Ted Nugent on the Civil War

[57Coastie]

Ted Nugent wonders whether it would have been best if the South had won the Civil War.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/201 ... t-roberts/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Some fodder for the flock.

Jim

[The Annoyed Man]

Nah..... I'm not gonna bite. It's Uncle Ted, after all.......our version of the "scourge from Massachussetts."

[AlphaWhiskey]

If you take the time to read the article, the rhetoric is pretty limited to one sentence. The rest is a rehash of complaints many have voiced over the Obama-tax-care ruling.

[wharvey]

Let's not forget there has been talk of penalty taxes for those who are obese, smoke, or do any other things not considered healthy. I can easily see the expansion of this by health nuts. For the public good you must be a member of a health club and regularly attend exercise sessions or you pay a special tax to cover the increased cost of your "free" health care.

GOOGLE "fat tax"

Too bad the Civil War was mentioned. That just causes emotional instead of logical thinking.

[C-dub]

Aside from all the "stuff" that goes with bringing up the Civil War, I have no idea what else the southern governments were like. Politically speaking, do any of you historical folks have any ideas or thoughts on where we might be if the south had won that one? I'm sure it's all that other stuff the Ted was eluding to and not the obvious.

[Heartland Patriot]

All I see is bait on a hook...nope, swimming right past this one, thanks anyway.

[74novaman]

Aside from all the "stuff" that goes with bringing up the Civil War, I have no idea what else the southern governments were like. Politically speaking, do any of you historical folks have any ideas or thoughts on where we might be if the south had won that one? I'm sure it's all that other stuff the Ted was eluding to and not the obvious.

This is going to be very brief and crude, because I'm heading out to lunch soon.

For your first question, the national govt of the CSA was incredibly weak. It was deliberately designed that way, since the folks who created the govt had no faith or trust in federal power. This caused lots of problems for the south during the war, especially when it came to taxes and drafting troops.

If they had won, the CSA would probably have experienced the same sort of issues that led the colonies to give up on the Articles of Confederation and draft the Constitution. They would probably have attempted to design a much weaker federal system, but one probably would have been instituted at some point by sheer necessity.

There is a whole series of books based on the "what if" of the South winning the war by Harry Turtledove. If you're interested in historical fiction, I highly recommend them. One of the problems I'd see coming out of the CSA winning is the inability of either the USA or CSA to ever truly be secure in their own borders. One of the reasons we've been so successful as a country is our continental reach and lack of strong enemies on either border.

The one positive I could see that might have happened: Slavery would have ended in a better way, albeit later. Look to Brazil as an example. They had lots of slaves, but their transition was peaceful and as I result they have better "race relations" than we do here in the US. Once mechanization of harvesting had been developed, the need for slaves would have gone away and it would have essentially withered on the vine (my opinion).

That's about all I've got time for right now, so I apologize if I am leaving out details/etc.

[The Annoyed Man]

Aside from all the "stuff" that goes with bringing up the Civil War, I have no idea what else the southern governments were like. Politically speaking, do any of you historical folks have any ideas or thoughts on where we might be if the south had won that one? I'm sure it's all that other stuff the Ted was eluding to and not the obvious.

This is going to be very brief and crude, because I'm heading out to lunch soon.

For your first question, the national govt of the CSA was incredibly weak. It was deliberately designed that way, since the folks who created the govt had no faith or trust in federal power. This caused lots of problems for the south during the war, especially when it came to taxes and drafting troops.

If they had won, the CSA would probably have experienced the same sort of issues that led the colonies to give up on the Articles of Confederation and draft the Constitution. They would probably have attempted to design a much weaker federal system, but one probably would have been instituted at some point by sheer necessity.

There is a whole series of books based on the "what if" of the South winning the war by Harry Turtledove. If you're interested in historical fiction, I highly recommend them. One of the problems I'd see coming out of the CSA winning is the inability of either the USA or CSA to ever truly be secure in their own borders. One of the reasons we've been so successful as a country is our continental reach and lack of strong enemies on either border.

The one positive I could see that might have happened: Slavery would have ended in a better way, albeit later. Look to Brazil as an example. They had lots of slaves, but their transition was peaceful and as I result they have better "race relations" than we do here in the US. Once mechanization of harvesting had been developed, the need for slaves would have gone away and it would have essentially withered on the vine (my opinion).

That's about all I've got time for right now, so I apologize if I am leaving out details/etc.

I saw this issue of mechanization addressed, of all places, on the "American Picker" TV show. They were buying some pieces from a very old original cotton gin. It turns out that Eli Whitney was much respected by southern plantation owners because he made their cotton operations more efficient. This actually led to an expansion of slavery and reinvigorated the slave trade because it became more profitable to grow more cotton, and vastly more acreage was put under cotton after the invention of the cotton gin than before. And although people often think of the southern economy as weaker than the northern, until Eli Whitney came up with the concept of interchangeable parts on a large scale, the southern economy was actually the larger of the two. In fact, at one point, cotton alone made up 50% of the total American economy. When the northern industrialized cities began to adopt Whitney's ideas of parts standardization and grow their industrial base, that was as much as anything else what enabled the north to ultimately win the war.

My personal opinion though is to agree that, had the south won (which is almost inconceivable for logistic reasons alone, not to mention manpower shortage reasons and other handicaps), slavery would have probably eventually died out anyway. If the southern states had remained an independent nation, they would not have had the industrial base to support their own economy. The only reason they were able to support their slave based agricultural economy before the war is because the northern states were ready willing and able to sell them industrial goods......like cotton gins and locomotives. So had they kept their independence, the south would have had to convert a large chunk of their agricultural economy over to industry, which would have taken some time but which would have had the effect of reducing the need for slaves. It is my opinion that, southern attitudes about the mental capacity of slaves being what they were, the south would have never thought to use slaves in any quantity to staff factories, and thus the demand for slaves would contract as fewer and fewer acres were kept under agricultural crops. Acreage must be planted just to feed the slave labor. That takes away from the acreage that can be planted to feed the slave owners. At some point, slave labor becomes so costly and inefficient that it becomes a net drain on the economy, and particularly on what would remain of the agricultural economy. At some point, southern planters would have to conclude that it no longer made good business sense. And on tope of it all, slave ownership had always been the purview of wealthier farmers and planters. The average dirt scrabble farmer never had enough money to own slaves at any time during its existence. Logistics, manpower, and industrial capacity were each a mortal blow for the south. Combined, they ensured a southern defeat.

My analysis might be missing some detail or other, but I think that it is in large part correct.

[74novaman]

The one positive I could see that might have happened: Slavery would have ended in a better way, albeit later. Look to Brazil as an example. They had lots of slaves, but their transition was peaceful and as I result they have better "race relations" than we do here in the US. Once mechanization of harvesting had been developed, the need for slaves would have gone away and it would have essentially withered on the vine (my opinion).

That's about all I've got time for right now, so I apologize if I am leaving out details/etc.

It turns out that Eli Whitney was much respected by southern plantation owners because he made their cotton operations more efficient. This actually led to an expansion of slavery and reinvigorated the slave trade because it became more profitable to grow more cotton, and vastly more acreage was put under cotton after the invention of the cotton gin than before.

This is very true, the cotton gin did increase the demand for slaves. The most labor intensive part of cotton farming after the introduction of the gin was still planting/weeding/harvest which is the demand I was referring to originally. No one can dispute that the cotton gin increased the demand for slaves....

but I still hold that mechanization of the rest of the farming process which began later in the century would have both a) happened sooner had we not been busy fighting a brutal war and b)reduced the need for slave labor in agriculture.

[C-dub]

Aside from all the "stuff" that goes with bringing up the Civil War, I have no idea what else the southern governments were like. Politically speaking, do any of you historical folks have any ideas or thoughts on where we might be if the south had won that one? I'm sure it's all that other stuff the Ted was eluding to and not the obvious.

This is going to be very brief and crude, because I'm heading out to lunch soon.

For your first question, the national govt of the CSA was incredibly weak. It was deliberately designed that way, since the folks who created the govt had no faith or trust in federal power. This caused lots of problems for the south during the war, especially when it came to taxes and drafting troops.

If they had won, the CSA would probably have experienced the same sort of issues that led the colonies to give up on the Articles of Confederation and draft the Constitution. They would probably have attempted to design a much weaker federal system, but one probably would have been instituted at some point by sheer necessity.

Very interesting. So, they were too conservative and wanted too weak of a government. I'm sure, as you concluded, that they would have eventually become more powerful, but I wonder if they would have kept it in check better and we would not be in the situation we are in now? OTOH, I don't remember reading that the Fed was all that powerful before WWI and especially before WWII when the Fed really flexed its muscles in the aftermath during the cold war. Would it not be far off the mark to think that people were so fearful of nuclear war that the government was able to become as powerful as it is because of that?

[74novaman]

OTOH, I don't remember reading that the Fed was all that powerful before WWI and especially before WWII when the Fed really flexed its muscles in the aftermath during the cold war. Would it not be far off the mark to think that people were so fearful of nuclear war that the government was able to become as powerful as it is because of that?

To be really, really simplistic about it (and there are exceptions where fed/state power has been weakened):

US history since throwing off the yoke of British tyranny has been a slow encroachment of federal and to a lesser extent state power over the individual.

I don't think we can honestly point to one factor or driving cause other than human nature, because even when we had founding fathers running the govt, it grew in power and scope.

[C-dub]

Those Brits have been at this for quite a while. They're not doing too badly. They've gotten a few things wrong here and there and had to be saved at least once by us brash American's. Hopefully, our founding fathers started us off on a better path and we'll fair better than the UK has and be around at least as long.

[jimlongley]

As an on again, off again fan of Harry Turtledove's speculative fiction I have pondered on the issues. I think that, apart from pushing colonization further south into Mexico, a victory by the south would have led to a vastly different shape of the western states, and maybe an economy that would have survived long term. I think that by the 1930s the USA and the CSA would have peacefully merged, because of economic pressures.

My perspective is colored by association with a family in which my great aunt wrote a card to my mother stating that the family would not recognize my birth north of the Mason Dixon Line.

When I grew old enough, although my sympathies were very southern despite my yankee carpetbagger parents' best efforts, I wrote to Aunt Ruth and pointed out the her shunning was ineffective due to her lack of geographical awareness, as I was born south of that line. She wrote me back and apologized and welcomed me into the arms of my "Never forget the war of Northern Aggression" family.

[C-dub]

This might be the biggest "what if" we have discussed here. I think you are probably correct that even if the south had won and remained separate they would have eventually merged back again. The theory of pushing further south into Mexico is an interesting one. There are just so many variables.

[The Annoyed Man]

.....but, but, but.....what about that racist Uncle Ted?