Posted on 07/22/2015 7:36:12 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
We call the war of 1861 the Civil War. But is that right? A civil war is a struggle between two or more entities trying to take over the central government. Confederate President Jefferson Davis no more sought to take over Washington, D.C., than George Washington sought to take over London in 1776. Both wars, those of 1776 and 1861, were wars of independence. Such a recognition does not require one to sanction the horrors of slavery. We might ask, How much of the war was about slavery?
Was President Abraham Lincoln really for outlawing slavery? Let's look at his words. In an 1858 letter, Lincoln said, "I have declared a thousand times, and now repeat that, in my opinion neither the General Government, nor any other power outside of the slave states, can constitutionally or rightfully interfere with slaves or slavery where it already exists." In a Springfield, Illinois, speech, he explained: "My declarations upon this subject of Negro slavery may be misrepresented but cannot be misunderstood. I have said that I do not understand the Declaration (of Independence) to mean that all men were created equal in all respects." Debating Sen. Stephen Douglas, Lincoln said, "I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes nor of qualifying them to hold office nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races, which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality."
What about Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation? Here are his words: "I view the matter (of slaves' emancipation) as a practical war measure, to be decided upon according to the advantages or disadvantages it may offer to the suppression of the rebellion." He also wrote: "I will also concede that emancipation would help us in Europe, and convince them that we are incited by something more than ambition." When Lincoln first drafted the proclamation, war was going badly for the Union.
London and Paris were considering recognizing the Confederacy and assisting it in its war against the Union.
The Emancipation Proclamation was not a universal declaration. It specifically detailed where slaves were to be freed: only in those states "in rebellion against the United States." Slaves remained slaves in states not in rebellion — such as Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware and Missouri. The hypocrisy of the Emancipation Proclamation came in for heavy criticism. Lincoln's own secretary of state, William Seward, sarcastically said, "We show our sympathy with slavery by emancipating slaves where we cannot reach them and holding them in bondage where we can set them free."
Lincoln did articulate a view of secession that would have been heartily endorsed by the Confederacy: "Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government and form a new one that suits them better. ... Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can may revolutionize and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit." Lincoln expressed that view in an 1848 speech in the U.S. House of Representatives, supporting the war with Mexico and the secession of Texas.
Why didn't Lincoln share the same feelings about Southern secession? Following the money might help with an answer. Throughout most of our nation's history, the only sources of federal revenue were excise taxes and tariffs. During the 1850s, tariffs amounted to 90 percent of federal revenue. Southern ports paid 75 percent of tariffs in 1859. What "responsible" politician would let that much revenue go?
Well, as I see it the North went to war to preserve the Union and won. The South , or as you say ‘’the Southern Slave Power leadership’’ went to war to preserve slavery and lost everything.
There were layers upon layers that constituted "the South". It is why I can forever consider Lee, Jackson, Stuart as great and noble American heroes, while at the same time, abhorring the likes of Davis and Stephens (and that putrid assassin).
Oh, please. He was practicing the arts of a conqueror, long ago described in Caesar's Commentaries (De Bello Gallico), when he described the deliberate lenity with which he treated defeated Gauls and Germans, which of course was less favorable than the treatment afforded those same people, if they collaborated rather than appealing to the sword. Likewise, he treated his Gaulish allies more favorably still, as he did other Gauls and Germans who were potential tributaries but still independent. It's the same power-and-status game our own politicians play when, e.g., receiving vassals, allies, and independent actors in a formal setting.
Caesar's advice, if it wasn't already vintage then, will have been familiar to every Renaissance princeling and later tyrant like Lincoln, who set himself about the business of gaining command of multitudes on a basis of inequality.
Can't let that one slide. The South fought to protect the South from exploitation and abuse by the northern States, who were making a crony-capitalist mint off laws their congressmen tailored for them, notably, e.g., the Warehouse Act of 1848.
Remember, the North made a ton of money off slavery. Those Northern bankers and businessmen who drove the formation of Northern war fever in 1861 weren't worried about slavery. They were worried about their middleman's profits.
The Civil War was fought by the North for profits, not for the Union (pace Lincoln's political rhetoric), and not for emancipation, and certainly not for the Negro, as I pointed out above.
You ought to try reading what they themselves said about secession and slavery.
Which, I would add for emphasis, were two separate issues -- related like two people on either end of a telephone line, but not organically or causally related. Read the list of their complaints against the Northern-dominated Congress and get some idea of what they thought their issues were. They were candid, lucid, and not at all reticent.And knight me no conspiratorial golden circles, either.
If there were any conspiracies, they were in the North, where Lincoln spent March and the first half of April, 1861, all hugger-mugger in secret meetings with six, or five, or nine Yankee governors, holding war councils with his stoutest gubernatorial supporters, men whose support would be essential as he prepared to reach around the Congress and turn the United States into a military empire.
But the departing States' complaints varied from place to place; Texas, for example, had a serious complaint about Comanche raids and general insecurity and Congress's deliberate refusal to appropriate funds and send troops to help defend the State in accordance with Congress's constitutional duty. Mississippi's declaration of causes was different, and South Carolina's (search under "Robert Rhett") showed still other causes, including the disappearance of the South Carolinian shipbuilding industry because, they said, of favorable treatment Congress had given New England shipyards.
The causes varied, they all mentioned slavery specifically because Northern politicians had made the slavery issue their club wherewith to beat the South into submission politically, dividing the country into a greater part (theirs) and a lesser (the South), and setting the table for a huge Yankee Thanksgiving at Southerners' expense.
Economic exploitation of one region by another more politically powerful -- what country hasn't seen that? But this was America, and (according to "Publius" in The Federalist), some States weren't supposed to be able to eat the other States' babies.
That's why the South left.
Oh, and there's a reason the South's economy didn't even get up on its knees until World War II, and it wasn't because Southerners "talllkkk slooowwww" or are stupid. It was due to Northern businesses' "unlocking the value", to use a phrase bandied about much later by Wall Street raiders, of their strategic middleman position w/r/t Southern economic flows.
In other words, the South was on her back because Northern business interests were sitting on her chest from 1865 to 1945, and then some.
You've used that phrase at least three times now, in reference to men whose boots you couldn't shine, as if they were bank robbers or spree criminals. That's enough of your sneering, thank you.
Bullseye.
Our ancestors had it right: it was "Mr. Lincoln's War".
They did want to prosecute a war .... for the purpose of dominating states that had broken away from their control.
Bullseye again. Two in the nine-ring.
If you're going to reply to a FReeper by reference, please have the courtesy to ping him. Especially if you call him "fool".
Where can I read about this "Golden Circle"?
I don't think these guys heard you .....
Or they're sitting there with their hands over their ears shouting, "La la la la la la I can't hear you!!"
The wide variety of arguments why Congress or the President could forbid States to leave the Union if they were unhappy, gives them the lie. They're all over the map.
Remember Non-Sequitur's amazingly Hitlerian theory that States couldn't secede, because Congress created the States, made them States by admitting them to the Union? and therefore the language of the Constitution itself about how new States would be endowed with all the powers of the original 13 States that ratified the Constitution, didn't apply to the new States?
Remember that chestnut?
bflr
Rockrr is one of those people that live and breath "the Union was right, no matter what they did" types, and I think he's had enough exchanges with me that he doesn't want to really discuss it any further... with me anyways. :)
The usual slander of "you are only supporting the confederate side because you had family in the conflict" doesn't work on me because I had no family in the conflict. My family arrived in the US after 1900, and we did not settle in a Southern state.
I'm objective, and people don't like that when it goes against their position.
Baloney. The south was doing the abusing, not the other way ‘round.
So you’re acknowledging that you are a fool?
Meanwhile, why don't you take a crack at the question posed by jmacusa: If the South had won the war, would it have ended slavery?
Little man, let me tell you something, I’ll use whatever phrase I like how times I like. And Lee and Davis weren’t indeed criminals. Davis wanted to preserve slavery. Have you ever read the Confederate Constitution? Lee took up arms against his own government in order to give the Confederacy the military victories necessary to bring about the political ends the Confederacy was after. He’s damn lucky he wasn’t hung in his damn boots.
Boy, irony is sure lost on you. Say what kind of lamp are you using, a Coleman?
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