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Was the Civil War Actually About Slavery?
Salon.com ^ | 8/29/12 | James Oakes

Posted on 08/30/2012 2:40:56 PM PDT by PeaRidge

On 6 November 1860, the six-year-old Republican Party elected its first president. During the tense crisis months that followed – the “secession winter” of 1860–61 – practically all observers believed that Lincoln and the Republicans would begin attacking slavery as soon as they took power.

Democrats in the North blamed the Republican Party for the entire sectional crisis. They accused Republicans of plotting to circumvent the Constitutional prohibition against direct federal attacks on slavery. Republicans would instead allegedly try to squeeze slavery to death indirectly, by abolishing it in the territories and in Washington DC, suppressing it in the high seas, and refusing federal enforcement of the Slave Laws. The first to succumb to the Republican program of “ultimate extinction,” Democrats charged, would be the border states where slavery was most vulnerable. For Northern Democrats, this is what caused the crisis; the Republicans were to blame for trying to get around the Constitution.

Southern secessionists said almost exactly the same thing. The Republicans supposedly intended to bypass the Constitution’s protections for slavery by surrounding the South with free states, free territories, and free waters. What Republicans called a “cordon of freedom,” secessionists denounced as an inflammatory circle of fire.

Continued...............


TOPICS: Heated Discussion
KEYWORDS: americancivilwar; civilwar; confiscation; demokkkrats; dixie; fff; inthesouthfirst; lincoln; mediawingofthednc; partisanmediashills; slavery; thenthenorth; warbetweenthestates; yesofcourseitwas
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To: manc
Lincoln didn't vote for those laws. In 1848 he was a Congressman in Washington. In 1853 he was a private citizen.

The 1848 "law" was the new state constitution. "Support" for the constitution didn't necessarily imply support for all it's provisions, but so far, we've only got your word that he did supported either the 1848 constitution or the 1853 law..

I guess the idea behind all this stuff is that Lincoln isn't what his admirers make him out to be. But neither were the 19th century Southerners that neo-confederates idolize. They were all creatures or their own era, none of whom would measure up to 21st century standards.

For all that, Lincoln was "better" by current standards on racial issues than at least 90% of his countrymen.

161 posted on 08/31/2012 2:44:31 PM PDT by x
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To: x

your last line,

it doesn’t make it right with hsi racist attitudes, contrast to say Brown.


162 posted on 08/31/2012 2:54:21 PM PDT by manc (Marriage =1 man + 1 woman,when they say marriage equality then they should support polygamy)
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To: BroJoeK

Thanks for that reply but I was hoping an answer to the questions.

just asked,\\

do you think that it;s right to fight people and kill them in order to force them to live with you?

Also I take it seeing as you did not answer is that you support America fighting for independance but do you not support the south having their independance and instead you would fight to force them to live with you?


163 posted on 08/31/2012 2:57:15 PM PDT by manc (Marriage =1 man + 1 woman,when they say marriage equality then they should support polygamy)
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Something that isn’t mentioned a lot is the difference in the utterances and writings at the time of the war and in the era prior to the war from region to region.

As one living in Platte County, MO, born in Jackson County Mo, growing up in Johnson County, Kansas, schooling in Lawrence, with ancestors in Osawatomie and Fulton, Kansas, I was reared in the lore of the Border War.

David Atchison was the former Senator in Clay and Platte County that prompted the Kansas-Nebraska Act as a means to introduce slavery into Kansas. In his speaches and writings, in his associates utterances and actions, everything was “about” slavery. The efforts to get a slave-holder constitution in Kansas to expand slave holding state balances of power was in every day’s newspaper in the late 1850s.

The abolitionists, the slave holder rights, the issues with settlers from New England, the border jumpers going to vote from Missouri — it was a real era of warfare.

To suggest that this prequel to the Civil War, one of the circumstances that prompted succession, was about anything other that slavery and the balance of power to preserve it is only done with a refusal to read the primary sources.

The prison collapse, the raid in Osceola, and the burned out district south of Kansas City are all issues to be raised on the Confederate behalf, but Tarrifs and other issues were not discussed at the time to any extent in all the anger.


164 posted on 08/31/2012 3:13:50 PM PDT by KC Burke (Plain Conservative opinions and common sense correction for thirteen years.)
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To: manc

I don’t recall a beckett08 but I do recall several times when you’ve been humiliated...or embarrassed yourself. Some things never change.


165 posted on 08/31/2012 5:30:57 PM PDT by rockrr (Everything is different now...)
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To: rockrr

no course you do not remember ARF, the last time you jumped in trying to be a big shot you ended up looking like a fool over Beckett08

Yea you certainly like to jump in with two feet, oh and in case you were not around then she was banned and I was right, she was a troll.


166 posted on 08/31/2012 5:39:13 PM PDT by manc (Marriage =1 man + 1 woman,when they say marriage equality then they should support polygamy)
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To: A Strict Constructionist
The same with Brown v Board of Education. Integrate and watch the North remain segregated

But they didn't. While Topeka had integrated even before the court decision was handed down, at least one of the Southern counties involved in the decision disbanded their public school system rather than integrate. And yet another opportunity to grab the moral high ground was lost.

167 posted on 08/31/2012 5:39:24 PM PDT by Delhi Rebels (There was a row in Silver Street - the regiments was out.)
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To: manc

You’ll have to refresh my memory noob. Who is the becket person and why should I GAD? The only one I do remember as being a consistent troll on these threads is you.


168 posted on 08/31/2012 5:46:20 PM PDT by rockrr (Everything is different now...)
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To: rockrr

newb, seriously ARF GAD?

You dont; remember , course not LOL

Funny how you looked like a prize plum for defending her and actually you defended a ANSWER anti war occupy protest troll.

But then again you always troll for my me or others who do not agree with you, .


169 posted on 08/31/2012 6:04:45 PM PDT by manc (Marriage =1 man + 1 woman,when they say marriage equality then they should support polygamy)
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To: BroJoeK
That is a flight of fantasy so opposite of historical reality, it suggests there is nothing serious going on between your ears, JRF.

I wonder if you're gonna get the "new guy" speech for saying that (lol).

170 posted on 09/01/2012 5:23:22 AM PDT by mac_truck ( Aide toi et dieu t aidera)
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To: BroJoeK

Check it out. One of the short list of websites I try to visit every day.

http://drboli.wordpress.com/


171 posted on 09/01/2012 6:28:25 AM PDT by Eric Pode of Croydon
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To: manc

I think the North should have let the South go, but if the slaves had rebelled the North should have aided their rebellion.


172 posted on 09/01/2012 6:35:41 AM PDT by Eric Pode of Croydon
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To: manc
manc: "do you think that it;s right to fight people and kill them in order to force them to live with you?"

Again, you ask the wrong question -- a question which is irrelevant to actual history of the Civil War era.

The first real question is: should contracts be enforced?
And one relevant analogy would be:

So what do you do?
In this analogy, the Confederacy first announced it would not pay off its loan (secession) then went to the bank fully armed and robbed it at gun point (Fort Sumter).
It then declared war on the bank and raised an army to kill bank employees.

Now the real questions are: first, should your contract be enforced, and further, what should be your punishments for unlawful behavior?
So all your propaganda-talk about "fighting and killing people" to "force them to live with you" is a nonsensical distraction.

In summary, the real question is: what is the proper treatment of criminals?
I think President Lincoln responded appropriately to their behavior.

173 posted on 09/01/2012 7:58:44 AM PDT by BroJoeK (a little historical perspective....)
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To: BroJoeK

all I want to know is what you think,forget about this war right now or any other war I’m ASKING YOU all it would take is a yes or no.

Do you think it is right to force people to live with you and have to kill some of them to force them?

Did you support the American independance from Britain and do you not support the south having her independance?


174 posted on 09/01/2012 9:26:51 AM PDT by manc (Marriage =1 man + 1 woman,when they say marriage equality then they should support polygamy)
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To: Eric Pode of Croydon

agree with that, fighting and killing people in order to make them live with you is just wrong.

Russian saw break aways and I bet most on here woudl have agreed that they break away from Russia
Most would agree breaking away from Britain was right.

But then why woudl those people oppose the south have that same right.

If the north east today wanted to break away I’d be all for it , they want to leave and have a liberal utopia then , please go ahead, I’d lose no sleep over it at all.


175 posted on 09/01/2012 10:04:23 AM PDT by manc (Marriage =1 man + 1 woman,when they say marriage equality then they should support polygamy)
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To: manc
it doesn’t make it right with hsi racist attitudes, contrast to say Brown.

I guess not. But if you're ahead of the curve, that is something. Also, nobody in elective politics with a chance of winning is going to be as absolutist or as committed as a fanatic operating outside and against the system.

176 posted on 09/01/2012 12:47:16 PM PDT by x
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To: x

understand your point you made but I do slightly disagree with it and it;s no point saying why as we would just go back and forth.


177 posted on 09/01/2012 12:53:49 PM PDT by manc (Marriage =1 man + 1 woman,when they say marriage equality then they should support polygamy)
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To: PeaRidge

Lee was just an average General
No Slavery No War
Should have invaded Canada and taken that out.
Mexico too, put them good Reb soldiers to work doin something useful
Should have sent them back to their homeland and families in Africa

jus sayin


178 posted on 09/01/2012 1:02:41 PM PDT by TomasUSMC ( FIGHT LIKE WW2, FINISH LIKE WW2. FIGHT LIKE NAM, FINISH LIKE NAM)
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To: driftless2

“Grant”
Yes, he did say that. But in his Civil War memoirs, (which I’ve read) he also said the southern cause was for one of the worst (evils) ever i.e. slavery.

yes, Of course he did. That would be the right thing to say....later..


179 posted on 09/01/2012 3:06:05 PM PDT by triSranch ( Home of J.C. Calhoun and the Birthplace and Deathbed of the Confederacy)
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To: x

Neither of those quotes is legitimate.
You can have your own opinions, no matter how crazy, but you don’t get to make up your own facts.

Glad you straightened me out on this, now I can sleep much better at night.


180 posted on 09/01/2012 3:11:21 PM PDT by triSranch ( Home of J.C. Calhoun and the Birthplace and Deathbed of the Confederacy)
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