We were told by the South which started the Civil War that it wasn't about slavery. But "states rights" and tariffs or some such.
But of course if one wants to step back and take a really big look at the arc of American history. It is pretty much the case that all major social change is incremental and only really becomes solidified when some level of social consensus is reached. Women's suffrage in the early 1900s, Civil Rights in the 1950s, Women's rights generally from the 1960s forward, LGBT rights in the 2000s. All of those reached majority societal consensus incrementally over a long period of time.
The Civil War was the one example of social change that occurred rapidly at the point of a gun. And it was a war that probably killed north of a million Americans and left a destroyed country in its wake. So take your pick: Slow incremental change based on majority consensus or violent civil war. Those are the two American models of social change.
What does that mean for abortion? It means that the anti-abortion forces should be looking to build social consensus for their position if they want to see permanent change. Passing an unpopular law is not going to achieve all that much if people are just going to overturn it through popular initiative. Or if legislators are just going to be replaced with others who will reverse what they do. I frankly don't see that happening. Nor do I see any sort of plan to achieve it. Which would mean among other things, providing and promoting more viable alternatives from contraception and comprehensive sex education at the front end to better support for single mothers and families after children are born at the back end. As well as more deference to doctors to make decisions about when medically necessary exceptions are needed. I get that such things are an anathema to some social conservatives. But if they want to build social consensus around anti-abortion policies, those are the things that are going to have to happen. And the compromises that are going to have to be made.
0 x
A fool can throw out more questions than a wise man can answer. -RZehr
We were told by the South which started the Civil War that it wasn't about slavery. But "states rights" and tariffs or some such.
But of course if one wants to step back and take a really big look at the arc of American history. It is pretty much the case that all major social change is incremental and only really becomes solidified when some level of social consensus is reached. Women's suffrage in the early 1900s, Civil Rights in the 1950s, Women's rights generally from the 1960s forward, LGBT rights in the 2000s. All of those reached majority societal consensus incrementally over a long period of time.
The Civil War was the one example of social change that occurred rapidly at the point of a gun. And it was a war that probably killed north of a million Americans and left a destroyed country in its wake. So take your pick: Slow incremental change based on majority consensus or violent civil war. Those are the two American models of social change.
What does that mean for abortion? It means that the anti-abortion forces should be looking to build social consensus for their position if they want to see permanent change. Passing an unpopular law is not going to achieve all that much if people are just going to overturn it through popular initiative. Or if legislators are just going to be replaced with others who will reverse what they do. I frankly don't see that happening. Nor do I see any sort of plan to achieve it. Which would mean among other things, providing and promoting more viable alternatives from contraception and comprehensive sex education at the front end to better support for single mothers and families after children are born at the back end. As well as more deference to doctors to make decisions about when medically necessary exceptions are needed. I get that such things are an anathema to some social conservatives. But if they want to build social consensus around anti-abortion policies, those are the things that are going to have to happen. And the compromises that are going to have to be made.
To be fair, there was a democratic majority in the Civil War, which is why/how Lincoln got elected, which triggered the secession and ensuing war.
Szdfan wrote: ↑Thu Sep 05, 2024 12:52 am
After the entire Civil War, of course.
We were told by the South which started the Civil War that it wasn't about slavery. But "states rights" and tariffs or some such.
But of course if one wants to step back and take a really big look at the arc of American history. It is pretty much the case that all major social change is incremental and only really becomes solidified when some level of social consensus is reached. Women's suffrage in the early 1900s, Civil Rights in the 1950s, Women's rights generally from the 1960s forward, LGBT rights in the 2000s. All of those reached majority societal consensus incrementally over a long period of time.
The Civil War was the one example of social change that occurred rapidly at the point of a gun. And it was a war that probably killed north of a million Americans and left a destroyed country in its wake. So take your pick: Slow incremental change based on majority consensus or violent civil war. Those are the two American models of social change.
What does that mean for abortion? It means that the anti-abortion forces should be looking to build social consensus for their position if they want to see permanent change. Passing an unpopular law is not going to achieve all that much if people are just going to overturn it through popular initiative. Or if legislators are just going to be replaced with others who will reverse what they do. I frankly don't see that happening. Nor do I see any sort of plan to achieve it. Which would mean among other things, providing and promoting more viable alternatives from contraception and comprehensive sex education at the front end to better support for single mothers and families after children are born at the back end. As well as more deference to doctors to make decisions about when medically necessary exceptions are needed. I get that such things are an anathema to some social conservatives. But if they want to build social consensus around anti-abortion policies, those are the things that are going to have to happen. And the compromises that are going to have to be made.
To be fair, there was a societal majority in the Civil War, which is why/how Lincoln get elected, which triggered the secession and ensuing war.
I don't think that is accurate. There was no national consensus for abolition even in the north prior to the Civil War.
There was more or less a social consensus about a separate systems, north and south divided along the Mason Dixon line. Not even Lincoln was advocating abolition of slavery in the south during the 1860 election. The Republican Party platform of Lincoln promised not to interfere with southern slavery. The political battles were mostly about the status of slavery in future western territories. And things like the fugitive slave laws that were really a violation of the rights of northern states to manage their own affairs within their own borders.
The emancipation proclamation happened two years into the war and did not affect slavery in any union states, only southern states in rebellion. The 13th Amendment was not passed the until the last days of the war when the end was clearly in sight, and was not ratified until after the war ended. And none of it would have happened if the southern states had stayed in the union. It only passed because none of them were around in Congress to oppose it. And even with the southern states absent from Congress and after four years of war, it still only passed by an eyelash. The film Lincoln tells that story. It is an interesting one.
0 x
A fool can throw out more questions than a wise man can answer. -RZehr
We were told by the South which started the Civil War that it wasn't about slavery. But "states rights" and tariffs or some such.
But of course if one wants to step back and take a really big look at the arc of American history. It is pretty much the case that all major social change is incremental and only really becomes solidified when some level of social consensus is reached. Women's suffrage in the early 1900s, Civil Rights in the 1950s, Women's rights generally from the 1960s forward, LGBT rights in the 2000s. All of those reached majority societal consensus incrementally over a long period of time.
The Civil War was the one example of social change that occurred rapidly at the point of a gun. And it was a war that probably killed north of a million Americans and left a destroyed country in its wake. So take your pick: Slow incremental change based on majority consensus or violent civil war. Those are the two American models of social change.
What does that mean for abortion? It means that the anti-abortion forces should be looking to build social consensus for their position if they want to see permanent change. Passing an unpopular law is not going to achieve all that much if people are just going to overturn it through popular initiative. Or if legislators are just going to be replaced with others who will reverse what they do. I frankly don't see that happening. Nor do I see any sort of plan to achieve it. Which would mean among other things, providing and promoting more viable alternatives from contraception and comprehensive sex education at the front end to better support for single mothers and families after children are born at the back end. As well as more deference to doctors to make decisions about when medically necessary exceptions are needed. I get that such things are an anathema to some social conservatives. But if they want to build social consensus around anti-abortion policies, those are the things that are going to have to happen. And the compromises that are going to have to be made.
To be fair, there was a societal majority in the Civil War, which is why/how Lincoln get elected, which triggered the secession and ensuing war.
I don't think that is accurate. There was no national consensus for abolition even in the north prior to the Civil War.
There was more or less a social consensus about a separate systems, north and south divided along the Mason Dixon line. Not even Lincoln was advocating abolition of slavery in the south during the 1860 election. The Republican Party platform of Lincoln promised not to interfere with southern slavery. The political battles were mostly about the status of slavery in future western territories. And things like the fugitive slave laws that were really a violation of the rights of northern states to manage their own affairs within their own borders.
The emancipation proclamation happened two years into the war and did not affect slavery in any union states, only southern states in rebellion. The 13th Amendment was not passed the until the last days of the war when the end was clearly in sight, and was not ratified until after the war ended. And none of it would have happened if the southern states had stayed in the union. It only passed because none of them were around in Congress to oppose it. And even with the southern states absent from Congress and after four years of war, it still only passed by an eyelash. The film Lincoln tells that story. It is an interesting one.
The southern states, a minority of the US population, understood Lincoln's election to be the death knell for slavery, and then seceded, the Republican platform and Lincoln's protestations notwithstanding. Based on what he had already clearly articulated, the election was a referendum on the future of slavery. While pure abolitionism wouldn't have been the first step, curtailing the growth, and legislating the end, was what southerners knew was going to be happening. In the final analysis, that is what secession was, and how the election of Lincoln triggered it.
To be fair, there was a societal majority in the Civil War, which is why/how Lincoln get elected, which triggered the secession and ensuing war.
I don't think that is accurate. There was no national consensus for abolition even in the north prior to the Civil War.
There was more or less a social consensus about a separate systems, north and south divided along the Mason Dixon line. Not even Lincoln was advocating abolition of slavery in the south during the 1860 election. The Republican Party platform of Lincoln promised not to interfere with southern slavery. The political battles were mostly about the status of slavery in future western territories. And things like the fugitive slave laws that were really a violation of the rights of northern states to manage their own affairs within their own borders.
The emancipation proclamation happened two years into the war and did not affect slavery in any union states, only southern states in rebellion. The 13th Amendment was not passed the until the last days of the war when the end was clearly in sight, and was not ratified until after the war ended. And none of it would have happened if the southern states had stayed in the union. It only passed because none of them were around in Congress to oppose it. And even with the southern states absent from Congress and after four years of war, it still only passed by an eyelash. The film Lincoln tells that story. It is an interesting one.
The southern states, a minority of the US population, understood Lincoln's election to be the death knell for slavery, and then seceded, the Republican platform and Lincoln's protestations notwithstanding. Based on what he had already clearly articulated, the election was a referendum on the future of slavery. While pure abolitionism wouldn't have been the first step, curtailing the growth, and legislating the end, was what southerners knew was going to be happening. In the final analysis, that is what secession was, and how the election of Lincoln triggered it.
I'm not disagreeing about why the south seceded. It was about slavery. Every article of secession said as much. In a westward expanding nation, slavery also has to expand westward if slave states are going to maintain electoral parity with free states. And that was what much of the fight was about. There was consensus in the country for leaving slavery alone in the south. There was not consensus in allowing it to expand westward to new territories. White migrants with their eyes on lands in the west did not want to compete with slave plantations for obvious reasons. Free farming and slavery are not compatible. I
But that is a very far cry from saying there was a majority consensus for abolition in 1860 prior to the Civil War. In fact, there probably wasn't even a consensus for abolition in the north. White factory workers in places like Ohio had no interest in seeing millions of freed slaves migrate north to compete for their jobs. And the vast majority of northerners who voted for Lincoln in 1860 weren't doing so for abolition. They were doing so for a long list of other political reasons that the Republican party was promoting.
The South launched an exceedingly foolish war to defend and expand slavery. And only brought it to a quicker end as a result, along with immense destruction. Would it have eventually ended on its own? Yes. But it would likely have taken many more decades and the transition could have been a lot bumpier, especially for Blacks. We might well have ended up with an even more oppressive form of Jim Crow segregation more reminiscent of apartheid South Africa.
0 x
A fool can throw out more questions than a wise man can answer. -RZehr
joshuabgood wrote: ↑Thu Sep 05, 2024 2:59 pm
The southern states, a minority of the US population, understood Lincoln's election to be the death knell for slavery, and then seceded, the Republican platform and Lincoln's protestations notwithstanding. Based on what he had already clearly articulated, the election was a referendum on the future of slavery. While pure abolitionism wouldn't have been the first step, curtailing the growth, and legislating the end, was what southerners knew was going to be happening. In the final analysis, that is what secession was, and how the election of Lincoln triggered it.
Constitutional amendments are not made via a "majority of US population" or even a majority of US states.
Anyway, my point stands: attempting to use government to enact abolition of slavery meant being willing to brutally oppress one's enemies, including killing half a million people and then using every means possible to deny your enemies political power or even engagement and participation.
joshuabgood wrote: ↑Thu Sep 05, 2024 2:59 pm
The southern states, a minority of the US population, understood Lincoln's election to be the death knell for slavery, and then seceded, the Republican platform and Lincoln's protestations notwithstanding. Based on what he had already clearly articulated, the election was a referendum on the future of slavery. While pure abolitionism wouldn't have been the first step, curtailing the growth, and legislating the end, was what southerners knew was going to be happening. In the final analysis, that is what secession was, and how the election of Lincoln triggered it.
Constitutional amendments are not made via a "majority of US population" or even a majority of US states.
Anyway, my point stands: attempting to use government to enact abolition of slavery meant being willing to brutally oppress one's enemies, including killing half a million people and then using every means possible to deny your enemies political power or even engagement and participation.
Except that is completely ahistorical.
Abolitionists didn't launch the Civil War and had very little input on how it was waged. It was launched by the slaveholding south for the exact opposite reason; to expand slavery. The fact that it became a brutal all-consuming civil war that ended in the destruction of the south only shows how foolish that decision was.
0 x
A fool can throw out more questions than a wise man can answer. -RZehr
joshuabgood wrote: ↑Thu Sep 05, 2024 2:59 pm
The southern states, a minority of the US population, understood Lincoln's election to be the death knell for slavery, and then seceded, the Republican platform and Lincoln's protestations notwithstanding. Based on what he had already clearly articulated, the election was a referendum on the future of slavery. While pure abolitionism wouldn't have been the first step, curtailing the growth, and legislating the end, was what southerners knew was going to be happening. In the final analysis, that is what secession was, and how the election of Lincoln triggered it.
Constitutional amendments are not made via a "majority of US population" or even a majority of US states.
Anyway, my point stands: attempting to use government to enact abolition of slavery meant being willing to brutally oppress one's enemies, including killing half a million people and then using every means possible to deny your enemies political power or even engagement and participation.
Except that is completely ahistorical.
Just because something doesn't agree with your point of view doesn't make it "ahistorical".
Josh wrote: ↑Thu Sep 05, 2024 9:30 am
But reshaping society’s morals requires being willing to wield the sword and the judge’s gavel to utterly annihilate, humiliate, kill, and starve your enemies who might oppose those morals.
And that is the dilemma of political involvement: Is reshaping society's morals by immoral means a moral pursuit? I have to conclude that it is "outside the perfection of Christ."
Constitutional amendments are not made via a "majority of US population" or even a majority of US states.
Anyway, my point stands: attempting to use government to enact abolition of slavery meant being willing to brutally oppress one's enemies, including killing half a million people and then using every means possible to deny your enemies political power or even engagement and participation.
Except that is completely ahistorical.
Just because something doesn't agree with your point of view doesn't make it "ahistorical".
Take away the south choosing to start and fight a war of secession to expand slavery and the civil war doesn’t happen. The abolitionist movement in the north certainly didn’t have the ability to start and fight a civil war over slavery on their own. Nor would they have.
0 x
A fool can throw out more questions than a wise man can answer. -RZehr