Talk:American Civil War/Archive 4

message: Please mark all you approve of; silence implies disapproval.  Short comments only please. Please add other options if necessary 
====Revisionist====
:Rjensen's version (more or less)
====Barebones ====
:Only consensus statements
# First choice Septentrionalis 20:37, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: All views and theories
* Only if Barebones is not consensus. Septentrionalis 20:37, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Survey

message: :Only consensus statements
# First choice Septentrionalis 20:37, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Barebones 

message: :All views and theories
* Only if Barebones is not consensus. Septentrionalis 20:37, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Expansion

message: The splitting off was a good idea. It makes for a much cleaner discussion of Stowe. 
Harriet Beecher Stowe and John Brown are not AFAIK divisive between historians; everybody agrees there were such people, and they were significant. It's their description, their causes, and their effects that there are disputes over, and we should still include as much of that as there is consensus about. Septentrionalis 23:04, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Discussion

message: I see by Rjensen's edit summaries that he suggests mediation. Which form, and where? Septentrionalis 00:06, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: by the usual Wiki procedures at Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/American Civil War   if they decide to take it. Editors who want to be heard should sign their names there Rjensen 00:51, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That process does not appear to be working very well; I have seen such requests ignored for months - although this one has been immediately rejected for non-notification.   There are at least two alternatives, the Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal and Wikipedia:Guerrilla Mediation Network; but I have no problem with trying RfM first.  Septentrionalis 14:07, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

text: The issue is causation of the Civil War. The huge thing was a huge war. We can trim this down but it can't be removed. Rjensen 14:38, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

text: The Southern religious position is covered briefly right now--does it need more detail??? So leaders spent so much time attacking Uncle Tom's Cabin and John Brown, that they spent little time on theology.  Rjensen 15:10, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Mediation

message: John Brown was the most famous abolitionist--as Reynolds (2005) explains: "the Transcendentalists, salvaged his reputation by placing him on the level of Christ ...  The Transcendentalist image of Brown spread throughout the North and was fanned by books, melodramas, poems, and music-culminating in "John Brown's Body," the inspiring song chanted by tens of thousands of Union troops as they marched south. At the same time that this misreading swept the North, an opposite one was pervading the South. The South's initial grudging admiration for Brown's courage was quickly overwhelmed by a paranoid fear that he was a malicious aggressor who represented the entire North -- a tremendous and tragic misreading, since virtually everyone in the Northern-led Republican Party, from Lincoln to Seward, actually disapproved of his violent tactics. The South's misreading was fanned by Democratic Party propaganda that unjustifiably smeared the Republicans with responsibility for Harpers Ferry. In this view, "Black Republicanism" meant not only "nigger-worship" but also deep alliance with John Brown, whom the Democrats characterized as a villain of the blackest dye." [end quote] Rjensen 12:52, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  John Brown as key figure of 1850s helping cause the war 

message: I commented out the text which seemed to me controversial, and thus not barebones. I had hoped that this would restrict any revert war to the comment tags. This does not seem to be happening; if there is no agreement on this point, I see no reason not to shorten the article. Septentrionalis 15:41, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Does anyone else think the list of seven abolitionists is off-ropic for this article, especially with the bizarre suggestion that JQAdams was a Garrisonian? Septentrionalis 17:12, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry to suggest that Adams was a Garrisonian. I followed Nevins in naming the key people--and he emphasized Adams. Rjensen 17:14, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: And he went out of his way to avoid calling Adams an abolitionist; "attacking slavery every way he could" is not quite the same thing. Septentrionalis 17:18, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Commenting out

message: The present text may be neutral; what does everybody else think? Septentrionalis 17:09, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Jim Muldrow has commented out some paragraphs. Upon rereading, I cannot argue; they were in part redundant, and did not add much to the history of the Civil War. Septentrionalis 17:24, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Neutrality?

message: It does, here, take two to make a quarrel. I notice no explanation of why the North went to war: as McPherson explains, a democracy cannot survive if the minority can secede, or blackmail by threat of secession, whenever it is peeved at not being the majority. It is a sign of the lack of neutrality with which some editors have approached this article that this should be missing. Septentrionalis 16:57, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Why the North went to War

message: Reconstruction has a very long and detailed article. the sentence: "XIV and XV were made ineffective through Ku Klux Klan violence, Jim Crow laws, former Confederate "Redeemer" governors, and other Southern resistance until the Civil Rights movement. " is generally false and misleading. The KKK was destroyed by the Grant administration after about 2 years. "former Confederate "Redeemer" governors" is garbled and meaningless.  "other Southern resistance" is so vague as to be meaningless. The XV amendment was nullified in the 1890s  in a complicated process that is not mentioned. better people should read the Reconstruction article than this garbled text.  In any case this was long after the Civil War. Rjensen 17:25, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This does not amount to a factual dispute; it's a case for some fine tuning. Septentrionalis 17:29, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Reconstruction is too complicated for two sentences, no matter how well done. Rjensen 18:03, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That's why we have a  tag on the section. Septentrionalis 18:16, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

text: The 14th Amendment remained in effect at all times. The issue was how the Supreme Court decided to interpret it--which is a very different matter quite remote from Civil war (eg Slaughterhouse cases; Plessy case) and quite impossible to summarize briefly. The main effect of the Civil War, in my opinion, were: 1) Union permanently restored; 2) slavery abolished; 3) South economically devastated and made political marginal; 4) 14th Amendment. Rjensen 19:47, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

text: yes that's an important story--but the 15th came 5 years after the war ended and disfranchisement came 10 years after that--so these important episodes do not fit at all well in the Civil War article. People who are interested are advised to read the story in Reconstruction. Rjensen 20:07, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reconstruction--can't be summed up by one garbled sentence 

message: The Wiki article on the Russian alliance is a hoax. There was no such thing. McPherson devotes one sentence to Russia in his 900 page history: " [in Oct 1862] French weighed in at this point with a suggestion that Britain, France, and Russia propose a six months' armistice--during which the blockade would be suspended. This so blatantly favored the South that pro-Union Russia quickly rejected it. The British cabinet, after two days of discussion, also turned it down. " p 556  The Heidler encyclopedia says "The arrival of Russian ships created the illusion in Paris and London of a possible Russo-American alliance" (p 1690)  A Russian fleet went to San Francisco (which of course was not in the war zone) (and one ship to New York City) to avoid being blockaded if Russia went to war with Britain. There was never any negotiations between the US and Russia regarding any sort of alliance. 
recent articles: 1) Chapman, Roger.  "HOW NORTHWESTERN OHIO NEWSPAPERS INTERPRETED THE RUSSIAN FLEET VISIT OF 1863.  
Citation: Northwest Ohio Quarterly 2000 72(1-2): 33-50. ISSN: 0029-3407  Analyzes twenty newspapers of northwestern Ohio to assert that the Ohio papers, in accord with their larger eastern counterparts, concluded that the presence of the Russian naval fleet anchored for seven months in San Francisco and New York signaled the Russians' desire for preparedness against a possible conflict with England and France rather than a military alliance with the United States during the Civil War.
2)   Schell, Ernest.  "OUR GOOD FRIENDS, THE RUSSIANS." American History Illustrated 1981 15(9): 18-26. ISSN: 0002-8770  Abstract: Russian naval support for the Union cause during the Civil War on both the East and West coasts of America turned out to be inconsequential because the Russian ships came to America to avoid an insurrection against Tsar Alexander II by the Poles in January 1863, not to aid the Union against the Confederacy and its allies the French and British.
3) Vrubel', V.  Title: VIZIT DRUZHBY RUSSKIKH KORABLEI K BEREGAM AMERIKI Transl/Info: [Russian ships make a visit of friendship to the shores of America].  Citation: Voenno-Istoricheskii Zhurnal [USSR] 1977 (4): 101-105. ISSN: 0042-9058  Abstract: Discusses international relations in the wake of the Crimean War and during the American Civil War and describes how a number of Russian ships were sent to the Atlantic and Pacific oceans as part of preparations for possible war against Great Britain, and in 1863 docked in New York City and San Francisco 
4) Poval'nikov, S. I.  
Title: GRAZHDANSKAIA VOINA V SSHA I ROSSIIA (K PREBYVANIIU RUSSKIKH VOENNYKH KORABLEI V SSHA [1863-1864 GG.])  
Transl/Info: [The Civil War in the USA and Russia (to commemorate the visit of Russian naval ships to the USA in 1863-64)].  Citation: Novaia i Noveishaia Istoriia [USSR] 1973 (6): 85-96. ISSN: 0130-3864  Abstract: Introduces and publishes 12 documents relating to the visit of two Russian naval squadrons to the USA during 1863-64. The tradition of friendship between Russia and the USA in the 18th and 19th centuries resulted in the sympathy of the Russian government toward Lincoln's North. In September 1863, a Kronstadt squadron visited New York and a Pacific squadron San Francisco, each staying about nine months. Their main task was to intercept Anglo-French sea links in the event of their war with Russia, but their support for Lincoln was vital. The commanders were received at the White House and the American people welcomed the visits with enthusiasm. Based on primary and secondary sources; 12 documents, 15 notes.
5) Stevenson, Charles S.  Title: ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND THE RUSSIAN FLEET MYTH.  Citation: Military Review 1970 50(8): 35-37. ISSN: 0026-4148  Abstract: Discusses the visit of nine ships of the Imperial Russian fleet to the Union ports of New York and San Francisco in 1863. These visits were favorably interpreted by northern leaders as a sign of Russian support against a possible pro-Confederate coalition of European powers. The Russians, however, never disclosed the purpose of their visits; not until 1915 did the real purpose come to light. At that time research in the Russian archives by the American historian Frank A. Golder indicated that the Russian visit to the United States was part of a military maneuver. Moreover, the objective was to have their ships available on the high seas in case of war against a coalition of England, Austria and France, though not necessarily in support of the United States.
6) Michaels, Alexander J.  Title: RUSSIAN SQUADRONS IN NEW YORK: 1863.  Citation: North Dakota Quarterly 1963 31(1-2): 27-34. ISSN: 0029-277X  Abstract: Discusses the contemporary origins of a supposed Russo-American alliance. No evidence has been found that the Czarist government considered a feared recognition of the Confederacy by England and France as a casus belli. In 1915 F. A. Golder in the American Historical Review published a secret report of the Russian Navy Department, stating that the Russian fleet appeared in foreign waters "at a time when an alliance of two of the most powerful sea powers threatened to attack our shores."  
It's a myth. Rjensen 11:51, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Russian alliance = hoax 

message: Georgia had a major debate re secession right after Lincoln was elected, and the speeches are in print. On Nov 13, 1860 Toombs gave a 20 page speech. It has only one paragraph on the tariff issue: 
::Toombs: "It is true that the present tariff was sustained by an almost unanimous vote of the South; but it was a reduction--a reduction necessary from the plethora of the revenue; but the policy of the North soon made it inadequate to meet the public expenditure, by an enormous and profligate increase of the public expenditure; and at the last session of Congress they brought in and passed through the House the most atrocious tariff bill that ever was enacted, raising the present duties from twenty to two hundred and fifty per cent above the existing rates of duty. That bill now lies on the table of the Senate. It was a master stroke of abolition policy; it united cupidity to fanaticism, and thereby made a  combination which has swept the country.  There were thousands of protectionists in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New- York, and in New-England, who were not abolitionists. There were thousands of abolitionists who were free traders. The mongers brought them together upon a mutual surrender of their principles. The free-trade abolitionists became protectionists; the non-abolition protectionists became abolitionists. The result of this coalition was the infamous Morrill bill --the robber and the incendiary struck hands, and united in joint raid against the South.” (end Toombs quote--from William W. Freehling and Craig M. Simpson, eds ‘’Secession Debated: Georgia's Showdown in 1860. Oxford University Press. 1992.  Pp 37-38]
:Toombs was immediately answered by Alexander Stephens who said: “The next evil that my friend complained of was the tariff. Well, let us look at that for a moment. About the time I commenced noticing public matters this question was agitating the country almost as fearfully as the Slave question now is. In 1832, when I was in college, South Carolina was ready to nullify or secede from the Union on this account.  And what have we seen? The tariff no longer distracts the public councils. Reason has triumphed. The present tariff [of 1857] was voted for by Massachusetts and South Carolina.  The lion and the lamb lay down together,--every man in the Senate and House from Massachusetts and South Carolina, I think, voted for it, as did my honorable friend [Toombs] himself.: [ibid p. 61]
:Only one other speaker, Henry L. Benning in a long 45 page speech also raised the tariff issue; he argued that because of the current tariff “50 millions of dollars was, therefore, the sum which the South in 1860 paid to the North without receiving one cent in return. It was a mere bounty to the North.” [ibid 136] He added that the escaping fugitive slaves cost the South about $1.1 million a year. [page 140]. Bottom line: when the rhetoric got serious not even Toombs paid much attention to tariffs. Rjensen 20:22, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  How little attenbtion paid to tariffs in 1861 

message: All - I undid most of the changes made by Rjensen earlier today and restored most of the text before it. While I'll be the first to acknowledge that this text is far from perfect and continues to need refinement, I strongly believe that it is superior in fact and documentation to the changes that replaced it. Seeing as Rjensen continues to reinsert many of these changes, it is only fair for me to address each point by point and indicate why I find them to fail on standards of factual accuracy.
# Railroads - Rjensen builds practically his entire attempt to characterize the political economy of the tariff on the fact that railroad construction companies needing iron for their tracks opposed the tariff in the north. This is a simplistic and historically uninformed argument. Although railroads had a direct opposing interest to higher iron tariffs, this interest simply did not produce any northern votes in Congress against the Morrill Tariff. When the House voted on May 10, 1860 there were less than a dozen northerners who voted no. Everyone other northern member and the clear majorities in the northern state congressional delegations voted "yes" for iron protection. The railroads didn't even make a dent in the vote. This is because the tariff's political economy is far more complex than the simple matter of identifying railroad opposition. First, the railroads were outgunned - they were but one single industry while the tariff's backers contained dozens and dozens of industries - iron production, sheep, woollens, textiles, glass, lead, hemp etc. Second, the protectionists made conscious moves to placate the railroads by packaging their tariff with "internal improvements" and land grant bills that the railroads wanted. These perks often more than offset the tariff losses of having to use domestic iron. So the railroads backed down. Sentences suggesting the north was closely divided (and it wasn't - the congressional vote in the north was almost unanimous) because of railroad interests should not be reinserted.
# "Anaylsis" of southern debates - Rjensen has claimed many times that "analysis" of southern debates by "historians" shows that the tariff was barely even discussed at all prior to the war. All of this "analysis" is really his own. The books he cites are all document collections such as Wakelyn, but the authors of those books did not tally tariff references in a systematic scholarly study. Rjensen tallied them by hand using an amateur methodology of his own design and biases. It's bad enough to try to add personal research into the article because Wikipedia prohibits this with WP:NOR. Worse though, I quickly exposed several glaring errors in Rjensen's tallying methods that show he has severely understated the references more than once. This claim should not be reinserted either.
# Anonymous "historians" - Whenever Rjensen wants to state an opinion about the tariff in the article he attributes it to an anonymous collective of "historians" or "major scholars." I've asked him to name them and give a citation for this group of "historians" many times but he never does. In argumentation this practice is called "Argumentum ad Verecundiam anonymous" or appealing to anonymous authorities. It is insufficient to establish proof of what is being claimed. Since the named authorities are all anonymously referenced there is no way to independently cross check them - a violation of Wikipedia citation standards. I also believe Wikipedia considers this practice to be a type of weasil word usage.
# Tariff of 1857 - Rjensen has repeatedly suggested that northern support for the Tariff of 1857 meant it went away as an issue. He refers to Stampp, who mentioned that northerners also backed the bill at the time, then interprets this to support his claim about 1860. This is a historically uninformed claim though, and one I've corrected many times. Some northerners supported the 1857 Tariff reduction (but by no means all - Justin Morrill certainly didn't). The ones that did did so because for two interconnected reasons: (1) it lowered the tariff on raw material inputs for their production, and (2) the protectionists at the time were in political disarray with the breakup of the Whigs and completely out of power. Some northern factories accordingly settled for second best to protection, which was a tax cut on their inputs. This all changed after the Panic of 1857 though. Protectionists seized on the Panic as political red meat. They blamed the recent tariff cuts for it, and within a year they became an organized force in Congress again. By the 1859 lame duck session they were powerful enough to propose the Morrill Tariff. The protectionists picked up enough seats by in the next Congress that they were able to pass it by the House (remember - in the Constitution tax bills must start in the House) on May 10, 1860. And in 1860 they made it a campaign issue. When the protectionists were organized again the northeastern industries that backed the 1857 reductions jumped over to the Morrill Tariff and gave it their support. When congress voted every northern state was in favor.
# Pennsylvania - Rjensen keeps portraying Pennsylvania as the lone source of protectionism in 1860. First off, this defies common sense - if only PA wanted a tariff then where did the bill come from? One state alone isn't enough to pass a bill. This simplistic claim is also historically uninformed. Pennsylvania was assuredly the most vocal tariff state with advocates like Henry Carey and mill-owner Thaddeus Stevens backing the bill, but it was far from alone in its advocacy. Massachusetts textile factories also supported it, as did their congressmen. So did Vermont sheep farmers (including Justin Morrill himself) who wanted tariffs on wool. The Senate's most vocal supporter was James Simmons of Rhode Island - owner of one of the largest woollens and yarn mills in the country. New England glassmakers also gave their support. So did New Jersey iron manufacturers, including Thomas Dudley - the chair of the New Jersey Republican Party and author of the GOP's protectionist platform plank in 1860. Industry support came from all over the northeast - not just Pennsylvania. Again, this was directly reflected in the vote on the Morrill Tariff where all those states' congressional delegations gave it a resounding yes.
These and other similar faulty historical claims have no place in this article. I've gone to great length and into great detail to discuss, explain, and document their flaws and to show what actually happened. While I profess no absolute knowledge of this period, I do possess a background that specializes in American trade policy and offer it here to improve the factual accuracy of this article. I believe that my edits have done so on the whole. While again there is always room for continued revision of them and I invite such revision, I get the distinct impression that most of Rjensen's changes are intended to remove and undo my contributions - not to improve upon them. I hope you can accordingly see just how frustrating it is when I put in a sincere effort into improving the article, then Rjensen keeps coming back and reverting to the same erronious rusty old arguments as if nothing at all had changed and no correction had ever been made. I hope for once he will desist, but recent experience tells me this hope is in vain. Sincerely - Tradeeconomist
:McPherson spends several pages, beginning on 192, describing the economic tensions between the Republican Party and the South: the Republicans were interested in a higher tariff, homesteads, and public support for schools and agricultural services in the territories; the South was solidly against these, and had been able to defeat them with the help of Northern Democrats, including Buchanan. The South also demanded a federal slave code for the territories, so that slavery could exist there; and they destroyed Douglas's candidacy because he did not support this. 
:On a deeper level, however, the reason the South's interests were different from so many in the North was slavery. So which is the cause? That's a matter of definition. 
:I deprecate Rjensen's habit of calling his own opinions the consensus of all historians. Septentrionalis 01:28, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Economics continued

message: The Society for  Military History is considering a session on Wikipedia at its annual meeting (Frederick Maryland, April 19-22, 2007). Any active editor who would like to be a panelist please contact rjensen@uic.edu Thanks Rjensen 01:15, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Discuss military history in Wikipedia at Society for Military History meeting 2007 

message: A few weeks ago, I created a page 'Civil War States' that gave a quick and easy reference to which states were on which side, as the article, and its supporting articles, do not make this easy to read. However, it was then redirected to the main article. I believe it should have remained, as it was a quick reference, like the Cassini-Huygens abbreviation page.
: Well, in the first place, it should have been American Civil War States because there are many states that have been involved in civil wars beyond the American states. But I looked at your original content before it was redirected and I think redirection was the appropriate action. The main ACW page has a superior treatment of state participation. Hal Jespersen 14:15, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Civil War States

message: WikiProject American Civil War has been proposed at Wikipedia:WikiProject United States and other places. See the discussion at WikiProject Military history/United States military history task force and/or comment|support|oppose|whatever here. Thanks in advance. • CQ 19:05, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  WikiProject American Civil War