John Kelly says Civil War caused by "lack of ability to compromise"
24 replies, posted
This is trending on Twitter so I don't know how it didn't get posted.
[url]http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/31/politics/john-kelly-civil-war-fox-news/index.html[/url]
[quote]White House chief of staff John Kelly spoke to the "good" and "not so good" parts of US history on Monday, speaking highly of Confederate general Robert E. Lee and attributing the origin of the American Civil War to a "lack of an ability to compromise."
Kelly described history as "evolving," and said it is "dangerous" to not be cognizant of it, when asked about the removal of historical but controversial statues commemorating Confederate figures during an interview on Fox News' "The Ingraham Angle."
"There will be, 100 or 200 years from now, people that criticize us for what we do, and I guess they'll tear down, you know, statues of people that we revere today," Kelly told Laura Ingraham. "It's dangerous, I think. ... It's just very, very dangerous and it shows you what, how much of a lack of appreciation of history and what history is."
The White House chief of staff called Lee "an honorable man" who chose duty to his state over loyalty to a federal government.
"It was always loyalty to state first back in those days," Kelly said. "Now, it's different today."
He continued: "But the lack of an ability to compromise led to the Civil War. And men and women of good faith on both sides made their stand where their conscience had to make their stand," Kelly added, not making any mention of slavery -- a major facet of the Southern economy and a key benchmark that separated northern and southern states when they chose sides in the Civil War.[/quote]
I mean... He's not wrong? But I don't really know who would consider compromising on slavery a pro.
so maybe if african americans were just 3/5th free that would have fixed it
and once again if you are actually interested in compromise...... then why insisting on basically single party rule? you fucked with the judicial process to prevent obamas judges from being confirmed, then ramrod all of trumps through without minority party support, then you do budget reconciliation to ramrod healthcare through, and then said you were open to compromise on tax reform, but wait... nope, you did budget reconciliation again.
Yeah, the lack of ability to compromise exclusively on the part of Southern secessionist states. They started the Civil War because they feared losing political power, a fear that became realized when Lincoln won the presidential election of 1860. Despite the Republican position at the time being the admittance of no new slave states in the west, as opposed to the complete abolition of slavery as an institution, the Democrats and the South in general saw the writing on the wall and fired the first shot.
[editline]31st October 2017[/editline]
Talking about the causes of the American Civil War without once mentioning slavery is ignorant at best, willfully misleading at worse, and I don't think John Kelly is dumb.
lack of ability to compromise [B]on the topic of human rights[/B]
I mean technically he's not wrong but there's a lot more to it than that
Isnt this literally true of every conflict ever? What a non-statement.
I have to admit I'm not well versed in American history, but it really seems to me that they try to downplay the severity of the confederate states' views. I guess it's because some people want to be proud of their family history, but it's not nice to think one's ancestors fought for the right to own slaves.
They should really acknowledge the horrible views and distance themselves from it, instead of trying to act like it wasn't a factor.
[QUOTE=Revenge282;52840905]I mean... He's not wrong? But I don't really know who would consider compromising on slavery a pro.[/QUOTE]
To be fair, if slavery wasn't compromised during the Constitutional Convention in the 1780s, then the "United States" would probably only consist of the northeast US.
I'm not suggestion slavery was a pro for the US, but doing that did keep the country together.
Just like the civil war we should never compromise with these idiots. They have no principles besides profit and tradition, and like in the 1800's their strategy of hatred and oppression works to keep us wage slaves.
[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;52840958]To be fair, if slavery wasn't compromised during the Constitutional Convention in the 1780s, then the "United States" would probably only consist of the northeast US.
I'm not suggestion slavery was a pro for the US, but doing that did keep the country together.[/QUOTE]
No doubt. But still, kind of an empty statement to be making in 2017 on Kelly's part.
The North compromised quite a bit. For example, the 3/5ths compromise.
[QUOTE=Lambeth;52840993]The North compromised quite a bit. For example, the 3/5ths compromise.[/QUOTE]
That was actually the South compromising.
How many states get representatives in the House is determined by population. The North wanted slaves to not be counted whatsoever because it would give the South a supermajority in the House, filled in by a population that most could not vote in. The South wanted slaves to be counted as 100% a person because it would give them more power in the federal government, at least in the House.
By allowing slaves to be counted even partially as a person in terms of determining the House arrangement gave the South more power and voice, but still at the expense of a massive population that could not voice themselves.
As far as the article is concernced, this is a non-topic, there's no point to be made, nothing. Yes remembering history is important, and yes 100's of years from now on people will look at us and tear down statues of our leaders etc - but it's not as if we're currently blind to who's statues will be torn down? There's so much shit going down, so many people that are so obviously horrible and immoral for lack of better word. Those are the people who's statues will get torn down, god forbid we actually make statues out of them.
No, the civil war wasn't caused by lack of ability to compromise, there were a lot of reasons for it and that was probably the least relevant one. Heck, the article mentions this:
[quote]The White House chief of staff called Lee "an honorable man" who chose duty to his state over loyalty to a federal government.[/quote]
In this day and age, it's no longer about the state vs the federal government, it's about global issues that transcend state borders, even national borders.
It's a pointless article, there's nothing in it worth talking about.
[QUOTE=Revenge282;52840905]I mean... He's not wrong? But I don't really know who would consider compromising on slavery a pro.[/QUOTE]
To be frank you need to think of such things in the mindset of the time. Just because the North wanted to abolish slavery doesn't mean they thought of African Americans as equals. Hell Lincoln considered a lot of different options which allowed the south to keep their slaves for the sake of keeping the Union together. It's really easy to look down upon those types of decisions today, but we also have 150 years worth of societal progression that allows us to do so. Compromising on slavery could have prevented the civil war, though more than likely it would have drawn out it's removal as well as civil rights. But once again hindsight is 20/20.
If black people had just learned to compromise on equal rights in the 20th century there wouldn't have been so much conflict around that time.
There was actually an enormous amount of compromises leading up to the Civil War, each more favoring the southern slave owners than the last. Saying that a 'lack of ability to compromise' is the cause is ridiculous unless you are looking exclusively at the south, who were entirely to blame for attempting to bully and browbeat the north into letting the south not only retain their slave owning rights but maintain an approximate 50-50 in the Federal government (the laws that forced new provinces becoming states to become slave owning, for instance).
While I'm not a fan of big government myself, anyone acting like it was at all the north's fault for the American Civil War is ridiculous.
[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;52841038]That was actually the South compromising.
How many states get representatives in the House is determined by population. The North wanted slaves to not be counted whatsoever because it would give the South a supermajority in the House, filled in by a population that most could not vote in. The South wanted slaves to be counted as 100% a person because it would give them more power in the federal government, at least in the House.
By allowing slaves to be counted even partially as a person in terms of determining the House arrangement gave the South more power and voice, but still at the expense of a massive population that could not voice themselves.[/QUOTE]
It's still a compromise on both sides?
He ain't right but he ain't wrong.
Well there was a last effort at compromise through the Constitutional Union party with John Bell in the election of 1860. "A house divided against itself cannot stand...", both sides knew what was coming, they already shed blood in Kansas and watched as John Brown became a martyr.
So as MrJazzy stated, its a non-topic. He himself is close to answering the issue, but he avoided the elephant in the room by not calling out that it was non-compromise on SLAVERY that caused it.
[img_thumb]https://timedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2017/08/0821_gen-kelly_cover.jpg?quality=85&w=840[/img_thumb]
Well that didn't last long
[editline]31st October 2017[/editline]
Also people should watch this if they haven't. Short video
[url]https://www.vox.com/videos/2017/10/25/16545362/southern-socialites-civil-war-history[/url]
[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;52841038]That was actually the South compromising.
How many states get representatives in the House is determined by population. The North wanted slaves to not be counted whatsoever because it would give the South a supermajority in the House, filled in by a population that most could not vote in. The South wanted slaves to be counted as 100% a person because it would give them more power in the federal government, at least in the House.
By allowing slaves to be counted even partially as a person in terms of determining the House arrangement gave the South more power and voice, but still at the expense of a massive population that could not voice themselves.[/QUOTE]
That was actually the North compromising.
How many representatives states get in the house is determined by population. The South wanted the double standard of counting slaves, which they considered property, as people, so that they would have a supermajority. The North didn't want the South to be able to use their slaves as tokens for voting power, when the slaves would not even get a voice in what that voting power was used for.
By allowing slaves to be counted even partially as a person, the North had a reduced proportion of the voting power, while the South's was increased.
(This all of course to demonstrate the obvious: compromises are bilateral, and therefore it isn't one side or the other compromising. It's both.)
[QUOTE=UncleJimmema;52841523]To be frank you need to think of such things in the mindset of the time. Just because the North wanted to abolish slavery doesn't mean they thought of African Americans as equals. Hell Lincoln considered a lot of different options which allowed the south to keep their slaves for the sake of keeping the Union together. It's really easy to look down upon those types of decisions today, but we also have 150 years worth of societal progression that allows us to do so. Compromising on slavery could have prevented the civil war, though more than likely it would have drawn out it's removal as well as civil rights. But once again hindsight is 20/20.[/QUOTE]
Oh no, I completely understand that. The south's economy hinged on slavery to sustain agriculture since they had no way of competing with an industrialized north. That statement was supposed to refer more towards a 2017 attitude rather than an 1861 one.
He's right. There was never any compromise. The argument is over and done with.
Like when Jefferson was going to include a passage going after slavery in the declaration of independence, but was talked down by slave-holding members in attendance.
Or in Article 1, section 9 of the constitution where Congress was not allowed to pass any law banning the importation of slaves until 1808 (~20 years later for those keeping count)
Or the Missouri compromise (specifically, that the south was allowed to keep slaves below a certain parallel)
Or the Kansas-Nebraska act (which allowed states at the time to determine their slave-holding status)
Or the multiple laws in the compromise of 1850 (including the fugitive slave acts)
Kelly was right all along! The north was incapable of compromise and drove us to war.
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