Well, State's Rights screwed the south during the war, big time. Especially for things like national defense, you need all of your member states to be pulling in the same direction. The Confederacy, however, did not. There are numerous cases where states would act in their own self-interest in ways that hurt the Confederacy overall as a whole. One example is the situation with the Georgian uniforms. At that point in the war, the majority of the confederate soldiers were dressed in what was largely rags. Georgia, however, was sitting on a warehouse full of tens of thousands of fresh uniforms. They refused to turn them over to the confederate army, however, because they insisted that they only go to troops from Georgia. Also, 1 or 2 states even threatened to secede from the Confederacy during the war.
So, while I do agree that there is a definite need for state rights to a certain degree, those rights only go so far, and must be matched by federal powers to unify national effort, especially in times of crisis, or for such national issues as defense, trade policy, etc. etc. etc.
-Arlos
PS. If you're really interested in a good view of factors that led up to the Civil War, may I once more recommend Ken Burns' documentary on the subject? It's not comprehensive, true, but it is indeed excellently done and provides a ton of information.
The Result of Gun Control Laws ( mainly Handguns. )
Moderator: Dictators in Training
It's a multi-part documentary done for PBS several years back. Covers from the time before the war til just after it. One of the most effective things it does is that it picks certain people from both sides and follows thme through the entire war, and uses as sources a lot of diaries, letters, etc. that are from that time, so lots of first-hand information. The soundtrack is pretty much all songs of the era too.
It actually goes quite in depth on a lot of subjects, including things like what food the soldiers ate, and how they made their camp alcohol. Confederates, for example, got issued corn meal & bacon, and they'd fry up their bacon, then dump the corn meal into the grease to make a dough, then roll the dough out into a snake, wrap it around their ramrods from their rifles, and cook it over the fires. As for alcohol, one southern recipe actually called for putting raw meat into the mix, to give it an "Old and mellow flavor".
He does a pretty good job of treating both sides equally, too. He spends a lot of time, for example, on the backgrounds of Robert E Lee (did you know that at the start of the war the Union offered him command of all Union forces? He felt his loyalty was to Virginia over the US, though, and declined since Virginia seceeded.), Nathan Bedford Forrest (brilliant cavalry commander, and founded the KKK), Stonewall Jackson (who was something of a nutcase), Jeb Stuart, etc. Really, he spends as much time on them as he spends on Grant, Sherman (was tossed into a mental institution when he claimed the Civil War would be long and bloody; no one believed him), McLellan (OMFG lousy general), etc.
Absolutely worth watching if you're interested in the period.
-Arlos
It actually goes quite in depth on a lot of subjects, including things like what food the soldiers ate, and how they made their camp alcohol. Confederates, for example, got issued corn meal & bacon, and they'd fry up their bacon, then dump the corn meal into the grease to make a dough, then roll the dough out into a snake, wrap it around their ramrods from their rifles, and cook it over the fires. As for alcohol, one southern recipe actually called for putting raw meat into the mix, to give it an "Old and mellow flavor".
He does a pretty good job of treating both sides equally, too. He spends a lot of time, for example, on the backgrounds of Robert E Lee (did you know that at the start of the war the Union offered him command of all Union forces? He felt his loyalty was to Virginia over the US, though, and declined since Virginia seceeded.), Nathan Bedford Forrest (brilliant cavalry commander, and founded the KKK), Stonewall Jackson (who was something of a nutcase), Jeb Stuart, etc. Really, he spends as much time on them as he spends on Grant, Sherman (was tossed into a mental institution when he claimed the Civil War would be long and bloody; no one believed him), McLellan (OMFG lousy general), etc.
Absolutely worth watching if you're interested in the period.
-Arlos
Hell yeah Ill check it out, I LOVE reading work that takes both sides of the war, not just the winning side. Sherman has always interested me good, but I think Lee has been my favorite to read about. And yeah Jackson was a bit of a nut.
The thing you mentioned about the alcohol is pretty crazy haha, didnt know that.
One thing that I love to do sometimes I have to admit, is start dropping facts about Union slavery and stuff like that that they dont happen to mention in high school history to people and watch them get bent out of shape haha.
Especially when black people start bitching about slavery. Just have to toss out that of those 6% of Southerners that owned slaves, 13,000 of them were free blacks that owned slaves themselves.
But anyways, yeah, I'll def. have to check that doc out. Thx sir~
The thing you mentioned about the alcohol is pretty crazy haha, didnt know that.
One thing that I love to do sometimes I have to admit, is start dropping facts about Union slavery and stuff like that that they dont happen to mention in high school history to people and watch them get bent out of shape haha.
Especially when black people start bitching about slavery. Just have to toss out that of those 6% of Southerners that owned slaves, 13,000 of them were free blacks that owned slaves themselves.
But anyways, yeah, I'll def. have to check that doc out. Thx sir~