[Doug64]

The Southern secessionists claimed that their racism was objective and rational. Did they feel the need to demonstrate that by conducting proper scientific enquiries into the matter? Of course not. Lol.

The Southerners didn’t need to, all they had to do was accept the growing “scientific” consensus of their day, and for the next three generations. It would be one of the major bases of the Progressive movement to come, after all—people tend to blame President Wilson’s blatant racism on him being a Southerner, where with his background it could just as easily be explained by his Progressivism. I can’t remember which Chesterton made the claim that Lincoln was actually the Conservative on the question and that if the slavery crisis had been pushed back another generation there would have been no Civil War due to people’s general acceptance of the Southern position on race, but he could have well been right.

[Rich]

Likewise, the adherents of the idea that everyone is born equal base that belief on little more than wishful thinking and an unwarranted extension of the abstract legal equality under bourgeois society to the physical and mental attributes of real, living people.

Then Sir we are in agreement, at least to a significant degree.

What might be more contentious. People of Jewish decent in Weimar Germany had absolutely astounding levels of success. Resentment at this success went well beyond not just the hard core Nazis, but the Conservative right as a whole. However distasteful we might find this resentment, I would suggest that this was an entirely normal human reaction. Just look at the attitudes of Malay's to Chinese in Malaya, in fact the response of a number of East Asian peoples to Chinese minorities. Or look at the reactions of people in East Africa to the success of East Asians (many of whom were Muslims. In fact Germans in Russia were themselves the victims of this type of resentment, prior to and during the First World War.

The celebrity victims of the so called Holocaust are the German Jews or highly cultured individuals like the protagonist of "The Pianist." Of course it easy for us to identify with them, when they were much closer in income and education levels to ourselves than the average German of post war Weimar.

[Doug64]

I think it was Sowell that did a study of racism worldwide, and found it endemic wherever a minority’s distribution on the economic ladder, up or down, was significantly out-of-step with the rest of society.

[Potemkin]

The Southerners didn’t need to, all they had to do was accept the growing “scientific” consensus of their day, and for the next three generations. It would be one of the major bases of the Progressive movement to come, after all—people tend to blame President Wilson’s blatant racism on him being a Southerner, where with his background it could just as easily be explained by his Progressivism. I can’t remember which Chesterton made the claim that Lincoln was actually the Conservative on the question and that if the slavery crisis had been pushed back another generation there would have been no Civil War due to people’s general acceptance of the Southern position on race, but he could have well been right.

I think I'm inclined to agree with that. So-called "scientific" racism got a progressively tighter and tighter grip on the minds of society's 'opinion formers' during the course of the 19th century. Even the ideologues of the Southern secessionists noted this fact - Washington, Jefferson et al had regarded slavery as a blight on humanity, but hadn't known how to end it. The South just before the Civil War regarded slavery as a wholesome institution and Blacks as being 'obviously' unsuited for any other role in society. And by about 1920, the KKK was in full swing (literally). Ideologically, things were getting worse, not better. The tide only seemed to turn in the aftermath of WWII, when the Nazi atrocities came to light. And the West's cultural revolution of the 1960s cemented this ideological turn.

[Rich]

It would be great if discussions about Southern slavery could be placed in some sort of historical materialist context. So lets start with Britain. Britain was a genocidal society well into the late nineteenth century. The huge differential in reproductive success amounted to an on going genocide of the poor. Generation after generation after generation. Britain was also an Apartheid society into the early nineteenth century. Again an apartheid of rich and poor. If a lower servant got caught in the upper class parts of the house, they might be expected to turn and face the wall, till the upper class person was gone, so it was as if they didn't exist. Apartheid was so rigid that as much as possible the upper classes avoided contact with the lowest even as servants.

The foundation of the European social order was endemic land hunger. America had loads of land. Population density was much lower than Europe before Columbus, but perhaps 95% of the native population was killed off in wave after wave of epidemics. The problem was that in the sixteenth century getting from Europe to America was prohibitively expensive for the average person. This meant that it was inevitable that the majority of the immigrants to this worker hungry land would arrive through some kind of bondage.

The monarchs and aristocrats of Europe tended to be cool towards full life long inherited, slavery, seeing the mass of people as far below them regardless of race. It was the more egalitarian White settler populations that tended to strong racism. They tended to be far more racist towards both Blacks and natives than the Metropolitan elites back in Europe. We see something similar in Central and Eastern Europe's tendency for national conflicts to become genocidal. The old aristocracies were rarely actively genocidal. More people, were just more peasants to exploit and if there were too many they would die off anyway without any need for the aristocrats to dirty their hands.

So yes the South was more Aristocratic than the American North, but this was not the reason for the much higher intensity of racism. I mean, Texas didn't reintroduce slavery, because it was more aristocratic than Mexico, it reintroduced it because it was more egalitarian and politically conscious.

[Doug64]

April 5, Friday

Federal forces give up Fort Quitman, Texas, another in a long series of such actions.

Secretary of Navy Welles orders USS Powhatan, Pawnee, Pocahontas, and Revenue Cutter Harriet Lane to provision Fort Sumter, but Powhatan has already headed for Fort Pickens.

[Doug64]

April 6, Saturday

President Lincoln sends State Department Clerk Robert S. Chew to Charleston, South Carolina, to deliver to Governor Pickens the message that an attempt will be made to supply Fort Sumter with provisions only, and that if there is no resistance, no reinforcement will be made. Captain Theodore Talbot, who has just returned from Fort Sumter, accompanies Chew.

President Lincoln also learns that the plans to reinforce Fort Pickens, Florida, with Regular Army troops have not been carried out. The Federal naval commander has refused because of lack of direct orders canceling an agreement of the Buchanan administration not to land troops. A special messenger is instructed by Washington at once to carry orders for the landing of troops. Secretary of State Seward is directed by the President to restore Powhatan to the expedition to Fort Sumter, but it is too late to countermand its orders to go to Fort Pickens.

The President confers with governors of Indiana, Ohio, Maine, and Pennsylvania, and once more with Virginia unionists. He is still seeking ways out of the dilemma, while at the same time taking aggressive action to retain Fort Sumter.

[Doug64]

April 7, Sunday

Naval Lieutenant John L. Worden leaves Washington for Fort Pickens, carrying specific orders for the landing of troops by the Navy. At Pensacola, Confederate commander Braxton Bragg asks Secretary of War Leroy Pope Walker for permission to fire upon any reinforcements to Pickens.

At Charleston General Beauregard tells Major Anderson that no further intercourse between Fort Sumter and the city will be permitted.

Virginia unionist John Minor Botts, former congressman, confers with President Lincoln on means of keeping Virginia in the Union.

[Doug64]

April 8, Monday

Secretary of War Walker gives the Pensacola commander Braxton Bragg permission to fire upon any Federal reinforcements of Fort Pickens, and informs him that an attack on Pensacola itself is expected.

State Department Clerk R.S. Chew arrives in Charleston and reads to Governor Pickens President Lincoln’s message that Fort Sumter will be resupplied but not reinforced unless there is resistance. Governor Pickens reads the message to General Beauregard, military commander of the Confederates. All military forces of the South in the Charleston area are ordered to their stations. During the night there is a false alarm that war has started at Charleston.

In Washington Secretary of State Seward unofficially informs the Confederate commissioners in the capital that the United States have a peaceful policy and will defend its possessions only when attacked. The commissioners wire Pickens that they think Sumter will be evacuated.

From New York the Revenue Cutter Harriet Lane departs for Fort Sumter, carrying relief supplies.

[Rich]

Just to note that "On the origin of species" was only published on the 24 November 1859. I am not aware of it being used as a major rallying point for the Confederacy. In fact I'm not aware of it being a rallying point at all. Scientific racism hadn't even really begun in 1860. Religious racism was the dominant ideology based off the Jewish scriptures, the so called Old Testament. The New Testament is a mainly concerned with an anti racist message, but that was racism between Greek and Jew not Black and European.

We should not presume that Ancient Jews believed that all humans were descended from a single couple six thousand years ago, but it was easy for progressive Christians and Judaists to interpret the Torah in that way. Now it may turn out that the anti racists are largely right or at the very least right to a surprising degree. However to describe racist beliefs as just blind stupidly strikes me as absurd. If our racial lineages split tens to hundreds of thousands of years ago, its hardly intuitive that there should be no significant differences. I mean Quantum Mechanics might be correct but its hardly intuitive. Young people can hardly be blamed for only reaching a Quantum mechanical view after years of intensive study.

While I agree that much "scientific racism" lacks rigour, some is of poor scientific quality, most anti-racism seems to have no scientific grounding what so ever.

[Doug64]

Just to note that "On the origin of species" was only published on the 24 November 1859. I am not aware of it being used as a major rallying point for the Confederacy. In fact I'm not aware of it being a rallying point at all. Scientific racism hadn't even really begun in 1860.

Don’t forget that extemporaneous speech I quoted from a little while ago, where the claim of White superiority being proven by science was already being made. So yes, “scientific” racism was already up and running, and had been for centuries, check out what Wikipedia has to say.

[Potemkin]

Just to note that "On the origin of species" was only published on the 24 November 1859. I am not aware of it being used as a major rallying point for the Confederacy. In fact I'm not aware of it being a rallying point at all. Scientific racism hadn't even really begun in 1860.

Actually, it had. It is generally dated to the early part of the 19th century, when scientific authorities such as Robert Knox (he of the Edinburgh bodysnatchers fame) were beginning to measure cranial capacities and the like in order to scientifically 'prove' that certain races were inferior to others (Knox's particular hobbyhorse was the Celts rather than the darkies or the Jews - he was convinced that the Celtic race was inferior to the Anglo-Saxon race, and was also convinced that he could scientifically demonstrate this 'fact'). Knox was active in the 1820s and 1830s.

And, in fact, Darwin's theories were a hindrance rather than a help to the cause of 'scientific' racial theory - one of the implications of Darwin's theory was that all humans had a common origin rather than being separate creations. Back before the publication of Darwin's book, some people were seriously suggesting that black people were a species of great ape rather than belonging to the same species as white people. In other words, that black people were literally animals rather than human beings. Darwin scotched that idea forever.

We should not presume that Ancient Jews believed that all humans were descended from a single couple six thousand years ago, but it was easy for progressive Christians and Judaists to interpret the Torah in that way. Now it may turn out that the anti racists are largely right or at the very least right to a surprising degree. However to describe racist beliefs as just blind stupidly strikes me as absurd. If our racial lineages split tens to hundreds of thousands of years ago, its hardly intuitive that there should be no significant differences. I mean Quantum Mechanics might be correct but its hardly intuitive. Young people can hardly be blamed for only reaching a Quantum mechanical view after years of intensive study.

While I agree that much "scientific racism" lacks rigour, some is of poor scientific quality, most anti-racism seems to have no scientific grounding what so ever.

As I said before, people tend to believe all sorts of things based on the flimsiest of evidence. Racism has little to no scientific basis, and ant-racism also has little to no scientific basis. For most people, science seems to have taken the place of religion, as the final authority in any argument. Everyone wants to claim that 'science' is on their side, just as they used to want to claim that God was on their side. Lol.

[Doug64]

April 9, Tuesday

Steamer Baltic, with naval agent Gustavus V. Fox aboard, sails from New York for Fort Sumter.

In Washington, despite the increasingly tense situation regarding the forts, President Lincoln devotes time to political appointments.

At Charleston the Mercury proclaims that the resupplying of Fort Sumter means war.

[Doug64]

April 10, Wednesday

From Montgomery Secretary of War Walker telegraphs Confederate commander Beauregard at Charleston that if he is certain Fort Sumter is to be supplied “you will at once demand its evacuation, and if this is refused proceed, in such manner as you may determine, to reduce it.”

USS Pawnee leaves Hampton Roads for relief of Fort Sumter.

President Lincoln confers with a representative of the Chiriqui Improvement Company regarding colonization of Blacks. Chiriqui is a prospective coal mining area in what will become Panama, near the Costa Rican border.

At Charleston the newly constructed Confederate floating battery moves out of dock and anchors near Sullivan’s Island. Troops are moving into various forts, batteries, and earthworks virtually surrounding Fort Sumter.

Lieutenant Worden has arrived at Pensacola, Florida, with his message from President Lincoln to land troops to reinforce Fort Pickens. He obtains permission from General Bragg to visit the fort.

[Doug64]

April 11, Thursday

A small boat with a whit flag pushes off from a Charleston wharf and proceeds to Fort Sumter. Three men are aboard—Colonel James Chesnut, until recently a US senator; Captain Stephen D. Lee, who had resigned from the US Army; and Lieutenant Colonel A.R. Chisolm, representative of South Carolina’s Governor Pickens. In mid-afternoon these officers deliver to Major Robert Anderson a message from General Beauregard that the Confederate states “can no longer delay assuming actual possession of a fortification commanding the entrance of one of their harbors, and necessary to its defense and security. I am ordered by the Government of the Confederate States to demand the evacuation of Fort Sumter....” For an hour Anderson discusses the situation with his officers, and then replies to Beauregard that he refuses to evacuate. As the representatives of Beauregard leave, Major Anderson asks if there will be any further notice before opening fire. Colonel Chesnut says that there will probably be such notice. Anderson says that he will be starved out in a few days if not battered to pieces. Receiving the report of his emissaries, Beauregard wires Secretary of War Walker at Montgomery, giving Anderson’s reply. Walker wires back, “Do not desire needlessly to bombard Fort Sumter. If Anderson will state the time at which, as indicated by him, he will evacuate, and agree that in the mean time he will not use his guns against us unless ours should be employed against Fort Sumter, you are authorized thus to avoid the effusion of blood....”

In Washington President Lincoln confers with Governor Thomas H. Hicks of Maryland regarding the uncertain condition of his state. Meanwhile, guards in Washington are increased and a company of troops parades at the Capitol. The three Confederate commissioners leave Washington, satisfied that they can do little more, and feeling that they have been falsely led by Seward and the Federal government.

[Potemkin]

April 11, Thursday
In Washington President Lincoln confers with Governor Thomas H. Hicks of Maryland regarding the uncertain condition of his state. Meanwhile, guards in Washington are increased and a company of troops parades at the Capitol. The three Confederate commissioners leave Washington, satisfied that they can do little more, and feeling that they have been falsely led by Seward and the Federal government.

This is a pattern - (proto-)Confederate commissioners felt misled by President Buchanan a few months earlier. And now this. It seems to me that Federal officials were not sufficiently forthright in making clear to the South what the possible consequences of secession could actually be, and were likely to be.

[Doug64]

This is a pattern - (proto-)Confederate commissioners felt misled by President Buchanan a few months earlier. And now this. It seems to me that Federal officials were not sufficiently forthright in making clear to the South what the possible consequences of secession could actually be, and were likely to be.

In this case, I think a good deal of it was Seward thinking he was the power behind the throne—don’t forget that letter he sent to Lincoln. So he figures he can come to some sort of agreement with the commissioners and sell it to Lincoln, finds out he’s wrong, and the commissioners believe that they’ve been negotiating with Lincoln with Seward as an intermediary and feel that it’s Lincoln that’s lied to them rather than Seward overreaching.

[Potemkin]

In this case, I think a good deal of it was Seward thinking he was the power behind the throne—don’t forget that letter he sent to Lincoln. So he figures he can come to some sort of agreement with the commissioners and sell it to Lincoln, finds out he’s wrong, and the commissioners believe that they’ve been negotiating with Lincoln with Seward as an intermediary and feel that it’s Lincoln that’s lied to them rather than Seward overreaching.

Good point. But the crisis of secession was made worse by this sort of bumbling by Northern politicians, who were (in effect) sending mixed signals to the representatives of the Southern secessionist states, who clearly began to feel that the North was not negotiating in good faith.

[Libertarian353]

Sherman should have cull the southerns. I wouldn't have to deal with suntzu antics. Oh if only.

[Potemkin]

Sherman should have cull the southerns. I wouldn't have to deal with suntzu antics. Oh if only.

The real mistake was made during Reconstruction, by President Johnson, Lincoln's successor. He basically stopped it half-way, which allowed the Southern Democratic Party (the 'Dixiecrats') to make a comeback and the KKK to rise. The rest, as they say, is history. A rather dismal history, of which Suntzu is indeed one product.