Civil wars are, by definition, a nation fighting itself.
It was always the position of the Union that the Confederacy were rebelling citizens, and that fact was the legal basis of the Emancipation Proclamation, later decisions regarding the very concept of a secession without an act of Congress, and quite a few court courses for treason and sedition.
Technically couldn’t it be argued that the confederacy were the ones that were the real USA? Even the constitution agreed with them that some people are worth less than others.
If you need to change the constitution to have your side be right, you’re on the right side of history, but you’re not the same country. You’re the new guys who took the country by force from the previous guys, because you didn’t like how they did things. It’s a good thing you did, but let’s not pretend like they were the traitors - the winners of the war were the traitors.
I just think it’s okay to be a traitor if you’re betraying a shitty cause, and by acting like it’s not okay, we’re just enforcing the “snitches get stitches” and “loyalty instead of morals” mentality. Which I get why you would want to do as a country, because you’re trying to keep the power and not raise future traitors to your questionable policies. But I don’t get why you’d want to do this as a human, who will be at one point in time responsible for making a similar decision. You’re just making it worse for future you if you’ll ever need to be labeled as a traitor for, eg: fighting to remove gerrymandering.
couldn’t it be argued the Confederacy was the real USA?
No, though they did try to argue it and they lost
If you need to change the constitution
They did it by following the Constitution’s rules for change. The Confederacy tried to subvert the Constitution because they were losing. You don’t get to cherry pick which parts of the constitution matter and ignore the other parts. The Confederacy saw the writing on the wall that the US was going to follow the procedure outlined by law to become a free country, and they decided that the law, the constitution and the entire united states could go fuck itself. There is no world in which the Confederacy is good, decent or sympathetic. They committed treason so that they could continue to kidnap, rape and murder an entire class of people and no amount of “well if you look at it another way” will change or excuse that.
It was a different country. We got their land. By conquering it. And then we destroyed their country. Rightfully so.
Civil wars are, by definition, a nation fighting itself.
It was always the position of the Union that the Confederacy were rebelling citizens, and that fact was the legal basis of the Emancipation Proclamation, later decisions regarding the very concept of a secession without an act of Congress, and quite a few court courses for treason and sedition.
nope, just some traitors in the real USA!
Technically couldn’t it be argued that the confederacy were the ones that were the real USA? Even the constitution agreed with them that some people are worth less than others.
If you need to change the constitution to have your side be right, you’re on the right side of history, but you’re not the same country. You’re the new guys who took the country by force from the previous guys, because you didn’t like how they did things. It’s a good thing you did, but let’s not pretend like they were the traitors - the winners of the war were the traitors.
I just think it’s okay to be a traitor if you’re betraying a shitty cause, and by acting like it’s not okay, we’re just enforcing the “snitches get stitches” and “loyalty instead of morals” mentality. Which I get why you would want to do as a country, because you’re trying to keep the power and not raise future traitors to your questionable policies. But I don’t get why you’d want to do this as a human, who will be at one point in time responsible for making a similar decision. You’re just making it worse for future you if you’ll ever need to be labeled as a traitor for, eg: fighting to remove gerrymandering.
No, though they did try to argue it and they lost
They did it by following the Constitution’s rules for change. The Confederacy tried to subvert the Constitution because they were losing. You don’t get to cherry pick which parts of the constitution matter and ignore the other parts. The Confederacy saw the writing on the wall that the US was going to follow the procedure outlined by law to become a free country, and they decided that the law, the constitution and the entire united states could go fuck itself. There is no world in which the Confederacy is good, decent or sympathetic. They committed treason so that they could continue to kidnap, rape and murder an entire class of people and no amount of “well if you look at it another way” will change or excuse that.