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Moonlapse

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  5. Lincoln

    in Historia in Universum

    Posted

    Had there been no slavery, I think it virtually certain the South would never had seceded.

    Had there been no slavery, I think it likely the North would have not have opposed it, had it still occurred.

     

    The war was over slavery, not States Rights. Sometimes peoples rights are more important then a political entities.

     

     

    About 390,000 Union troops died in the war to free about 3,900,000 slaves. Put another way, each soldier that died, freed ten slaves.

    Read the last two sentences of of paragraph 29: http://www.bartelby.org/124/pres31.html

     

    Lincoln is speaking about this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corwin_Amendment

  6. Lincoln

    in Historia in Universum

    Posted

    I do not see how he has any prime responsibilty for the Civil War itself though. The decades leading up to it are full of actions all accross the country by numberless people setting up the conflict. Hostilities were already occurring in the Kansas and Missouri territories. My impression was that it was an inevitable clash. The cause was slavery, a right and wrong issue, that was believed by many to supercede other factors.

    I don't think he has any prime responsibility either, but he shares at least some responsibility along with the parties on both sides that ultimately escalated the conflict to civil war during the previous decade or so. The Civil War exchanged slavery for death, poverty, intense hatred, and oppression which still exist to a certain extent almost a century and a half later. There are a myriad of possible sequences of events that could have ended slavery without war and all of the unintended consequences, but that won't make for a very fruitful discussion. I just wish slavery had ended without sacrificing Constitutional integrity, or that abolition had been a part of the Constitution to begin with.

     

    Anyways, I'm getting deeper into the conversation than I intended. There is rarely ever an absolute right and wrong side to every conflict, despite the consensus. History is more complex than that. I'm out.

  7. Lincoln

    in Historia in Universum

    Posted

    The criticism of Lincoln is not a criticism of abolition. It's an observation that slavery could have been abolished without the staggering amount of causalities, without creating the intense animosity that has lasted to this day, and without permanently distorting our constitutional government.

     

    Let's suppose that your observation is correct. How does this observation lead to a criticism of Lincoln? It wasn't Lincoln who fired on Fort Sumter. Had the South been ruled by reason and had not resorted to initiating an armed rebellion, your list of ills could have been avoided.

    That's obvious.

     

    I never put the blame on Lincoln. We've already identified most of the South's mistakes and wrong doings, but aggressive maneuvering and mistakes on both sides ultimately led to violent civil war. There is no doubt the South was wrong on slavery and that they initiated violence. However, slavery would ultimately fail regardless of all other factors, as it has in every other Western country. If the issue here is simply abolition, it would have happened with or without civil war. But there's also the matter of constitutionally legal secession, regardless of whether the reason for doing so is right or wrong. State membership in the Union was designed to be voluntary. Period. The North's prevention of constitutionally legal secession ultimately makes both sides complicit in the overall conflict. Slavery was going to end, regardless of the war. That leaves the issue of the war itself and its governmental and social consequences, which are nearly permanent, unlike slavery.

     

    My original point is that criticism of Lincoln is Constitutional and social, and is separate from the issue of slavery. Somehow there is an embedded belief that criticizing Lincoln automatically puts you on the bad side of the issue of race. A sort of reductio ad Lincoln.

  8. Lincoln

    in Historia in Universum

    Posted

    The criticism of Lincoln is not a criticism of abolition. It's an observation that slavery could have been abolished without the staggering amount of causalities, without creating the intense animosity that has lasted to this day, and without permanently distorting our constitutional government. I don't think its simply coincidence that the only Western country that abolished slavery with an all out civil war is the one with the longest lasting and most polarized racial problems. The KKK was established in the aftermath of civil war. It's simply being pointed out that there was possibly a way to accomplish abolition without the long term collateral damage. Our current reality including the 60's is what it is because of slavery and the Civil War.

  15. The Other Bolyn Girl

    in Hora Postilla Thermae

    Posted

    Well, it wasn't great but I suppose it was entertaining. Most of the time I was just thinking that these are modern people in costumes acting out a Hollywood interpretation of history. The audience was mostly couples, many older, and single females. No discernable hick-ery.

     

    Overall, I think I'd rather watch Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind for the -th time.

  22. Evolution or Adam and Eve?

    in Arena

    Posted

    Science has proved conclusively that life - in the main - is shaped by evolution. My opinion is that to deny this is like denying that the earth is a globe, and it is high time it stopped being controversial. Although a 'free thinker' (atheist) myself, I fail to see why evolutionary theory annoys some religious people so much. Why should it deny the existance of God? If I were religious myself, I would embrace evolutionary theory like a long lost friend - It is more marvellous that God created things painstakingly over billions of years, rather than waking up one morning in a few thousand years ago and saying: 'oh, I think I might create a universe'. To paraphrase Einstein, 'God does not make airfix models'.

    The primary objection from some of the Christians I've known is that a godless acceptance of evolution philosophically justifies things like eugenics and a whole slew of other ideas that are incompatible with Christianity.

  24. Ancient Economics

    in Imperium Romanorum

    Posted

    My next history book purchase will be The Social and Economic History of the Hellenistic World by Michael Rostovtzeff. It's referenced quite a bit in the historical section of an economic text that I'm currently reading (Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles by Jesus Huerta de Soto) and it looks to be an extensive resource. I'm not sure if this is the author you are referring to, but you can get used copies for about $35 - $50 on Amazon.

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