You can read their letters, what they said the serious issues were. That's a clue, eh? Of course not. Outside of wars of conquest with robbery as their overt motive and carefully calculated military superiority behind them, very few wars have ever been worth starting. It's a famously bad idea, war. The Confederacy and the people who fought for it were not justified by their completely inadequate and morally bankrupt reasons. But they did what they did, for those reasons. I have not suggested any such picture. The issue for the thread is why the Southerners were fighting. That's what bears on the nature and fate of the southern Republicans.
Here some other opinion why the Southerners were fighting: http://www.emarotta.com/protective-tariffs-the-primary-cause-of-the-civil-war/ http://civilwarsaga.com/the-causes-of-the-civil-war/ http://civilwarcause.com/relationship.html and http://www.aboutnorthgeorgia.com/ang/Causes_of_the_Civil_War also write about the role of tariffs.
So all those Southerners who claimed they were going to war to defend slavery and prevent the loosing of the black slave on their communities, all those governments that listed opposition to Lincoln's abolitionist agenda as their primary or even sole motive for seceding, were lying - their actual motive, which they kept carefully hidden for some reason, was opposition to a Federal tariff policy now more than 70 years old and recently relaxed. You seriously believe that? btw: Here's a false statement from your link: "Slavery was actually on the wane." It was not. Not in the US.
Learn to read, none of the sources claims such nonsense. What is rejected is the simplification that this was the only or primary reason. And, of course, the Southerners are not a homogenous mass with only one opinion. So, there may be, as well, Southerners who considered this as the main or primary reason. Google about the Morrill tariff.
You did, however. And posted the link as your evidence. But according to all the primary sources, it was the primary reason. It was the only reason mentioned in most of the declarations of secession, and the primary reason in all of them, for example. If you can find a single documented case of a Confederate soldier who gave as their reason for going to war the threat of the Morrill Tariff, I will confess my surprise. A fascinating topic. Here, for example: So we have, as the supposed primary motive of the southerners who fought in the Civil War, a tariff passed only after secession, not mentioned in the documents of secession, not mentioned by the soldiers who fought, not nearly the social structuring aspect slavery was, and an economic force far smaller than the dominating and rapidly growing capital asset of plantation slaves.
Learn to read, or better, not to distort: "Here some other opinion why the Southerners were fighting" or "also write about the role of tariffs". Tired of your systematic distortions.
You mean here are some other opinions that are just like yours - accompanied by errors of fact, psychologically implausible, contrary to major and solid evidence posted earlier (without explanation), confused in their timeline, conflicted internally (was opposition to slavery the primary motivation of Northerners, or important to only 3% of them?), deceptive in their rhetorical approach (a couple directly imply that enslavement of white people was a significant factor in 19th Century America), and vague in their argument (they blur the difference between the elite and the rest while discussing motivation in a Southern society structured so unequally as to be almost feudal, for example. As you do). My argument was that the major, primary, dominant, most important, motivation for the Democrats who fought for the Confederacy was fear of losing the slavery and racial oppression they had built their entire society, economy, and way of life around. Why do I think that? Because it makes perfect sense economically, socially, and psychologically; because they acted in complete consistency with that motive before, during, and after the war; because that's what they said they were fighting for when they set off to battle. Why you choose to go digging around in the poorly written and strangely reasoned internet fringes to find people who think 2/3 of the adult white male population of some Confederate States gave their lives in America's bloodiest war primarily to forestall possible future Federal tariff policies and protect the future profit margins of plantation owners, I do not know for sure; my suspicion is that you in fact recognize the direct implications of structural societal bigotry for your "freedom of contract" happy talk, especially given Indiana's heritage of bigotry and the obvious implications of this new law.
After that long explanation how good your arguments have been (something which decent people would leave to decide their readers) and how stupid I am, I will also summarize. For me, it was an interesting exercise. I appeared here by accident - I had read an article in contradiction with what was proposed here, and have posted that link to see what will be the reaction. The reaction was something which was, IMHO, suspicious to be based more on ideology than on facts. Initially this was only a feeling - I had not read much about the civil war, and the suspicion was based on the general idea that such complex things as such a war have usually complex reasons, not a single one, which is usually presented by history written by the winner. This suspicion has provoked me to take a look what I find about this. And, indeed, what I have found was, as expected, a much more complex picture. With slavery remaining an important issue, but far away from being the only one. In the North, it appeared to be not much more than a common theme useful to win elections, simply because there was wide (but low level) support. For the Northern sheeple, it played no role - from what I have read, they have liked to rape the "freed" black women, and only those slaves were freed who were owned by secessionist slaveholders. For the Southern 1%, the preservation of slavery was, of course, important, but it was not really endangered. But the general economic situation was clearly in favour of separation: They had to pay high tariffs for protection of Northern industries, infrastructure was build with taxes paid from the South in the North. The question who owns the land in the West was solved in favour of the North, Lincoln was a strong leader of a Northern coalition without any support in the South, and would favour a general policy in favour of the North. And a lot more complexities. You cannot, simply because I did not do such a thing. The sheeple, who become murdering bastards on the winning side and victims on the loosing side, do not count at all if we talk about the reasons why the war has started. These are questions based on conflicts between the 1% Southeners with the 1% Northeners, and so we have to consider these questions if we want to understand why the war has started.
They do sound good, don't they. But of course you can read, and so you know that my summary there was not about how good they were but what they were - one more attempt, as here, to correct your many errors and false claims. It was the central and dominant one, was the claim. None of the other issues you have presented were nearly as important as slavery, and none of them were separate from slavery. You want underlying economics? Slavery was the largest economic weight of the entire country, by far, and essentially the entire economic base of the Confederacy. All those tariffs and whatnot had their negative economic impact on the slave plantations, threatened the profits from enslavement of black people, for example - nobody else stood to get hurt much. All the underlying economic stuff pivoted on slavery, in the Confederacy. You want underlying sociology? Racial bigotry was the foundation of Confederate society, fear of black people and violent opposition to freeing slaves at the cornerstone of the politics of the Confederacy. This has been true ever since - right down to the present day. It was useful to win elections because there was a lot of opposition to slavery in the North. The opposition was intense and active - there were large smuggling operations for escaped slaves, major acts of violence and armed resistance, powerful lobbying organizations both religious and secular, hard fought legislative battles in Congress, etc. Until the Civil War when the richest of the 1% seceded and were destroyed, all of this was in direct conflict with the 1% of the country, for whom slavery was the most lucrative aspect of the entire economy. It was also a common reason given by Northern soldiers for going to battle - putting their lives on the line in the bloodiest war America ever fought - and victory by the North was victory for the abolitionists: slavery was rapidly abolished throughout the country. You seem to have confused Lincoln's sophisticated political tightrope walking - balancing appeasement of the abolitionists in the North with his need to avoid turning borderline slave States against the Union, that (rather than tariffs, etc, which he did not rescind) being the central issue of their opposition to his administration - with the whole of the events of the time. All slaves in the US were freed as a rapid consequence of Union victory in the Civil War - not just the ones Lincoln personally freed by executive order during the War, an option he did not have in the United States, but all the rest as well. Even more significant, slavery itself was abolished: The Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery in the US, was pushed through Congress by Lincoln in 1864 - before the end of the Civil War - and ratified by enough States in 1865 (there were still unburied bodies on the battlefields). But nobody was asking why the 1% wanted secession and war. The 1% do not fight the wars. The question was not why the wealthiest people in the United States chose to secede and become 1% of a new country - although the threat to slavery figured prominently in that decision as well - but why the people who fought the Civil War fought the Civil War. That is the issue involved in considering the fate of the Republicans in the Confederacy after the Civil War and before the Civil Rights movement.
This is what a honorable person would not claim, but leave this to others. Clearly wrong. The tariffs were for import of manufactured goods produced in the North or in foreign countries. Thus, all Southerners, slaveowners or not, had to pay the trivially resulting higher prices. From what I have read the abolitionists were clearly a minority. What was common was a rejection of slavery, but not a very intense one. The "major act of armed resistance" I have read about was an action by a few men which ended as a complete failure because lack of support beyond a number of likes in the facebook of that time. The legislative battles have been about allowing slavery in the West, which was about the real economic issue who will own that land. Until the Civil War when the richest of the 1% seceded and were destroyed, all of this was in direct conflict with the 1% of the country, for whom slavery was the most lucrative aspect of the entire economy. It was also a common reason given by Northern soldiers for going to battle - putting their lives on the line in the bloodiest war America ever fought - and victory by the North was victory for the abolitionists: slavery was rapidly abolished throughout the country. Sorry, you may not ask this, but this is the only interesting question. Because the 1% decide. On above sides. Of course, they do not fight the wars. But so what? For this purpose, there is conscription and propaganda. What the sheeple really like does not matter, never. They usually do not want any wars. One needs propaganda to make them wanting a war. By the way, the 1% of the South wanted only secession, not war. As usual for secessionists. Secession is, in its very nature, peaceful. Once there is too much conflict living together, let's separate. Separatists do not have the aim to destroy the remaining part of the country, they want to separate, to decide themself about their own things. Those who reject secession are those who prefer war in comparison with a peaceful separation, those who want to destroy their opponents.[/QUOTE]
Cotton was the country's most lucrative product, and England was our largest customer by far. And of course, cotton was picked by slaves. Even today, harvesting cotton remains a difficult operation which cannot be easily and cheaply automated. There are still millions of Americans who (barely) earn a living picking cotton by hand. My father-in-law still has the scars from the cuts--fifty years later! England did not take sides during our Civil War, but historians almost unanimously agree that if they had, they would have sided with the South, hoping to get a better deal on cotton. The Industrial Revolution was in high gear, yet the South did nothing to join in. In fact the wealthy Southerners wanted to go the other way in time, restoring the storybook civilization of the Middle Ages: the rich living in mansions, holding fancy-dress balls on weekends, while the yeomen did all the work. Of course, in an era where the least-educated American could get a decent-paying job in a factory, the only people they could "recruit" to be their yeomen were African slaves. Depending on how much help the British were willing to give to a victorious Confederacy, they would probably have had to simply recolonize the region to keep it from failing. Since slavery had been illegal in the British Commonwealth for quite some time, the British would have freed the slaves. At this point everybody--the British overlords, the Southern planters and the newly freed Africans--would have to figure out how to pick cotton without slave labor. By now, Lincoln was on a tear to end slavery throughout the entire country. There's no way he would have allowed the South to secede and continue the practice. If he had lived, he might very well have pursued the "war against slavery" into the other nations of the Western Hemisphere. Fortunately their economies were not dependent on cotton, so slavery was not necessary for their economic survival. With the exception of Haiti and the USA, slavery faded away peacefully throughout the hemisphere. Brazilian slaveholders were widely identified as the cruelest in the New World, yet even they let their slaves go free about 1890. By this time, everyone realized that free, salaried workers do more work, and better work, than slaves.
Another area of ignorance you insist on parading here. Which did not prevent them from starting a war of secession, in the common expectation that it would be short and not very damaging and victorious. The 1% do not actually know what they are doing, you know. You do know that? Which had been standard for 70 years, and wasn't worth mentioning at the time of secession or during the War by the people fighting it. Secessions in real life are usually declarations of war. So the question of the motives of the millions of self-organizing people who did remains. The honorable man speaks, informing us of the nature of all of humanity except the 1% - except for the 1% (and himself), we are sheeple, lacking even our own motives, likes and dislikes, etc. The attitudes and motivations of the great majority of people matter to their fellow dishonorables, who live among them - such as the black people of the southern US - or fight against them - as did the Union dead at Gettysburg, at Antietam. And you overestimate the malleability of men and women - as their manipulators do not, btw: they tap what's there, rather than attempt to create new from scratch. They know the limits of propaganda and conscription. When you claim the Confederate soldiers and southerners who fought in the Civil War did not really have the motives they claimed and killed for, that the bigotries and fears they proceeded to demonstrate for the next one hundred and fifty years did not really exist then or ever, you are dealing in nonsense. And there is no way to even begin to discuss the Republican in the Confederacy prior to 1963 or so, without including racial bigotry and its influences.
No, declarations of secession. What usually follows is a war, because the states usually declare secessions illegal and fight them. It is your claim that they have been self-organizing, I don't know about this. First, I do not make claims that I'm honourable. I try to behave like a honourable person, that's all. Then, no, the sheeple are those who follow the ideology of the 1%, by believing the lies of the media or the politicians controlled by the 1%. So this is not at all a claim about 99% of humanity. I would hope this would be only a small minority, but, unfortunately, this seems to be a quite large part of the population. Why do you think I overestimate this? If you interpret some of my statements in this direction, you have misinterpreted. I know limits too. To present some group of people as so dangerous enemies that they would better be killed is certainly not beyond these limits. There are standard polittechnologies, as applied in every color revolution. Lies and false flag operations are, clearly, not an invention of modern US. I don't. I agree that one usually starts with what is available as prejudices. There are always enough prejudices to start with against other nations, races, religions, or whatever else characterizes the group the 1% want to start a war with.
And war. As with the Confederacy, who started the American Civil War. But they can't pick the group at random - and you can't explain the Civil War on those grounds anyway. What group are you talking about, in the Civil War? You don't know whether or not the 99% who actually fought the Civil War organized themselves? You are usually referring to the great majority of the people under discussion, with contempt, and without comprehension - without bothering to figure out what their ideology actually is and where it come from, for example. Because you stated explicitly that the likes and dislikes of the sheeple never - your word, "never" - matter. When in fact they are always the fundamental framework upon which any manipulation efforts are built. Which brings us to the relevant aspect: the motivations of the southern whites who fought the Civil War, and made up the population of southern whites after that War, and were the population largely Democratic among which the minority of Republicans in the confederate states lived until sometime after 1948.
Formally, even in their own version of history? That the loser has started the war in the history written by the winner is a triviality. And from point of polittechnology, it is not difficult to present the situation in such a way. From point of view of secessionists, the unionists are, after declaration of secession, occupants. All they have to do is to really behave like occupants. From point of view of their own law, they would be right. From point of view of Natural law, it is only a question of time and intensity of the aggressive behaviour when defense becomes openly violent. From point of view of polittechnology, look at the dates: Declaration of independence January, Morrill tariff at beginning of March, first casualties April, in the Baltimore riot. Which was Union army against civilians, with 4 dead Soldiers and 12 dead rioters. (Quite interesting town, by the way. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltimore_riot_of_1861 characterizes it as anti-war and anti-Lincoln, but also as the town with the largest population of free African Americans.) Following the standards of Western presstitutes writing about the Maidan, one could describe this as the shooting of a peaceful anti-war demonstration. First of all, the group itself is predefined by the political situation among the 1%. Here, the conflict was between the 1% of slaveholding agrarian South and manufacturing, moving toward industrialization North. So, once there is a conflict given, the choice of the group is fixed. Now it is a question of polittechnology to find out how to present the enemy group in the most horrible way. In this step, one has to rely on existing prejudices of the sheeple. But the fact that the enemy group can be every group is clearly shown in the many cases of religious conflicts based on some schism. Catholics against protestants, shia against sunni, the list is long where differences are minor and hard to understand for outsiders or adherents of other religions. As I have said, I don't know much about this time, and interested to learn. I have some quite general ideas, and interested to understand if they are compatible with what has happened at that time. Of course, that time was quite different from our time, where the mass media, which are controlled by the 1%, have much more influence than at that time without TV and radio. And I think that the society of that time, much less controlled by mass media than that of the last century, may give us some hints about the future, where the role of the internet will increase, and (hopefully) the role of the mass media decrease. This may be something difficult to understand for you, but I do not follow my own ideological prejudices to present this time in a way comfortable for my own ideas. I interpret what I see, of course, following my own theoretical background. But if this attempt fails, fine, it means I have learned something new, and have to rethink, reevaluate my theories. Yes, because this is the theory which I consider now as the most appropriate. The theory that the 1% have the methods to rule the 99% by information war techniques. Note that this theory is quite uncomfortable for libertarians - if it is true, there is not much hope for them. If this superiority of the 1% in information warfare would be restricted to the age of mass media, where the 1% are able to control them, be it by explicit, direct state censorship as in communist or fascist states, or by controlling media empires as in Western democracies, that would be nice. In this case, all one needs is the internet and some time to finally discredit the mass media. But this is not clear. One can consider also the alternative theory that the 1% will be able to win informational wars even in a free internet society. And if they have been able to win such informational wars 1861, before the age of radio and TV, with mostly local papers, is an interesting test case. Because this is what the theory I explore here tells me: The dislikes of the sheeple do not really matter. Say, one popular leader in the enemy camp has a sexual relation with a 17 year old black boy. The sheeple have, in almost every society, some prejudices against derivation from sexual mainstream. So, this can be used to discredit the whole enemy camp. If these prejudices are directed against gays, ok, let's used the anti-gay card. If they are prejudiced against sex with children, use the anti-pedophile card. If the sheeple don't care about private sexual affairs at all, but care about child protection from drugs, ok, one has to find out if he has allowed the boy to use dope or vine at their meetings. If the prejudice is racist, use the racist card, if what was violated was caste boundaries (which have, BTW, also some white-black component), one would play this card. What matters in this case is that the leaders enemy camp are presented as morally evil. The love affair itself is irrelevant, as well as that it violates mainstream moral, because there are as many violators of the same moral rule (whatever it is) on the own side, one even knows about this, and uses this knowledge to blackmail these guys if necessary.
Yes. And also the agrarian non-slave North against the manufacturing, slaveowning South. It revolved around slavery. Most of the 1% were slaveowners, the rising minority was opposed to slavery - even at their own expense, willing to forego profitable investment opportunities in the Western States simply because they involved slave labor, not interested in expanding slave labor's role in their manufacturing operations regardless of profit potential. And this rising minority of the rich had a significant base of political support, a large advantage among the 99% in the North. The 1% majority racial propaganda efforts that worked in the South did not work in the North. The sheeple of the North did not behave like the sheeple of the South, regardless of the propaganda efforts employed by the 1% of the United States. And so the richest of the 1% of the United States was facing a majority population of sheeple that they could not control, that threatened their basic economic interests and political power to such a degree they were willing to fight a war of secession to escape it. If you don't know whether full scale modern war requires massive organizational efforts on the part of the people fighting it, you have a lot more to learn about than just "this time". You assume too much in projecting your fantasies unto "libertarians" generally (such as myself). Meanwhile, the way it works for you is to provide you with a handy excuse whenever the sheeple don't behave the way your theory requires - whenever some of them use their freedom of contract to oppress and abuse their neighbors for generations, for example, even when it theoretically costs them money or a better life. So after considering the instigation and consequences of the American Civil War, in particular the situation and fate of Republicans in the Confederacy (completely dominated for a hundred years after the Civil War by the racial and ethnic dislikes of the local sheeple), you are forced to discard - or at least drastically remodel - such a thoroughly refuted theory. Along the way, consider the many aspects of Confederate ideology and slaveowner culture your "theory" shares - I linked you to a picture of Lester Maddox holding up a political sign with a list of what look for all the world like quotes from your posting here on it, but there are many more you will encounter if you investigate. Your emphasis on honor, above, for example, is characteristic of the Confederacy to this day. It was and is what the anthropologists call an "honor culture", with effects that can be measured in the lab by doctors with pressure cuffs and blood samples. http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitst...155/InsultAggressionAndTheSouthernCulture.pdf Note that what is typically termed "black culture" in the US is predominantly Southern in origin, and is therefore strongly influenced by "honor" regardless of the preferences of the 1% - they were the sheeple of the South in the years after the Civil War, but they did not prove easy to manipulate by the 1%, instead creating a culture much more significantly influenced by their neighbors and the world they lived in.
Of course, with above sides much less relevant than the others, at least from what I have read. An interesting picture, but does not sound very plausible. Because Lincoln was clearly part of the 1% but played against slavery. There was anyway no slaveholder-1% in the non-slaveowning states, and the Southerners have not that much influence in the North. Moreover, the working people could be afraid of loosing because of competition by cheap slave labor. As well, even the sheeple would prefer non-slave-owning Western states to have an opportunity to get farmland there, without competition from large plantages owned by slaveowners. Such own economic interests are things where it is much harder to cheat the sheeple than in other domains. So, they were against extension of slavery because of their own interests. But they couldn't care less about the niggers of the South, and liked to rape them if they have "freed" them from slavery, but this was not a point the Northern 1% would care about. So, it seems more like the 1% of slaveowners in the South got their sheeple to support slavery, and the Northern 1% got their sheeple to support their own interests - protection tariffs for industrial products of the North, to be paid by the Southerners, and used in the North to build infrastructure or so. Don't speculate about what I know and what I don't know. What I have said I don't know is about the role of self-organization vs. conscription in that particular war. Despite the problem of organizational efforts, we have even today modern fighting forces based in important parts on self-organization. From IS to Afghanistan to Novorossian forces. The last are, in particular, now transformed into a sufficiently powerful army, but were initially based on self-organization of volunteers, some money from local oligarchs, and buying weapons from a corrupt ukrainian army. Only later the Russian support became more important. (And even today there is no conscription, contrary to the ukrainian army, but the army is based on voluntary participants.) It seems, you don't get it. Those who do not follow the official propaganda I don't name sheeple. So, "sheeple" is simply a name for those who follow the propaganda. And sheeple who don't follow the propaganda are impossible simply by definition of "sheeple". I know, and I also share with Hitler that 2+2=4. I'm not surprised that you don't like honourable people. Because honourable people are to a lesser degree sheeple. Modern democracy does not favour honour, a culture of honour is always traditional, reactionary and so on.
The point is that they chose sides based on slavery, not agrarian lifestyle. The farmers of the North and the manufacturers of the South took sides based on slavery, not farming or manufacturing. Until secession there was only one 1% in the US. And the slaveowners inability to persuade the small farmers of the North to support them, when the small farmers of the South were so easily manipulated, is hard to explain on economic grounds - the small farmers of the North and South had the same economic interests, and the same 1% of the country trying to manipulate them. Not only support it for a hundred years prior to the War, but continue to support the racial oppression and bigotry at the core of its establishment for a hundred years after these Svengali slaveowners had been destroyed. Not only did nobody on record actually pick up a rifle and put their life on the line for a percentage difference in some Federal tariff that did not even exist yet, but the 1% involved was not Northern yet - before secession, everybody in the US had the same 1%. So how did all those factors not bring the sheeple of the South into the war on the Union side? They were exactly the same, after all, and they had the same 1% as the rest of the country trying to manipulate them. I'm not speculating. You actually expressed doubt as to whether the people who fought the American Civil War had organized themselves to do so. What you actually do is identify people as sheeple, and then label their longstanding beliefs and motivations the "official propaganda". I don't confuse an "honor culture" with honorable people. And if you think honor cultures produce fewer sheeple, I invite you to review your own description of the Confederate Army: millions of men killing their neighbors for the right to enslave and abuse black people on huge plantations, killing for one of the horrors of history and the shame of their country and their people to this day, against their own interests and at the peril of their immortal souls (they were Christian), because (you say) their local bigshots conned them. There's your honor culture - the Confederate Army. There was, for example, no assassination attempt against Jefferson Davis, or Robert E Lee - whose army was supporting itself partly by capturing black people in areas it overran.
No, there was already a division among the 1%, which has already almost lead to a secession and even a war, http://thomaslegion.net/nullificationproclamationnullificationcrisis.html A simple explanation is that the influence of the mass media at this time was more localized - local newspapers - and that the 1% of the North, with control over the Northern newspapers, had different interests. Then, there is an economic interest: Change is always dangerous. If the actual situation is acceptable, change gives uncertainty, which includes the possibility that everything may go much worse. The hope that everything will become better may be greater only if the actual situation is very bad so that there is nothing to fear, or if the alternative is already known to be better (as, say, for the East Germans, who were able to compare with West Germany). So, once the North was non-slaveholding, and the South slaveholding, the result is plausible. As if this would matter. Look at Novorossia. The start of the secession movement was financed by the Donezk oligarch Achmetow, the guy who supported the former president Janukowitch. So, what was essentially behind this conflict was a personal conflict between oligarch Achmetow and oligarchs Poroschenko and Kolomoisky. The guys who have demonstrated on above sides have received payments from these oligarchs as well as from US embassy, but, of course, nobody has even openly admitted this. And nobody would actually pick up a Kalashnikov for a particular oligarch. They started the war for very serious ideological reasons, fascist vs. antifascist ideology. No. I name those who follow propaganda lies as sheeple. Nor the people of the North, nor the people of the South had any real economic interest strong enough to fight a war. For at least some part of the fighters of the South self-defense is a reliable motive, but only after Northern troops have conquered parts of the South and behaved there like conquerors. So, those who have started the fight can be classified as sheeple. There is, of course, a difference. Nonetheless, states have a long tradition to destroy honor of the people. The ideal citizen does not have any honor, except the "honor" to fight and die for the Big Brother. "Unsere Ehre heißt Treue" is the totalitarian variant of honor. So, some parts of a honor culture can be also used to control the sheeple. Think of the nonsense (from point of view of real honor) of forced oaths in state courts or of conscripted soldiers. A really honourable person would refuse to give such a forced oath for the simple reason that it is a forced one. No. I also favor a honor culture - but a different one. As a free and sovereign person, I can sign contracts and give promises, based on my own decisions. And, then, it is a question of honor that I hold these promises and fulfill these contracts. External prescriptions about what a honorable person has to do are irrelevant for this variant of honor. This is a variant of honor culture which is much harder to misuse by states.
1) It did not approach secession - nullification was not secession. 2) That division was over plantation slavery, as your link emphasizes: So? You are still missing the economic explanation. You still have the southern manufacturer and small farmer fighting for slavery, and the northern manufacturer and small farmer fighting against it. It mattered to them. It matters to the OP. If it doesn't matter to you, quit trying to assert falsehoods about it. Not in practice. For example: You have identified the sheeple in the American Civil War without any idea of the "propaganda lies" involved, or any explanation for why some followed them and others followed different ones you have speculated into existence. You have even stated explicitly that you have no interest in the motivations of the Civil War sheeple, the particular lies and propaganda that you claim motivated them - so how did you identify them as sheeple? One that has never existed, and can't exist, and is not in fact an honor culture. In other words, more ignorance. Look at you signing contracts - in a healthy honor culture, signing contracts is something sheeple do.
