Flag burners and unregistered protestors, page 4

Originally posted by Jazzerman

Originally posted by PublicGadfly
I disagree that slavery was the main issue.

It was high, real high for the southern plantation owners but profit was the main issue. The southerners had no fear of losing the institution even with Lincoln as president. The existing plantations would have run as before. Slave import had declined as breeding was producing near what was required.

South Carolina caused the Civil War, and a small group in Charleston led that charge.

.

How was slavery not the main issue? Slavery was the entire socio-economic stronghold of the south and without the institution the big businesses (ie plantations and the like) would fall.

Also, historically speaking, Kansas was the actual birthplace of the Civil War battles. Kansas had a strong dividing line between people that believed in the institution and people that did not, and when small raids, etc. broke out between the northern and southern parts of the state after the passing of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854. From around 1854-1856 Kansas saw the beginning fuel for the Civil War and bloodshed would envelope the state from 1856-1861. Kansas was admitted into the Union as a free-soil state in 1861, after a declining vote against the Lecompton Constitution which was submitted in 1858, which would have made Kansas a slave state.

Interesting point on Lincoln being a Tyrant. In fact here is what he did that made many see him as such:
nip>
www.lewrockwell.com...

Hmm...seems a lot like a recent President? Doesn't it?

Slavery, Kansas and Lincoln.

In reverse order, not many will disagree that Lincoln used dictatorial powers. The primary excuse and a reason I agree with is that he acted during not only war time but during a period when the war at hand was meant to destroy the nation.

On Lincoln and Slavery, Lincoln himself states the most obvious:

"The expression of [the principle that all men are created equal], in our Declaration of Independence, was most happy and fortunate. Without this, as well as with it, we could have declared our independence of Great Britain; but without it, we could not, I think, have secured our free government, and consequent prosperity. No oppressed people will fight, and endure, as our fathers did, without the promise of something better than a mere change of masters."

As to Kansas being a cause of the Civil War I say yes. Kansas was perhaps additional to the cause, additive in nature. That the Kansians fought and suffered for and against the slavery issue there is no doubt.

Southern cotton interests along with European mercantilism wrapped in a peculiar oligarchy mentality caused the American Civil War. Slavery, since prior to the Revolutionary War was important to the south but it was subservient to the mercantile interests. Britain had proved with its plantation system that systems other than slavery could support labor intensive systems without the morality destruction of slavery. Economic servitude had proven to be a much better system than slavery for producing profit. The Mexican War was a wake-up call to the South. The previous Mexican territories showed Southern leaders that other labor systems could operate efficiently and more profitably than slavery.

The political leadership of the South had ruled the United States from its inception. Not satisfied with compromise to attain goals and increasingly despotic in nature Southern “aristocracy” needed an acceptable reason to garner support for dis-union. ”states rights” was that reason.

South Carolina, which had the highest percentage of slaves to white population also had a group of oligarchists that believed they were the cultural equal to any on the face of the earth and master of most if not all.*1

Profits, greed, ego and arrogance caused the Civil War. Nothing but absolute arrogance would have permitted the destruction of Federal properties by a people supposedly claiming to want to “go our own way in peace.”

- - - - -
*1 T. H. Breen, Tobacco Culture: The Mentality of the Great Tidewater Planters on the Eve of Revolution (Princeton University Press, 1985), p. 60.

Fatalism was foreign to their outlook." Indeed, in 1766 one frustrated clergyman grumbled that these planters believed that God's "affairs would be better managed if they might be entrusted with the direction of them"

Great source of short reports and letter by personnel on both sides of the conflict.Battles and Leaders of the Civil War by Castle.

Purported to be a photo essay of Mathew Brady work . While worthy of note for the photos, the commentaries are superb within this volume.

Various magazines such as the old Strategy and Tactics series offer insight.

Outstanding older works such as Knights of the Golden Cirlce.

This is a reprint of the 1903 edition -- now in the public domain. It is a classic in the study of the Knights of the Golden Circle (KGC). The KGC was a highly secret organization started shortly before the Civil War for purposes of uniting the southern U.S., Mexico and certain nearby lands to exploit the economic resources in the golden circle which was a 1200 mile circle with Havana as the center. This circle had abundance of natural resources and slave or near slave labor. When the CW started the tactics changed, but the eventual goal remained the same --a fascinating study.

Web references:
Bartelby.com reference to

Knights of the Golden Circle, secret order of Southern sympathizers in the North during the Civil War. Its members were known as Copperheads. Dr. George W. L. Bickley, a Virginian who had moved to Ohio, organized the first “castle,” or local branch, in Cincinnati in 1854 and soon took the order to the South, where it was enthusiastically received.

Texas Online says:


KNIGHTS OF THE GOLDEN CIRCLE. The Knights of the Golden Circle was a secret antebellum organization that sought to establish a slave empire encompassing the southern United States, the West Indies, Mexico, and part of Central America, an area some 2,400 miles in diameter-hence the name Golden Circle.

1911 Encyclopedia portrays a different slant on the Golden Cirlce.
“The plan was to overthrow the Lincoln government in the elections and give to the Democrats the control of the state and Federal governments, which would then make peace and invite the Southern States to come back into the Union on the old footing. In order to obstruct and embarrass the Republican administration the members of the order held peace meetings to influence public opinion against the continuance of the war; purchased arms to be used in uprisings, which were to place the peace party in control of the Federal government, or failing in that to establish a north-western confederacy; and took measures to set free the Confederate prisoners in the north and bring the war to a forced close., All these plans failed at the critical moment, and the most effective work done by the order was in encouraging desertion from the Federal armies, preventing enlistments, and resisting the draft.”

Copperhead Activities provides a fairly believed account of public perception.

New York City was a center of disunion sentiment. Its Mayor, Fernando Wood, proposed in black and white that in case of hostilities, the Metropolis should dissociate itself from the Uhion and become a free and neutral City. The bankers and politicians whom W. B. Russell met in New York on his arrival from England held similar views. "They told me", he wrote in the London Times, "that the majority of the people of New York, and all the respectable people, were disgusted at the election of such a fellow as Lincoln to be President, and would back the Southern Statea if it came to a split".
The story of the Copperheads, gaudy with secret symbols, passwords and other conspiratorial paraphenalia, is bloody and full of mighty terror. Beneath the theatrical props were real violence and fanticism. The true scope of the Copperheads will probably never be known. When Richmond was burning, Secretary of State, Judah Benjamin burned the record of his and Hines' secret dealings with the Copperhead leaders. However, Hines kept copies of many of his reports and letters, which he sent to his wife with instructions to hide them.

One of the many Knights of the Golden Circle websites.

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