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.
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.
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.