Quote from: Tod13;913996Well, that was... like the opposite of mature.

Ignorant morons trigger me.

QuoteI suggested that didn't mean there were no other reasons for succession and that slavery had relatively little to do with the North's invasion, since Lincoln was obsessed with power and ruling the continent. That's something to build a non-slavery Civil War scenario on.

There were two primary reason for the Civil War. First and foremost, southerners voted to secede so as to ensure the preservation of slavery in the south. The reason is right in the documents. Disagreements about tariffs and trade and state vs. federal control had been going on since before we had a Revolutionary War. Nothing new to see there. What was new was the demographic change tipping the balance of power against slave-holding states. As the first US Census shows during America's early history population was about evenly divided between slave holding states and states where slavery was abolished. But over time this slowly changed and based on existing trends it would continue to change. By 1860 61% of the population lived in free states and 71% of the population lived in states that did not ever secede from the Union.

From the 1860 US Census
[ATTACH=CONFIG]303[/ATTACH]

Pro-slavery Southerners were afraid that support for slavery had eroded in the country as a whole and that with the election of a Republican President, they might soon lose sufficient political clout to maintain their “peculiar institution”; they were afraid that if they did not secede, slavery might be taken away from them. And rich southerners as a group really did not want that. Second, the north decided not to let the south secede. The myth that secession wasn’t about slavery sure does seem popular though.

Population Sources
http://www2.census.gov/prod2/decennial/documents/1790a.pdf
https://havechanged.blogspot.com/2013/04/civil-war-demographics.html
https://www.census.gov/prod/www/decennial.html

I came across this interesting bit of trivia supporting the importance of changing demographics towards fears of antislavery sentiment in the south. I also learned something I had not known. I did not know that prior to 1835 the state constitution of North Carolina gave voting rights to all freemen who were at least 21 years of age, who had been residents of their county, and who owned land or had paid taxes – and this included free blacks. That's right blacks could vote in North Carolina well before the Civil War. But it was too good to last. In 1835, free blacks were disenfranchised by a decision of the North Carolina Constitutional Convention. At the same time, convention delegates relaxed religious and property qualifications for whites, thus expanding the franchise for poor white men while eliminating the franchise for free blacks.

Quote from: Tod13;913996Well, that was... like the opposite of mature. Nobody is apologizing for slavery. Are your beliefs and comprehension that sad and weak? (It really comes across like someone from TBP shouting about being triggered.) The rest of us have been discussing actual facts and things that might effect or make sense within the Deadlands storyline. Did you miss that much of the conversation centered around Deadlands' removal of slavery from the North and the South, and the question of how there could be a Civil War without it?

A brief digression...

This is probably not the forum for having an in-depth argument about the reasons and rationales for the Civil War beyond the issue of how it relates to a game about zombie cowboys as well as the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse being shot in the face by Tesla guns. Deadlands is a game which has the peculiar quality of being a horror game in the same context as the Old World of Darkness with its katanas and trenchcoats. The problem is that this also includes Pooka, Malkavians, and Sons of Ether. It's further made troubled by the fact the period of the Civil War is a divisive one in a way which Americans are somewhat in denial about as each side acts like the consequences were papered over but which resound to this day.

The history of it matters in a way even as I APPRECIATE the attempt to actually move beyond it in the Deadlands canon as the fact black, Chinese, and Caucasian cowboys working together in their bizarre egalitarian setting is actually MORE historical than the traditional 20th century refuge of the ex-Confederate popularized by The Outlaw Josie Wales. I've decided to set my current campaign, Mad Mojave Murder in Virginia City, which while the setting of Bonanza was actually a mass outpouring point for freed slaves and one full of African Americans seeking a new life from the South's prejudices.

Random Historical Nonsense

Getting back to the constitutionality of secession, suspension of habius corpus, and more, there's a lot of ways to get into the issue of making the "Union Good" and "South Bad" business troublesome. Particularly since it is the Union government which IMMEDIATELY THERAFTER repurposed the violence-trained American and Confederate soldiery to the extermination of the American Indian in what was less the work of settlers than the deliberate organized genocide of the US government.

Lincoln himself is an interesting case as "Honest Abe" was actually a liar and two-faced in his dealings. The thing is, an analysis of his historical actions reveal he was always against slavery and well known to placate those ambivalent about the subject while pursuing it. Yes, he was a man who favored gradual emancipation but research also states that the famed "If I could reunite the North while freeing no slaves" was not the secret insight into his character but political jerrymandering.  Lincoln and his inner circle intended to destroy slavery but part of this was also because the South had effectively usurped the American political process and destroying it was necessary to end the dealock over the American political process.

But Lincoln was merely the personification of a hundred years of growing anger and dissatisfaction against Southern appeasement.

Since the "one slave state, one free state" system was instituted, it had literally made the United States a near-one issue country due to admissions being halted due to one side needing the other while oftentimes ignoring the sympathies of the territories admitted. Basically, Kansas really-really disliked the importation of pro-slavery Southerners in the years leading up to John Brown. Democracy on a very real level was subverted as the balance of power was the primary purpose in Washington for many was maintaining the status quo.

Unless you were a Southerner, in which case destroying the status quo was the issue. On a personal level, my opinion of the subject which I've heard since I was old enough to understand the concept of why my now-deceased but 100+ year old while alive great-great aunt (whose living relations fought in the Civil War) very much attempted to illustrate why it wasn't about slavery.

The problem is that I tend to not actually have much of a high opinion on the subject because the Confederacy had a general history of, "It's only a crime when they do it." While the actual separate government only existed in for a short time from secession to dissolution, the Southern government existed "defacto" years before and was constantly attempting to get more slave-owning voting states than Union ones so it could legalize slavery throughout the North. The issues of the Dredd Scott case were a deliberate political ploy to make slavery universal and normalized--which failed spectacularly.

Plus, there's the caning of Charles Sumner which says everything you need to know about how the Southerners viewed the democratic process.

Really, the Pre-civil war period is probably the most interesting part of the slavery issue as you often had die-hard racists nevertheless taking a stand against slavery. The anti-slavery lobby wasn't afraid of taking advantage of that racism either. "Fancy Girl" parties were one of the more lurid examples where increasingly light skinned women were trotted out to explain the horrible sexual depredations they suffered under the laws which identified them as blacks until completely white-looking women arrived and often caused riots when they were revealed.

History, truly, is stranger than fiction and if you want a purely serious Deadlands game, that's stuff you can borrow from because the hate and build-up against the Confederacy is still there in that setting.

Or you can focus on the airship pirates.

[video=youtube;TZrh6eooyrg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZrh6eooyrg[/youtube]

Quote from: CTPhipps;914157A brief digression...

An interesting digression + airship pirates. Thanks!

QuoteGetting back to the constitutionality of secession, suspension of habius corpus, and more, there's a lot of ways to get into the issue of making the "Union Good" and "South Bad" business troublesome.

The South being responsible for a lot of Bad, doesn't make everything the Union did good. Nor do the bad things the Union did make the South Good...or even good.

In just the same way that the fact that Allied bombing in WWII was responsible for over a million civilian deaths does not somehow make Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan good.

Quote from: ThatChrisGuy;913995These are all excellent ideas.

Thank you, kind sir.

Quote from: Bren;914162In just the same way that the fact that Allied bombing in WWII was responsible for over a million civilian deaths does not somehow make Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan good.

Pretty much my attitude.

I wouldn't remotely be ambivalent about the Union if not for the fact the same people who won the Civil War were the ones who sponsored the subsequent campaign of expansionism at any costs against the West's Natives.

Black and Gray Morality at its finest.

Thank you for these up dates on the cival war.   It's a hole in my history.

Quote from: CRKrueger;913799Why did they keep fighting without slavery?  Because they were being manipulated by supernatural forces, which needed the Civil War to continue as part of the plan to drench the entire world in paranoia and fear for a couple centuries and then cause a Final War that would literally unleash the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse upon the world.

You guys did read the setting?  We are still talking about the game Deadlands not Alt-History outside that context?

That premise was pretty fucking dumb, even as I was reading it back in the day. The world at that time had plenty of Imperial cold and hot war paranoia throughout the globe, even as USA and Brazil were like the last major holdouts on slavery. You'd think King Leopold's Rape of the Belgian Congo would be more than enough to sustain replacement for the Confederacy, let alone the Opium Wars of China or god knows what else anyone wants to add to this list.

It was a lame USA-centric supernatural illuminati eschatology then, it remains still a lame USA-centric supernatural illuminati eschatology now.

And I do love me some Deadlands, even to this day.

But just like oWoD and FR, I know when to kick off the metaplot/metapremise from the wagon and tell them to walk on. The broad brushstrokes of Deadlands is delicious good fun. The details should linger on more localized horror while avoiding a Grand Unifying Theory of Big Bad Evil Guys.

There's a reason I love IN SJG because the Demon Princes are as contrarian and undermining to everyone else and each other as can be, while the ingenius evils invented by man truck ever onward without them. Grand Unifying Theories of Big Bad Evil Guys are trite, and even stupid, without factoring the immense capacity for mankind to "fucking do it anyway."

Quote from: Opaopajr;914188That premise was pretty fucking dumb, even as I was reading it back in the day. The world at that time had plenty of Imperial cold and hot war paranoia throughout the globe, even as USA and Brazil were like the last major holdouts on slavery. You'd think King Leopold's Rape of the Belgian Congo would be more than enough to sustain replacement for the Confederacy, let alone the Opium Wars of China or god knows what else anyone wants to add to this list.

It was a lame USA-centric supernatural illuminati eschatology then, it remains still a lame USA-centric supernatural illuminati eschatology now.

And I do love me some Deadlands, even to this day.

But just like oWoD and FR, I know when to kick off the metaplot/metapremise from the wagon and tell them to walk on. The broad brushstrokes of Deadlands is delicious good fun. The details should linger on more localized horror while avoiding a Grand Unifying Theory of Big Bad Evil Guys.

There's a reason I love IN SJG because the Demon Princes are as contrarian and undermining to everyone else and each other as can be, while the ingenius evils invented by man truck ever onward without them. Grand Unifying Theories of Big Bad Evil Guys are trite, and even stupid, without factoring the immense capacity for mankind to "fucking do it anyway."

I for one disagree strongly. The Confederacy has quite a bit over the horrific evil crimes of Imperialism going on at that time because of the same thing the Nazis had: They have recognizable comic book uniforms, atttitudes, and aethsetics. If you want a SERIOUS villain, then certainly, go make up a historical set of evil doers from any number of the crimes committed by Europe or America during that period. However, if you want a Southern gentleman with a literal mustache which can be twirled and his army of gray-uniformed ghost-rock mutated orcs then DAMN you have the Confederacy. You know what's a great idea?

MOON SLAVERS!

After being defeated, Robert E. Lee's Colonel takes steampunk powered rockets to the Moon (which has an atmosphere due to altered laws of physics and leaks from an alternate Earth) which they promptly colonize. Rockets are routinely sent down on raiding missions to kidnap people for New Atlanta as they prepare their plan to DESTROY THE WORLD.

There was no end to comicbook quality military uniforms in the 1800s, let alone the evils that were perpetuated in their guise. Your appeal to villain aesthetics still rings hollow and global historically naïve to me.

Quote from: Opaopajr;914197There was no end to comicbook quality military uniforms in the 1800s, let alone the evils that were perpetuated in their guise. Your appeal to villain aesthetics still rings hollow and global historically naïve to me.

Then I shall forward the argument that a American based game in the American West is probably best forwarded by American based evils.

Albeit, I totally think Mexico would make an awesome Evil Empire.



As for why the Confederacy makes a good villain globally?

Well, bluntly, I just like that they were the North Korea of their time.

As bad as the British got in their treatment of their possessions--even they said, "Fuck the Confederacy."

Quote from: CTPhipps;914198Then I shall forward the argument that a American based game in the American West is probably best forwarded by American based evils.

I can wholly support that. In fact, I wholly support running a Deadlands game in situ pretty much anywhere in the Civil War timeline. The chaos of that mini-apocalypse and discovery of ghost rock would make for a killer (pardon the pun) campaign.

That said, I could just as easily see an awesome conversion based on Mexico's independence and subsequent multiple civil wars as the Deadlands basis in some "Aztec," Apache, or Comanche focused sundering. Gets closer to around the rise of Napoleon and, if you dump the ghost rock, avoids most of the industrial revolution Wild Wild West gonzo tech. I kinda like the ghost rock tech, though, as it really captures the mid-late 19 Century tech revolutionary times of trains, factories, dynamite...

Quote from: Opaopajr;914253I can wholly support that. In fact, I wholly support running a Deadlands game in situ pretty much anywhere in the Civil War timeline. The chaos of that mini-apocalypse and discovery of ghost rock would make for a killer (pardon the pun) campaign.

That said, I could just as easily see an awesome conversion based on Mexico's independence and subsequent multiple civil wars as the Deadlands basis in some "Aztec," Apache, or Comanche focused sundering.

One thing I really enjoyed was Red Dead Redemption's take on the Mexican revolutions and having them happen as something which is cyclical at the time. You could easily do something with Marshalls as they find themselves trying to do some monster-hunting but caught between the corrupt government and ruthless rebels.

QuoteGets closer to around the rise of Napoleon and, if you dump the ghost rock, avoids most of the industrial revolution Wild Wild West gonzo tech. I kinda like the ghost rock tech, though, as it really captures the mid-late 19 Century tech revolutionary times of trains, factories, dynamite...

Do people dislike the gonzo tech?

The premise may be fucking dumb, too bad that wasn't the question or point being answered.

The question or point was that there WAS a premise, and all the questions that are some variation of "Why doesn't Deadlands resemble all these other Alt-History Confederacies, the ones without Ghost Rock, Walking Dead, or the Immortal Avatars of the 4 Horseman of the Apocalypse running around?" are kind of ignoring the text where things are actually explained.

Belgium's Rape of the Congo setting up a world stage for Nuclear Armageddon 200 years later...You're supposed to put the cap back on the Nail Polish after using it, not tape it under your nose.

Quote from: CRKrueger;914405The premise may be fucking dumb, too bad that wasn't the question or point being answered.

The question or point was that there WAS a premise...

OK, OK. There was a premise. It was an incredibly fucking dumb premise. But you are right there was a premise. In the same sense that someone with really bad taste still has taste.

Quote from: CRKrueger;914405The premise may be fucking dumb, too bad that wasn't the question or point being answered.

The question or point was that there WAS a premise, and all the questions that are some variation of "Why doesn't Deadlands resemble all these other Alt-History Confederacies, the ones without Ghost Rock, Walking Dead, or the Immortal Avatars of the 4 Horseman of the Apocalypse running around?" are kind of ignoring the text where things are actually explained.

Belgium's Rape of the Congo setting up a world stage for Nuclear Armageddon 200 years later...You're supposed to put the cap back on the Nail Polish after using it, not tape it under your nose.

Weirdly, i feel the need to point out the events DIDN'T set up those events. The Reckoners LOST that war and then rewound time to win by sending back the [strike]Terminator[/strike] Old Stone....then someone ELSE rewound time (Pinnacle Entertainment) and Old Stone was killed.

So it's all alternate timelines now.

But there's never been a master plan by the Reckoners to destroy the world.