Walter Williams: Wrong on Secession

The North was putting undue tariffs on Southern goods to force Southerners to ship to them...

Check your laws there, son. Tariffs are placed on imports, not exports. And in the year prior to the war over 95% of all tariff income was collected in three ports - New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. Philadelphia alone collected almost as much in tariffs as the 11 busiest southern ports. Finally, if the tariff was such a bone of contention then why was one of the first actions of the confederate congress placing a tariff on every imported item?

You just don't read a word I write, do you? No wonder you keep claiming that the confederate constitution outlawed slave imports, you probably haven't read that, either.

What I originally stated: "It outlawed the further importation of slaves, something the US Constitution failed to do."

In you 715, you allege that Davis is misquoting the Constitution. He was not. He was quoting the provisional Constitution, as the permanent Constitution had not yet been ratified.

In his veto, Davis stated:

"The rule herein given is emphatic, and distinctly directs legislation which shall effectually prevent the importation of African negroes. The bill before me denounces as a high misdemeanor the importation of negroes or other persons of color, either to be sold as slaves, or held to service or labor, affixing heavy and degrading penalties on the act, if done with such intent."

What he was referring to was the importation of slaves entering the Confederacy under agency and pretext of future sale, being refused and then offered for sale in the Confederate states. The Constitution was quite explicit - no additional African slaves could be imported. Existing slaves from the other slaveholding states or slaveholding territories could be brought in (as a carrot to the states that had yet to join the Confederacy), but no slaves from the other states. So other than allowing for the addition of another state to join the Confederacy, the further importation of slaves was prohibited. And even then, if the legislature so desired, it could "prohibit the introduction of slaves from any State not a member of, or territory not belonging to, this Confederacy."

Earlier you had also written, "why would the confederate government care about violations of foreign law so long as their own demand for new slaves was met?"

If they Confederacy did have a demand for new slaves, why prohibit their importation? Why not expressly state it in their Constitution that could emulate the Yankee slavers and travel to the coast of Africa to purchase new ones?

Of course I'm serious. Hamilton, Madison and Jay wrote 85 Federalist Papers to convince Americans of the need to dissolve the not-so-perpetual union.

I see.

You're seriously proposing that something you called mythical could be dissolved.

You're seriously proposing that there could be a need to dissolve anything that is mythical.

You seem to believe that it is possible to dissolve something that is mythical.

Forget what the Founder's said. It's not relevant to this. Think about the words "dissolve" and "mythical."

In you 715, you allege that Davis is misquoting the Constitution. He was not. He was quoting the provisional Constitution, as the permanent Constitution had not yet been ratified.

Here is a link to the permanent constitution and here is a link to the provisional constitution. The clause reads the same in both documents.

Because the constitution did not prohibit their importation. It specifically protected the importation of slaves from some parts of the United States.

The clause reads the same in both documents.

It does? They are entirely different clauses, as their is no section 9 in the Provisional version.

From the Provisional Constitution (8 Feb 1861):

Article I, Sec. 7. (1) The importation of African negroes from any foreign country other than the slave-holding States of the United States, is hereby forbidden; and Congress are required to pass such laws as shall effectually prevent the same.

From the Permanent Constitution (11 Mar 1861):

Article I, Sec. 9. (1) The importation of negroes of the African race from any foreign country other than the slaveholding States or Territories of the United States of America, is hereby forbidden; and Congress is required to pass such laws as shall effectually prevent the same.

President Davis veto was dated 28 Feb 1861 - after the provisional Constitution and before the permanent one. FYI, on the Avalon site the revalent section as "section 7, Article 1", not as "section 9, article 1" posted earlier. The veto is in the appendix of "The South Was Right" by the Kennedy brothers, I'll check and see how it's listed there.

It specifically protected the importation of slaves from some parts of the United States.

Would you agree that the slaves in question - in either case - are either in the CSA or USA? The USA did not ban the slave trade until 1808, during that time Yankee ships sailed the seas to bring their cargo here. After 1807 legally no new slaves could enter the country, yet slaves could still be bought and sold within the states. Are those considered imports? The CSA could purchase these slaves prior to secession, and to induce additional states to join the Confederacy they allowed these states to enter the CSA. The permanent Constitution also added a clause that even this latter inducement could be removed, and that no slaves could ever enter the country regardless.

BAD NEWS; THIS IS GONNA BE HARD TO SPIN.

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FROM: http://www.historychannel.com/

POLL RESULTS

What was the primary cause of the Civil War?

Slavery 28% 938 votes
State's rights 56% 1916 votes
Trade and tariff policy 9% 318 votes
Western expansion 3% 93 votes
Other 4% 130 votes

Total: Total Votes: 3,395

What is your point in reiterating over and over that the war was about the slavery issue and only the slavery issue?

Please don't tell me you're working one of those Marxist "tides of history" arguments.

Or that the South deserved to lose because it was on the wrong side of a moral controversy it had no right to win. (That's teleology.)

Which last is rebutted by analogy: If I can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt, after the fact, that Bob's safe contained ill-gotten gains, am I to be held harmless in the outcome for kicking his door down, gunning him down, and cracking his safe to appropriate its contents? Just wondering.

None of which assails 4CJ's case.

I have checked in intermittently on this thread, and I see you and Walt and ravinson arguing exactly the same arguments you used 400 posts ago. I guess you really don't want to change your opinions, do you?

Or rather, considering what was actually done during the Civil War, I guess you can't.

I will correct you on one thing; I have never said that the sole reason why the south started the rebellion was slavery. I have said that defense of the institution of slavery was overwhelmingly the single most important reason for their actions. And I base that on the documents and the writings and the speeches of the times. Until you can demonstrate that there is a larger body of evidence that showes defense of the institution of slavery was not the most important reason why the south began the rebellion then why should I change my opinion?

You still haven't answered my question: What's it to you?

Just for the sake of argument, what if slavery was the only issue? You arguing all this stuff just for a sound bite? "You're for slavery! You're apologizing for slavery! You're in favor of slavery!"

Which of course would be demagoguery, but people have thrown their reputations away to score smaller political points before now.

Not that I concede the argument. If it weren't slavery, it'd be something else, because the underlying problem was, what happens to people's rights and freedom when a political machine succeeds in putting it all together at the national-political level? Will the divisions between States and the federal government work? -- or will some strongman claim the right to impose his policies throughout a transparent continuum in the name of his shibboleths du jour and his "mandate from history"? Will majoritarian strongmen gratify themselves by turning Virginia into a parking lot?

I don't know what part of the country you're from (you post like you're a New Englander, full of ideas about what's good for the rest of the country -- Yankees have always been that way), but I think you'd better get over this Yankee conceit, that you'll always be on the winning side, so you can "trust" the federal government. Because believe me, you will clutch the threadbare, bullet-riddled blanket of states' rights close to your bosom, if Southerners ever get into the saddle and remember who made their lives hell for 160 years. Then you will wish you had the rights you burned down in 1865 just to "get" the people who stood in your way on the road to empire.

So, N-S, take a shot at answering my question. What does "it's all about slavery" do for you?

What does it do for me? It means that when all you sothron supporters post your crap about how it wasn't about slavery then you don't get away with it unchallenged.

Go ahead with your sothron arrogance and spectulate where I am from (you're off by a considerable margin BTW) and complain about you life being hell for the last 160 years, and conveniently forget that southerners controlled the House and Senate for almost all of the last century, and held the White House for quite a bit of it as well. If your life has been hell then blame your own people, don't blame me.

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