Is Secession Legal?

O' Be Joyful

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Mosby, who was attached to Stuart's cavalry most of the time but not officially. It also led to war lords, such as Newt Knight. He's interesting - neither side wanted him and both sides picked on him and his so he set up on his own. These units recruited with a much heavier hand than the regular CSA army did. Consequently you had a lot of people going to brush to escape conscription from one source or the other. And it led to Union irregulars, such as Hurst's Worst.

HELL, comes in small packages and most of the time it sneaks up on ya'. The Devil takes no sides, He plays the odds always knowin' they most likely turn His way. Evil and decadence can be found around every corner in the "Late Unpleasantness" Blue or Gray.

Such is history. Turn the page.

No I will not play Bobby and the Silver Bullet Boys....Like Hell I won't.

 

TJD

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The Yankees were better fed, clothed, armed and were more dedicated to an ideology of preserving democracy rather than serving an uncaring slaveowner astrocracy.
I question the first 3 because they were fighting primarily on foreign soil and had to be supplied and/or live off the land. The fourth - "fighting to defend democracy" is laughable. The average Northern soldier wasn't defending his state or country like a CSA soldier was. And most CSA soldiers really DID have pride in their cause and extreme devotion to their leadership ie Lee/Jackson erc.
 

O' Be Joyful

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I question the first 3 because they were fighting primarily on foreign soil

I suggest that you look more deeply into the logistics of the conflict. As in rail roads, ships and such.


The average Northern soldier wasn't defending his state or country like a CSA soldier was.

Is that a... fact? Got a source for that? gawd bless your heart. ;)
 

TJD

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I suggest that you look more deeply into the logistics of the conflict. As in rail roads, ships and such.
Yes, I did say they needed to be supplied I didn't say it couldn't be done, it's just logistically much more difficult for the North in the South than the South in the South. Grant was admittedly living off the land - which was why he paroled the starving Confeds.

Now I admit the South was broke as the war went along so this issue is at least arguable - as this "well supplied" issue is probably much different based on the region in question.
 
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TJD

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Is that a... fact? Got a source for that? gawd bless your heart. ;)
The Northern soldier wasn't defending his state/country - it's ludicrous to think that the South posed any threat at conquering the North that a Northern soldier set on his cause to defend the North against Southern aggression.
 

TJD

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You are correct sir, they were defending their nation.
It was self evident that "seceding" did not mean "here we come to conquer your ass!" And in backward times like that some Michigan kid is going to care risking his neck fighting against a Georgian soldier's right at self determination?
 
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Jim Klag

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The Northern soldier wasn't defending his state/country - it's ludicrous to think that the South posed any threat at conquering the North that a Northern soldier set on his cause to defend the North against Southern aggression.
It still amazes me how people give zero credit to northern soldiers' fighting to save the Union/nation. Only the rebels, who deliberately attempted to break up that Union/nation, have a love of country. Did it ever occur to these folks that northern immigrants came to America because of the promise of "government of the people, by the people, for the people?" Can northern soldiers not also be patriots? Remember, Davis was the first to introduce conscription. For the first 2+ years of the war, the US Army was 100% volunteers. The USA fought all the way to Gettysburg with an all-volunteer army. Confederates cannot say that.
 

diane

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Yes, I did say they needed to be supplied I didn't say it couldn't be done, it's just logistically much more difficult for the North in the South than the South in the South. Grant was admittedly living off the land - which was why he paroled the starving Confeds.

Now I admit the South was broke as the war went along so this issue is at least arguable - as this "well supplied" issue is probably much different based on the region in question.
It was more difficult for logistics in the North because the South had such poor infrastructure. That's why Jefferson Davis had been trying most of his political career to get the moss-backed planters to allow progress - like a port or shipyard rather than a mere landing. However, Van Dorn's spectacular three pronged raid through north Mississippi and middle Tennessee - him, Morgan and Forrest were a dream team for that - accidentally made a bulb go on over Grant's head. His depot was destroyed, no food or supplies, he would have to withdraw...except Mississippi was the richest state in the country. He was astonished at just how rich when he began to get together replacement foodstuffs and necessities. That gave Sherman ideas, too, for a future march to the sea. At any rate, the cavalrymen did much better than the foot soldiers of the CSA - when Forrest surrendered in Alabama just about everything he turned over had USA stamped or branded on it! He made no requisitions the final two years of the war but supplied himself from the enemy.
 

jgoodguy

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I question the first 3 because they were fighting primarily on foreign soil
Only in the minds of the self style nation of the rebels, no one else recognized that claim. Why do you accept the notions of the rebels uncritically
fighting to defend democracy" is laughable.
Why is that? The bedrock of democracy is accepting the result of elections which the rebels did not do deliberately. A bedrock of civilization is accepting the will of the majority which the rebels did not do. A bedrock of civilization is accepting the rule of law and order which the rebels did not do. Why do you support a 'slaveholding oligarchy' over law

As respected historian Gary W. Gallagher spells out plainly in the opening sentence of the introduction to this volume, "the loyal American citizenry fought a war for union that also killed slavery" (7). In the two hundred pages that follow, he provides a valuable reminder that although the Civil War was caused by slavery and decided the fate of that peculiar institution, the preservation of the Union remained the foremost motivating factor in the minds of the majority of its northern participants. To the people of the northern states, the Civil War was, above all else, the struggle of a free people, waging war by means of its own citizen-soldiers, to defend its self-governing republic against the attack of a slaveholding oligarchy. In so doing, northerners believed they had preserved not only their own republic for their posterity but also the principle of republican government for the entire world to emulate. The destruction of slavery was, for most northerners, an unregretted side effect.​
The average Northern soldier wasn't defending his state or country like a CSA soldier was.
Yes! He was defending his country! The self-styled country the rebels fought for, under the threat of hanging as you have observed, was a country only in the minds of the 'slaveholding oligarchy'. Some 200,000 Southerners, almost 20% of the maximum mobilization of the rebels fought for Union and thus their States.

. And most CSA soldiers really DID have pride in their cause and extreme devotion to their leadership ie Lee/Jackson erc.
True, but all bands of brothers, comrades in arms forged in combat have that esprit de corps. Often for a more noble cause the enslavement of human beings.

Remember the rebels shot those deserted, another good reason to stay in the ranks and live to be a POW.
 
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jgoodguy

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I suggest that you look more deeply into the logistics of the conflict. As in rail roads, ships and such.





Is that a... fact? Got a source for that? gawd bless your heart. ;)
A very good point.
and had to be supplied and/or live off the land
Without looting union camps of boxes of hardtack and other material, the South would have given in much sooner.
 

jgoodguy

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Yes, I did say they needed to be supplied I didn't say it couldn't be done, it's just logistically much more difficult for the North in the South than the South in the South. Grant was admittedly living off the land - which was why he paroled the starving Confeds.

Now I admit the South was broke as the war went along so this issue is at least arguable - as this "well supplied" issue is probably much different based on the region in question.
Without railroads and steam powered riverboats, the Union could not have been supplied.
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Grant and Sherman demonstrated very well that the slave-holding oligarchy could supply an army while the average rebel soldier and his family were starving.
 

jgoodguy

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which was why he paroled the starving Confeds.
Grant had enough food to feed one army, but not two. That was the second Confederate Army to surrender to Grant and we are nowhere near Appomatox.
 

jgoodguy

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The Northern soldier wasn't defending his state/country - it's ludicrous to think that the South posed any threat at conquering the North that a Northern soldier set on his cause to defend the North against Southern aggression.
Yes the Union soldier was defending his country along with 200,000 Southerners aided and abetted by locals providing military intelligence.
Once defeated, why wouldn't the voracious southern Aristocats snap off pieces of the Union to free Southerners from the evil Lincoln?
 

rittmeister

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The Northern soldier wasn't defending his state/country - it's ludicrous to think that the South posed any threat at conquering the North that a Northern soldier set on his cause to defend the North against Southern aggression.
hä? so if someone tells you your country is a lot smaller now your answer is 'okay'?
 

jgoodguy

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It was self evident that "seceding" did not mean "here we come to conquer your ass!"
See Germany and Sudetenland Why wouldn't a victorious South with a large army not go a conquering.?

And in backward times like that some Michigan kid is going to care risking his neck fighting against a Georgian soldier's right at self determination?
Yet they did.
 
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