The American Civil War

[timbaly]

I will be having to write a paper on a topic in the American Civil War. It can be a wide variety of things from certain causes to the role of blacks or women. However I have heard some of you on thjis iste, namely redstar2000 say the war was more of a bourgeois revolution than the American Revolutionart war. With limited knowlege of the war, it seems like it could be so. So I've decided to write about it for a report, but I need some sources and books about it. I must have proof of the northern bougeois industrialists wanting to get rid of the southern "nobility", those who measured wealth by land. Information on specific politicians allying themselves with specific industrialists would be good to have as well. Book recomendations are valued above all else, thank you for help.

[Red Louisiana]

I consider the revolution of 1776 to be the bourgeois revolution, and think of the civil war as a consolidation of bourgeois power - but I see the logic behind thinking the revolution began in 1776 and ended in 1865 :)

[Jesus Christ]

the Civil War was about fucking slavery, dont try to weasel around that

[Red Louisiana]

The civil war was capitalist wage slavery versus southern bondage slavery.

I love the Liberals, especially when they muse on history :)

[Jesus Christ]

now you listen here little missy, I didnt mean it like that, it was a war against slavery for african americans
it was a lincoln plot to help secure his power :D

[Al Creed]

Bah, Lincoln could care less about the slaves. It was all about political power and his legacy.

I think he knew that history would not smile too kindly on him, if he was the President responsable for splitting the "Precious Union" of Stolen Land.

As well, if the nation was devidied, one would believe they would be suspectable to invasion or attack.

The topic of the Civil War Fascinates me. Old World Capitalism vs New World Capitalism.

[Pete]

Originally posted by [email protected] 2 2003, 06:57 PM
the Civil War was about fucking slavery, dont try to weasel around that
That was only the moral arguement about it. If it was really about slavery then the Declaration of Emancipation would have freed all American slaves, not just the ones in the 'states currently in revolt.'

IN continuation to what RF said, it was just about American Imperialism.

Just wondering, on the side, when did the US take that huge chunk off of Mexico? Before or after this point?

-Pete

Edit: Have any of you guys read the "American War" and later "American Empire" series by Harry Turtledove? Brilliant writer, that man. It is his thoughts on what could have happened if the Confederacy beat back the Yanks. Pure speculation, good for the entertainment value, unpraticle though.
-Pete

[Andrei Kuznetsov]

One book I recommend to all of you:

The Civil War in the United States by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. NEED I SAY MORE?

[timbaly]

The land taken from Mexico had already been taken at the start of the American Civil war. The United states was just about the same, land wise as it is today except for the fact thAT MANY CURRENT STATES WERE JUST TERRITORIES.

I never knew Marx and Engels wrote a book on the American Civil war, that seems to be just the book I'm looking for. However I need more than one book as a source, therefore I need to say more in my bibliography.

[timbaly]

Since I'm getting no responses and tomorrow my topic is due, I might as well ask for some alternative topics that might be interesting. What would you do if you had to chose a topic? Is there any particular topic you find interesting?

[timbaly]

I abondoned my original idea for a topic because of lack of sources and I can't find a way to get the book through a reliable website, and none of the libraries I know of carry a copy of marx and Engels thoughts on the war. I've only been able to find a few articles they wrote, and some of their thoughts online.

[Invader Zim]

Originally posted by [email protected] 2 2003, 11:57 PM
the Civil War was about fucking slavery, dont try to weasel around that
That is debatable, many would say it was about trade tarrifs, states rights or other crap.

[DEPAVER]

The best single work you should be using is The Causes of the Civil War, by Berkeley Professor Kenneth Stampp. It explores every conceivable viewpoint, and cites tons of original documents to support its hypothesis.

The Civil War was not just about slavery. Lincoln made it a war against slavery to keep Europe from aiding the south. It was highly irrepresible, sectional conflict between the static, agrarian, staple producing South and the expanding, commercialized, industrializing North. The North's victory insured environmental disaster for the South, as it represented the ultimate triumph of industry over agriculture.

[(*]

It was about states rights. Article X of the constitution.

Which would encompass slavery.

[Hooverfox]

I had to learn the whole American civil war thing a few years ago at school. The cause's of it are damn complicated and take so long to try an unravel it seemed barely worth it as at the end of it there is still no satisfactory conclusion. Basicy I found that the only way to decide in the end is that it was a melting pot of everything, slavery states rights etc. Although states rights leads back to slavery as do alot of the other points. all complicated.

A good writer to try and find is called Zin - sorry but I cant rember his first name. - he wrote a whole book on the history of America and there is a good solid part about the war and the build up to the war. Cant rember exact title but its along the lines of "the history of america" you know, the standrd type of title. It should be quite easy to get seeing as we had quite a few at our school and asuming its still in print it should be out there.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Originally posted by [email protected] 19 2003, 03:24 AM
I had to learn the whole American civil war thing a few years ago at school. The cause's of it are damn complicated and take so long to try an unravel it seemed barely worth it as at the end of it there is still no satisfactory conclusion. Basicy I found that the only way to decide in the end is that it was a melting pot of everything, slavery states rights etc. Although states rights leads back to slavery as do alot of the other points. all complicated.

A good writer to try and find is called Zin - sorry but I cant rember his first name. - he wrote a whole book on the history of America and there is a good solid part about the war and the build up to the war. Cant rember exact title but its along the lines of "the history of america" you know, the standrd type of title. It should be quite easy to get seeing as we had quite a few at our school and asuming its still in print it should be out there.
Are you talking about "A people's History of the US" by howard Zinn; that is a good historical source that looks at history not from the ruler's view, but from the views and actions of regular people.

I think despite all the other factors, the civil war was ultamately about slavery... at least it was the breaking point for two different systems within one country. If you look at the north at the time of the revolutionary war, there wasn't too much different about the societies of the north and south, but by the 1830s, the petty-bourgise north (small shop owners with aprentaces) of 1776 was rapidly being replaced by full industrial capitalism with poor immigrents as a new labor-force capable of allowing mass industrial factories and so on, but the South remained pretty much the same as it was in 1776 with petty-borgoise shops and large plantations owned by aristocratic land-owners.

So just as today where capitalism pushes aside other systems of production (in Latin America - indegionous farmers and so on) in order to grow, US industrial powers needed the free-market and free labor in the US south; a very very progressive part of this was the elimination of slavery.

There were many other things at play in the Civil war (just as with all wars, there is more than one just reason or cause or one set of intrests) but the tension between two modes of production was ultimately the main one.

As for other topics for an essay (I don't know what the prompt or guidelines are for the paper - I must have missed that part, so I'll assume it is just a general topic on US history of the Civil war era) you could look at the post-civil war populist farmer's movement vs. the reactionary jim-crowers. If the paper is about slavery, you can talk about slave rebellions in the carribean and American South.

[Hooverfox]

Originally posted by [email protected] 19 2003, 03:58 AM
Are you talking about "A people's History of the US" by howard Zinn; that is a good historical source that looks at history not from the ruler's view, but from the views and actions of regular people.
That is who I was talking aobut, Im gald someone could remember. Heres a link if anyones interested:

http://haymarketbooks.org/miva?/Merchant2/...tegory_Code=UHP (http://haymarketbooks.org/miva?/Merchant2/merchant.mv+Screen=PROD&Store_Code=Haymarket&Product_Code=UHPPHU&Category_Code=UHP)

[truthaddict11]

the civil war was A LOT more than slavery, 2 slave states stayed loyal to the union. most southerners were poor whites and didnt own slaves, even the general of the confederate army, Robert E Lee, was against slavery.

[Jimmie Higgins]

But the main conflict between the north and south was competeing modes of production and these modes of production had different sets of intrests (such as how the occupied territiories would be run - slave/ land used for large plantations, or free, small farmers and industries providing resourses for industry in the northeast). This conflict had been growing for some time before the civil war.

I agree it was not simply slavery in of itself as a moral or immoral concept, but I do think the war was over these competeing modes of production and one of these modes of production was founded on chattel-slavery while the other was based on wage-slavery.

The republicans were anti-slavery and they were also anti-union (or at least the early beginings of organized worker groups that existed at that time), they were the party of industrialists and being anti-slavery was in the intrests of the industrialists against the slaveocracy in the south.

[timbaly]

Originally posted by [email protected] 18 2003, 11:34 PM
the civil war was A LOT more than slavery, 2 slave states stayed loyal to the union. most southerners were poor whites and didnt own slaves, even the general of the confederate army, Robert E Lee, was against slavery.
There were four slave states that stayed on the Union side. Maryland, Delaware, Kenyucky and Missouri did not secede. Lee was basically a st=ateist, if thats a word. He felt loyal to Virginia before the country as a whole, although he was anti-slavery. He reminds me of Rommel in some ways.

Anyway this topic should be shut down. I already decided my topic on the 8th. i just forgot to look back at it. I've decided to compare and contrast the US constitution with the CSA constitution.

[Comrade Zeke]

The Civil war was between the Southern and the Northern states. I state frankly that I wanted the South to win even though they had slaves!!! The whole war was not about slavery It's about Southern Independence against the Capitalist,Imprelist North and sadly they lost. Robert E. LEE was the best general and tryed to fight for the freedom of the Southern state even though he didn't want the United states to split. I think that the Southerns had the right to have their independce!!
I tip my hat to all of you
Comrade Zeke ;)

[sickofyou]

funny we haven't had a president that comes from the south since Kennedy ;(

[Penguin Chariot Archer from Hell]

I came across a wonderful quote in an old history textbook. We always get this view that the North was right and the South was wrong in the civil war in the United States. And although slavery is out of the question a terrible, immoral and oppressive practice, wageslavery is nearly as bad. The Southerners rightfully felt the Northerners were hypocrites. This quote, by George Fitzhugh, basically sums up my point.

" You, with the command over labor which your capital gives you, you are a slave owner, a master, without the obligations of a master. They who work for you, who create your income, are slaves, without the rights of slaves. Slaves without slave masters!"

Workers HAD no rights, and in most of the countries where we get our expensive shoes and clothing, they still don't. Now, i am not going to try to defend slavery, however, not EVERY slave owner was out to kill his slaves, and beat his slaves on a daily basis just for the hell of it. Slaves were property yes, but they were expensive property, and it would make no sense to destroy a valuable piece of property. The Factory owner, on the other hand, was infamous for not caring about his worker. They got NO benefits, and barely enough to survive on. They lived in crowded dwellings. But worse yet, any accidents, for example, getting caught in the meat grinder, losing an arm in it, and the like, would be more or less the end for the worker. He would recieve no payment, no compensation, he would simply be replaced. Unlike slaves, the immigrants who generally worked in factories were easily replaced in the eyes of the factory owners. This disgusts me. It disgusts me also that the South LEGALLY seceded according to the constitution because its rights WERE being violated. It is a shame that they seceded because they wanted to preserve slavery, but that legally was their right. And as much as i hate the racism and ignorance of most southern hicks and confederate flag wavers,, both sides were wrong. Lincoln was a racist, a dictator, and a cold hearted madman. Both sides viewed blacks as inferior. Keep the race riots of New york and elsewhere in mind. The Southerners aren't the only racists. Lincoln was one.

In conclusion, its a shame both sides didn't destroy each other. Then we wouldn't have the problems we have today, we wouldn't have the neo nazi state Israel and the Taliban. We wouldn't have islamic fundamentalists hating "americans." And South america would be a progressive area with far less human suffering, as the country which helped put dictators in power and intervene at all times, would be split in two. But speculation is never worth the effort.

You all probably think i am some dumb hick now, but i assure you i am not. Slavery is a disgusting plague, and it without a doubt excellent that the world is mostly rid of it. However wageslavery continues.

[ComradeRed]

funny we haven't had a president that comes from the south since Kennedy we've had a hell load of crappy southern aristocratic presidents (bush), wasn't lyndon johnson a southerner? but no good ones...

[sickofyou]

...just a stupid question, but i thought the North was on the way to free the slaves tryin to get back at the master. How did they lose a civil war, if no body won right?

Individulatity is not a what you live by tho it is how u died.

daily

[LSD]

...just a stupid question, but i thought the North was on the way to free the slaves tryin to get back at the master. How did they lose a civil war

.......they didn't, they won.

The North quite definitevely won the war, whether you agree with them or not.

As to their intentions, Lincoln's actions are not at all surprising.

It's the same thing that every country throughout history has done if faces with insurrection.

Yes, the North had violate the Constitution, and Yes, the South may have been right in seceeding

But no country has ever allowed that large a chunk to break away without a fight.

[Sabocat]

Originally posted by [email protected] 12 2004, 08:50 PM
funny we haven't had a president that comes from the south since Kennedy ;(
Jimmy Carter was from Georgia. :blink:

Carter, who has rarely used his full name--James Earl Carter, Jr.--was born October 1, 1924, in Plains, Georgia. Peanut farming, talk of politics, and devotion to the Baptist faith were mainstays of his upbringing. Upon graduation in 1946 from the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, Carter married Rosalynn Smith. The Carters have three sons, John William (Jack), James Earl III (Chip), Donnel Jeffrey (Jeff), and a daughter, Amy Lynn.

If that isn't the South, what is?

I also can't tell if you're implying that Kennedy was from the South either. Just in case you were....he wasn't. He was from Massachusetts.

Below is a picture of Jimmy in case you've forgotten.

[Sabocat]

Originally posted by [email protected] 13 2004, 12:55 AM

funny we haven't had a president that comes from the south since Kennedy we've had a hell load of crappy southern aristocratic presidents (bush), wasn't lyndon johnson a southerner? but no good ones...
Technically, the Bu$h's are from Connecticut and moved to Texas and Johnson was from Texas.

[timbaly]

Originally posted by [email protected] 12 2004, 11:55 PM

funny we haven't had a president that comes from the south since Kennedy we've had a hell load of crappy southern aristocratic presidents (bush), wasn't lyndon johnson a southerner? but no good ones...
Kennedy was born and rasied in the North. Clinton and Bush are from the south, there have been plenty of southern presidents.