|
Korean Job Discussion Forums
"The Internet's Meeting Place for ESL/EFL Teachers from Around the World!"
|
| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
Steelrails
Joined: 12 Mar 2009
Location: Earth, Solar System
|
 Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2011 3:21 am Post subject: |
 |
|
| Quote: |
| The South was wrong in this regard. I'm not denying that there was a slavocracy in the South or that it was totally wicked. Still not a reason to go to war. |
If someone was trying to enslave you you would be within your rights to kill them.
If someone as trying to enslave your family you would be within your rights to kill them.
If someone was trying to enslave a friend or neighbor you knew, you would be within your rights to kill them.
So why is it wrong to kill someone who is trying to enslave a neighbor or stranger you do not know?
| Quote: |
| Sounds to me like this conflict was about who makes the laws, and who rules over whom in general. |
But those laws didn't bring people to war- It was the laws regarding slavery.
| Quote: |
| I repeat: the North had no right to go to war over the secession in and of itself |
Provided the South did not seize any Federal property, you might have a point.
| Quote: |
| and we already know the Northern command didn't care about slavery |
You mean people like Fremont? Seward? Chase? David Hunter? Francis Preston Blair? David B. Birney? Nathaniel Prentice Banks? Charles Francis Adams? Jacob D. Cox? Meagher? John White Geary? Franz Sigel? Carl Schurz? WINFIELD SCOTT? |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
visitorq
Joined: 11 Jan 2008
|
| Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2011 5:13 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Steelrails wrote: |
| Quote: |
| The South was wrong in this regard. I'm not denying that there was a slavocracy in the South or that it was totally wicked. Still not a reason to go to war. |
If someone was trying to enslave you you would be within your rights to kill them.
If someone as trying to enslave your family you would be within your rights to kill them.
If someone was trying to enslave a friend or neighbor you knew, you would be within your rights to kill them. |
I agree.
| Quote: |
| So why is it wrong to kill someone who is trying to enslave a neighbor or stranger you do not know? |
If you're referring to going to war, then the answer is obvious: you're not just killing some slavers; you're destroying an entire society. But if you go down that road, I suppose you can justify anything and wage total war against civilians etc. To do so would be completely evil in my opinion.
Basically what I am against is the federalization of government power. If slaves in the south had risen up and killed their masters, that would be okay. If volunteers from the North had decided to go down and help them, that would also be okay. But to use war to centralize power, and engage in total war against an entire population (most of who were not slave owners) is evil.
| Quote: |
| Quote: |
| Sounds to me like this conflict was about who makes the laws, and who rules over whom in general. |
But those laws didn't bring people to war- It was the laws regarding slavery. |
Yeah, you said that already... I wonder how many times I have to point out the obvious: slavery led to secession, not to war.
| Quote: |
| Quote: |
| and we already know the Northern command didn't care about slavery |
You mean people like Fremont? Seward? Chase? David Hunter? Francis Preston Blair? David B. Birney? Nathaniel Prentice Banks? Charles Francis Adams? Jacob D. Cox? Meagher? John White Geary? Franz Sigel? Carl Schurz? WINFIELD SCOTT? |
Actually I was thinking more about Lincoln, Grant and Sherman. But yeah, I'd still be willing to bet most of the above men you listed cared a whole lot more about increasing their own influence and power than about abolishing slavery. War in the name of ending slavery certainly was an ideal excuse for them to do so. In fact, at the end of the day I would guess very few of them really cared about it at all, aside from paying lip service (as politicians are wont to do). But it can't be proven either way... |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
|
| Posted: Sat Apr 23, 2011 6:34 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: |
Ya-ta Boy wrote:
Can one party to a contract break the contract and free itself of the obligations?
I find it curious that you should cling to contract law as the basis for your argument, since the use of that analogy makes Lincoln look even more the tyrant. What is a perpetual contract that can never be broken? Indefinite indentured servitude. And what is that servitude when it is inherited for all future generations? Hereditary slavery. |
Actually, I wasn't clinging to it--it was from Lincoln's First Inaugural. He listed it second and clearly said "Again: If the United States be not a government proper, but an association of States in the nature of contract merely, can it, as a contract, be peaceably unmade by less than all the parties who made it?" He had previously made it clear, and the question had been discussed by everyone for decades, that he did not consider the US a collection of states, but a union of people.
It's a pretty well accepted concept that both sides of a contract must freely agree to any changes in the contract. A contract is not a contract if one side can change the terms at will.
This goes to the question of sovereignty, which has been thrown around here without mention of the meaning. The states are not sovereign and were not sovereign under the Articles. The essence of sovereignty, to me at least, is the right of making foreign policy, determining matters of defense--which the states could not do under the Articles, or holding the right of last resort in disputes. Twice the people of the states agreed to these limiting stipulations. Twice the people agreed to form one country.
Secession itself was illegal without the consent of the people as a whole.
Another factor that has not been considered here: The South as a whole took part in a national election less than two months before the first secession. In other words, they were willing to stay in the Union as long as they saw a chance of winning. It is only when the local governments of the Deep South saw they lost the election that they seceded. It was only after the Confederacy attacked and the Union defended itself did the Upper South secede. In short, it was a game of we'll play as long as we are guaranteed to win. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
|
| Posted: Sat Apr 23, 2011 6:56 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| geldedgoat wrote: |
Ya-ta Boy wrote:
Can one party to a contract break the contract and free itself of the obligations?
I find it curious that you should cling to contract law as the basis for your argument, since the use of that analogy makes Lincoln look even more the tyrant. What is a perpetual contract that can never be broken? Indefinite indentured servitude. And what is that servitude when it is inherited for all future generations? Hereditary slavery. |
Actually, I wasn't clinging to it--it was from Lincoln's First Inaugural. He listed it second and clearly said "Again: If the United States be not a government proper, but an association of States in the nature of contract merely, can it, as a contract, be peaceably unmade by less than all the parties who made it?" He had previously made it clear, and the question had been discussed by everyone for decades, that he did not consider the US a collection of states, but a union of people.
It's a pretty well accepted concept that both sides of a contract must freely agree to any changes in the contract. A contract is not a contract if one side can change the terms at will. |
I'm pretty sure Lincoln was referring to social contract theory, which is enlightenment political theory, and very different from the law of commercial contracts. The UCC and common law precepts of misrepresentation, warranty, and efficient breach offer little to this debate.
Ya-Ta seems to say that 80 years down the line, people who haven't signed the contract are bound by it like they would be a commercial contract. But in fact, commercial contracts are more easily broken, and damages never exceed the value of the contract itself.
Meanwhile, geldedgoat seems to suggest that social contracts are not binding, and may be dissolved at will. This is a radical proposition; if geldedgoat were to support social contract theory (and maybe he doesn't), then he could only be described as some flavor of anarchist.
Let's get back to what Lincoln actually said. He was a master orator and he chose his words carefully.
| Lincoln wrote: |
I hold that, in contemplation of universal law and of the Constitution, the Union of these States is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments. It is safe to assert that no government proper ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination. Continue to execute all the express provisions of our national Constitution, and the Union will endure forever---it being impossible to destroy it except by some action not provided for in the instrument itself.
Again, if the United States be not a government proper, but an association of States in the nature of contract merely, can it as a contract be peaceably unmade by less than all the parties who made it? One party to a contract may violate it---break it, so to speak; but does it not require all to lawfully rescind it?
Descending from these general principles, we find the proposition that in legal contemplation the Union is perpetual confirmed by the history of the Union itself. The Union is much older than the Constitution. It was formed, in fact, by the Articles of Association in l774. It was matured and continued by the Declaration of Independence in 1776 , It was further matured, and the faith of a1l the then thirteen States expressly plighted and engaged that it should be perpetual, by the Articles of Confederation in l778. And, finally, in l787 one of the declared objects for ordaining and establishing the Constitution was "to form a more perfect Union."
But if the destruction of the Union by one or by a part only of the States be lawfully possible, the Union is less perfect than before the Constitution, having lost the vital element of perpetuity. |
First, Lincoln was entertaining the idea that the Union might not be a government, and merely be a social contract. Nevertheless, from the surrounding statements, we see that he prefers to think of the United States as a Union. After all, the master of brevity takes time to explain that the concept Union predates that of the Constitution. But, in the bold, Lincoln suggests that a (social) contract might be broken, but it is manifestly unlike a commercial contract; a social contract would never be broken peacefully. Moreover, any social contract has a problem when it arrives at the moment of possible dissolution; how can it be determined when the contract will dissolve and upon what conditions without reference to the contract itself? And this goes to his larger point: it would be absurd if a social contract were unmoored from an underlying foundation of Union. Thus, at the beginning of his speech, Lincoln appeals to "universal law." I have to assume that universal law is something like a law of nature that applies to the largest of jurisdictions; the universe is more than large enough to contain and govern multiple states.
So, Lincoln asserts that:
(a) the United States is bound together by precedents constituting Union enforceable under (the) universal law (of nations);
or (b) alternatively, if the United States were merely a social contract, it could only be dissolved through blood. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
|
| Posted: Sat Apr 23, 2011 7:26 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: |
| Ya-Ta seems to say that 80 years down the line, people who haven't signed the contract are bound by it like they would be a commercial contract. |
Not quite.
I'm saying that if you appeal to the Constitution to enforce laws that are to your benefit from the day of your birth up to the day you decided to break the Union in a snit, you have given your consent to it. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Steelrails
Joined: 12 Mar 2009
Location: Earth, Solar System
|
| Posted: Sat Apr 23, 2011 8:45 am Post subject: |
|
|
| visitorq wrote: |
Actually I was thinking more about Lincoln, Grant and Sherman. But yeah, I'd still be willing to bet most of the above men you listed cared a whole lot more about increasing their own influence and power than about abolishing slavery. War in the name of ending slavery certainly was an ideal excuse for them to do so. In fact, at the end of the day I would guess very few of them really cared about it at all, aside from paying lip service (as politicians are wont to do). But it can't be proven either way... |
It's one thing if they are sitting in some office, but most of those generals were under fire and risked death and wounds. The casualty rates for General officers in the Civil War was extremely high and those officers were often expected to "lead from the front". At that point I have to accept that if they were willing to risk death, they at least believed in their cause somewhat, especially if they could just as easily have found an administrative post and grown their power that way. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
|
| Posted: Sat Apr 23, 2011 8:50 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Steelrails wrote: |
| visitorq wrote: |
Actually I was thinking more about Lincoln, Grant and Sherman. But yeah, I'd still be willing to bet most of the above men you listed cared a whole lot more about increasing their own influence and power than about abolishing slavery. War in the name of ending slavery certainly was an ideal excuse for them to do so. In fact, at the end of the day I would guess very few of them really cared about it at all, aside from paying lip service (as politicians are wont to do). But it can't be proven either way... |
It's one thing if they are sitting in some office, but most of those generals were under fire and risked death and wounds. The casualty rates for General officers in the Civil War was extremely high and those officers were often expected to "lead from the front". At that point I have to accept that if they were willing to risk death, they at least believed in their cause somewhat, especially if they could just as easily have found an administrative post and grown their power that way. |
I thought that your answer would be that for soldiers the cause recedes as a prime motivator and is superseded by their love for their comrades.
As you've often correctly said, why people sign up and why they continue fighting are two very different reasons. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
|
| Posted: Sun Apr 24, 2011 2:02 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: |
First, Lincoln was entertaining the idea that the Union might not be a government, and merely be a social contract. Nevertheless, from the surrounding statements, we see that he prefers to think of the United States as a Union. After all, the master of brevity takes time to explain that the concept Union predates that of the Constitution. But, in the bold, Lincoln suggests that a (social) contract might be broken, but it is manifestly unlike a commercial contract; a social contract would never be broken peacefully. Moreover, any social contract has a problem when it arrives at the moment of possible dissolution; how can it be determined when the contract will dissolve and upon what conditions without reference to the contract itself? And this goes to his larger point: it would be absurd if a social contract were unmoored from an underlying foundation of Union. Thus, at the beginning of his speech, Lincoln appeals to "universal law." I have to assume that universal law is something like a law of nature that applies to the largest of jurisdictions; the universe is more than large enough to contain and govern multiple states.
So, Lincoln asserts that:
(a) the United States is bound together by precedents constituting Union enforceable under (the) universal law (of nations);
or (b) alternatively, if the United States were merely a social contract, it could only be dissolved through blood. |
I think you are largely right there. Lincoln himself did not believe the Union was based on 'merely' a contract. That was an argument the States Righters used and he rejected it. I assume that is why he used the word 'merely'.
I withhold comment on the second part (b). |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
|
| Posted: Sun Apr 24, 2011 2:18 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Steelrails wrote: |
| visitorq wrote: |
Actually I was thinking more about Lincoln, Grant and Sherman. But yeah, I'd still be willing to bet most of the above men you listed cared a whole lot more about increasing their own influence and power than about abolishing slavery. War in the name of ending slavery certainly was an ideal excuse for them to do so. In fact, at the end of the day I would guess very few of them really cared about it at all, aside from paying lip service (as politicians are wont to do). But it can't be proven either way... |
It's one thing if they are sitting in some office, but most of those generals were under fire and risked death and wounds. The casualty rates for General officers in the Civil War was extremely high and those officers were often expected to "lead from the front". At that point I have to accept that if they were willing to risk death, they at least believed in their cause somewhat, especially if they could just as easily have found an administrative post and grown their power that way. |
Lincoln's complex attitude toward slavery is well-known. It's known his family moved from slave-holding Kentucky to free soil Indiana partly because of slavery. He himself wrote that the sight of slaves in chains on the Ohio River was one of the shaping experiences of his life. It is also known that he didn't believe the Constitution allowed the president to do anything about slavery in a political way. It is also known that he felt a president did have immense power as commander in chief and it was under that that he issued the Emancipation Proclamation (which did not affect slavery in many areas.)
Grant was just as complex. As a young man, he wasn't really opposed to slavery. He married into the slave-holding family of his wife Julia. A year or two before the war, when he was reduced to selling firewood on the streets of St. Louis and hocking his watch so he could buy Christmas presents for his kids, he emancipated a slave she owned. As president he crushed the first KKK. I think it's fair to say his views about slavery and black people evolved through his life. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Steelrails
Joined: 12 Mar 2009
Location: Earth, Solar System
|
| Posted: Sun Apr 24, 2011 2:34 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Kuros wrote: |
| Steelrails wrote: |
| visitorq wrote: |
Actually I was thinking more about Lincoln, Grant and Sherman. But yeah, I'd still be willing to bet most of the above men you listed cared a whole lot more about increasing their own influence and power than about abolishing slavery. War in the name of ending slavery certainly was an ideal excuse for them to do so. In fact, at the end of the day I would guess very few of them really cared about it at all, aside from paying lip service (as politicians are wont to do). But it can't be proven either way... |
It's one thing if they are sitting in some office, but most of those generals were under fire and risked death and wounds. The casualty rates for General officers in the Civil War was extremely high and those officers were often expected to "lead from the front". At that point I have to accept that if they were willing to risk death, they at least believed in their cause somewhat, especially if they could just as easily have found an administrative post and grown their power that way. |
I thought that your answer would be that for soldiers the cause recedes as a prime motivator and is superseded by their love for their comrades.
As you've often correctly said, why people sign up and why they continue fighting are two very different reasons. |
When I said 'soldiers' I was referring more to the line officers and enlisted men as opposed to General Officers. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
geldedgoat
Joined: 05 Mar 2009
|
| Posted: Mon Apr 25, 2011 10:57 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Fox wrote: |
| They're the ones that must be able and willing to respond to it, though. I don't think a discussion that ignores the common soldier is really a discussion of the Civil War at all. The only reason I entered into this conversation at all is because you -- either in error or intentionally -- started including the Union in your language. |
It was intentional, though I thought I was clear enough that 'Union' referred to the government just (specifically, Lincoln) and not every individual residing within its boundaries. As for those individuals, and the Union as a whole, yes, I would need to include them if my goal was to address the war in its entirety. But that's not my goal. My criticism is limited to just the direct causes of the war, and, for that, I just don't see the relevance of any motivations outside of those that immediately informed the South's and North's decisions, respectively, to secede and provoke military conflict.
| Quote: |
| The key difference, of course, is that Gacy's actions would have been illegal, while in the case of the Civil War, it was the Confederacy that was in violation of the law. |
You're missing the point. An act is not automatically a moral one simply because it directly impairs an immoral one.
| Quote: |
| A better analogy would be a police man that ended up shooting Jeffrey Dahmer in the line of legitimate duty in 1972, and in that case, yes, he would have done the world a favor due to his entirely legal actions also preventing future evil. |
And if the cop had shot Dahmer because he caught him doing nothing more than trying to buy marijuana, his actions, legal or otherwise, would still have placed him in the wrong.
I've intentionally avoided discussing the legality of secession (that's a conversation that I don't see going anywhere), but even if there were a law that very specifically stated that the penalty for a state attempting to reassert its sovereignty is mass execution via war, that law would be an immoral one. Secession should not have been sufficient cause for armed conflict.
| Quote: |
| geldedgoat wrote: |
| In what reality is an economic attempt to end slavery and avert a war not considered 'taking action?' |
It's not taking action because the South could have (and very possibly would have) simply said no and shut it down entirely. |
And the South could have won the war and preserved slavery. That doesn't make the decision to go to war not an action.
| Steelrails wrote: |
| Quote: |
| However, realistically it was not worth going to war and killing hundreds of thousands of people and devastating the whole society over (it's not like the freed slaves were immediately much better off in the aftermath of the destruction the war caused)... |
I can think of 4 million human beings and their descendants who might have a different opinion. |
The opinions of those driven by vengeance should be scrutinized most of all.
| visitorq wrote: |
| Your assertion that it was only slavery that caused the secession is groundless. |
Surely we can agree that slavery was the prime motivator though?
| Kuros wrote: |
| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| It's a pretty well accepted concept that both sides of a contract must freely agree to any changes in the contract. A contract is not a contract if one side can change the terms at will. |
Meanwhile, geldedgoat seems to suggest that social contracts are not binding, and may be dissolved at will. This is a radical proposition; if geldedgoat were to support social contract theory (and maybe he doesn't), then he could only be described as some flavor of anarchist. |
No, that wasn't my intention. I just disagree with the contract comparison (which reads, to me at least, like a commercial contract) and Ya-ta Boy's refusal or inability to differentiate between impromptu changes in a contract and breaking a contract outright and suffering whatever penalties are involved in doing so. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
visitorq
Joined: 11 Jan 2008
|
| Posted: Mon Apr 25, 2011 11:44 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| geldedgoat wrote: |
| visitorq wrote: |
| Your assertion that it was only slavery that caused the secession is groundless. |
Surely we can agree that slavery was the prime motivator though? |
Considering the war was started by politicians grappling over political power, I'd say it was the primary excuse (on both sides). |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
geldedgoat
Joined: 05 Mar 2009
|
| Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2011 1:39 am Post subject: |
|
|
| visitorq wrote: |
| geldedgoat wrote: |
| visitorq wrote: |
| Your assertion that it was only slavery that caused the secession is groundless. |
Surely we can agree that slavery was the prime motivator though? |
Considering the war was started by politicians grappling over political power, I'd say it was the primary excuse (on both sides). |
Both sides? Was the original statement meant to refer only to the war and not secession? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
visitorq
Joined: 11 Jan 2008
|
| Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2011 2:06 am Post subject: |
|
|
| geldedgoat wrote: |
| visitorq wrote: |
| geldedgoat wrote: |
| visitorq wrote: |
| Your assertion that it was only slavery that caused the secession is groundless. |
Surely we can agree that slavery was the prime motivator though? |
Considering the war was started by politicians grappling over political power, I'd say it was the primary excuse (on both sides). |
Both sides? Was the original statement meant to refer only to the war and not secession? |
Ah, just re-read it. You are correct.
To clarify, by 'both sides' I meant the leadership on both sides using the slavery issue as rhetoric to further their own agendas. Even prior to the secession Southern politician were jostling for federal power in competition with Northern ones. I pretty much see the political elite on both sides in the same light: willing to exploit deep moral issues for personal gain and for use as emotional fodder in their speeches. Basically an excuse to whip up public sentiment to gain popular support their unnecessary war.
In the case of the South though, the soldiers were fighting because enemy troops had been sent down to their land to subjugate them. Straightforward (and nothing to do with slavery imo). |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
