Confederate Veteran John Mosby Knew the Lost Cause Was Bull

War is Boring ^ | May 1, 2017 | Kevin Knodell

[C19fan]

John S. Mosby, known as the “Gray Ghost,” was a Virginian who became legendary for his leadership of Mosby’s Rangers—a band of Confederate guerrilla fighters that harassed the Union Army and went toe-to-toe with George Armstrong Custer in the Shenandoah Valley.

Mosby is still highly regarded as a strategist and tactician and is studied to this day by practitioners of unconventional warfare. He lived a long life, dying early in the 20th century, and was also a lawyer, a diplomat and author who wrote about his experiences during the war.

[OIFVeteran]

You couldn’t be more wrong about Lincoln’s views on slavery. For his entire political career he was against slavery. There are literally hundreds of examples of this in his own writings, speeches, and written accounts of other people who saw him speak. You really need to educate yourself, you are looking more foolish with every post. I will attempt to help you by posting Lincoln’s letter to Horace Greeley in it’s entirety. Do read it to the very end.

Executive Mansion,
Washington, August 22, 1862.

Hon. Horace Greeley:
Dear Sir.

I have just read yours of the 19th. addressed to myself through the New-York Tribune. If there be in it any statements, or assumptions of fact, which I may know to be erroneous, I do not, now and here, controvert them. If there be in it any inferences which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not now and here, argue against them. If there be perceptable in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend, whose heart I have always supposed to be right.

As to the policy I “seem to be pursuing” as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt.

I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be “the Union as it was.” If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.

I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every where could be free.

Yours,
A. Lincoln.

[OIFVeteran]

I believe in your two years of research on the civil war you have been lead astray. I may be putting pearls before swine but here is a list of quotes by Lincoln, with citations, on slavery. I would recommend you pick up some of these books and increase your knowledge of the man.

“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.” Lincoln’s ‘House-Divided’ Speech in Springfield, Illinois, June 16, 1858.

“Whenever I hear any one arguing for slavery I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.” The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume VIII, “Speech to One Hundred Fortieth Indiana Regiment” (March 17, 1865), p. 361.

“What I do say is, that no man is good enough to govern another man, without that other’s consent. I say this is the leading principle - the sheet anchor of American republicanism.” The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume II, “Speech at Peoria, Illinois” (October 16, 1854), p. 266.

“We think slavery a great moral wrong, and while we do not claim the right to touch it where it exists, we wish to treat it as a wrong in the territories, where our votes will reach it.” The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume IV, “Speech at New Haven, Connecticut” (March 6, 1860), p. 16.

“In 1841 you and I had together a tedious low-water trip, on a Steam Boat from Louisville to St. Louis. You may remember, as I well do, that from Louisville to the mouth of the Ohio there were, on board, ten or a dozen slaves, shackled together with irons. That sight was a continual torment to me; and I see something like it every time I touch the Ohio, or any other slave-border.” The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume II, “Letter to Joshua F. Speed” (August 24, 1855), p. 320.

“I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I can not remember when I did not so think, and feel.” The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume VII, “Letter to Albert G. Hodges” (April 4, 1864), p. 281.

“I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that “I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.” Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861.

“In the first place, I insist that our fathers did not make this nation half slave and half free, or part slave and part free. I insist that they found the institution of slavery existing here. They did not make it so, but they left it so because they knew of no way to get rid of it at that time.” The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume III, “Lincoln-Douglas Debate at Quincy” (October 13, 1858), p. 276.

“I think slavery is wrong, morally, and politically. I desire that it should be no further spread in these United States, and I should not object if it should gradually terminate in the whole Union.” The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume III, “Speech at Cincinnati, Ohio” (September 17, 1859), p. 440.

“In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free - honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just - a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless.” Lincoln’s Second Annual Message to Congress, December 1, 1862.

“I do not wish to be misunderstood upon this subject of slavery in this country. I suppose it may long exist, and perhaps the best way for it to come to an end peaceably is for it to exist for a length of time. But I say that the spread and strengthening and perpetuation of it is an entirely different proposition. There we should in every way resist it as a wrong, treating it as a wrong, with the fixed idea that it must and will come to an end.” The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume III, “Speech at Chicago, Illinois” (March 1, 1859), p. 370.

“Now, I confess myself as belonging to that class in the country who contemplate slavery as a moral, social and political evil, having due regard for its actual existence amongst us and the difficulties of getting rid of it in any satisfactory way, and to all the constitutional obligations which have been thrown about it; but, nevertheless, desire a policy that looks to the prevention of it as a wrong, and looks hopefully to the time when as a wrong it may come to an end.” The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume III, “Lincoln-Douglas Debate at Galesburg” (October 7, 1858), p. 226.

“I think that one of the causes of these repeated failures is that our best and greatest men have greatly underestimated the size of this question (slavery). They have constantly brought forward small cures for great sores-—plasters too small to cover the wound. That is one reason that all settlements have proved so temporary-—so evanescent.” The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume III, “Speech at Cincinnati, Ohio” (September 17, 1859), p. 15.

“Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it.” The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume III, “Letter To Henry L. Pierce and Others” (April 6, 1858), p. 376.

“You think slavery is right and ought to be extended; we think it is wrong and ought to be restricted. For this, neither has any just occasion to be angry with the other. “ The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume IV, “Letter to John A. Gilmer” (December 15, 1860), p. 152.

“You think slavery is right and ought to be extended; while we think it is wrong and ought to be restricted. That I suppose is the rub. It certainly is the only substantial difference between us.” The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume IV, “Letter to Alexander H. Stephens” (December 22, 1860), p. 160.

“I did say, at Chicago, in my speech there, that I do wish to see the spread of slavery arrested and to see it placed where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in course of ultimate extinction.” The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume II, “Speech at Springfield, Illinois” (July 17, 1858), p. 514.

“Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man’s nature - opposition to it, is his love of justice. These principles are an eternal antagonism; and when brought into collision so fiercely, as slavery extension brings them, shocks, and throes, and convulsions must ceaselessly follow.” The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume II, “Speech at Peoria, Illinois” (October 16, 1854), p. 271.

“As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy.” The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume II, (August 1, 1858?), p. 532.

“I have always hated slavery, I think as much as any abolitionist.” The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume II, “Speech at Chicago, Illinois” (July 10, 1858), p. 492.

“Do the people of the South really entertain fears that a Republican administration would, directly, or indirectly, interfere with their slaves, or with them, about their slaves? If they do, I wish to assure you, as once a friend, and still, I hope, not an enemy, that there is no cause for such fears.” The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume IV, “Letter to Alexander H. Stephens” (December 22, 1860), p. 160.

“I believe the declara[tion] that ‘all men are created equal’ is the great fundamental principle upon which our free institutions rest; that negro slavery is violative of that principle; but that, by our frame of government, that principle has not been made one of legal obligation; that by our frame of government, the States which have slavery are to retain it, or surrender it at their own pleasure; and that all others-—individuals, free-states and national government-—are constitutionally bound to leave them alone about it. I believe our government was thus framed because of the necessity springing from the actual presence of slavery, when it was framed. That such necessity does not exist in the teritories[sic], where slavery is not present.” The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume III, “Letter to James N. Brown” (October 18, 1858), p. 327.

“I hold it to be a paramount duty of us in the free states, due to the Union of the states, and perhaps to liberty itself (paradox though it may seem) to let the slavery of the other states alone; while, on the other hand, I hold it to be equally clear, that we should never knowingly lend ourselves directly or indirectly, to prevent that slavery from dying a natural death-—to find new places for it to live in, when it can no longer exist in the old.” The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume I, “Letter to Williamson Durley” (October 3, 1845), p. 348.

“So plain that no one, high or low, ever does mistake it, except in a plainly selfish way; for although volume upon volume is written to prove slavery a very good thing, we never hear of the man who wishes to take the good of it, by being a slave himself.” The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume II, “Fragment on Slavery” (April 1, 1854?), p. 222.

“This is a world of compensations; and he who would be no slave, must consent to have no slave.” The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume III, “Letter To Henry L. Pierce and Others” (April 6, 1859), p. 376.

“I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world.” The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume II, “Speech at Peoria, Illinois” (October 16, 1854), p. 255.

“If we cannot give freedom to every creature, let us do nothing that will impose slavery upon any other creature.” The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume II, “Speech at Chicago, Illinois” (July 10, 1858), p. 501.

“Free labor has the inspiration of hope; pure slavery has no hope.” The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume III, “Fragment on Free Labor” (September 17, 1859?), p. 462.

I repeat the declaration made a year ago, that ‘while I remain in my present position I shall not attempt to retract or modify the emancipation proclamation, nor shall I return to slavery any person who is free by the terms of that proclamation, or by any of the Acts of Congress.’ If the people should, by whatever mode or means, make it an Executive duty to re-enslave such persons, another, and not I, must be their instrument to perform it. Lincoln’s Fourth Annual Message to Congress, December 6, 1864.

“We were proclaiming ourselves political hypocrites before the world, by thus fostering Human Slavery and proclaiming ourselves, at the same time, the sole friends of Human Freedom.” The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume II, “Speech at Springfield, Illinois” (October 4, 1854), p. 242.

“Without slavery the rebellion could never have existed; without slavery it could not continue.” Lincoln’s Second Annual Message to Congress, December 1, 1862.

“I have always thought that all men should be free; but if any should be slaves it should be first those who desire it for themselves, and secondly those who desire it for others.” The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume VIII, “Speech to One Hundred Fortieth Indiana Regiment” (March 17, 1865), p. 361.

[x]

I am of the opinion that a Major General of the Union would be a man of high character and not given to lying. (Military men of this period valued honor. ) I am of the opinion that if that is what the man said he heard, then that is what he heard.

Now you can chose to believe one of two things. You can believe that Major General Butler was a liar, or you can believe that he heard Lincoln say what he claims; Sentiments Lincoln expressed for most of his adult life.

Joe, do you see how this -- uh, character -- operates? Butler wrote his book over twenty years after the war and published it almost 30 years after the war and one year before he died.

Butler is widely regarded as unreliable. In Butler's book, Lincoln is forever asking Butler what he should do with the freed slaves and Butler is forever telling Lincoln what to do. According to Ben, he was the one who first advised Lincoln to recruit African-American troops.

Butler also says Lincoln offered him the Vice Presidency through Simon Cameron. Butler has the kind of outsized ego one expects in third party presidential candidates (Greenback Party, 1884), and the unreliability one finds in politicians who frequently change their party and their views, moving from one side of the political spectrum to the other.

In Butler's account of his meeting with Lincoln, Butler has Lincoln lavishly praising him for his military career, which was lackluster, and his "friendship" for the black "race," and asking him about "sending all the blacks away."

The conversation has a funny, unlikely feeling that doesn't fade when Butler starts lecturing Lincoln about shipping off the US Colored Troops to build a canal through what's now Panama, something that was a major topic in the 1880s, but much less talked about earlier. It's all just too much to credit.

But for Diogenes, Butler is a "man of honor" so we have to believe what he says. Lincoln is the devil incarnate, so we have to believe the worst of him.

Diogenes stacks the deck. He forms his opinions in advance and the conclusions are already implied in his assumptions. If you don't start out with his assumptions you don't reach his conclusions. How much longer will we have to put up with his garbage?

[jeffersondem]

“Lincoln’s evolution as a politician and a man is one of the more amazing things about him.”

He had just started to turn his life around.

[x]

Statistics on the Civil War blockade say that about 1,500 Confederate blockade runners were captured or sunk -- would those not have mostly been Southern owned & operated?

Great question.

According to Wikipedia, some of the blockade runners belonged to the Confederate government, and were bought or taken or commissioned by the government, but most were in private hands.

The Charleston and Liverpool firm of Fraser, Trenholm & Co. was heavily involved in blockade running, and new firms like the Importing and Exporting Company of Georgia or the Charleston Importing and Exporting Company or the Crenshaw Company were created to run the blockade.

The Confederate Navy and the private firms commissioned ships to be built in England and Scotland during the war.

The example of Fraser, Trenholm & Co. may be worth considering. If a Southern firm got big enough, it might find itself becoming a New York or a British firm.

That seems to be what happened with Fraser, Trenholm (originally John Fraser & Co.), but I don't know if there were other examples.

Most of the companies I was able to find out about were only started after the war had already begun.

[jeffersondem]

DiogenesLamp - You have ran smack-dab into formidable eccentricities of opinion and emotion on this site.

There was this: "What I really meant to say about your post #395 was that it was a bunch of bullsh*t.”

And this: “It's your usual modus operandi: hit & run poster, put out lengthy bovine excrement full of nonsense, then run for the hills when answers are posted.”

And this: "Trying to debate you is a waste of time because you reply to fact with bullsh*t, and respond to logic with inane nonsense.”

And this: “And we are supposed to give a crap about your biased opinions on Lincoln and the rebellion?”

Unrelated to the scatological tautology, there was this recent best in class, if unfeasibly large, contribution to the debate:

“All of this lost cause nonsense, that sends jeffersonDavisauntieEm and his ilk snuffling their snouts through the mud, for their little nuggets of vengeance, stem from the words spoken by a lunatic actor/coward/murder (whose name I don't speak) who, like a guttersnipe, struck Lincoln down with a snowflake style shot in the back of his head with not a word spoken, till, supposedly when he broke his leg upon landing on the stage, decried (like a snowflake) “sic semper tyrannis”! Rue that day, America! That was the blow that forever condemned the South to living in a half realized vision of Honest Abe's Union. He never got to finish his work. The North was deeply upset about that and the South bore the brunt of the angst. Lost causers are forever condemned to wander in a never never land of what-ifs. Sic semper snowflakes. They know there is nothing they can do to uplift the role of the South in the recent unpleasantness, so they bleat the mantra of Northern Slavery and try to spin cotton into wool. They twist “sic semper tyrannis” into a States rights mantra. Ironically, the States in the Confederacy had no sovereignty. It was go slavery or go home. The South did indeed pose a threat to the Union, and the South did indeed invade the North. More than once. Lee took the Army of Northern Virginia into Pennsylvania in a vainglorious roundabout attempt to attack Washington, DC. Had he succeeded, France and England would have stepped in on the side of the South, and the United States of America would have been relegated to the ash bin of history. Instead, Lee f’d up and got his ass handed to him at Gettysburg. Deal with it. Lincoln could whup you hand to hand, he could whup you in court, he could whup you in an election and he could whup you in a Civil War. He could out wrastle, outsmart, out write, and generally best any Southerner who ever lived. He was the greatest American who ever lived.”

Fascinating but appalling.

[HandyDandy]

Your modus operandi is to scour posting histories of fellow posters and snuffle your snout through the detritus hoping to find your nuggets of fools gold. Does that make you feel like an ambulance chaser? Have you ever heard of A.J Webberman? He used to dig through Bob Dylan's garbage hoping to strike gold. You remind me of him. You've been missing a while. Is that where you've been? You and your ilk seem to feel that you uplift yourselves by trying to drag others down. That is failing. Miserably. You look cheap. You might have a place on Hillary Clinton's staff. Do you have anything positive to contribute to the thread? Besides reprints of my posts, that is? Surely you can do better than "He had just started to turn his life around". That is so original (despite lacking scatalogical tautology). Anyway, thanks for reprinting my rough draft. Any time you want to reprint any post of mine, so long as it remains on Freerepublic, is ok with my. Thanks for including and enshrining me.

[jeffersondem]

“Your modus operandi is to scour posting histories of fellow posters and snuffle your snout through the detritus hoping to find your nuggets of fools gold. Does that make you feel like an ambulance chaser? Have you ever heard of A.J Webberman? He used to dig through Bob Dylan's garbage hoping to strike gold. You remind me of him. You've been missing a while. Is that where you've been? You and your ilk seem to feel that you uplift yourselves by trying to drag others down. That is failing. Miserably. You look cheap. You might have a place on Hillary Clinton's staff. Do you have anything positive to contribute to the thread? Besides reprints of my posts, that is? Surely you can do better than “He had just started to turn his life around”. That is so original (despite lacking scatalogical tautology). Anyway, thanks for reprinting my rough draft. Any time you want to reprint any post of mine, so long as it remains on Freerepublic, is ok with my. Thanks for including and enshrining me.”

I remember when I had my first beer.

[HandyDandy]

Oh, and by the way, I found something of interest that you should know. Even though the 13th Ammendment went into law after the unfortunate Fords Theater incident, when the House passed it, Lincoln signed it (even though it wasn’t a legal requirement). He wanted his name on it.

[HandyDandy]

I remember when I had my first beer.

Was it a half filled can that you found on the side of the road?

[HandyDandy]

When you were digging around through old posts looking for dirt, did you happen to come across the one where I told you that you had lost credibility with me? You had falsely claimed that Jefferson’s colleagues had wrecked Jefferson’s long passage and shortened it, when in fact they had entirely stricken it. Well, you haven’t regained your credibility. Why don’t you go hit the showers now.

[HandyDandy]

Thank you very much for posting that. Abraham Lincoln hated slavery.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp quoting WarIsHellAintItYall: "Some few ships were bought by Southern investors.
Operating them at a profit was another issue.
Federal mail and cargo contracts enabled northern lines to operate until freight trade grew to support a packet arrangement.
After that began, independent owners were few and far between."

I didn't buy your ideas the first time you posted them, and still don't, because:

1. Overall, by 1860 no people in the world were better off than antebellum white Southerners.
   With exports valued at $ hundreds of millions per year and typical merchant ships costing $ hundreds of thousands, it seems unlikely that Southerners could not afford to pool their resources and build or purchase merchant ships, if they wanted to.

2. Statistics for Civil War blockade runners say about 3,000 total attempts (about two per day) of which 2,400 were successful (80%) and 600 ended in capture or sinking.
   However, we are also told the total number captured or sunk was 1,500 ships which must mean some 900 captured or sunk by Union navy, not on blockade runs, but rather in port or elsewhere.
   Such numbers imply there were thousands of Southern owned merchant ships in Confederate ports in 1860.
   Otherwise, where did they all come from?

3. Allegations that Federal mail subsidies kept Northern ships in business don't make sense when you consider only a handful of ships received such subsidies out of the thousands of total ships.

4. The packet arrangement described by DiogenesLamp and WarIsHellAintItYall seems OK for Virginia & South Carolina planters, but nearly 80% of cotton shipped from Gulf Coast ports, especially New Orleans and they used something else.

5. So the more likely scenario is that Southerners owned a fair share of shipping assets, from river boats to coastal packets to ocean freighters.
   However, most cotton planters certainly did not own their own ships and so naturally grumbled at the prices paid for transport.

Now let's say that you are a Southerner who has a river boat which picks up cotton for transport to ocean freighters and your customers complain to you about the high prices you charge, what do you say?
Naturally, you say, "it's not my fault, it's all those big city shippers that charge so much, and I have to make a little bit."

C'est la vie until it becomes C'est la guerre.
Thousands of Gulf Coast flat boats & steam boats deliver cotton to hundreds of ocean freighters in ports like New Orleans & Mobile:

[Alas Babylon!]

You forgot pesticides.

I’m from Alabama. You left out The Boll Weevil.

That just about killed cotton farming for dozens of years, until strong but effective pesticides were created.

You still can’t grow cotton here without treating it for boll weevils. Talk about invasive government, they even have armed ag agents and some in planes looking for non-registered plots.

[BroJoeK]

x: "The Confederate Navy and the private firms commissioned ships to be built in England and Scotland during the war."

A mere handful of custom built especially fast, and therefore expensive, blockade runners.
But blockade runner statistics suggest there were thousands of ships in Southern ports in 1861, and we have to suppose most or all owned by Southerners.
You would think any owned by Northerners would quickly depart the region.

Or, we could hypothesize those thousands of Confederate ships were not there in early 1861, that all Northern owned ships withdrew leaving Confederate ports without shipping, so Confederates themselves in just months built up the thousands of ships which were later captured or sunk by the Union blockade.

That even more suggests any pre-war shortage of Southern ship building was a matter of choice, not necessity, a choice quickly reversed when need arose.

Special built blockade runner, about 900 tons and one of only a few, CSS Vance:

CSS Vance was captured in September 1864 when high-quality anthracite coal was used by CSS Tallahassee, a commerce raider, leaving only lower grade bituminous coal for Vance:
CSS Tallahassee about 700 tons, a commerce raider:

Both of these ships were custom built in England and sold to the state of North Carolina.

[BroJoeK]

x: "Joe, do you see how this -- uh, character -- operates?
Butler wrote his book over twenty years after the war and published it almost 30 years after the war and one year before he died.
Butler is widely regarded as unreliable...."

Yes, and I think we can dispense with Butler's account as being irrelevant, considering that Congress with Lincoln's approval in July 1864 withdrew its authorization of $600,000 to pay for colonization of freedmen.
By that time Lincoln had spent only $38,000 of the $600,000 authorized and had clearly given up on the idea.

So whatever polite conversation Butler may, or may not, have had with Lincoln it certainly did not represent any change in official government policy or actions.

Again, the important point to remember about voluntary colonization is that it was indeed official US government policy from 1819 onward, but that it proved very expensive and prone to failures.
Lincoln tried it again in 1862 but again it failed and by 1864 both Lincoln and Congress gave up on it.

And now, for those devilishly little sneaky minds like, say, DiogenesLamp's, let me explain why Lincoln utterly gave up on the idea of colonizing freed African-Americans to Liberia or the Caribbean.
It's the same reason John Wilkes Boot murdered Lincoln!!

< sarcasm > That sneaky some-beach Lincoln figured out freed blacks in the USA would vote Republican, and instantly all thoughts of colonization vaporized from Lincoln's mind.
That dastard "Ape" Lincoln </sarcasm> wanted all blacks kept in this country so they would vote Republican.
Of course, Lincoln could never in his wildest imagination think freed African-Americans would eventually vote for the political party of the Slave Power, Democrats!

[BroJoeK]

jeffersondem: "Fascinating but appalling."

My feelings exactly toward most Lost Causer posts.

[Cvengr]

All governments through the world ended slavery in about a 60 year period of time, when it had been ongoing for several centuries, except for some Muslim groups where it is still practiced today.

The war wasn’t about slavery. It was about State’s rights and the War of Northern Aggression. The South ended slavery before the North. The South simply had more plantation and farming slaves than the North.

[BroJoeK]

Maybe this photo will work better:

CSS Tallahassee:

[BroJoeK]

Cvengr: "The war wasn’t about slavery.
It was about State’s rights and the War of Northern Aggression.
The South ended slavery before the North.
The South simply had more plantation and farming slaves than the North."

First: one key point to remember is that in early 1861 there was no war over secession, slavery, states' rights, tariffs, Confederacy or anything else.
For several months secession & Confederacy proceeded relatively peacefully.

War only began in April 1861 when after months of demanding Fort Sumter's surrender, Jefferson Davis ordered a military assault to force it.
So, did Davis order the assault because of slavery, or tariffs?
No, it was because Davis & other Confederates believed Union troops in Fort Sumter "assailed" their "integrity".
Those are Davis' words from his February 1861 inaugural, in which he promised to start war if that happened.

So Lincoln called up 75,000 troops, over slavery or tariff's or even states' rights?
No, to put down an obvious rebellion, insurrection, domestic violence, invasion and soon even treason, all as authorized in the US Constitution.

Slavery was not then the issue but soon became it when thousands of slaves began escaping to Union Army lines, and what were they going to do?
Well, turns out "contraband of war" was recognized in US law and slaves declared "contraband" could then be freed and hired to support the Union Army effort -- some even as soldiers.

Sure, pro-Confederate mantra is "War of Northern Aggression", but in early 1861 Confederates did all the aggressing, not just in the Deep South but also in Union states like Missouri, Maryland & western Virginia.
By war's end Confederates had military forces invade or operating in 14 of 30 remaining Union states & territories.
So it began & continued as a "War of Confederate Aggression".

Second: slavery ended as a lawful institution nationally on December 18, 1865 with ratification of the 13th amendment.
Before that each state had its own peculiar laws or emancipation enforced by Union Army.
To say, "the South ended slavery before the North" is cockamamie unless by "South" you mean Union enforced emancipation and by "North" you mean such slave-states as Delaware, which waited until the 13th amendment went into force.