Is AZ standing up for what is right?

[Kapt Z]

Bye AZ, don't let the federal funding hit you on the way out.

[SteamWake]

But dont you realize that the constitution is outdated and irrelevant in 'modern' times?

I mean "We the people" for cryin out loud.

/sarcasim

[Happy Times]

State rights was the real reason for the Civil War also.

[Kapt Z]

Originally Posted by Happy Times

State rights was the real reason for the Civil War also.

We're definately going a little off topic here, but....

I agree with you in the 'academic' sense, but I wonder if any 'states rights' issue other than slavery would have been severe enough to cause the South to secede.

[Neptunus Rex]

Bully for Arizona! If only more states were to exercise their authority in the Constitution.

[SUBMAN1]

Originally Posted by Neptunus Rex

Bully for Arizona! If only more states were to exercise their authority in the Constitution.

Washington is too.

-S

[UnderseaLcpl]

Originally Posted by Kapt Z

We're definately going a little off topic here, but....

I agree with you in the 'academic' sense, but I wonder if any 'states rights' issue other than slavery would have been severe enough to cause the South to secede.

Actually, the war* started over a tariff that the Federal Government wanted to place on good imported from abroad, especially English manufactured goods, thus making it cheaper to buy manufactured goods from the Northern States.

Slavery was just the excuse they offered to get Northerners to fight. A good indication of just how much the Union cared about slaves is the fact that it contained slave states. Even the emancipation proclamation didn't change that.
Inversely, most (if not virtually all) Southerners were not fighting to keep slaves. Only a handful of the populace was wealthy enough to afford slaves, anyway.

Even though the spark that started secession was a tariff, the state's rights issue the South was most concerned about was state's rights itself.


* or alternatively, the secession.

[Kapt Z]

Originally Posted by UnderseaLcpl

Actually, the war* started over a tariff that the Federal Government wanted to place on good imported from abroad, especially English manufactured goods, thus making it cheaper to buy manufactured goods from the Northern States.

Slavery was just the excuse they offered to get Northerners to fight. A good indication of just how much the Union cared about slaves is the fact that it contained slave states. Even the emancipation proclamation didn't change that.
Inversely, most (if not virtually all) Southerners were not fighting to keep slaves. Only a handful of the populace was wealthy enough to afford slaves, anyway.

Even though the spark that started secession was a tariff, the state's rights issue the South was most concerned about was state's rights itself.


* or alternatively, the secession.

I would certainly agree that many in the North(Lincoln included) were more interested (at least at first) in saving the Union than freeing slaves.

But, I don't think slavery was just an 'excuse'. It was the entire basis for Southern society and their economy. The threat that it might not be allowed in the territories and therefore might someday be outlawed in the existing states was too much for them to risk.

That threat was the Federal Gov't personified by Lincoln's election.

Now, what motivated each individual to take up arms and what they would say was their reason for fighting?

If you'd like to debate this further we should probably start a new thread.

[Platapus]

My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery.

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 shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. - A. Lincoln

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by UnderseaLcpl

Actually, the war* started over a tariff that the Federal Government wanted to place on good imported from abroad, especially English manufactured goods, thus making it cheaper to buy manufactured goods from the Northern States.

Actually the war started (as most wars do) over a piece of land. If Davis and Pickens had taken Lincoln up on his offer that he would not "fire the first shot" and took the existence of Union presence at Fort Sumter as good faith that they were to free to go - in essence outmanuevering him politically - they might have gotten away with it. But he knew they were too hotheaded.

As for slavery not being the cause of secession I suggest you remember that the states seceded before Lincoln took office. Why?

South Carolina: "A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery."

Mississipi: "It has grown until it denies the right of property in slaves, and refuses protection to that right on the high seas, in the Territories, and wherever the government of the United States had jurisdiction. "

Georgia: "An anti-slavery party must necessarily look to the North alone for support, but a united North was now strong enough to control the Government in all of its departments, and a sectional party was therefore determined upon."

Texas: "The controlling majority of the Federal Government, under various pretences and disguises, has so administered the same as to exclude the citizens of the Southern States, unless under odious and unconstitutional restrictions, from all the immense territory owned in common by all the States on the Pacific Ocean, for the avowed purpose of acquiring sufficient power in the common government to use it as a means of destroying the institutions of Texas and her sister slaveholding States."

There's more. You can read it for yourself:
http://americancivilwar.com/documents/

Lincoln was indeed afraid of what would happen should the Union be torn apart. He was a part of the generation that grew up with Franklin's words "We must all hang together or assuredly we will all hang separately".

But the southern states seceded because an abolitionist had been elected president. Just as they threatened to do four years earlier when the Republicans ran Fremont.

[SUBMAN1]

Originally Posted by SteamWake

But dont you realize that the constitution is outdated and irrelevant in 'modern' times?

I mean "We the people" for cryin out loud.

/sarcasim

Don't even get me started.