Poll: Way Down SouthFollow

Good point.

Yes, slavery was an issue, but the primary issue was State's Rights.

Hahahhahahahahahahaha, holy shit, is that really what they're selling suckers these days? While one of the issues *decided* by the war was the question of federalism, it was, at best, a transparent pretext at the beginning of the war. This war, as with most wars, was unsurprisingly almost exclusively about an attempt to protect the wealth of the elite class from other members of the same class. That's not so easy to sell to the poor fuckers forced to leave their families to starve, though, so the demonization of the other side takes whatever form is most convenient.

As wars go, the US Civil War is really exceptionally boring except as a study in how long it takes a basically decent man of conscience to reach the point where he's willing to put total sons of ******* like Grant and Sherman in charge to win.

It's what they've been selling down South since, I'm guessing here, the 60s. I would bet good money that no one cared a whit about saying the Civil War was all about slavery before the Civil Rights movement.

It'd be interesting to see some pre-1964 history texts, in fact, just to see if I'm right about this.

It's the hillbilly version of political rectitude.

Sweetums makes the same point I did on page one.

When did "State Rights" become a reason? When the southern slave owners needed the non slave owners to fight for them. Or as Smash said
So we are going back to the mid Nineteenth century as to its being a rallying cry for secession.

Look up a southern man named States Rights Gist.

You know who gets to name wars? The winners.

You know whose name we use? The North's.

Jophed,

I also know that just because someone says something doesn't necessarily make it true.

Oh, la! How you talk. I'm sure you mean brandy and cigars in the drawing room.

It's still a matter of perspective though. The south was not a faction attempting to control the entire US. They were attempting to break away from the US. While the term "civil war" can broadly be used to describe any conflict between factions nominally associated with the same starting nation, we usually make a distinction between those in which factions are fighting for control over the whole, and those in which a single faction is attempting to break away. We typically call those "wars of secession", or "wars for independence".


It's an admittedly semantic point though...

So were the British when 13 of their colonies attempted to break away. As I pointed out earlier, while all such conflicts can broadly be called "civil wars", it's usually more correct to call them wars for secession, or wars of independence. The term civil war is usually reserved for a conflict specifically over control of the whole of a nation, by both/all sides who are fighting. When only one side is fighting to control the whole, and the other side is fighting to break away, we use other, more specific terms.

Frankly, the winner can call it whatever the fuck they want to call it.

It's a perfect analogy to Allegory's assumed definition of "civil war". He said that since the North was trying to control the government of the south and the entire US, that this made it a civil war. I'm pointing out that the same exact criteria was met during the US war for independence. The British were attempting to control the government of the colonies and the entire empire, while the colonies were simply trying to break away and form their own country.

I'm simply pointing out that the criteria as stated cannot be the sole determinant of whether or not we call something a civil war.

That was more of a poetic description. It's "proper" name at the time was the Great War.

Why, what was your point? Wanted to show how you could whiff history while trying to be snarky?