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The political cost would be too high for the oppressing side. The military will not be homogeneously obedient to repress its own people that much
by sebastianconcpt 11y ago
The political cost would be too high for the oppressing side. The military will not be homogeneously obedient to repress its own people that much
- douche 11y agoThat was a big issue for the North in the early years of the Civil War. Southerners were disproportionately represented in the small pre-war standing army and West Point alumnae. So the war starts, and they mostly go home and switch sides; at the same time the northern armies are massively expanding, with a gutted officer pool.
- aaronem 11y agoLinguistic quibble: "Alumnae" is the nominative feminine plural of the noun "alumnus", and thus refers specifically to a female graduate of some institution of higher learning, &c. In 1860, there was no such thing as an alumna of West Point, a school which at that time had only alumni (which is the nominative masculine plural, and the correct usage in this case).