Alabama Governor's Slavery Blunder

CBS News ^ | 4/5/05

[PeaRidge]

Yes, your original comment was certainly based on fact.

[billbears]

The Republican Party was founded as the antislavery party and as soon as Lincoln was elected

Tell yourself another one there....

understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution—which amendment, however, I have not seen—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.--Inaugural Address 1861

He even stated in his first address as President that he supported the original 13th Amendment, which had passed Congress. He was interested in one thing only from the South and one thing only. Abolition of slavery wasn't it.

[PeaRidge]

"No, you didn't need a war to end slavery,"


Dates and locations for elimination of slavery:


Argentina (1813)
Colombia (1814)
Chile (1823) Central America (1824)
Mexico (1829)
Bolivia (1831)
Ecuador (1851)
French and Danish colonies (1848)
Peru (1854) Uruguay (1842)
Venezuela (1854)
Dutch Colonies (1863)
Puerto Rico (1873)
Cuba (1886)
Brazil (1871-88)

United States (1866)
Union Deaths 334,580
Confederate Deaths 263,000
Missing Southern Civilians 50,000

All were peaceful except in the United States.

[Non-Sequitur]

The North didn't get all the cotton they needed, they bought all they could afford. At the time England/Europe were wealthier, and thus, could afford to give the south a better price for cotton.

I would be interested in learning your source for this since it flies in the face of economic theory. Agricultural items are priced at what the market will bear. It makes no sense at all for a southern cotton grower to sell his crop to a poor Northern manufacturer when he can command a better price from Europe. Likewise it makes no sense for the European importer to pay a higher price for cotton than the Northern manufacturer pays.

[Non-Sequitur]

Please point out one of those countries where slavery was ended voluntarily by the slave-owners themselves without government legislation.

[Non-Sequitur]

You ignore the fact that the south began their rebellion prior to Lincoln's inaugural address, so they had to be pretty pissed about something. And that something was the 1856 and 1860 Republican platforms with their steadfast opposition to the expansion of slavery.

[PeaRidge]

"but the southern slaveholding aristocracy wouldn't have it any other way."

Not true. For four months, the South had peace commissioners in Washington to arrange a peaceful relationship between the Confederacy and the Union. The clamor for war came from the Northern states.

3/22/1861 The economic editor of the New York Times said,
“At once shut down every Southern port, destroy its commerce, and bring utter ruin on the Confederate States.”

[PeaRidge]

"That's a little like saying that someone wasn't shot to death, they died from the loss of blood induced by an external wound, and pay no attention to the smoking gun lying on the floor. It's all sophistry."

Your assertion, but not fact.

From the center of secession, the governor of South Carolina in December 1860:

"For seventy-three years this State has been connected by a Federal compact with co-states under a bond of Union, for great national objects common to all. In recent years there has been a powerful party organized upon principles of ambition and fanaticism, whose undisguised purpose is to divest the Federal Government from external, and turn its power upon the internal interests and domestic institutions of these States.

"They have thus combined a party exclusively in the Northern States, whose avowed objects, not only endanger the peace, but the very existence of near one-half the States of this Confederacy. And in the recent election for President and Vice-President of these States, they have carried the election upon principles that make it no longer safe for us to rely upon the powers of the Federal Government or the guarantees of the Federal compact."

[PeaRidge]

"It may embarrass you now, but slavery mattered to the decision-makers in the Confederacy, and hundreds of thousands of Americans (including non-slaveholding southerners who fought to defend their homes) paid the ultimate price for their peculiar institution."

It may embarrass you now, but tariff revenue mattered to the decision-makers in the Union, and hundreds of thousands of Americans (including non-business owners who fought to defend the money interests) paid the ultimate price for their peculiar institution--the Morrill tariff.

[Ditto]

At the time England/Europe were wealthier, and thus, could afford to give the south a better price for cotton.

Please, think about this just a little. If England was offering a "higher price", why would the southern planters sell any to Northern mills? They would have sold it all to England, wouldn't they?

Cotton, then or now, is a pure commodity. It's price, just like the price of oil today, is a function of global supply and demand.

[PeaRidge]

That is not the point. You would have us believe that war is governmental intervention, by other means?

I think not.

[PeaRidge]

Southern cotton farmers had the option of selling their cotton to "factors", Northerners living in the South who would then ship overseas and sell themselves, or they could sell directly to Northern mills.

Cotton was a commodity, thus experiencing price changes. Sometimes the factors paid the highest; sometimes the mills paid the highest. If the mills needed cotton more, they would pay more. If British mills needed more, they paid more.

No mystery, just money.

[artifax]

"Why not let the South go in peace?" Lincoln replied: "I can't let them go. Who would pay for the government?"

[PeaRidge]

"On the contrary, Pea, it is you doing a song and dance, as a look at the OR would confirm."

"Anderson's correspondence with Washington all make it clear that he was short of food and supplies and in danger of being starved into submission."

Well, let's do look at the OR and see what it does confirm:


4/1/1861 On this date the following dispatch was sent:

FORT SUMTER, S. C., April 1, 1861.
Maj. ROBERT ANDERSON, First Artillery, Commanding:

MAJOR: In compliance with your request, I have the honor to submit the following list of provisions sold to Capt. J. G. Foster, Corps of Engineers, for the subsistence of the employees in his department at this post, and have expressed the quantities in numbers of rations, viz:

Five and one-half barrels of pork -- one thousand four hundred and sixty-seven rations.
Twenty barrels of flour -- three thousand four hundred and eighty-five rations.
One hundred and eighty pounds hard bread -- one hundred and eighty rations.
Two and one-half bushels of beans -- one thousand rations.
One hundred and seventy-four pounds coffee -- one thousand seven hundred and forty rations.
Seven hundred and seventy-four pounds sugar -- five thousand one hundred and sixty rations.

These provisions, which have necessarily been consumed by others, would have added to the time we have already been at this post subsistence for the following number of days, respectively:

Pork -- Sixteen and twenty-seven-ninetieths days.
Flour and hard bread -- Forty and sixty-five-ninetieths days.
Beans -- Eleven and one-ninth days.
Coffee -- Nineteen and one-third days.
Sugar -- Fifty-seven and one-third days.

Or, with what is now on hand, at least thirty-five days of comfortable subsistence for the command, including the laundresses, who were sent away about two months ago.

I have the honor to be, very respectfully,
NORMAN J. HALL,
Second Lieutenant, First Artillery, A. A. C. S.

So, as Lincoln was dropping hints to the media that the soldiers were starving, they were buying provisions in Charleston.

It would have continued that way had Lincoln not been preparing the Navy for the invasion.

[PeaRidge]

"The proposed amendment would have meant congress could not outlaw slavery where it already existed but Lincoln was crystal clear that he would oppose expansion of slavery to the territories."

A bit of sleight of hand in your wording. Here is the exact wording of the amendment that passed Congress, that President Buchanan signed (unnecessarily) and that Lincoln verbally endorsed:

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

This amends the Constitution to state directly and positively that slavery is legal everywhere. Any territory that would become a state is bound by the total Constitution, therefore this amendment also.

Unless you have a different copy of this amendment saying that it does not allow slavery to exist outside the South, I am afraid you are just simply wrong.

[Non-Sequitur]

So, as Lincoln was dropping hints to the media that the soldiers were starving, they were buying provisions in Charleston.

Jesus, Pea. Didn't you even bother to read it?

These provisions, which have necessarily been consumed by others, would have added to the time we have already been at this post subsistence for the following number of days, respectively:

The goods weren't there, Pea. They had been consumed by others. They didn't add to the garrison supplies, they would have added had they been available. They weren't bought on April 1st, that was the date of the report.

Or, with what is now on hand, at least thirty-five days of comfortable subsistence for the command, including the laundresses, who were sent away about two months ago.

So if those supplies had been available then it would have given the garrison 35 days subsistence. But since those supplies were not available then that meant the garrison was short of food. Probably out of bread, low on pork, and Anderson's warning that they would have to surrender in a matter of a week or two was accurate.

[Ditto]

Still does not change the basic misconception that Brownsfan has. When the factors (i.e. middle men or brokers) were offered a better price by British merchants, (actually, no one said "Ol' Chap, how about I give you more money"... they said "I want xx many bales this year." the price for American merchants went up as well. Similar for years when there were bumper crops --- the factors offered lower prices to the planters because supply was greater than demand at a higher price. The fact that there were middle men, as there always have been in any commodity market, makes no difference. There is a world price that does not discriminate based on ability to pay.

Ironically, when Jeff Davis made one of his many 'stupid' decision early in the war to stop exports of cotton thinking it would force the Brits to come to their aid, the British factors were already sitting on tons of cotton that they had overbought the previous year. (There are reasons the sun never set on the British Empire) The British mills kept humming, and the British factors made a windfall, and also began moving to Egyptian and Indian sources.

Meanwhile, there was more than enough cotton slipping through Davis' embargo to meet the demands of the Northern mills with some left over for export.

[Non-Sequitur]

That is not the point. You would have us believe that war is governmental intervention, by other means?

That is very much the point. Slavery was ended in the countries that you named only by government intervention and only over the strong objections of the slave owners themselves. Now if the south was outraged at the idea that the federal government might restrict the expansion of slavery, and if they were willing to enter into armed rebellion at what they perceived as the threat to their institution of slavery, then how long do you think it would take before they would be willing to pecefully sit back and have the federal government legislate their 'peculiar institution' away?

[Non-Sequitur]

For four months, the South had peace commissioners in Washington to arrange a peaceful relationship between the Confederacy and the Union.

More like a month and a half. The confederacy wasn't formed until February, and Davis didn't send the commissioners until almost the first of March. And then their instructions were to obtain recognition of the legitimacy of the Davis regime and confederate sovereignty. In other words present an ultimatum, recognition or nothing.

[Ditto]

No slight of hand. Read it again while I highlight to operative word.

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

Everyone understood that meant that the 15 existing slaves states would keep slavery for as long as they desired. But that was the status quo, and both Lincoln and the Secessionists clearly understood that (Lincoln even said so) since under existing law it would take a Constitutional amendment to outlaw slavery, and that amendment required 3/4 of the states to approve it, and with 15 rejecting it, such an amendment would never pass, even today when we have 50 states. It was no change from what existed. There was zero chance in 1860 of ending slavery against the wishes of the slave states. There would be zero chance of ending it even today, if 15 states opposed it!

But as I said, the operative word was "states". It was quite obvious that with the accendence of the "Free Soil" party, that the expansion of slavery was over. Congress would never again accept an application for statehood from a territory whose constitution did not expressly forbid slavery. (As they rejected the first application from West Virginia due to it's long phase-out period.)

Congress would assert it's constitutional authority to ban slavery in the territories just as the first congress had banned it in the Northwest territories in 1788-89. There would be no more "slave states" added to the flag, and Lincoln's pledge to contain slavery to where it existed would be fulfilled.

Ending expansion is what drove the Slave Power to rebellion. That was the dagger at their heart.