rickyp wrote:What deadlines have past for declaration that would exclude anyone from consideration yet? You might well be right, but if the Huck continues to poll as #1 or #2 don't you think he might change his mind?

This is from before we got on the whole slavery issue. Huckabee has said he will announce whether he is going to run for President or not on his Fox News Show this Saturday (Tomorrow?). From what I have read, this is an indication that he is not going to run because if he is announce his candidacy on his own show, it could get him and Fox News in serious trouble with the FEC.

However, either way, we will find out this Saturday.


Also, Ron Paul announced today.

GMTom wrote:No, you fail to read past the very generic text books and it is you who buy into the whole revisionist writings. Again, I can't say this enough, slavery was indeed the main issue for the war. It was not me who denied this, but to those who insist it was the only reason, no, you are fooling yourself. To try and link every reason to slavery is like trying to say WWII was due entirely to Jews.
You can argue every aspect back to Hitlers views on Jews, is that the real reason for the war?
...nope

Slavery was the main issue, because of slavery, much of this separate path was due to slavery.
It was not the ONLY issue and that is flat out wrong as wrong can be.

Tom, I think you've created another hornet's nest here. WWII wasn't even primarily about the jews. Hitler started his extreme discrimination against the Jews in 1933. England and France declared war on Germany when it invaded Poland in 1939. The US declared war after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941. Prior to the war the US had a sorry history of even letting Jewish refugees into the country. The allies focused on winning the war and not ameliorating the Holocaust.

Equating slavery: civil war to Holocaust: WWII is very mistaken.

Just to be a little clearer. Slavery was the primary cause of the civil war, and most of us believe that if slavery hadn't existed, there would have not been a civil war. However, the killing of Jews (and others) was not even a secondary reason for WWII. Hitler could have killed all of the Jews in his territories and the allies would not have declared war. It was the additional land grab of Poland that was the proximate and primary cause of WWII.

The proximate cause of the Civil War was 'Dred Scott v. Sandford'.

Thanks for agreeing with me ARJ
You have gone on and on stating the civil war was only about the one issue slavery, I disagreed and there you go and offer yet another reason.

Therefore, the overwhelming majority of southerners were undereducated. I am sure that could have something to do with any alleged negative attitude towards the common Southerner

that sir is another reason, you stated it yourself. No kidding there were other reasons!

I certainly accept ARJ knows a whole lot more than i do on the civil war, but when he makes such blanket statements that the war was due to one and only one issue, he's either kidding himself or ignoring what he doesn't want to accept (such as the two things i linked here, how are those feelings explained away?)

as far as Jews and WWII, I simply pointed out something similar.
As far as if slavery were not an issue at the time, would there have been a war? Probably not but those other reasons mentioned makes it so we can not say for certain. Conditions were ripe for such a thing to happen, but slavery DID exist and many of these other issues certainly related to slavery so we can never know for sure.

Tom, from what I can see Russ is saying that all of the other causes are directly tied in with the issue of slavery or the effects that the institution of slavery had on the development of society in the South. He isn't saying that the only difference between North and South was that they used to keep slaves in the South.

There's a danger of over-complicating things here. At the end of the day the South seceded from the Union because they wanted to protect the institution of slavery. Everything else is pretty much irrelevant.

GMTom wrote:Thanks for agreeing with me ARJ
You have gone on and on stating the civil war was only about the one issue slavery, I disagreed and there you go and offer yet another reason.

Therefore, the overwhelming majority of southerners were undereducated. I am sure that could have something to do with any alleged negative attitude towards the common Southerner

that sir is another reason, you stated it yourself. No kidding there were other reasons!

I am sorry sir but you are misunderstanding what I am saying here. I am saying there could be negative attitude from those in the north towards those in the south due to the perceived undereducation. However, that had little to do with the causes of the war. You know how we know this. People in the north pretty much still look down on those from the south as dumb racist rednecked hicks today but you don't see us getting ready to fight about it do you.

Additionally, the lack of a public education system in the south can be tied to the economic effects of slavery as well.

In a really bizarre and distasteful mixing of metaphors:

Republican Newt Gingrich told a Georgia audience on Friday evening that the 2012 presidential election is the most consequential since the 1860 race that elected Abraham Lincoln to the White House and was soon followed by the Civil War.

Addressing the Georgia Republican Party's convention, Gingrich said the nation is at a crossroads and that the re-election of Democratic President Barack Obama would lead to four more years of "radical left-wing values" that would drive the nation to ruin.

Gingrich also blasted Obama as "the most successful food stamp president in modern American history."

Gingrich also blasted Obama as "the most successful food stamp president in modern American history.

I can't even figure out what that means. Help.

as far as Jews and WWII, I simply pointed out something similar.

Which is what?

Ray Jay wrote:

Gingrich also blasted Obama as "the most successful food stamp president in modern American history.

I can't even figure out what that means. Help.

There are more families/people on food stamps now then any other time since the program was started. The term Food Stamp recovery was coined to show how weak the recovery actually is. Apparently Gingrinch is using a little hyperbole to tie the President to the weak economy.

Archduke Russell John wrote:

rickyp wrote:What deadlines have past for declaration that would exclude anyone from consideration yet? You might well be right, but if the Huck continues to poll as #1 or #2 don't you think he might change his mind?

Huckabee has said he will announce whether he is going to run for President or not on his Fox News Show this Saturday (Tomorrow?)

Huckabee announced he will not be running for President this year. I think this is a big boost to Pawlenty. IMO, it makes him the front runner in Iowa. He is from a neighboring state. He is also an evangelical christian which will sell well in Iowa. Once Sarah Palin announces she is not running, I think you will see Pawlenty shot to the top of the polls.

There's a danger of over-complicating things here.

The danger is in oversimplifying things. We are supposed to learn from our past and when you oversimplify, you ignore history. I am not denying slavery was the main issue, but to try and relate all reasons to the one issue is doing just that, oversimplifying, ARJ pointed out educational differences, the north looked down upon the south, they had more power not just economically but politically as well, the south had other issue to be sure, To attempt to simplify this as being ONE issue is just crazy talk. and so far, those other stories, personal accounts have been ignored, they do not fit the reasons so they are simply dismissed and that's flat out wrong.

If you wish to generalize then absolutely the war boiled down to slavery. It dominates most reasons, you certainly can link it directly or at least indirectly to the vast majority of reasons but even then, there were other reasons that also worked their way in to the slavery issues as well, it simply was not one issue only, such oversimplifying is dangerous stuff, rewriting history like this!

And where we agree, Huckabee was never a real contender, his not running is almost a nonfactor in the end run

And this is the problem Tom. I am not oversimplifying. You are just not grasping exactly how pervasive the slavery issue was in the early Republic. We don't have anything that is comparable to it today. We have major issues like Abortion or same-sex marriage. However, the scope of those issues pale in comparison to the slavery issue. You are looking at the issue through the eyes of a person who grew up in the late 20th Century. You can't do that.

Yes there were various issues that caused some tensions between the various sections of the country. However, they were no more serious then we have today, i.e. thinking the south is racist redneck hicks, the west coast is tree hugging nut jobs, or the northeast are effette elitist. However, absent slavery none of them would have lead to a civil war that killed almost a million Americans and devastated the southern economy for multiple generations that just started to recover about 20 years ago.

As for the political power and economis issues you refer to, they were all tied to slavery. The south jealously guarded its political power to protect its peculiary institution. The economic disparity is entirely caused by slavery. How many times to have to say it. The people who would start the businesses had their money tied up in slaves. Further it was worse then that.

Owning slaves was "the" status symbol in the south. Smaller farmers would plant enough crops in food to feed their families and the rest in a cash crop such as cotton in order to purchase a slave. They would then use the slave to plant more cash crop in order to buy more slaves, etc, etc, etc. Therefore, money that could have been used to invest in a business instead went into purchasing slaves. Compare this to the north where excess capital could and would go into start ups.

It all boils down to the pervasiveness of slavery in the early Republic. Hell, even the southerns fought amongst themselves in regards to slavery. For example during the Constitutional Convention Luther Martin of Maryland and George Mason of Virginia proposed including in the Constitution a mandate to end the immediate importation of slaves from Africa. They claimed the proposal was based on the evils of the slave trade. A South Carolina delegate, Charles Coatesworth Pinckney I think, said that was bullshit and that it was all an economic issue. You know what, he was correct. You see, at the time, South Carolina, North Carolina and Georgia had a shortage of slaves so they needed to continue to import. However, Virginia and Maryland had an excessive amount of slaves (after all they self breed). If the international importation of slaves stopped, the lower south would have to purchase from the upper south and the value of those slaves would be increased.

What it boils down to Tom is that you need to stop looking at this through 20th and 21st Century eyes and grasp the pervasiveness of slavery in the early republic.

A look to GB and their struggle to abolish slavery might be enlightening. For the abolishionists it was an ethical and moral cause and for those opposed it was all about money.