New France Wilcox wrote:
> Anyway, being a pacifist, I like to think about what might have
> been, such as:
> 1) Had the slave states been allowed to secede peacefully
> 2) Had Lincoln lived into the reconstruction period
Had the southern states been allowed to secede peacefully, I believe
there would have eventually been a war between the two nations. Not
over moralities, but over a language/culture clash not unlike Germany
and France. I believe that what makes our country so strong is the
diversity of cultures unified together in one grand compromise.
Had Lincoln not been assasinated, I think history would have exposed
him as the baffoon he probably was.
> the moral difficulty of slavery was somewhat diffused. I believe
> it would have been a matter of just a few years as the South
> (doubtless tariffed, embargoed, and sanctioned) would have
> struggled to find some substitution for the manufacturing of the
> North and a remedy for their loss of markets before slavery would
> have been abolished because of its own sheer, crushing weight,
> both moral and economic.
Slavery was coming to an end anyway. The Union was the ones really
making an issue of it. In reality, the primary underlying issue was
statism vs federalism. The south was not without manufacturing
abilities. Nor was the Confederation just a bunch of renegades. They
successfully managed to setup diplomatic ties with the world powers
at the time. They also managed to match the Union in weaponry. The
Union had the primary advantage of an unlimited supply of Irish
immigrants to go fight.
> Had the South been left to make
> the decision for themselves, it might have created similar
> circumstances for ex-slaves, instead of making them proxies for the
> frustrations and hatred engendered by the North, first by war and
> then by the so-called Reconstruction.
We'll never know for sure. However, if we look at the history of
other nations that did away with slavery, there typically was a
period of time where the culture and economy settled into a
middle-ages structure of land-owner and renter/serf. Basically
slavery by another system/name.
> What moral superiority the North might have had going into the
> fight it lost very quickly in an aftermath of brutality toward the
> native population that would make Nathan Bedford Jones blush.
The horrid relationship with the native population started long
before nationhood. France, England and the United States all
exploited them for military gain. The attitude that the natives were
disposable pawns predated the post civil-war period by 150 years. But
it didn't extend to just them, but zenophobia has been a reoccuring
theme throughout the history of this country.
But what does this have to do with Olympus?
AG
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