Posted on 08/25/2017 10:16:25 AM PDT by SurfConservative
There's an old saying that "he who distinguishes well teaches well." In other words, if one's going to talk about an important subject, one should be able to define his terms and tell the difference between two things that are not the same.
This wisdom, unfortunately, is rarely embraced by modern pundits arguing about the causes of the American Civil War. A typical example can be found in this article at the Huffington Post in which the author opines: "This discussion [over the causes of the war] has led some people to question if the Confederacy, and therefore the Civil War, was truly motivated by slavery."
Did you notice the huge logical mistake the author makes? It's right here: "...the Confederacy, and therefore the Civil War...."
The author acts as if the mere existence of the Confederacy inexorably caused the war that the North initiated in response to it. That is, the author merely assumes that if a state secedes from the United States, then war is an inevitable result. Moreover, she also wrongly assumes that the motivations behind secession were necessarily the same as the motivations behind the war.
But this does not follow logically at all. If California, for example, were to secede, is war therefore a certainty? Obviously not. The US government could elect to simply not invade California in response.
Moreover, were war to break out, the motivations behind a Californian secession are likely to be quite different from the motivations of the US government in launching a war. For the sake of argument, let's say the Californians secede because they couldn't stand the idea of being in the same country with a bunch of people they perceive to be intolerant rubes. But, what is a likely reason for the US to respond to secession with invasion? A US invasion of California is likely to be motivated by a desire to extract tax revenue from Californians, and to maintain control of military bases along the coast.
Where’s the “Oh Jeez, not this sh*t again” guy when you need him?
Those electoral college votes would be sorely missed by the Dims.
If the South fought for states rights then why did Southern politicians expand the size and scope of the federal government in the run up to 1860?
The Fugitive Slave Act attacked states rights by creating a branch of slave catchers who acted as quasi-secret police to hunt down escaped slaves in free states. Doesn’t seem like respecting the states rights of free states.
Three Southern ambassadors, including later president James Buchanan, got together in 1854 to draft the Ostend Manifesto, a plot in which the US would attempt to buy Cuba from Spain and, if rejected, would invade to add Cuba as a slave state.
Dred Scott was perhaps the first major case of judicial overreach. Roger Taney basically told Congress that they could no longer regulate the spread of slavery in the Western territories because slaves, as property of their owners, could not be restricted, for to do so would violate the Fourth Amendment. Dred Scott only legislated this in the territories, but it was very clear that the same could easily be applied to Free States.
The South didn’t care about states rights. The South was controlled by a semi-aristocratic clique of slaveholders who sought to oppress the Northern white working class. This is the lesson that is most applicable to today. Your average Union soldier who fought against slavery wasn’t necessarily fighting to free blacks, but he was fighting against the corrupt slaveholders. Every acre of land in the West given to a slaveholder was one less acre available to a free white man. Every job that was given to a slave was one less task for a working class man.
The pro slavery Democrats of the 1850s resemble the pro immigration Democrats AND Republicans of today. Cheap labor express is nothing new to American History. Just look at George Fitzhugh. Fitzhugh believed that slavery was the best way for socialism to succeed in the 1850s. He thought that blacks should do all the manual labor in the country while whites would be free to be intellectuals. Fitzhugh also supported the enslavement of poor whites on top of blacks and wrote a book, the Failure of Free Society, criticizing John Locke and Thomas Jefferson.
David Wilmot was one of the founders of the Republican Party and echoed the point about the white working class being negatively impacted by slavery.
Now, we shouldn’t be taking down Confederate statues and the average Southern soldier wasn’t fighting “to defend slavery” as their primary motivation, but to act like the Confederacy was somehow justified or morally superior to the Union is garbage.
It always comes down to money. It did then. It does now.
Also elaborating on the point he makes in the article that war wasn’t inevitable, he’s wrong.
The South had maintained a long practice of filibustering- sending militias into areas in Latin America that rampaged around. This is the reason why Lincoln said that he opposed extending the Missouri compromise line all the way to the Pacific. The slaveholders of the South would have just started doing informal military campaigns using these mercs to spread slavery all the way down to Tierra del Fuego.
Not only that, but the South would have definitely used these against the Union. A war would have been inevitable. There were pro slavery sentiments in Southern California both in the state itself and in the Confederacy. Border disputes would have been common and another Bleeding Kansas could quickly happen if Confederates swarmed an area or used a filibustering campaign. The Confederate Army also would have started pillaging islands in the Caribbean, which would’ve caught the attention of the British. Many Confederate intellectuals were also sympathetic to the idea of reopening the slave trade, which would have definitely kicked off a war.
I think your argument about “northern working class men” is pretty weak. But, I have never heard that angle, and it is food for thought. Thanks.
War is never inevitable. It requires a decision, and a military order. . . which do not have to be made or givien.
David Wilmot: “Wilmot was instrumental in establishing the Republican Party in Pennsylvania. His opposition to slavery did not include the evolving abolitionist position of immediately ending the institution in the entire country. His views on race were instead related to defense of white free labor and, by today’s standards, could be classified as racist.”
Lincoln actually makes it very clear in his debates with Stephen Douglas that he is not an abolitionist. He doesn’t target the actual moral issue of enslaving blacks, but instead attacks the political and economic clout that gets wielded by slaveholders. The whole point of the “House Divided” speech was not to predict the Civil War, but to point out that the Union would either exist as 100% slave states or 100% free states. It would exist as 100% slave states because Dred Scott would be extended to free states, preventing free states from banning slavery, or because the free states would fight off Southern tyranny.
You are one the first to make the same points I do...
Dred Scott with a activist Supreme Court decision
And the South was antistates rights in that they wanted the federal enforcing runaway slave laws free states
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Wilmot
(source on the quote about Wilmot)
http://susannalee.org/sources/files/original/0ed9b737cc1bb3c9f7987826e7285cc0.pdf
California has already seceded.
The concept of secession was first put forth in the Hartford Convention during the War of 1812 by the NE states that were being affected economically by the war. Actually this was treason but because the NE are hypocrites it is buried in the history books. The Federalist Papers explain that the committee on style made the inference that secession was not a possibility by the changing of the wording of “We the people of the United States” from “We the people of the States of.....” because of brevity. If states acceded then the opposite is true.
you correct war was inevitable after Dred Scott
if someone had won the presidency in 1860 that was going to enforce with Federal forces inside the free states then the free stated would have been in Rebellion
if the North and South head split peaceably you would have two countries vying for the same territory in the west and a continuation of the same forces of free states and slave states slaves escaping the North war between those two countries what is still been inevitable
the political Solution on slavery was the only option to keep the peace and many innthe South knew that was a dying institution also
slavery was ended many places all over the world peaceably
Dred Scott inflamed the situation polarizing the most extreme pro-slavery and anti-slavery forces on each side and basically froze the moderates in the middle that we’re trying to come up with a political solution ...
Dred Scott caused the War
“Your average Union soldier who fought against slavery wasn’t necessarily fighting to free blacks, but he was fighting against the corrupt slaveholders.”
They were mostly there because they had no choice. The draft and draft riots show this to be the case after the initial fervor.
The fugitive slave act merely codified what was already in the US constitution in such a way as to prevent the Northern states from ignoring it, as they were ignoring Article IV, Section 2 in the US constitution.
Dred Scott was perhaps the first major case of judicial overreach. Roger Taney basically told Congress that they could no longer regulate the spread of slavery in the Western territories because slaves, as property of their owners, could not be restricted, for to do so would violate the Fourth Amendment.
And as a matter of existing law for that time period, Judge Taney was correct in his decision. People don't like it, but that is what the law said at that time.
Dred Scott only legislated this in the territories, but it was very clear that the same could easily be applied to Free States.
And why would it not? Article IV Section 2 makes it impossible to deprive a slave from the "person to whom such labor is due." It specifically says states cannot pass any laws which infringe upon this relationship.
The South didn’t care about states rights.
You mean this presumably because the South didn't think states had the right to pass laws that would forbid slavery in those states? Well guess what? That is exactly what the US CONSTITUTION prohibited them from doing, so no, they didn't have that particular right.
If they didn't like that clause in the US Constitution, then they shouldn't have agreed to it.
The South was controlled by a semi-aristocratic clique of slaveholders who sought to oppress the Northern white working class.
And how, pray tell, were they to accomplish this nefarious goal?
Your average Union soldier who fought against slavery wasn’t necessarily fighting to free blacks, but he was fighting against the corrupt slaveholders.
He was fighting because the chain of command ordered him to fight, and not because he gave a sh*t about slavery or slaveholders. He didn't.
Every acre of land in the West given to a slaveholder was one less acre available to a free white man. Every job that was given to a slave was one less task for a working class man.
Now here we have a bit of truth creeping out from beneath your distortion. Yes, the reason most Northern Whites opposed slavery was because of the threat they saw to themselves in regards to their own labor and wages.
They saw Slaves as economic competition, and therefore a threat to their own livelihood. They actually hated blacks, and did not care that they were slaves. What they cared about was that these blacks might do a job for free that these Northern Whites needed to earn wages.
It was *NOT* an activist decision. It interpreted the law just as it existed and just as the Founders had written it. It would have been an activist decision if they had freed Scott.
And the South was antistates rights in that they wanted the federal enforcing runaway slave laws free states
This is also wrong. The South wanted the constitutional law enforced regarding fugitive slaves. This was a "right" that all states had given up when they ratified the US Constitution. It was therefore no longer a "state's rights" issue, because all states had signed away that particular right.
I think so, too.
I doubt that. The abolitionists were actually a small minority of the Northern population. Most of the North didn't care one way or the other. Federal Enforcement of the Constitution would have produced some outcry from those people who were that era's version of Liberal kooks, but the rest of the population wouldn't think much about it.
Dred Scott caused the War
Money caused the war. Money and the possibility that the South would become economic competition for established industries in the North.
Everyone should read this well written article.
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