Replies

Arkinsaw-

Your argument agaist those who claim slavery wasn't the cause of the war fly directly in the face of what Lincoln and the entire northern-controlled Congress SAID in 1861.

Lincoln' First Inaugural Speech, only DAYS befor war broke out:
"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."

Furthermore, he fully supported the Fugitive Slave Laws:
"No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall in consequence of any law or regulation therein be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due."

Most telling, Lincoln tells EXACTLY why there WILL be a war:
"The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the Government and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion, ..."

IN other words: Collect the tarriffs, there will be no war.

FURTHERMORE, the northern controlled Congress has JUST PASSED a Constitutional Amendment, constructed to get the Southern states back into Congress, that would prevent the federal government from EVER interferring with slavery:
On March 2, 1861, the U.S. Senate passed a proposed Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution (which passed the House of Representatives on February 28) that would have prohibited the federal government from ever interfering with slavery in the Southern states. (See U.S. House of Representatives, 106th Congress, 2nd Session, The Constitution of the United States of America: Unratified Amendments, Document No. 106-214, presented by Congressman Henry Hyde (Washington, D.C. U.S. Government Printing Office, January 31, 2000). The proposed amendment read as follows:

ARTICLE THIRTEEN
“No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State.”

Lincoln FULLY SUPPORTED this Amendment, and SAID SO in his First Inaugural speech!!! He said:
“I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution . . . has passed Congress, to the effect that the Federal Government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service. To avoid misconstruction of what I have said, I depart from my purpose, not to speak of particular amendments, so far as to say that, holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable.”

Now, it sure doesn't sound to me as if Lincoln was BROODING how to get rid of slavery!!!! In fact, as he CLEARLY wrote Horace Greely, maintaining the Union- even if it required the deaths of 620,000 Americans- was FAR more important than ANYTHING having to do with slavery!

Furthermore;
The reason for the war should be easy to determine. On July 22, 1861, the US Congress issued a "Joint Resolution on the War" that echoed Lincoln’s reasons for the invasion of the Southern states:
“Resolved: . . . That this war is not being prosecuted upon our part in any spirit of oppression, nor for any purpose of conquest or subjugation, nor purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established institutions of those states, but to defend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution and all laws made in pursuance thereof and to preserve the Union, with all the dignity, equality and rights of the several states unimpaired; and that as soon as these objects are accomplished the war ought
to cease.”

By "the established institutions of those states" the Congress was referring to slavery. As with Lincoln, destroying the secession movement took precedence over doing anything about slavery.

In other words, the US Congress UNANIMOUSLY said that the war had NOTHING to do with slavery.

Thanks for the post, amazingly enough I had never seen the text of that resolution previously. It is very interesting. I am in full agreement with you that the north's reasons for the conflict, at least at the start, were primarily for maintaining of the union.

I don't believe this is contrary to what I have said previously regarding the changes in motivations for each side fighting as the war progressed. In this instance the idea was to preserve the union, even without regard to slavery. Lincoln himself stated that he would preserve the union with slavery intact if that is what it took. There were, to my understanding, proposals to guarantee the protection of slavery as a potential compromise immediately before the war. Potential compromises that were basically rejected by the Southern states (which is an interesting event itself).

However, neither the joint resolution or Southern rejection of such compromises excludes the issue of slavery from playing its role in the crisis.

Opponents on the other side can just as easily whip out the secession documents of the Deep South states, or Alexander Stephens speech and say AHA! just as you have with the joint resolution.

None of these documents trumps the other, the joint resolution can't make the Deep South secession documents disappear and vice versa. Thats why we have to look at all of them in context and as a whole. Neither Stephen's speech, or Lincoln's words an AHA! moment make.

Northern partisans will trot out Stephens speech and completely ignore the facts that you have just presented. Of course, I have seen southern partisans just not respond to questioning from the other side about the Deep South's stated causes. It's been going on for years and thats why there is no resolution and its an endless conflict of judging the war by this or that, but not those together.

Now I have on many occasions explained my view of the context of Alexander Stephen's speech. But no northern partisan cares because it sounds like a Southern partisan just trying to whitewash it or bury it. Which is not the case.

The North and Lincoln, at the start of the war, wanted to make clear that they were not on an abolition crusade. The obvious reason for that is political to keep the South from totally discounting a return to the Union and end the war. An offer of sorts. But not a proof that slavery played no role in the conflict excecpt in the most technical and bureaucratic sense. No more than Stephen's Cornerstone Speech to a political audience "proves" that the war was all about slavery as the other side says constantly.

There were two different views of the nature of the union that were not compatible, a raw wound. The issue of slavery was the irritant that caused it to fester. Southerners are correct when they say that differing views of the nature of the union, cultural differences, demographics, and economic differences were key (the raw wound) while northerners are correct that the issue of slavery was key (the infection).

It did not HAVE to be slavery, it could have been other issues that rubbed the wound raw. But it wasn't. There is no way that I, even as a Southern partisan, can look at the long history of the issue prior to the war, and things like Kansas and John Brown's raid, and say that slavery played no role.

I don't know why we Southerners have come to the point where we feel that we must somehow prove that slavery did not play any role. It is not a necessary component of defending the Southern view.

It is also not an argument that the general public is ever going to buy because it divorces all of the slavery related historical facts prior to the war and leaves them adrift and unattached to the war. Something that their common sense, even with their limited knowledge, will just not bear. Nor will mine.

We both know that there was a fundamental divide in the way both sides viewed the nature of the union. Northerners claim that these views really did not exist except as a defense of slavery. However, those views of the nature of the union pre-existed the friction over slavery and have lived long after its death. Many here in these forums, who are not even Southern partisans, clearly believe in a more "Confederate" view of the modern union than they would care to admit.

I've studied on this quite a bit, with an open mind. Over the years I've had an increasingly steady view that Southerners were correct about the nature and structure of the union and the constitutional issues while the northern view is something of a construct for the purposes of justification.

At the same time, I've had an increasingly steady view that Northerners views on the role of slavery are, though not always perfectly stated, essentially correct with Southern views being essentially a construct, for the purposes of justification.

My views have alternately pissed off Northerners and fellow Southerners. But I can't really worry about that because I calls it like I sees it.