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?
Sorry, FRiend, but you have no "fact based opinions", none.
Your ideas are all based on the lies of Lost-Causer mythology -- meaning it's just pure fantasy.
The fact that you can't see it, demonstrates you have no real mind of your own.
Sorry about that, wish there was something I could do to help you with it, FRiend.
Nobody, in 1776 there were no laws against slavery, and nobody was fighting to abolish it.
Yes, the British army, like Lincoln later, used emancipation as a military weapon against colonists, but for the Brits it proved an ineffective weapon, at least partly because in 1776 had Brits no problems with slavery, and did have problems accepting freed-blacks.
Conditions in 1861-'65 were quite different.
Obviously, you have a major, major problem with historical truth, since even when you speak it, you turn it into a lie.
I have to admit, that takes some kind of "talent".
Now, I've explained the real truth to you over, and over again, and yet your wooden brain won't grasp it.
But I'm patient, will try yet again:
Contrary to "popular opinion", slavery was not so much America's "original sin" as it was a precondition for: 1) successful settlement & prosperity of Southern colonies, and 2) agreement for the 1787 constitution forming one United States, instead of two Dis-united States, one free, one slave.
Throughout the period from 1787 through 1860, slavery was fully understood by all to be acceptable in the South where it was legal.
No major politician, not Lincoln nor the Republican platform, even in 1860 advocated abolishing slavery in the South.
All agreed that slavery in the South was strictly a matter for Southerners to decide.
Of course, since the early 1800s, more and more Northerners, and even some Southerners, had come to oppose slavery, and were willing to vote for political parties which promised to contain & restrict slavery -- hence the demise of Whigs and rise of Republicans.
After the Confederacy provoked, started and declared war on the United States, while sending military aid to pro-Confederates in Union Missouri, then the Union began to consider military advantages to freeing "contraband" slaves under US Army control.
So, step-by-small-step, the Union Army issued orders, first protecting "contraband" slaves, then Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation and finally, in 1863, proposals for a 13th Amendment to abolish slavery constitutionally.
Bottom line: slavery was a precondition for Southern states' economic success in the 1700s and a precondition for political Union in 1787, but in 1865 abolishing slavery became a precondition for reestablishing the Union.
So, tell us FRiend DiogenesLamp, what exactly is your problem with the truth?
DiogenesLamp: "Gee, you really can tell the truth when you aren't trying to force it to be the way you want.
Just remove the emotional baggage you possess, and you can see things correctly."
One last time: your wooden brain is preventing you from "getting" what's now been explained over, and over, and over again.
So, focus now, and concentrate on grasping a simple concept:
Slavery in the South was a precondition for political Union, and no major politician in 1860 publically advocated abolishing it, though many did publically wish to contain and restrict slavery.
But after the Confederacy provoked, started and declared war, then Union leaders began thinking: can "contraband" slaves be used against the Confederacy, and if so, can we also pass a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery altogether?
As it happened, the answer to both questions was "yes".
Call it "mission creep" if you like, but a war to defend the Union eventually became a war to abolish slavery.
And the proof of it is this: Lincoln could have negotiated a conditional peace with the Confederacy any time after 1863, if he had been willing to accept slavery in the South.
But Lincoln wasn't, and so the Civil War continued until the Confederacy surrendered "unconditionally".
Now this has all been explained to you many times, so what exactly is your problem grasping it?
No, the fact is that Lincoln promised in his First Inaugural (March 4, 1861) that the Confederacy could not have a war unless they themselves started it.
And no actions of Lincoln before Fort Sumter were either provocations or acts of war against the Confederacy.
Indeed, no Confederate soldier was killed directly in battle with any Union force until the Battle of Big Bethel (June 10, 1861) two months after the Confederacy started war at Fort Sumter, and one month after the Confederacy formally declared war, on May 6, 1861.
But Confederates cared nothing about that, they only cared to demonstrate the power of their military arms, regardless of long-term consequences.
And, if you don't believe me, then take the words of Jefferson Davis, from his Inaugural Address, February 8, 1861:
Of course, only Davis would decide what did, or did not, "assail" his "jurisdiction".
So, regardless of Constitution, law or historical precedents, Davis decided Lincoln's peaceful effort to resupply Fort Sumter was worthy of an "appeal to arms", and soon thereafter a Declaration of War on the United States.
As so the war came...
DiogenesLamp: "It's mind-boggling that after so many repetitions you still lack the comprehension to grasp the essential point; The Declaration does not stipulate 'for every reason except for the continuation of slavery.' "
By now, after so many corrections, such responses from you have to be labeled "dishonest", since you've so often been told the truth of the matter.
So when are you going to stop with the nonsense?
The answer to your point is: the Declaration certainly does imply there must be reasons and causes which compel and it make necessary to "dissolve the political bands".
No actual Founder ever expressed the idea that secession "at pleasure" was acceptable.
DiogenesLamp: "Again, when you say 'Slavery' I think 'Liar is trying to misdirect the subject again.' "
But, FRiend, only you keep saying "Slavery".
I have never used the term outside its proper context.
So why do you keep reading what's not actually there?
Such an order was no more an act of war than would be a similar order to resupply or reinforce US military at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
But if the Communist Cubans were to launch a military assault on either the US resupply force, or the Gitmo base, that certainly would be an act of war against the United States.
Just as was the Confederate assault on Union forces in Union Fort Sumter.
FRiends, none of this is particularly difficult -- if you wanted to understand it, you certainly would.
Founders' Original Intent is essential to understanding what those "Acts signed by representatives" actually meant.
And no Founder was more indispensable to defining Original Intent than George Washington.
In both words and deeds, Washington opposed "rebellion", "insurrection", "domestic violence", "invasion" and treason as spelled out in his Constitution.
The personal rancor reflected in that remark I don't intend to dignify with comment. But I would like to address your general attitude of hopeless negativism . . . - Ulysses Everett McGill
Thanks much for that link.
I've looked for that data for years, and not found it, though long suspected it was the case.
The significance is pretty mind-boggling...
My state, Pennsylvania, as in so much else, seems to be right smack in the middle of the pack.
(there, fixed it)
That is in reference to jeffersondem quoting George Washington: "...The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government."
We should take note of what our FRiend, jeffersondem, is actually saying here.
He's taking same the position as 1861 Slave-Power Fire Eaters, in their Reasons for Secession: that Northern states were not doing enough to enforce the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law.
And this is a first -- I've never before seen a Lost-Causer argue that Northern states were wrong not to return runaway slaves!
I didn't think any of them had the guts to say it, though am pretty sure many of them believe it.
So, it's an official first (to my knowledge): a Lost Causer actually defending slavery!
They do more than is readily apparent - although usually they do so a bit more obliquely.
And here we see it again, a Lost-Causer defending slavery against Northern states attempts to mitigate it.
But just so we're clear, the Constitution requires an actual "Claim" by a slave-holder for the return of his Fugitive Slave.
But, the Compromise of 1850 Fugitive Slave Law, required no such claims, and authorized the Federal government to seek out & capture blacks who may be escaped slaves, and prevented those blacks from demanding a trial, or testifying in their own defense.
So, it's the South's 1850 Fugitive Slave Law which was unconstitutional, not some Northern states response to it.
And yet again we see a Lost-Causer defending slavery!
But in fact, Congress provided a huge "remedy", in the form of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act, which made Federal Government -- not the States -- responsible to return runaway slaves.
Further, the Fugitive Slave Act allowed, in effect, random searches of any African Americans in Northern states with requirements that they prove their freedom, and no opportunity to defend themselves in court.
In short, the Fugitive Slave Act went far beyond what the Constitution required, and rendered moot any Slave-Power complaints against alleged Northern "breach of compact".
And the proof of it is: so long as Southern Democrats remained in control in Washington, DC, the Slave-Power had no real problems with compliance to the Fugitive Slave Act.
You’re skinning ‘em alive.
Keep up the good work.
But the truth is that only Lost-Causers on these threads are involved in fantasizing the past -- nobody else is denying or inventing facts.
Yes, we do occasionally make mistakes, and sometimes stand corrected, but nobody except Lost-Causers like yourself is deliberately ignoring or falsifying what actually happened.
In the case of Slavery, it is only "your problem" if you claim it as your problem -- if you defend it, if you justify it, if you attack others trying to explain the truth of it to you.
Yes, then it becomes "your problem".
But as soon as you stop doing those things, then slavery stops being "your problem" and you can join the rest of us in the real world.
Remember, nobody here has ever denied there was slavery in the North, in 1776.
But by 1860, every Northern state had officially abolished it, and the 1860 census counted mere handfuls of slaves in a few Northern states.
But the Slave-Power not only refused to abolish slavery in their own states, they wanted to expand it -- into western territories and even into Caribbean and Central American countries -- not to mention the Supreme Court's Dred-Scot decision, in effect, making slavery legal even in Northern states!
That's where things stood in 1860.
Lincoln gave the definitive history of the slaveholders’ fierce governmental attempt to force their infernal institution on the rest of the country in his 1858 “House Divided” speech. He knew we were ultimately going to be “all one thing or all the other.”
http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/house.htm
Abraham Lincoln
Springfield, Illinois
June 16, 1858
Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Convention.
If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it.
We are now far into the fifth year, since a policy was initiated, with the avowed object, and confident promise, of putting an end to slavery agitation.
Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only, not ceased, but has constantly augmented.
In my opinion, it will not cease, until a crisis shall have been reached, and passed.
“A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free.
I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided.
It will become all one thing or all the other.
Either the opponents of slavery, will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new — North as well as South.
Have we no tendency to the latter condition?
Let any one who doubts, carefully contemplate that now almost complete legal combination — piece of machinery so to speak — compounded of the Nebraska doctrine, and the Dred Scott decision. Let him consider not only what work the machinery is adapted to do, and how well adapted; but also, let him study the history of its construction, and trace, if he can, or rather fail, if he can, to trace the evidence of design and concert of action, among its chief architects, from the beginning.
But, so far, Congress only, had acted; and an indorsement by the people, real or apparent, was indispensable, to save the point already gained, and give chance for more.
The new year of 1854 found slavery excluded from more than half the States by State Constitutions, and from most of the national territory by congressional prohibition.
Four days later, commenced the struggle, which ended in repealing that congressional prohibition.
This opened all the national territory to slavery, and was the first point gained.
This necessity had not been overlooked; but had been provided for, as well as might be, in the notable argument of “squatter sovereignty,” otherwise called “sacred right of self government,” which latter phrase, though expressive of the only rightful basis of any government, was so perverted in this attempted use of it as to amount to just this: That if any one man, choose to enslave another, no third man shall be allowed to object.
That argument was incorporated into the Nebraska bill itself, in the language which follows: “It being the true intent and meaning of this act not to legislate slavery into any Territory or state, not to exclude it therefrom; but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States.”
Then opened the roar of loose declamation in favor of “Squatter Sovereignty,” and “Sacred right of self-government.”
“But,” said opposition members, “let us be more specific — let us amend the bill so as to expressly declare that the people of the territory may exclude slavery.” “Not we,” said the friends of the measure; and down they voted the amendment.
While the Nebraska Bill was passing through congress, a law case involving the question of a negroe’s freedom, by reason of his owner having voluntarily taken him first into a free state and then a territory covered by the congressional prohibition, and held him as a slave, for a long time in each, was passing through the U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Missouri; and both Nebraska bill and law suit were brought to a decision in the same month of May, 1854. The negroe’s name was “Dred Scott,” which name now designates the decision finally made in the case.
Before the then next Presidential election, the law case came to, and was argued in, the Supreme Court of the United States; but the decision of it was deferred until after the election. Still, before the election, Senator Trumbull, on the floor of the Senate, requests the leading advocate of the Nebraska bill to state his opinion whether the people of a territory can constitutionally exclude slavery from their limits; and the latter answers: “That is a question for the Supreme Court.”
The election came. Mr. Buchanan was elected, and the indorsement, such as it was, secured. That was the second point gained. The indorsement, however, fell short of a clear popular majority by nearly four hundred thousand votes, and so, perhaps, was not overwhelmingly reliable and satisfactory.
The outgoing President, in his last annual message, as impressively as possible, echoed back upon the people the weight and authority of the indorsement.
The Supreme Court met again; did not announce their decision, but ordered a re-argument.
The Presidential inauguration came, and still no decision of the court; but the incoming President, in his inaugural address, fervently exhorted the people to abide by the forthcoming decision, whatever might be.
Then, in a few days, came the decision.
The reputed author of the Nebraska Bill finds an early occasion to make a speech at this capital indorsing the Dred Scott Decision, and vehemently denouncing all opposition to it.
The new President, too, seizes the early occasion of the Silliman letter to indorse and strongly construe that decision, and to express his astonishment that any different view had ever been entertained.
At length a squabble springs up between the President and the author of the Nebraska Bill, on the mere question of fact, whether the Lecompton constitution was or was not, in any just sense, made by the people of Kansas; and in that squabble the latter declares that all he wants is a fair vote for the people, and that he cares not whether slavery be voted down or voted up. I do not understand his declaration that he cares not whether slavery be voted down or voted up, to be intended by him other than as an apt definition of the policy he would impress upon the public mind — the principle for which he declares he has suffered much, and is ready to suffer to the end.
And well may he cling to that principle. If he has any parental feeling, well may he cling to it. That principle, is the only shred left of his original Nebraska doctrine. Under the Dred Scott decision, “squatter sovereignty” squatted out of existence, tumbled down like temporary scaffolding — like the mould at the foundry served through one blast and fell back into loose sand — helped to carry an election, and then was kicked to the winds. His late joint struggle with the Republicans, against the Lecompton Constitution, involves nothing of the original Nebraska doctrine. That struggle was made on a point, the right of a people to make their own constitution, upon which he and the Republicans have never differed.
The several points of the Dred Scott decision, in connection with Senator Douglas’ “care-not” policy, constitute the piece of machinery, in its present state of advancement. This was the third point gained.
\ The working points of that machinery are:
First, that no negro slave, imported as such from Africa, and no descendant of such slave can ever be a citizen of any State, in the sense of that term as used in the Constitution of the United States.
This point is made in order to deprive the negro, in every possible event, of the benefit of this provision of the United States Constitution, which declares that—
“The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States.”
Secondly, that “subject to the Constitution of the United States,” neither Congress nor a Territorial Legislature can exclude slavery from any United States Territory.
This point is made in order that individual men may fill up the territories with slaves, without danger of losing them as property, and thus to enhance the chances of permanency to the institution through all the future.
Thirdly, that whether the holding a negro in actual slavery in a free State, makes him free, as against the holder, the United States courts will not decide, but will leave to be decided by the courts of any slave State the negro may be forced into by the master.
This point is made, not to be pressed immediately; but, if acquiesced in for a while, and apparently indorsed by the people at an election, then to sustain the logical conclusion that what Dred Scott’s master might lawfully do with Dred Scott, in the free State of Illinois, every other master may lawfully do with any other one, or one thousand slaves, in Illinois, or in any other free State.
Auxiliary to all this, and working hand in hand with it, the Nebraska doctrine, or what is left of it, is to educate and mould public opinion, at least Northern public opinion, to not care whether slavery is voted down or voted up.
This shows exactly where we now are; and partially, also, whither we are tending.
It will throw additional light on the latter, to go back, and run the mind over the string of historical facts already stated. Several things will now appear less dark and mysterious than they did when they were transpiring. The people were to be left “perfectly free” “subject only to the Constitution.” What the Constitution had to do with it, outsiders could not then see. Plainly enough now, it was an exactly fitted niche, for the Dred Scott decision to afterward come in, and declare the perfect freedom of the people, to be just no freedom at all.
Why was the amendment, expressly declaring the right of the people to exclude slavery, voted down? Plainly enough now, the adoption of it would have spoiled the niche for the Dred Scott decision.
Why was the court decision held up? Why even a Senator’s individual opinion withheld, till after the presidential election? Plainly enough now, the speaking out then would have damaged the “perfectly free” argument upon which the election was to be carried.
Why the outgoing President’s felicitation on the indorsement? Why the delay of a reargument? Why the incoming President’s advance exhortation in favor of the decision?
These things look like the cautious patting and petting of a spirited horse, preparatory to mounting him, when it is dreaded that he may give the rider a fall.
And why the hasty after indorsements of the decision by the President and others?
We can not absolutely know that all these exact adaptations are the result of preconcert. But when we see a lot of framed timbers, different portions of which we know have been gotten out at different times and places and by different workmen — Stephen, Franklin, Roger, and James, for instance — and when we see these timbers joined together, and see they exactly make the frame of a house or a mill, all the tenons and mortices exactly fitting, and all the lengths and proportions of the different pieces exactly adapted to their respective places, and not a piece too many or too few — not omitting even scaffolding — or, if a single piece be lacking, we can see the place in the frame exactly fitted and prepared to yet bring such piece in — in such a case, we find it impossible not to believe that Stephen and Franklin and Roger and James all understood one another from the beginning, and all worked upon a common plan or draft drawn up before the first lick was struck.
It should not be overlooked that, by the Nebraska Bill, the people of a State, as well as Territory, were to be left “perfectly free” “subject only to the Constitution.”
Why mention a State? They were legislating for territories, and not for or about States. Certainly the people of a State are and ought to be subject to the Constitution of the United States; but why is mention of this lugged into this merely territorial law? Why are the people of a territory and the people of a state therein lumped together, and their relation to the Constitution therein treated as being precisely the same?
While the opinion of the Court, by Chief Justice Taney, in the Dred Scott case, and the separate opinions of all the concurring Judges, expressly declare that the Constitution of the United States neither permits Congress nor a Territorial legislature to exclude slavery from any United States territory, they all omit to declare whether or not the same Constitution permits a state, or the people of a State, to exclude it.
Possibly, this is a mere omission; but who can be quite sure, if McLean or Curtis had sought to get into the opinion a declaration of unlimited power in the people of a state to exclude slavery from their limits, just as Chase and Macy sought to get such declaration, in behalf of the people of a territory, into the Nebraska bill — I ask, who can be quite sure that it would not have been voted down, in the one case, as it had been in the other.
The nearest approach to the point of declaring the power of a State over slavery, is made by Judge Nelson. He approaches it more than once, using the precise idea, and almost the language too, of the Nebraska act. On one occasion his exact language is, “except in cases where the power is restrained by the Constitution of the United States, the law of the State is supreme over the subject of slavery within its jurisdiction.”
In what cases the power of the states is so restrained by the U.S. Constitution, is left an open question, precisely as the same question, as to the restraint on the power of the territories was left open in the Nebraska act. Put that and that together, and we have another nice little niche, which we may, ere long, see filled with another Supreme Court decision, declaring that the Constitution of the United States does not permit a state to exclude slavery from its limits.
And this may especially be expected if the doctrine of “care not whether slavery be voted down or voted up, shall gain upon the public mind sufficiently to give promise that such a decision an be maintained when made.
Such a decision is all that slavery now lacks of being alike lawful in all the States.
Welcome, or unwelcome, such decision is probably coming, and will soon be upon us, unless the power of the present political dynasty shall be met and overthrown.
We shall lie down pleasantly dreaming that the people of Missouri are on the verge of making their State free; and we shall awake to the reality, instead, that the Supreme Court has made Illinois a slave State.
To meet and overthrow the power of that dynasty, is the work now before all those who would prevent that consummation.
This is what we have to do.
But how can we best do it?
There are those who denounce us openly to their own friends, and yet whisper us softly, that Senator Douglas is the aptest instrument there is, with which to effect that object. They wish us to infer all, from the facts, that he now has a little quarrel with the present head of the dynasty; and that he has regularly voted with us, on a single point, upon which, he and we, have never differed.
They remind us that he is a great man, and that the largest of us are very small ones. Let this be granted. But “a living dog is better than a dead lion.” Judge Douglas, if not a dead lion for this work, is at least a caged and toothless one. How can he oppose the advances of slavery? He don’t care anything about it. His avowed mission is impressing the “public heart” to care nothing about it.
A leading Douglas Democratic newspaper thinks Douglas’ superior talent will be needed to resist the revival of the African slave trade.
Does Douglas believe an effort to revive that trade is approaching? He has not said so. Does he really think so? But if it is, how can he resist it? For years he has labored to prove it a sacred right of white men to take negro slaves into the new territories. Can he possibly show that it is less a sacred right to buy them where they can be bought cheapest? And, unquestionably they can be bought cheaper in Africa than in Virginia.
He has done all in his power to reduce the whole question of slavery to one of a mere right of property; and as such, how can he oppose the foreign slave trade — how can he refuse that trade in that “property” shall be “perfectly free” — unless he does it as a protection to the home production? And as the home producers will probably not ask the protection, he will be wholly without a ground of opposition.
Senator Douglas holds, we know, that a man may rightfully be wiser to-day than he was yesterday — that he may rightfully change when he finds himself wrong.
But can we, for that reason, run ahead, and infer that he will make any particular change, of which he, himself, has given no intimation? Can we safely base our action upon any such vague inference?
Now, as ever, I wish not to misrepresent Judge Douglas’ position, question his motives, or do ought that can be personally offensive to him.
Whenever, if ever, he and we can come together on principle so that our great cause may have assistance from his great ability, I hope to have interposed no adventitious obstacle.
But clearly, he is not now with us — he does not pretend to be — he does not promise to ever be.
Our cause, then, must be intrusted to, and conducted by its own undoubted friends — those whose hands are free, whose hearts are in the work — who do care for the result.
Two years ago the Republicans of the nation mustered over thirteen hundred thousand strong.
We did this under the single impulse of resistance to a common danger, with every external circumstance against us.
Of strange, discordant, and even, hostile elements, we gathered from the four winds, and formed and fought the battle through, under the constant hot fire of a disciplined, proud, and pampered enemy.
Did we brave all then to falter now? — now — when that same enemy is wavering, dissevered and belligerent?
The result is not doubtful. We shall not fail — if we stand firm, we shall not fail.
Wise councils may accelerate or mistakes delay it, but, sooner or later the victory is sure to come.
“We shall lie down pleasantly dreaming that the people of Missouri are on the verge of making their State free; and we shall awake to the reality, instead, that the Supreme Court has made Illinois a slave State.”
I sometimes wonder why I bother wasting time with people who insist on being silly. Short answer, "I don't know." It's just an urge, I think.
Anyways, yammer on, I may get to you directly, or I might not.
I think that misstates the issue in 1787.
By 1787 only two Northern states had totally abolished slavery, and five more began very gradual abolition processes.
But in New York and New Jersey, slavery was still totally legal.
Point is: even by 1787 there was not yet universal agreement in the North that slavery should be abolished, and so there was no great confrontation at the Constitution Convention over that particular question.
Yes, around the margins there was much debate, especially over questions of how, logically, "property" could be counted as "people", and ending with the notorious 3/5 rule.
Today that 3/5 rule sounds, well, absurd, but practically speaking it gave Southern states something they desperately needed: substantially more representation than their voting white populations otherwise justified.
Hence the term: "the Slave Power".
Indeed, since Thomas Jefferson was the first President elected by "the Slave Power", he was given the moniker: the Black President.
But you and jeffersondem are some of the silliest people on the planet, FRiend.
You spout endless Lost-Causer propaganda lies, you refuse to take instruction, you are consumed by complete fantasies, which render your mind utterly... well... yes... silly.
"Silly" is your word, but it certainly applies to your facts, your logic and other opinions.
Have a blessed day, FRiend.
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