Jefferson vs Lincoln

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
102

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:

Completely false. The South remained belligerent and could continue to drag the war on the border. Further, there was a race westward - new theaters were opening up instead of theaters closing down. [/quote]

Completely false. The South’s infrastructure was gone. It’s ability to make ammunition and provide even simple basic supplies to its soldiers was severely damaged. It did not control the Port of New Orleans and Vicksburg and many other key cities and sites. In addition, key ports like Mobile were blockaded.

The patient was all but dead on the operating table. It had a pulse but was practically unconscious.[quote]

The Union could not maintain border integrity with its military victories as long as the west remained available to create new theaters. [/quote]

The South could barely supply its troops in the South much less those in the west.[quote]

Third, foreign powers were getting excited about the prospect of more aid to the Confederacy in order to bust up control of the continent.[/quote]

Nope. Your timetable is wrong. Foreign powers by that time had written off the South. It was the fourth quarter and the score was 42 - 7. They weren’t interested in backing a loser.[quote]

Sherman was the closer. [/quote]

No doubt. That is not in dispute. With a 42 - 7 score and 59 seconds on the clock he came in and successfully passed the ball until he scored another touchdown. Then he went for two instead of kicking the extra point.[quote]

Both he, Lincoln, and Grant were of a mind that you don’t simply “hope” an enemy learns its lesson and, aw shucks, what are the chances of them regrouping anyway? - you unconditionally defeat your enemy, and then wage an easy peace. [/quote]

You are surely correct here. He made sure the “enemy learned its lesson.” And herein lies the foundation for my part of this facet of the discussion.

See, the question is not whether Sherman was effective. It’s whether his actions were necessary. And just. And I don’t give a flyin’ fuck about analogies with imperialist Japan. The Japanese were not Americans. Japan was not the 49th State. Remember, the justification given for the Northern invasion was precisely that the South was made up of Americans and shouldn’t be allowed to leave the Union.[/quote]

Horrible analogy. War is not football. If it was, I would fully expect a general to not only throw the ball downfield, score a touchdown and go for two, I would also expect him to try an onside kick, then instruct his players to go for the knees of the linemen, employ vicious headshots to the quarterback and do whatever else is necessary to ensure that the opposing team cannot ever pose a threat in any way to his team, in that game and in any future game. Raping the other players and then killing them in cold blood would not be necessary at that point.

Your argument that the South was on the verge of defeat and that Sherman’s tactics were overly brutal echoes the sentiments of those who would condemn the bombing of Hiroshima, and then Nagasaki.

103

Pushharder:
You seem to be indignant about the treatment of Americans (Southerners) at the hands of other Americans (Northerners). Do you feel the same indignance toward Southerners for killing Northerners? Do you not understand that in war, regardless of who you are fighting, the point is to WIN and to WIN with the least amount of casualties on your own side. Sherman’s march unequivocally hastened the end of the war, which was beneficial to both sides.

I’ll remind you that as the war raged on, the price of common commodities in the South such as tobacco, coffee, meat, grains, etc went through the roof and they also became increasingly scarce. Some of the elite Southern gentry of the time were known to throw lavish “eating” parties in which the attendees of said parties would consume decadent amounts of food and alcohol as a way of masking the fact that the shit had hit the fan in the South. A proverbial “bury your head in the sand” party.

Other Southerners at the outset of war foresaw these shortages and price spikes and bought huge amounts of such commodities, thereby driving the price up and the availability down. When these commodities became scarce, the Southerners who had bought up huge amounts of them then turned around and literally forced their less-fortunate fellow Southerners to buy things like meat and salt at inexorbitant prices, lest they starve.

Do you feel the same way toward those Southerners that you feel toward Sherman and Lincoln? Or is your ire directed only at Northerners?

105

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

…Your argument that the South was on the verge of defeat and that Sherman’s tactics were overly brutal echoes the sentiments of those who would condemn the bombing of Hiroshima, and then Nagasaki.

[/quote]You’re just itching to have me thump you on Enola Gay deal, aren’t you? You must be a masochist.
[/quote]

No, I’m not. You’ve made it clear enough that you value lives in a hierarchical order based on where they come from. I suspect that is why you display such anger toward those who killed Southerners, but not toward those who killed Northerners.

I also suspect that you are itching to thump me on Enola Gay because of the distraction it will present from the real issue at hand here.

106

Pushharder:

I’ll point out another false assumption of yours, with primary evidence to support it. If there was any significant primary evidence to support your theories, I trust you would have provided it by now. Bill Roberts was unable to, and he has since disappeared from this thread.

Earlier, you stated that Lincoln expressed regret over Sherman’s actions. Here is Lincoln, in a letter to Sherman, expressing such regret in Dec of 1864:

Many, many thanks for your Christmas gift â?? the capture of Savannah. When you were leaving Atlanta for the Atlantic coast, I was anxious, if not fearful; but feeling that you were the better judge, and remembering that ‘nothing risked, nothing gained’ I did not interfere. Now, the undertaking being a success, the honour is all yours; for I believe none of us went farther than to acquiesce. And taking the work of Gen. Thomas into the count, as it should be taken, it is indeed a great success. Not only does it afford the obvious and immediate military advantage; but, in showing to the world that your army could be divided, putting the stronger part to an important new service, and yet leaving enough to vanquish the old opposing force of the whole â?? Hood’s army â?? it brings those who sat in darkness, to see a great light. But what next? I suppose it will be safer if I leave Gen. Grant and yourself to decide. Please make my grateful acknowledgements to your whole army â?? officers and men.

107

Two very different situations at no point was Japan winning the war, the South at one point was winning. Also the evidence at least from what I’ve read suggests the U.S. didn’t really save any more lives by bombing Japan than if they had continued on without them, the same isn’t true with the civil war.

108

[quote]Mufasa wrote:
Question then.

Facing secession of the Southern States; what SHOULD have Lincoln done instead?

(Note: there is never a justification of the atrocities of War…and you don’t have to go back to the 1860’s to see them.)

Mufasa[/quote]

Let them go, abolish slavery in the North and see what happens.

I cannot stress enough how surreal this whole discussion is.

Imagine Austria wanting to leave the EU and Brussels sending forth armies to burn Vienna to the ground.

109

[quote]orion wrote:

[quote]Mufasa wrote:
Question then.

Facing secession of the Southern States; what SHOULD have Lincoln done instead?

(Note: there is never a justification of the atrocities of War…and you don’t have to go back to the 1860’s to see them.)

Mufasa[/quote]

Let them go, abolish slavery in the North and see what happens.

I cannot stress enough how surreal this whole discussion is.

Imagine Austria wanting to leave the EU and Brussels sending forth armies to burn Vienna to the ground.
[/quote]

That’s not a good analogy in the least.One has to look at the issue in the context of the times,surely?

110

[quote]drewh wrote:
Two very different situations at no point was Japan winning the war, the South at one point was winning. Also the evidence at least from what I’ve read suggests the U.S. didn’t really save any more lives by bombing Japan than if they had continued on without them, the same isn’t true with the civil war.[/quote]

I don’t know, drewh…up until Midway, they certainly had us on our heels.

Also, the debate has raged since almost the end of the War…"Was the estimate of the number of Allied and Japanese casualties, had we invaded the main Japanese Islands with Ground Troops, an “over-exaggeration”?

I have a feeling that the Marines who fought at Pelelui, Tarawa, Gaudacanal, Okinawa and Iwo Jima would say “no”.

(Sorry for the slight hi-jack).

Mufasa

111

[quote]orion wrote:

[quote]Mufasa wrote:
Question then.

Facing secession of the Southern States; what SHOULD have Lincoln done instead?

(Note: there is never a justification of the atrocities of War…and you don’t have to go back to the 1860’s to see them.)

Mufasa[/quote]

Let them go, abolish slavery in the North and see what happens.

I cannot stress enough how surreal this whole discussion is.

Imagine Austria wanting to leave the EU and Brussels sending forth armies to burn Vienna to the ground.
[/quote]

Bad Analogy.

The American Civil War was fought at a MUCH different time in World History.

Mufasa

112

[quote]orion wrote:

[quote]Mufasa wrote:
Question then.

Facing secession of the Southern States; what SHOULD have Lincoln done instead?

(Note: there is never a justification of the atrocities of War…and you don’t have to go back to the 1860’s to see them.)

Mufasa[/quote]

Let them go, abolish slavery in the North and see what happens.

I cannot stress enough how surreal this whole discussion is.

Imagine Austria wanting to leave the EU and Brussels sending forth armies to burn Vienna to the ground.
[/quote]

But the Southerners were being TRAITORS! It was TREASON to form the Confederacy! Plus, they dared attack Fort Sumter to drive out Union troops from their soil!* How DARE they: they must be punished! Down with the traitors: attack them, kill them, burn them down. Why, we are family and sometimes you must fight your family members to keep the family together.

Easy enough to whip up the public, particularly when you imprison any newspaper editor who publishes anything you don’t like.

You really don’t understand anything, Orion.

Oh wait a sec, I have history confused. Actually what happened is that the Northern masses were whipped up against slavery, and therefore all these men joined up to free the slaves and they went and did so in the border states as the very first thing they did, as these were after all on their way as they went into the South and on seeing men and women in slavery they felt compelled to free them. Very noble slave-freers, that’s what their motivation was. Not to deny the Southern states the right to determine for themselves whether they wished to be part of and under the Northern-controlled Federal Government in Washington or not (or more simplistically, to punish the traitors and show them who’s boss and that you don’t mess with the USA.) No, the masses were determined to give their lives to free the slaves. Haven’t you seen the light yet?

  • total casualties: one cow
113

Let’s try again today.

EDIT: I just tried to post a reply to Push and it shows a blank. Test to see if this goes through.

114

[quote]Mufasa wrote:

[quote]orion wrote:

[quote]Mufasa wrote:
Question then.

Facing secession of the Southern States; what SHOULD have Lincoln done instead?

(Note: there is never a justification of the atrocities of War…and you don’t have to go back to the 1860’s to see them.)

Mufasa[/quote]

Let them go, abolish slavery in the North and see what happens.

I cannot stress enough how surreal this whole discussion is.

Imagine Austria wanting to leave the EU and Brussels sending forth armies to burn Vienna to the ground.
[/quote]

Bad Analogy.

The American Civil War was fought at a MUCH different time in World History.

Mufasa[/quote]

Yeah well, I guess slavery was ok then, this being a different time and all?

If not, why not, or would you say that you selectively understand some atrocities and excuse them and not others that happened at the exact same time?

115

Would Austria resist German troops marching in and annexing the country now,or would it be a replay of 1938?

THAT is the difference time makes to history and perspectives of events,and why your analogy was bad.While you may have some valid point to make,that particular example didn’t make it.Do you view all history through the same prism?Or do you cut older slavery practicing civilizations more slack,like the Egyptians,or Romans,for example?Is there like a cut off date?

116

[quote]orion wrote:

I cannot stress enough how surreal this whole discussion is.

Imagine Austria wanting to leave the EU and Brussels sending forth armies to burn Vienna to the ground.[/quote]

That would be odd, especially since the Lisbon Treaty permits countries to voluntarily withdraw from the European Union under a formalized procedure.

Well done, Orion. And we thought your grasp of American law and politics was bad.

117

[quote]orion wrote:

[quote]Mufasa wrote:
Question then.

Facing secession of the Southern States; what SHOULD have Lincoln done instead?

(Note: there is never a justification of the atrocities of War…and you don’t have to go back to the 1860’s to see them.)

Mufasa[/quote]

Let them go, abolish slavery in the North and see what happens.

I cannot stress enough how surreal this whole discussion is.

Imagine Austria wanting to leave the EU and Brussels sending forth armies to burn Vienna to the ground.
[/quote]

Yep. It IS surreal how some defend using brute and blunt force because someone wanted to leave ‘the party’

“How dare you not want to permanently be at my party! Well, I’m getting my gun!!”

To those who mentioned it: The analogy with Japan, a belligerent country wherein the people would fight to the death by the millions, is utter horseshit.

118

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:

[quote]orion wrote:

I cannot stress enough how surreal this whole discussion is.

Imagine Austria wanting to leave the EU and Brussels sending forth armies to burn Vienna to the ground.[/quote]

That would be odd, especially since the Lisbon Treaty permits countries to voluntarily withdraw from the European Union under a formalized procedure.

Well done, Orion. And we thought your grasp of American law and politics was bad.[/quote]

So you’re saying that states that had just rebelled against Britain and attained independence all voluntarily surrendered their sovereignty, forever and ever?

I doubt this. I suspect they all simply took this as a given. Too bad they didn’t spell it out SO LITERALISTS COULDN’T COMMIT WAR CRIMES.

119

[quote]DBCooper wrote:
The US didn’t ratify the first Geneva Convention until 1882. Before then it wasn’t written anywhere that Sherman COULDN’T plow right through Georgia. [/quote]

Where is it written that he COULD plow through states in a 60 mile wide swath of destruction? Please show me the part of the Constitution that says that citizens of the United States (Lincoln wouldn’t let them leave the Union, remember?) can have their homes burned down by Federal troops, their crops torched, their animals slaughtered, leaving women and children standing by the side of the road to starve.

Somehow, I just don’t think the signers of 1789 had provisions for that.

120

Btw, HH, if you dare leave the T-mag forum, we’re going to come after you at your house with guns blazing to make you come back. You don’t have the right to leave.

I know it didn’t say that in writing when you signed up, but that’s the way it’s going to be because we can’t allow what we have here to be broken up.