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?
I do not. I just have a low opinion for your inability to keep the zeitgeist of 1776 and 1865 separate in your head.
You keep putting effect before cause, and you seemingly can't understand the difference.
It is exactly what you are doing. You won't apply your 1865 morality to the Founders, but you INSIST on applying it to 1861.
1861 is still prior to the fact.
Williams just proved it wasn’t. More to the point, while the Confederate Constitution protected slavery in the places it was currently legal, it made importing slaves ANYWHERE, to ANYWHERE illegal. That meant that slavery as an institution would be pinched off in the South in a generation or two.
That’s better than the Emancipation Proclamation did, and something nobody talks about with respect to the South.
What is absolutely clear from Williams article is that Lincoln was flip-flopping on the idea of state’s rights. In 1846, secession was fine in Texas, as it pertained to Mexico. In 1861, suddenly secession was NOT OK for Texas, since the folks they were walking away from was the US.
And the coup d grace is the stat about where all the Fed money was coming from - tariffs supplied by southern ports. Of the 90% of operating cash, 75% of that cash was coming from the South.
The reason why this wasn’t a civil war was because the FedGov was already violating the 9th and 10th amendments, and knew it. Then they started hostilities.
Remember, Lee had spent 1846 through 1848 helping Texas secede. Lincoln asked him in 1861 to do the opposite. No wonder he turned him down. Lee was there when they marched into Mexico City and raised the US flag over the Mexican capitol.
And it probably would have remained in that sorry state for some time if the hotheads in the South hadn't rushed to war upon Lincoln's election.
But no, they did the one thing that would assure maximum destruction, and a speedy end to the infernal institution of chattel slavery.
Oh well. "The Almighty has His own purposes."
“Secession implies a peaceful, legal, orderly process while rebellion is the exact opposite.”
That’s immaterial. The same right is invoked for both, only the mechanics of exercising the right are different. Similarly, whether I print a pamphlet, or phone my representatives, or stand out on the street corner with a megaphone, it’s all speech, just the mechanics differ.
“Lincoln is obviously talking about rebellion since he adds the qualifier “...and having the power...”. Why do you need power if your parting is by mutual consent?”
Obviously you don’t need power to have a right, only to exercise it successfully, and only in certain circumstances. If you needed power in order to claim a right, it wouldn’t be a right. Lincoln is speaking of practicalities, so don’t confuse them with limitations on the right itself.
Again, morality is the same, whether it’s 1861 or 1865 or 2015.
It’s wrong to enslave your fellow man.
It is wrong to rebel against legitimate governmental authority without an overriding moral basis.
And it is wrong to strip the sovereign People of the United States of their national territory, without their consent.
I am sorry that I have once again found an obtuse person who cannot quit conveying their sense of hypermorality regarding a period in history well before their time, and of which they can't seem to comprehend.
The Founders also fought to defend slavery. The British offered Freedom to any slave who would join them in the fight against the founders.
The Founders were fighting FOR slavery, among other things. Hell's Bells man, All the founders in Virginia DEPENDED upon slavery to make their money. Are you just obtuse? Are you just that ill informed?
How about you just keep posturing on how much and how badly you selectively hate slavery? Cause we just can't get enough of that hyperventilating Pharisee moralizing "nobler than thou" Sanctified pretension that you bring to the discussion.
I'm not so sure RinaseaoDs.
Article 9 of the confederate constitution states:
[The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or Duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.] 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. Congress shall also have power to prohibit the introduction of slaves from any State not a member of, or territory not belonging to, this Confederacy.
It's the execution of the law that makes things change in the world. If you were a slave and made your way to Union lines -- or if Union lines made their way to you -- you'd be free.
The Emancipation Proclamation did that. Not for all slaves, but for enough slaves to put slavery on the way to extinction.
You and I have discussed this before. I see you have now moved the date of the expedition to after Fort Sumter rather than before Fort Sumter as you've posted in the past. That is progress of a sort, but you are still off in your time table. On May 27, 1861, Colonel Earl Van Dorn said the following [Source]:
Within a short distance of El Paso or Fort Bliss there are several hundred United States troops. I have, therefore, ordered four companies there. There are five or six pieces of artillery at Forts Davis, Quitman, and Bliss, which I have ordered to Fort Bliss.
The book "The Confederate Invasion of New Mexico and Arizona" by Robert Lee Kerby provides some timeline information on pages 33-34:
... in the first week of July, Balyor's battalion of the 2d Texas Companies A, B, D, and E) and Captain Trevanion T. Teel's battery B, 1st Texas Artillery, occupied El Paso and took quarters in Fort Bliss.
As you may know, El Paso and Fort Bliss are in Texas, not New Mexico. I gather Baylor later sent small detachments into New Mexico in July to gather information about Fort Fillmore which was very near Mesilla, New Mexico.
The people of Mesilla were already flying Confederate flags. Mesilla was the place where two conventions had earlier (Feb 3 and March 16, 1861) declared the secession of the Arizona Territory which was then roughly the southern half of present day Arizona and New Mexico. They wished to be a territory first of Texas (Feb 3) and then of the Confederacy (March 16, see Link).
Baylor marched on Mesilla July 23-24, 1861. The federal commander of Fort Fillmore decided he had no chance and abandoned Fort Fillmore on July 26. He and his troops were captured by Baylor on July 27.
You're not against Kelo? That's a change from your posts from a few weeks ago.
I am not "For" Dred Scott. I merely recognize that it is a correct interpretation of the laws in existence at the time it was rendered. If it were not so, then there would have been no need to pass amendments to repeal the Dred Scott decision.
And what is the Constitutional foundation for his conclusion that free blacks were not and could never be citizens?
As for Kelo v New London, the seizure of private property by a tyrannical government to give to someone else for the purpose of making profit, and that ultimately failed to do anything beneficial for anyone... I am not surprised that you support it, but I think the vast majority of conservatives on this Web site are completely against it.
We can argue till the cows come home as to whether or not the Connecticut Supreme Court decision allowing the property to be condemned and sold to a private party was the correct one. But I do not understand how someone like you, with your alleged reverence for the 10th Amendment and state's rights, can condemn the U.S. Supreme Court for deciding that, right or wrong, Connecticut could make her own habeas corpus decisions for herself without the "fedgov", to use your tired expression, stepping in and telling her what to do. What is the alternative? The Federal Government define what is allowable under habeas corpus? Many states after the Kelo decision passed laws severely restricting the use of habeas corpus. Are you suggesting that they needed to get Federal permission before they could do so?
Under the law of the time, it was an assault on property rights. Property rights are fundamental and cannot be impugned by a State. Same thing with Kelo.
Yes but the Court first ruled that Scott, being a black man, was not a citizen of the U.S. and therefore could not take his case to the federal courts. Since the whole case was invalid to begin with then any mention of property rights and the constitutionality of the Missouri compromise were made in dicta and were not binding.
So doodle when you going to tell use about how you feel about the repeal of DADT? Let’s go on record here.
I don’t have any more time today for your sophomoric nonsense.
Neither of your quotes have any relevance to the question of whether people have the right to secede.
And from the guy who won't let us forget that he never argues the war was fought over slavery... another reference to slavery.
Which of course he says the war was not fought over. Just so you know. Even though he keeps bringing it up. And won't stop bringing it up. It's other people making that argument. Not him, because he doesn't believe that, and doesn't argue that. He only brings it up because it's a completely unrelated subject in his opinion. Has nothing to do with why the Union Invaded. At all. Period. Mark his words.
He needs a disclaimer.
"The Opinions posted by this poster may not necessarily be the opinions of this poster, especially when he is trying to distance himself from something he has said previously."
The Moral basis is that it is a God given right. It needs no further moral justification.
Attempts to embellish it just damage it.
Substitue “eminent domain” for “habeas corpus”. It’s been a long week.
Not true. A caged man with no hope of escape still has the intrinsic God-right of self-determination. He simply lacks the power to exercise that right.
We all have the God-given right of rebellion against authority, whether or not we have the resources to effectuate that right. But as DoodleDawg said upstream, others have the same exact right to oppose that rebellion. If you choose to rebel you had best hope to God that your cause is righteous.
Nonsense. It was a sop to foreign powers. If the CSA regime legalized the international slave trade -- as many secessionists wanted -- there would have been no chance of getting foreign recognition.
It was also a present Virginians and other Southeasterners who had slaves but not much to do with them over Southwesterners who had land but wanted more slaves. The Deep South was committed to the Confederacy. Keeping the international slave trade closed could help win support from Virginians who weren't committed to secession but would benefit from higher prices for slaves.
Would slavery have ended without the international slave trade? Why? The international slave trade had been illegal for decades by the time the Civil War started, and slavery was striving.
And the coup d grace is the stat about where all the Fed money was coming from - tariffs supplied by southern ports. Of the 90% of operating cash, 75% of that cash was coming from the South.
Nonsense on stilts. As is explained here over and over again, Southern states got money from exporting cotton and used it to buy things from Northerners. We know that cotton was the major part of America's exports. But we don't know that cotton growers were the major consumers of foreign goods. Big city factories and stores almost certainly bought more foreign goods -- and hence paid more in tariffs -- than plantation owners, who weren't all that large a part of the population and could only consume so much.
The structure of the importation bans was such that no new slaves could be imported from outside the states where slavery already existed. To sustain slavery on a viable ongoing basis and maintain economic growth, importation from outside the slaveholding states would have been required.
The CSA banned it. Transferring existing slaves among owners in existing slave states was an enforcement and recognition of their property rights, and not an endorsement of slavery. That they called it out in their constitution was political. Slavery was becoming untenable. Lee himself had that issue with the Custis slaves, and he wrote that the institution was worse on whites than it was blacks. At least blacks, he reasoned, could leave Africa. All whites gained was the corruption that it brought them morally.
The recognition of property rights accompanied by a ban on importing new slaves was the only political way they could satisfy slave holding states while ridding itself of slavery.
What is not well enough stated is that the pressure to end slavery was coming from Europe - a key US customer for our goods. Lincoln flip-flopped on his position on the inferiority of negroes with the Emancipation Proclamation because the war wasn’t going his way, true. The real reason, again, was bucks. If Europe recognized the CSA the way the French backed the rebels against the English, Lincoln was going to lose.
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