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cheerfullydrab posted:Well, then you're of a different mind than the Confederate States, who immediately promulgated a Constitution that was exactly the same as the Constitution of the United States of America, except for six-year one-term Presidencies, line-item vetos, and various provisions saying SLAVERY FOREVER NO ONE WILL EVER RESTRICT SLAVERY. Also something about riverine improvements? Can't remember. Confederate Constitution, Article 2 Sec. 8 posted:To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes; but neither this, nor any other clause contained in the Constitution, shall ever be construed to delegate the power to Congress to appropriate money for any internal improvement intended to facilitate commerce; except for the purpose of furnishing lights, beacons, and buoys, and other aids to navigation upon the coasts, and the improvement of harbors and the removing of obstructions in river navigation; in all which cases such duties shall be laid on the navigation facilitated thereby as may be necessary to pay the costs and expenses thereof. Congress can only put up coastal navigation aids, which should be self funded. Can't fund railroads, canals, roads, etc. In the long run this clause would have certainly resulted in a hilarious mishmash of railroad gauges and a) creative rules lawyering or b) the south becoming even more backwards.
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Jul 28, 2016 13:19
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The South threw a tantrum when they could no longer get their way. That's the long and short of it. They had representation in the government, but their preferred candidate for president lost. Also remember that they fired the first shots at Ft Sumter. Even if you try to secede, the Federal property within the state's boundaries doesn't come along too.
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Jul 28, 2016 13:20
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:Congress can only put up coastal navigation aids, which should be self funded. Can't fund railroads, canals, roads, etc. In the long run this clause would have certainly resulted in a hilarious mishmash of railroad gauges and a) creative rules lawyering or b) the south becoming even more backwards. It's so much worse than I remembered. I do believe I was correct on the other points, however.
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Jul 28, 2016 13:28
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cheerfullydrab posted:It's so much worse than I remembered. I do believe I was correct on the other points, however. Yeah, pretty much. They took the US constitution, said "hey looks pretty good," made some superficial changes, and then inserted two extremely rear end backwards elements. Edit: in fairness to the CSA, Congress did manage to approve and somewhat fund four small sections of railroad during the war, two of which were completed - Danville to Greensboro, and a Northern Virginia branch through Manassas and Centerville. These lines received approval and federal funding because it was to support defense/military operations, not commerce.  I figure this is the path they would have gone down in the future once they managed to discover that not federally funding infrastructure development would be extremely harmful to the economy.In contrast, the Union funded the poo poo out of rail development during the war, laying 10x more rail miles, and consolidated rail transport within relevant theaters under the U.S. Military Railroad, which also served as the sole buyer of private rail capacity for the Union armies. KYOON GRIFFEY JR fucked around with this message at 13:44 on Jul 28, 2016 |
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Jul 28, 2016 13:34
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I think the important thing here is that 'treasonous' and 'immoral' don't exactly map one-to-one, von Stauffenberg was technically a traitor but that doesn't mean it was immoral to try to kill Hitler. Treason is just a betrayal of your country, a bad thing when there's no good cause to do so (ie the Civil War) but a good thing when there is.
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Jul 28, 2016 13:37
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edit: no
Teriyaki Hairpiece fucked around with this message at 21:50 on Jul 31, 2016 |
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Jul 28, 2016 13:49
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The South largely controlled the Federal Government within the pre-war periods and there were actually movements to secede in the north (that never really picked up momentum to the extent of the Secession movements in the South), mostly because of the runaway slave laws, the Dred Scott case and the issues that were occurring in Kansas/Missouri, (and partially, of course, John Brown). The South was perfectly happy to remain within the Union when it could control the political machine and ensure that rulings went their way, but when they lost control of the Government because of the Lincoln election, it was a real 'toys out of the pram' moment. If it was the tyranny of the majority that caused the South to secede, why didn't the same thing happen in the North to the same extent. They didn't even secede over an overt action by the newly elected President, the gears of secession were in motion before he was even sworn in and the platform that he campaigned for didn't even (at the time) include a curtailment of slavery but just (as has been pointed out) the prevention of expansion of slavery. This was, of course, a direct threat to the slave-owners and the future institution of slavery because if the expansion of slavery was curtailed, there would be a gradual shift towards more states that would vote for anti-slavery presidents in the future, and thus diminish the power of slave-holding states. This struggle was already happening within Missouri/Kansas, and through the two Missouri compromises (both of which were created by Southern politicians and then subsequently ignore by southern politicians). So the only reason why the slave holding states seceded was a potential lack of future power, and a current power struggle because they couldn't control the government and especially expansion anymore. And hence, to reassert their power and protect the institution of slavery in the future, they took up arms against the Union and fired the first shot, not as a reaction of a direct wrong committed by the Federal Government. Tyranny of the majority doesn't even come into this: nothing was forced on the South until the war was already being fought, and it became, due to matters of diplomacy, viable to produce the emancipation proclamation. Saying that the South had the right to secede due to tyranny of the majority arguments plays directly into 'lost cause' arguments and lends credence to them. I see the secession as a reactionary power grab enacted in order to preserve power in the south, something that, thankfully, was not successful.
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Jul 28, 2016 13:51
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I'm not sure exactly what your argument is, but if you are implying that the North was more politically unified in prosecution of the war that's not really very accurate.
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Jul 28, 2016 13:55
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My argument is just against the 'tyranny of majority' arguments being made. I don't think the North was politically unified and the war showed this, not sure where you would gather that from what I said though. EDIT: If you meant the part regarding 'why the north did not secede', that was, again, a counter-argument to the above and not an implication that the North was politically unified enough to actually secede under a southern-controlled government. It still amazes me that the Republican party was able to succeed during that election year considering the obstacles that they were facing, actually. And yet again lends credence to the fact that the South weren't just a minority that had their rights being trampled by an oppressive majority. Tekopo fucked around with this message at 14:02 on Jul 28, 2016 |
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Jul 28, 2016 13:58
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Tekopo posted:The South largely controlled the Federal Government within the pre-war periods and there were actually movements to secede in the north (that never really picked up momentum to the extent of the Secession movements in the South), mostly because of the runaway slave laws, the Dred Scott case and the issues that were occurring in Kansas/Missouri, (and partially, of course, John Brown). The South was perfectly happy to remain within the Union when it could control the political machine and ensure that rulings went their way, but when they lost control of the Government because of the Lincoln election, it was a real 'toys out of the pram' moment. This needs to be underlined, always. The South was in charge of the government for quite a large part of early America. We even had a one-party state with an uncontested Presidential election at one point. The last President who owned slaves while in office was Zachary Taylor, who died 12 years and change before the Emancipation Proclamation. The South had had their own way for quite a while.
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Jul 28, 2016 14:06
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Ignoring slavery, I generally think the moral issue with secession is that it hands power to geography. If the people who live on top of the gold mine have the right to leave and take the gold mine with them, this means that political power becomes not doled out according to the needs of the population, but the geographical wealth of each locality. There's no real way to ensure that resources are therefore shared to the benefit of all.
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Jul 28, 2016 14:12
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Fangz posted:Ignoring slavery, I generally think the moral issue with secession is that it hands power to geography. If the people who live on top of the gold mine have the right to leave and take the gold mine with them, this means that political power becomes not doled out according to the needs of the population, but the geographical wealth of each locality. There's no real way to ensure that resources are therefore shared to the benefit of all. So you're a riparian rights kind of guy.
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Jul 28, 2016 14:16
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cheerfullydrab posted:So you're a riparian rights kind of guy. Reading the wikipedia, it sounds like the opposite of what I favour?
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Jul 28, 2016 14:26
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BattleMoose posted:No, its an argument against the "tyranny of the majority". When a portion of the population, through majority public vote, force their will on the "minority". It is democratic in the strictest sense of the term but its an awful idea, because it leaves the "minority" angry and feeling repressed and without representation. Unsurprisingly this can result in conflict. Its not "undemocratic" to appreciate this and that its not a good idea to force one's value onto others. Even if they are lovely values. There are better ways than through force. This is a particularly bad argument in favor of secession. First is that even if you accept all your postulates and losing the presidential election meant losing representation, the same south that jammed the Fugitive Slave Acts down the throat of the north doesn't have any high ground with regards to tyranny of the majority, and even better, doing it by states is ludicrous, just ask West Virginia or east Tennessee. One of them seceded right back, and the other managed to win the first secession vote. The prompt response of course was to respect the will of the electorate with a second vote this time accompanied by a campaign of voter suppression because that's apparently how resisting the tyranny of the majority goes, you just bring out the military and put them under martial law. The other side is that there are safeguards in the US system against the tyranny of the majority. The constitution and its amendments are designed to limit what the majority can do, and better yet apply equally whether the minority is large enough to get a rebellion going. The Supreme Court exists entirely to rein in other branches and limit what can be done to people. Losing one presidential election isn't cause enough to try to take your ball home outside of a literal anarchy. And yeah, I think I agree with Fangz. The people who most desperately need protection from tyranny of the majority are the people who don't have the ability to secede or to hold their presence hostage. xthetenth fucked around with this message at 14:49 on Jul 28, 2016 |
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Jul 28, 2016 14:46
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The reduction of the tyranny of the majority argument is that the only polity which is not tyrannical is the individual.
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Jul 28, 2016 14:50
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feedmegin posted:'whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States' - 18 US Code 2381. Well, the treason law doesn't apply because, as you noted, the CSA was never recognized as a foreign government by the US. I think what you're really getting at though, is what the last glob of posts have been discussing - the legality of unilateral secession. I've argued both sides of this very enthusiastically both in real life and on the internet and my current stance has essentially evolved to "it depends". In other words, there are compelling arguments in favor of both sides. The strongest argument against the legality of secession was the ongoing jurisprudence coming out of the Supreme Court. Fletcher v. Peck reaffirmed the supremacy clause (and gave the legal basis for seizing native land), but more specifically, it made clear that it was the opinion of the court that once a state recognized the Constitution, it in turn was subject in full force to said Constitution. While that is a strong argument against unilateral secession in the sense that it makes clear federal > state law, the issue is that secession wasn't explicitly banned, nor really discussed, in antebellum federal law. The other oft-cited case is Cohens v Virginia, which was a case related to state lotteries that had the upshot of the court arguing, again indirectly, that the only way to "undo" an agreement such as the Constitution is by a majority decision of the body that established it. The problem remains the same however - while it clearly alludes to unilateral secession being illegal, the Constitution itself lacked a clear mechanism banning (or endorsing) secession. And, just for reference, the secession question was finally answered post war in Texas v White, which is what you should immediately reference every time an idiot Texan suggests Texas should succeed from Murka. Ultimately, you can think of the anti-secession argument as being one of assumed authority, and an assumption about what the founders were really trying to achieve with their federal system. The American political system was a fairly unique entity for its time and a lot of those assumptions had yet to be tested in court, but the basic assumption was that a government does not need to establish means for its own demise. My personal favorite quote to use to support came from none other than one Colonel Robert Edward Lee in January 1861: "The framers of our Constitution never exhausted so much labor, wisdom, and forbearance in its formation, and surrounded it with so many guards and securities, if it was intended to be broken by every member of the Confederacy at will." The argument in favor of unilateral secession doesn't really have any particular jurisprudence supporting it, but it does have, in my opinion at least, a more common sense platform. The first, and easiest, argument to make is the 10th Amendment one - if the federal government doesn't make a law then it is up to the states, and the federal government didn't make a law regarding secession, ergo, it can be left to the states to make that decision. There was no law barring secession, and thus, that decision was left to the subordinate states. This of course would have been challenged in court had the war not intervened and most historians think that the Taney court would have ruled against it, but it at the very least highlights the fact that there wasn't an explicit law forbidding secession, and western culture has long held that an action is by default legal if it is not in violation of a specific law. The second argument is a bit more subtle - it gets to what exactly was the nature of the American federal system. Early on in the formation of the country (in the Articles of Confederation days), it was more or less assumed that the federal system was at its core a very broad collection of partnerships. Partnerships, then as now, are dissolvable at any time, unilaterally, at the whim of any partner. That isn't to say that there aren't potentially significant consequences to doing so (just ask anyone who has tried to get out of a law firm partnership), but the right to remove oneself from a partnership at any time and for any reason is absolute. Things get sticky though when you move from the AoC to the Constitution - and we have to ask, is the Constitution an affirmation of this partnership agreement between colonies, or did it abolish the idea of partnership and instead establish a new, overarching entity? Federalist #45 is, in my opinion at least, the best window into what the founders intended (and is again often quoted in this types of discussions): "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the Federal Government, are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State Governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negociation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will for the most part be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects, which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties and properties of the people; and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State." The third argument is very simple: the United States only existed as a result of secession from Great Britain, and that event was still in living memory at the time of the south's secession. If you assume that secession was an invalid political principle, then the legitimacy of the US as a sovereign nation is called into question. This position, of course, glosses over the fact that the US had to fight a war to ensure its independence, which is sort of where I'm taking this whole long rambling post. In my view at least, you had these two competing visions of what the country was - either a collection of partnerships represented by an elected federal body, or a single entity that allowed its subordinates to do as they wished only with the leave of the majority. As I said above, I think that both of these positions were at least supportable legally, and there simply isn't the jurisprudence to conclusively argue one way or the other prior to White. As such, the issue wound up being decided by force of arms, which was tragic, but was also conclusive. All that being said, the reason I typed all this out was to try and highlight exactly one of the main reasons why there was so little popular support for HANG ALL THE SECCESH in the north: the political issues surrounding secession were at the very least ambiguous. Soldiers and politicians on both sides recognized that the war was ultimately a contest that decided the validity of unilateral secession. I'm a fan of the way Grant summarized this in his memoirs: "Now, the right of revolution is an inherent one. When people are oppressed by their government, it is a natural right they enjoy to relieve themselves of the oppression, if they are strong enough, either by withdrawal from it, or by overthrowing it and substituting a government more acceptable". To that end, the vast majority of soldiers and politicians on both sides considered the issue decided, conclusively, by the war, and as such there really wasn't much appetite for punishment for those that had seceded. The issue was quite ambiguous going into the conflict, and so there wasn't really a black-and-white violation of law, or even the spirit of law, that one could point to clearly outlawing unilateral withdrawal from the union. Both sides recognized that arms had decided the issue, and that was shortly followed by jurisprudence, and that was that. Or, as Grant put it in the second part of the previous quote: "But any people or part of a people who resort to this remedy, stake their lives, their property, and every claim for protection given by citizenship--on the issue. Victory, or the conditions imposed by the conqueror--must be the result. "
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Jul 28, 2016 15:11
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bewbies posted:Well, the treason law doesn't apply because, as you noted, the CSA was never recognized as a foreign government by the US. Are you sure that's required? Granted it was state not federal law, but John Brown was specifically hanged for treason against the State of Virginia, for example. And here's this, from the time in question - http://www.nytimes.com/1861/01/25/news/treason-against-the-united-states.html?pagewanted=all For example, '"In the case of The United States vs. FRIES, Mr. Justice CHASE said on the trial, and stated the opinion of the Court to be, That if a body of people, conspire and meditate an insurrection to resist or oppose the execution of any statute of the United States by force, they are only guilty of a high misdemeanor; but if they proceed to carry such intention into execution by force, that they are guilty of the treason of levying war; and the quantum of the force employed neither lessens or increases the crime -- whether by one hundred or one thousand persons is wholly immaterial;" ' That latter being this - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fries%27s_Rebellion . The court convicted them, the President pardoned them, but that still looks like a judicial precedent to me.
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Jul 28, 2016 15:23
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Plan Z posted:A question I've always wanted to ask but always forgot to is about getting information about arrow production throughout history. It's impressive in my mind how well ancient civilizations made thousands of the things using the materials they had. Can anyone share information on how the mass production of it was done (no particular time period/military requested, just share what you know). Did armies try to also reclaim and re-use fired arrows that they could recover from the battlefield if they weren't too damaged by use? I'd also like an answer to this question, but I have a similar question of my own: how expensive were arrows in relative terms in, say, Middle Ages Britain when the longbow was popular? I've been looking at hunting arrows and I'm finding that even the cheapest decent arrows cost as much as $4 or $4.50 per arrow. Obviously these arrows are far more advanced than something made in 1328, but I was wondering if the relative cost for hunting and war arrows (compared to other goods, similar to the "How much is a loaf of bread worth?" question) has always been this high.
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Jul 28, 2016 15:28
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feedmegin posted:Are you sure that's required? Granted it was state not federal law, but John Brown was specifically hanged for treason against the State of Virginia, for example. And here's this, from the time in question - Well, if you're referring to the soldiers (particularly the officers) and nearly all of the politicians of the CSA, they all resigned their commissions in the US military and renounced their American citizenships, so those examples you provided aren't appropriate parallels. And, as I exhaustively chronicled above, there wasn't a specific law in force that the CSA violated, so it isn't really valid to argue that they did something illegal.
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Jul 28, 2016 15:28
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bewbies posted:Well, if you're referring to the soldiers (particularly the officers) and nearly all of the politicians of the CSA, they all resigned their commissions in the US military and renounced their American citizenships, so those examples you provided aren't appropriate parallels. Military commissions aren't relevant here, since civilians can commit treason, and I'm not sure just saying 'yo I'm not a US citizen any more' actually counted as making you not a US citizen in the eyes of US law even back then - it certainly wouldn't cut it now! - especially as it would raise the awkward question of exactly what country you were now a citizen of instead. I mean, does this mean that if you go off and shoot a cop in 1859, you can disclaim your citizenship first, and now instead of committing a criminal act you can claim you're a POW? Edit: I could just as easily have said 'shoot a soldier' or I guess 'blow up a bridge', 'loot an armoury' or any number of other things that are considered crimes when done by civilians but perfectly acceptable as part of a war. feedmegin fucked around with this message at 15:49 on Jul 28, 2016 |
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Jul 28, 2016 15:38
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feedmegin posted:Military commissions aren't relevant here, since civilians can commit treason, and I'm not sure just saying 'yo I'm not a US citizen any more' actually counted as making you not a US citizen in the eyes of US law even back then - it certainly wouldn't cut it now! - especially as it would raise the awkward question of exactly what country you were now a citizen of instead. I mean, does this mean that if you go off and shoot a cop in 1859, you can disclaim your citizenship first, and now instead of committing a criminal act you can claim you're a POW? That...also isn't a very good counterexample, as you committed a crime in that case and are subject to US law regardless of your citizenship (a policeman isn't a lawful combatant). But, to that end, there were a LOT of irregular participants during the war, from both sides but primarily from the south, and the sticky issue of their citizenship was one of the major drivers behind Lincoln suspending habeas corpus. Basically, it clearly was not legal to hold American citizens without a writ, but Lincoln didn't want to acknowledge their claims to be foreign citizens either (because that legitimizes the CSA), so his answer was to just ignore US law and throw them in jail.
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Jul 28, 2016 15:45
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Mycroft Holmes posted:Was there anything that could have stopped it? Reconstruction needed to continue for a longer period of time and be enforced more stringently, or serious political reform needed to happen after the Civil War. The problem is that the Civil War didn't actually solve a lot of the political problems that led to it, and giving the South full political representation back so soon just allowed them to wreak havoc on national politics all over again. Sure, the questions of slavery and secession were answered once and for all, but there was still corruption, racism, regional divides, heavy partisanship, and the South's desire to maintain its status as a political force capable of dominating US policy. As soon as the nation returned to political normalcy, Southern Democrats sought to recapture power from the Republicans, which led to a lot of disputed elections, electoral fraud, several massacres, and a lot of minor insurrections. In one particularly striking incident, 5000 armed White League members invaded New Orleans, defeated the 3500-strong state militia, chased out the Republican governor and installed a Democratic governor in his place. Federal troops had to be dispatched to restore the elected government (though no one was punished for the uprising), and remained there to protect it until the end of Reconstruction. And a lot of this happened with the tacit or open approval of Democratic politicians. With that kind of political chaos going on at the local level and then the state level, it didn't take too long for it to infiltrate national politics as well. In the presidential election of 1876, there were a number of disputed states (mostly Southern) where the presidential winner and recipient of the electoral votes was unclear for various reasons (most of which fell under "electoral fraud" or "political chaos"), and the election was close enough that the result would depend on those disputed electoral votes. The resulting political crisis was resolved by a compromise: the Dems would let the Republicans have the presidency, and in return the Republican Southdent would end Reconstruction and withdraw federal troops from the South, even from places like Louisiana where their presence was crucial to protect the Republican government. And once that happened, Democrats took control of those disputed States and held onto it for the next nine decades, solidifying their control with all sorts of election manipulation and fraud as well as large-scale voter disenfranchisement. There's a reason the Liberty Place monument declares the 1876 election as a victory for white supremacy. BattleMoose posted:IIRC, none of the states that chose to secede voted for Lincoln as president. He did not represent their views or interests. There is the legal aspect of it and there is also the ethical aspect too, they often don't align. Legally there should have been an explicit mechanism for leaving the union. That there wasn't, doesn't mean secession wasn't illegal. It was effectively some guy that no one voted for, told them they couldn't secede, that's never going to go down well. If states could easily leave the Union at any time, the Union would not have been an effective governing body, in much the same way that a taxation system is useless when anyone can opt out of any tax they don't want to pay. That was a major reason for the failure of the Articles of Confederation - almost as soon as the immediate British threat to the ex-colonies was gone, a number of states suddenly became very lax about providing taxes and troops to the federal government unless they would directly benefit that state somehow, which caused major problems and demonstrated that a strong federal government was needed in order to compel states to fulfill their obligations to the Union even when it wasn't to their specific benefit. US independence from Britain isn't really comparable, and even using the phrase "secession" to describe the Revolution is inaccurate, because the US wasn't part of Britain - it was a British colony. Americans did not have political representation in British government, at all. It wasn't an example of being outvoted by the majority, it was an example of having no say at all in the British government dven when it came to policies that directly affected them. Americans didn't have a single vote in Britain, and the colonies were very clearly subordinate to Britain, with limited political rights and power. Comparing that to the Civil War, where the South had plenty of votes, determined and apportioned through a fair method they had previously agreed to, is absolutely an apples to oranges comparison.
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Jul 28, 2016 15:49
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These sorts of things must be concerns in just about any modern civil war, how have they been dealt with in other ones?
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Jul 28, 2016 15:50
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chitoryu12 posted:I'd also like an answer to this question, but I have a similar question of my own: how expensive were arrows in relative terms in, say, Middle Ages Britain when the longbow was popular? I've been looking at hunting arrows and I'm finding that even the cheapest decent arrows cost as much as $4 or $4.50 per arrow. Obviously these arrows are far more advanced than something made in 1328, but I was wondering if the relative cost for hunting and war arrows (compared to other goods, similar to the "How much is a loaf of bread worth?" question) has always been this high. Hard to tell exactly. I was looking through someone's thesis on Tower of London records and the price of a sheaf of arrows (approximately 20-30 arrows) varies up and down. There's special hunting arrows that were like six shillings a sheaf (so expensive, maybe fletched with peacock feathers or something) and some regular arrows that were somewhere around ten pence. Arrows without heads were also purchased for six pence a sheaf. These are prices paid for bulk orders for the king, though, so I don't know how much they would reflect the price a man on the street might pay his local fletcher for arrows. Some archers were fletchers themselves, so some would have made their own (which would drive costs down). Daily wage for a skilled craftsman or a mounted archer was something like 6 pence a day, IIRC, so it doesn't seem like 30 arrows for ten pence would be too outrageous of a price. That's about a day and a half of work.
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Jul 28, 2016 15:55
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Koramei posted:These sorts of things must be concerns in just about any modern civil war, how have they been dealt with in other ones? In the case of eg the Spanish or Russian or Finnish Civil Wars, the losers largely got shot (or fled).
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Jul 28, 2016 15:58
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feedmegin posted:Military commissions aren't relevant here, since civilians can commit treason, and I'm not sure just saying 'yo I'm not a US citizen any more' actually counted as making you not a US citizen in the eyes of US law even back then - it certainly wouldn't cut it now! - especially as it would raise the awkward question of exactly what country you were now a citizen of instead. I mean, does this mean that if you go off and shoot a cop in 1859, you can disclaim your citizenship first, and now instead of committing a criminal act you can claim you're a POW? Sovereign citizens are the true continuation of the Confederacy in modern day.
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Jul 28, 2016 16:05
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BattleMoose posted:You seem to be deliberately ignoring the fact, that there were explicit international agreements regarding the conduct of war, that countries signed, and did not adhere to which formed the basis of many of the war crime charges. None of those international agreements barred what people were indicted for at Nuremberg. Bormann was charged with "conspiracy to wage a war of aggression, " which is not a thing even touched upon in any international agreement. The only person affected by the London Naval Treaty was Donitz, who was convicted of a war crimes charge for carrying out unrestricted submarine war, but he wasn't even punished for that because the very people carrying out the trial also did that. Phanatic fucked around with this message at 16:22 on Jul 28, 2016 |
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Jul 28, 2016 16:18
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Main Paineframe posted:US independence from Britain isn't really comparable, and even using the phrase "secession" to describe the Revolution is inaccurate, because the US wasn't part of Britain - it was a British colony. Americans did not have political representation in British government, at all. It wasn't an example of being outvoted by the majority, it was an example of having no say at all in the British government dven when it came to policies that directly affected them. Americans didn't have a single vote in Britain, and the colonies were very clearly subordinate to Britain, with limited political rights and power. Comparing that to the Civil War, where the South had plenty of votes, determined and apportioned through a fair method they had previously agreed to, is absolutely an apples to oranges comparison. I completely agree that the issue of representation and comparisons to the war of Independence aren't appropriate. The point that I was trying to make, is that when there is such a stark divide in policy, as there was in the USA at the time, that trying to force a change is going to cause conflict and in this case, cause a very catastrophic war. The North was essentially pursuing a policy framework that was going to completely redefine and disrupt the economy and social construct of the South (which the South did not want). It shouldn't be surprising that this was going to be met with very strong resistance. It should go without saying (and I thought it did), that I find slavery to be abhorrent. The lawfully and democratically elected government of the USA at the time, went about implementing its polices in a particularly jingoistic fashion and unsurprisingly met resistance. Maybe it just wasn't the best way of going about it? I am just left wondering that slavery could have been abolished in the USA without the need of a particularly bloody civil war. Its possible that a civil war was necessary, but the rest of the world managed to abolish slavery without one. Or maybe it really does say something about the character of the Southern states. A fairly comparable example is actually Brexit. Where Scotland unanimously voted to stay within the EU (60% of the popular vote in Scotland iirc). It seems like that Scotland won't let the UK drag them out of the EU and secession from the UK is becoming a much more serious prospect for Scotland. Fortunately this would be possible without violence.
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Jul 28, 2016 16:22
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Plan Z posted:A question I've always wanted to ask but always forgot to is about getting information about arrow production throughout history. It's impressive in my mind how well ancient civilizations made thousands of the things using the materials they had. Can anyone share information on how the mass production of it was done (no particular time period/military requested, just share what you know). Did armies try to also reclaim and re-use fired arrows that they could recover from the battlefield if they weren't too damaged by use? Always late to the party. I don't know if there's any research on recovery of material like this, seriously doubt it. I can only tell you what I saw people quote, and maybe learn turkish, because I'm quite sure there's sources out in the open, just not in english or german. Generally, we're talking about early modern turkey, where archery already was on the decline. There's requisition orders preserved that tell about the process of ordering stuff and literature about how villages were organized to produce certain goods, fletching, shafts, glue and all that for being freed of taxes. Afaik this is all in turkish, possibly in Yücel's book, but good luck translating it. The process of aquiring enough feathers for an order of about 1 million arrows must have involved quite organized breeding of geese. The forging of the heads was done by gypsy villages around Edirne, which was also home of the best bowmakers in the 1600s. Arrowmaking is actually quite labour intense, so you need to recover and repair them. The military arrows in the museums are quite uniform in their appearance, luckily, there's lots of them left here in Vienna. They were 3 fletched with the cockfeater up, made from pine and about 28" long, the section where the feathers were attached dyed bright red, which makes them easier to find in the field. Most arrows show signs of use, deformed of broken heads, many have their nocks repaired in a rather crude fashion compared to the original nocks. Standard damage when they're shot into something hard repeatedly. The craftsmanship is actually quite good, but not comparable to the target and sports arrows that I have inherited. I could probably write some journal articles about that stuff, but turkish is hard, unless partnering up with somebody who can speak it. Power Khan fucked around with this message at 16:35 on Jul 28, 2016 |
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Jul 28, 2016 16:31
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BattleMoose posted:I completely agree that the issue of representation and comparisons to the war of Independence aren't appropriate. The point that I was trying to make, is that when there is such a stark divide in policy, as there was in the USA at the time, that trying to force a change is going to cause conflict and in this case, cause a very catastrophic war. The North was essentially pursuing a policy framework that was going to completely redefine and disrupt the economy and social construct of the South (which the South did not want). It shouldn't be surprising that this was going to be met with very strong resistance. Tekopo fucked around with this message at 16:39 on Jul 28, 2016 |
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Jul 28, 2016 16:36
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hey boi ill get ur cockfeater up 
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Jul 28, 2016 16:37
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Tekopo posted:I don't think this is true though, there was nothing within the either the platform or the policy announcement from Lincoln that suggested that a restructuring of the South was going to take place at the time, and the Republican campaign did make a point that it was not going to touch the institution of slavery (much to the chagrin of abolitionists in the North). Unless you buy into the idea that a restriction on the expansion of slavery into the new states was something likely to disrupt the economy and social construct of the South, rather than simply curbing its political power. It appears my history education was somewhat lacking. Did the South seriously fight a civil war over expansion of slavery to new states?! I am pretty dumbfounded at the moment.
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Jul 28, 2016 16:42
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BattleMoose posted:It appears my history education was somewhat lacking. Did the South seriously fight a civil war over expansion of slavery to new states?! I am pretty dumbfounded at the moment. Look up Bleeding Kansas. They were worried about slave states gradually getting outnumbered by free states in Congress as the US expanded westwards.
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Jul 28, 2016 16:44
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Yeah, pretty much. Read into the troubles in Kansas/Missouri, they were pretty much the precursor to the fighting that occurred in the Civil War, and they were all about the expansion of slavery and how new states would increase the voting power of the South/North depending on if the state was free/slave-holding. Kansas especially had it all: voter fraud, gangs coming from Missouri that targeted Free-staters, the whole lot.
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Jul 28, 2016 16:46
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BattleMoose posted:It appears my history education was somewhat lacking. Did the South seriously fight a civil war over expansion of slavery to new states?! I am pretty dumbfounded at the moment. The South fought a civil war because the South had dominated the country politically and wielded the majority of political power up to that point (which is why the North had to put up with Fugitive Slave laws they opposed), and Lincoln's election despite the fact that every Southern state voted against him demonstrated that the South no longer dominated US politics. Slavery, as the biggest and most divisive policy difference between the North and the South, became a proxy for that clash over political influence. Similarly, expansion of slavery became a metaphor for expansion of political power - would a new state (with its associated Senate seats, House representation, and electoral votes) have a pro-Southern government or a pro-Northern government?
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Jul 28, 2016 16:52
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The thing the southern power brokers were reacting to regarding expansion was that they saw the writing on the wall with regard very specifically to abolition. The Missouri Compromise buried these fears for a couple of decades, but by the 1850s it was pretty clear that freesoil states were going to overtake slave states fairly quickly. Their assumption, which was probably correct, was that once slave states were sufficiently minority, that national abolition would follow closely behind. Essentially, secession was brought on by this assumption that the Republican victory meant eventually they'd take away are negroes, not that there was any particularly imminent threat of doing so. Modern day gun control opponents are kind of similar...
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Jul 28, 2016 17:19
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JaucheCharly posted:There's requisition orders preserved that tell about the process of ordering stuff and literature about how villages were organized to produce certain goods, fletching, shafts, glue and all that for being freed of taxes. Afaik this is all in turkish, possibly in Yücel's book, but good luck translating it. The process of aquiring enough feathers for an order of about 1 million arrows must have involved quite organized breeding of geese. The forging of the heads was done by gypsy villages around Edirne, which was also home of the best bowmakers in the 1600s.
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Jul 28, 2016 17:41
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I'm surprised that nobody has looked at things from James Buchanan's perspective and questioned the legality of sending in the army to stop them even if secession was an illegal act. There are supposedly limits to how a nation can exert its military, after all. That's how the roman senate were going to get Caesar. I don't think the South ever properly dominated the country politically, the most it did was force the entire slavery debate into its stupidest form. Very few presidents ever came out as gung-ho pro-slavery, and in the run up to the civil war, the people who were elected kept taking the weakest waffling positions on the whole issue, since there was no true compromise possible. Nobody ever thought that slavery could be spread to the north, which is why the south knew that it needed to gimmick its way towards having more slave states to maintain the amount of influence to keep forcing the issue to stalemate. Then the south tended to get their way in courts because property rights were consistent throughout the union while human rights were not.
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Jul 28, 2016 17:59
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Hey Gal, why are all these Catholics in Prague this week going around the old down chanting, singing and yelling hallelujah? Do i need to get all Swedish up in here?  Actually it's kinda funny, I went on the underground tour that touched on the 30yw and there were some Finns there too. The Finns had choice words about the Swedes 
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Jul 28, 2016 18:09
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Xerxes17 posted:Hey Gal, why are all these Catholics in Prague this week going around the old down chanting, singing and yelling hallelujah? did you go to Wallenstein's schloss like i said, i've never been but the pictures are very pretty, and you can raise a beer in its direction and tell him a bunch of spergs on the internet (me) think he's cool HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 18:17 on Jul 28, 2016 |
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Jul 28, 2016 18:11
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