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that's why we call it the "War between the States" http://www.ncwbts150.com/CivilWarorWarBetweentheStates.php http://www.ncwbts150.com/CivilWarorWarBetweentheS

that's why we call it the "War between the States" http://www.ncwbts150.com/CivilWarorWarBetweentheStates.php http://www.ncwbts150.com/CivilWarorWarBetweentheStates.php

AndyMcConachie 9y ago
There's very little difference between the terms 'Civil War' and 'War Between the States'. The former emphasizes the people, while the latter emphasizes state governments. I prefer Civil War because I am generally predisposed to thinking of war in more personal tragic terms and not as a struggle between governments. Also, from the TFA: "The term “civil war” concedes all that the North ever claimed, makes [the South] guilty of treason, " Actually yes, the attack on Fort Sumter was an act of treason. To think of it otherwise is to partake in hagiography of white southerner's struggle.
- hammock 9y ago
  The point of calling it the War Between the States or the War of Northern Aggression is that the term "civil war" rejects the notion of secession, that the South seceded to form the Confederate States of America, a separate country.
- dixie_land 9y ago
  "Actually yes, the attack on Fort Sumter was an act of treason." Yes, the attack on Fort Sumter is now considered an act of treason, to no dispute, since the north has won and (probably) the country is better for it. However, at the time of the conflict, it was the sovereign state of South Carolina exercising its sovereignty on its territory. I personally think the emphasis on state sovereignty of the phrase "War Between the States" is ever more relevant today in the face of the ever expanding power grab of the federal government.
  - empath75 9y ago
    South Carolina wasn't a sovereign state from the day it joined the union.
    - hammock 9y ago
      Have you forgotten about the Articles of Confederation? They were created with the specific goal of maintaining state sovereignty.
      - AndyMcConachie 9y ago
        First, the Articles of Confederation were superceded by the Constitution. Second, Article XIII of the Articles states the union will be perpetual: "Every State shall abide by the determination of the United States in Congress assembled, on all questions which by this confederation are submitted to them. And the Articles of this Confederation shall be inviolably observed by every State, and the Union shall be perpetual; nor shall any alteration at any time hereafter be made in any of them; unless such alteration be agreed to in a Congress of the United States, and be afterwards confirmed by the legislatures of every State. " So I really don't know where you're coming from with this comment.
    - dixie_land 9y ago
      the 10th amendment would beg to differ
      - AndyMcConachie 9y ago
        The 10th amendment does not grant sovereignty. It reads: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." Two of the powers granted to the United States are the power to print money and the power to raise an army. There are plenty of other powers that states lose to Congress, but you can't be sovereign without those two atleast.
  - jcranmer 9y ago
    The American Civil War has sometimes been described as the war whose history was written by the losers, as there is a lot of southern revisionism that obscures the causes of the civil war. Chief of the revisions is that the war was not about slavery but states' rights. If you actually go read the CSA's constitution, though, the fallacy becomes clear. The confederate constitution is virtually a carbon copy of the US's constitution (with the amendments inserted into the body of the text). The only major differences are the explicit forbidding of the confederate government from levying tariffs for industrial production and promoting internal improvements, and the very explicit prohibition of the disavowal of slavery. This should be a clear indication of what the states were actually concerned about (especially when you also go read the actual declarations of succession). While you might take some of the minor changes to be indicative of states' rights concerns, there's equally other minor changes that suggest they didn't actually believe in them. There's no clause granting states the right to nullify federal laws, and the Supremacy Clause remains untouched, for example (perhaps because the southern states were miffed by northern states' attempts to nullify the Fugitive Slave Act). And the preamble states outright that it is promulgated "in order to form a permanent federal government"--which suggests that succession was not in fact permissible in the CSA. The south seceded and fought the Civil War because of slavery--or, more precisely, because they realized that they lost the political power to force the northern states to accept slavery. So they decided to pack up their toys and leave the sandbox rather than be the minority.
deleted 9y ago
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lern_too_spel 9y ago
What a joke of a website. Every historian will point to slavery as the reason for the South's secession, supported by literally every primary document of the secessionists. You post a website created by a kook that says otherwise. This is why many people immediately assume the speaker is stupid if they have a Southern accent.
cafard 9y ago
The official US Army histories refer to it as The War of the Rebellion. There have been other wars between the states: between Connecticut and Pennsylvania for control of the hard-coal region, which arose to shooting; between Michigan and Ohio for the Toledo strip, which did not, quite.

that's why we call it the "War between the States" http://www.ncwbts150.com/CivilWarorWarBetweentheStates.php http://www.ncwbts150.com/CivilWarorWarBetweentheStates.php

AndyMcConachie 9y ago

There's very little difference between the terms 'Civil War' and 'War Between the States'. The former emphasizes the people, while the latter emphasizes state governments. I prefer Civil War because I am generally predisposed to thinking of war in more personal tragic terms and not as a struggle between governments. Also, from the TFA: "The term “civil war” concedes all that the North ever claimed, makes [the South] guilty of treason, " Actually yes, the attack on Fort Sumter was an act of treason. To think of it otherwise is to partake in hagiography of white southerner's struggle.

hammock 9y ago
The point of calling it the War Between the States or the War of Northern Aggression is that the term "civil war" rejects the notion of secession, that the South seceded to form the Confederate States of America, a separate country.
dixie_land 9y ago
"Actually yes, the attack on Fort Sumter was an act of treason." Yes, the attack on Fort Sumter is now considered an act of treason, to no dispute, since the north has won and (probably) the country is better for it. However, at the time of the conflict, it was the sovereign state of South Carolina exercising its sovereignty on its territory. I personally think the emphasis on state sovereignty of the phrase "War Between the States" is ever more relevant today in the face of the ever expanding power grab of the federal government.
- empath75 9y ago
  South Carolina wasn't a sovereign state from the day it joined the union.
  - hammock 9y ago
    Have you forgotten about the Articles of Confederation? They were created with the specific goal of maintaining state sovereignty.
    - AndyMcConachie 9y ago
      First, the Articles of Confederation were superceded by the Constitution. Second, Article XIII of the Articles states the union will be perpetual: "Every State shall abide by the determination of the United States in Congress assembled, on all questions which by this confederation are submitted to them. And the Articles of this Confederation shall be inviolably observed by every State, and the Union shall be perpetual; nor shall any alteration at any time hereafter be made in any of them; unless such alteration be agreed to in a Congress of the United States, and be afterwards confirmed by the legislatures of every State. " So I really don't know where you're coming from with this comment.
  - dixie_land 9y ago
    the 10th amendment would beg to differ
    - AndyMcConachie 9y ago
      The 10th amendment does not grant sovereignty. It reads: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." Two of the powers granted to the United States are the power to print money and the power to raise an army. There are plenty of other powers that states lose to Congress, but you can't be sovereign without those two atleast.
- jcranmer 9y ago
  The American Civil War has sometimes been described as the war whose history was written by the losers, as there is a lot of southern revisionism that obscures the causes of the civil war. Chief of the revisions is that the war was not about slavery but states' rights. If you actually go read the CSA's constitution, though, the fallacy becomes clear. The confederate constitution is virtually a carbon copy of the US's constitution (with the amendments inserted into the body of the text). The only major differences are the explicit forbidding of the confederate government from levying tariffs for industrial production and promoting internal improvements, and the very explicit prohibition of the disavowal of slavery. This should be a clear indication of what the states were actually concerned about (especially when you also go read the actual declarations of succession). While you might take some of the minor changes to be indicative of states' rights concerns, there's equally other minor changes that suggest they didn't actually believe in them. There's no clause granting states the right to nullify federal laws, and the Supremacy Clause remains untouched, for example (perhaps because the southern states were miffed by northern states' attempts to nullify the Fugitive Slave Act). And the preamble states outright that it is promulgated "in order to form a permanent federal government"--which suggests that succession was not in fact permissible in the CSA. The south seceded and fought the Civil War because of slavery--or, more precisely, because they realized that they lost the political power to force the northern states to accept slavery. So they decided to pack up their toys and leave the sandbox rather than be the minority.

deleted 9y ago

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lern_too_spel 9y ago

What a joke of a website. Every historian will point to slavery as the reason for the South's secession, supported by literally every primary document of the secessionists. You post a website created by a kook that says otherwise. This is why many people immediately assume the speaker is stupid if they have a Southern accent.

cafard 9y ago

The official US Army histories refer to it as The War of the Rebellion. There have been other wars between the states: between Connecticut and Pennsylvania for control of the hard-coal region, which arose to shooting; between Michigan and Ohio for the Toledo strip, which did not, quite.