morally wrong? And do you today believe that the arguments ginned up then to justify the institution, that blacks are lower on the development scale and better suited to manual labor and servitude as their natural condition, are accurate? If you dance around these questions, as I expect you will, then you prove Art's point.

YOU are the one doing the hop-scotching! I asked you WHY a boycott of slave-produced cotton wouldn't have worked, as you implied, & you change the subject, as you routinely do, to a personal attack on me! How do my personal beliefs pertain in any way to the question of whether or not such a boycott would have been effective???

If ever there was a case of "feeding the troll," it's responding to an ad hominum attack used to obfuscate the issue at hand, but to stuff the question down your evasive throat, nobody I know of living today, including myself, disputes that slavery was "morally wrong."

- - - Updated - - -

To hypothetically say "IF" the cotton stopped selling there would have been war/no war is totally off base no matter the viewpoint. The cotton WAS selling and in demand so there was no IF about it. It was what it was.

Maybe so, but it's still important to point out the sanctimonious hypocrisy of those who condemned slavery, but profited from its products.

[JB White]

Maybe so, but it's still important to point out the sanctimonious hypocrisy of those who condemned slavery, but profited from its products.

Most plantation owners in the 1850's were born into the institution of slavery. I do not recall reading any period letters from them or author's interpretations condemning slavery. Recognizing the possible end of an era? Yes. Others defended it from a businessman's perspective. Others had a few slaves (more like servants) and never felt quite right about it. But...that's just the way things were back then.

The actual hypocrisy came from the north. Those who would free the slaves overnight but refused to accept any responsibilities for their actions. And you thought "liberals" were a new concept?


Hey...what about that Hunley thing?

[clintonhater]

The actual hypocrisy came from the north. Those who would free the slaves overnight but refused to accept any responsibilities for their actions. And you thought "liberals" were a new concept?


Hey...what about that Hunley thing?

What more of any significance can be said about the Hunley? I suggest consulting a medium who can perhaps "interview" the spirits of the crew & ask them the reason for the disaster.

Of course the hypocrisy lay in the North & esp., Britain--where they hated slavery but loved the profits to be made from cheap cotton. But the Northern liberals of that time were radically different in one way from those of today, who, if not agnostics, conceive of God as some kind a philosophic abstraction. The Abolitionists were, like John Brown, almost without exception FANATICAL Christians, whose religious hysteria allowed them to justify violence & murder in pursuit of doing "God's work."

[togor]

CH I notice that you didn't answer the second part of the question. As for a cotton boycott. Recall that the law of the land then was that the Constitution allowed for slavery. Northern states might not like it. German farmers in Iowa may not like competing against people who pay no wages, but it was the law. But consider that it took a substantial war to get the south to call it quits. I doubt very much that a boycott would have been of sufficient strength to get southerners to radically reorganize their society. So no, you can't pin blame for the institution on everyone else but the practitioners. And it's not like cotton stopped being a crop after the war. It just seems like you have trouble moving on.

[clintonhater]

It just seems like you have trouble moving on.

It's the Confederate monument wreckers who can't move on.