Greatest American? (All Over on Page Eight)

[diaglo]

There was the telegraph.

which was cut to the fort

 

[Storm Raven]

This really depends on what side you were on. The British felt that the colonies were represented by Parliament because Parliament represented everyone.

And which colonists got to vote on the membership? Which colonists consented to their government by participating in open and free elections?

The point I was making is that the colonies formed there own country because they felt that England did not represent them. They felt Parliament did not have their best intrests when making laws and passing taxes.

The south felt the same way. They felt that the federal goverment would soon be controlled by a majority who did not have their best iintrests in mind when passing laws. So they did what their grandfathers did.

And that is a smokescreen to cover the fact that the Southern states were fully represented in the government of the United States, and had consented to the government by participating in the national election. The fact that you got outvoted does not create a right to seceed. The fact that you weren't allowed to vote at all might.

 

[Elf Witch]

I do. And it doesn't matter. Slavery was important to the economy of many other nations, and they made the sacrifice. Slavery could have been abolished in the 1810s with a minimum of trauma, but it wasn't. Slavery could have been abolished in any number of ways, but it was not.

I believe in time that it would have happened. Social pressure, the coming of more labor saving devices. Machines are cheaper than humans to maintain.



Backed into a wall of their own making. The only reason they seceeded was that Lincoln was elected. Despite his repeated statements that he not only did not intend to try to abolish slavery, he didn't think he had the legal power to do so, they threw a hissy fit and seceeded. If they had stayed in the Union, it is likely that slavery would have been just fine until, as you believe, it was peacefully abolished.

[/i]

Untrue. There was a concerted effort to ensure the freedmen would have both economic means of support and political well-being. The Freedman's Bureau was established to provide assistance, federal troops were sent to ensure that blacks could vote in elections, and many formerly Confederate state legislatures had black members in the 1860s and 1870s.

The Klu Klux Klan, and other similar organizations worked hard to make sure these efforts failed.

Oh yes the nothners who came in and offered money and other bribes for the blacks to vote the way they wanted them too.

I grew up in the deep south I remember segreation. I saw a lot of poor blacks who did not have any poltical or economic freedom. And it was just not the Klan doing it. Washington itself rarely stepped in.

No matter how you look at the blacks in America were failed by the goverment for a l very long time after the war.

 

[Storm Raven]

which was cut to the fort

After the fighting started.

 

[diaglo]

After the fighting started.

and before, the relay was in southern hands.

 

[Brother Shatterstone]

Probably not, but he could afford to vote for representatives who wouldn't be in favor of sucession. And he could avoid serving in the Confederate army.

And watch his homeland get destroyed...

The only states' rights issue that was being "threatened" was the right to keep slaves. And it wasn't.

A precedent is a precedent... Pure simple fact.

 

[diaglo]

in the last decade or so, didn't maine threaten to secede from the Union?

edit: or was that vermont?

 

[Storm Raven]

Oh yes the nothners who came in and offered money and other bribes for the blacks to vote the way they wanted them too.

Sure there were some people who tried to profiteer. And who were caricatured by hostile Southerners as carpetbaggers. Voting Republican, for blacks, wasn't about "Northerners getting them to vote the way they wanted them to", it was about voting against the position of the KKK laden Democratic Party of the era in the Southern states.

I grew up in the deep south I remember segreation. I saw a lot of poor blacks who did not have any poltical or economic freedom. And it was just not the Klan doing it. Washington itself rarely stepped in.

And that happened long after the KKK had worked to ensure that they would be in that position. Up through Harrison's administration, the Federal government tried to improve the plight of blacks in the South. A concerted effort by what would now be called terrorists prevented this, and a political compromise forced by Harrison's weakness as President sealed the deal.

No matter how you look at the blacks in America were failed by the goverment for a l very long time after the war.

Only because the KKK and similar organizations (like the Democratic Party of the 1880s-1930s) prevented it from changing these things.

 

[Ferret]

He recieved United States Citizenship in 1940 (having renounced his German citizenship in 1933 and fled to America), which he retained for the rest of his life. He was offered the first Presidency of Israel in 1948 but declined it to remain an American. One thing traditionally great about America is that it isn't neccesarily where you're born, it is a place you can come to start a new life or be more than you could before.

http://nobelprize.org/physics/laureates/1921/einstein-bio.html

(I'm still sticking with Jefferson for all time, but Einstein is definitely one of the greats of the 20th century, along with FDR).

I suspected that, but I wasn't sure whether that made you an american, or just an american citizen.

 

[Elf Witch]

And which colonists got to vote on the membership? Which colonists consented to their government by participating in open and free elections?

[/i]

And that is a smokescreen to cover the fact that the Southern states were fully represented in the government of the United States, and had consented to the government by participating in the national election. The fact that you got outvoted does not create a right to seceed. The fact that you weren't allowed to vote at all might.

England's goverment worked a little differently than ours. In their eyes Parliament was the people.

It was no smokescreen if new states joined the union and they were anti slavery then they would have the majority vote needed to abolish slavery. And the south who would be effected by this would have been powerless to do anything about it.

This issue between federal and state rights had been brewing since the time of the first congress. There are two sides to an issue. And I can understand how they felt what right did other states have to push their beliefs onto the south because they were the majority espically on an issue that would not have an economic impact on the states forcing the issue.