Posted on 03/08/2007 9:07:26 AM PST by lunarbicep
Perhaps. But in order for it to work the Southern slaveowners would have to want to sell. I'm not aware of any interest at the time in the South for ending slavery, either through compensated or uncompensated means.
Why was the South so anxious to precipitate a war against the North? Because they knew that every day, in every day, the economic case for slavery was getting weaker and weaker.
Slavery was set to die out in the early 1800s except for the invention of the cotton gin. No question that slavery would have continued until around 1875-1885, but the economics were doomed, and the slaveowners would be glad to sell their slaves at that point.
It is a factually correct statement. For Lincoln to take matters into his own hands would have meant he was undercutting the sitting presidents power to deal with the situation.
The confederates were quite inconsistent in this matter. The 1861 Greeneville Convention of loyal East Tennessee citizens wished to secede from the state and remain in the Union. But the selfless confederate defenders of southern rights and home rule quickly termed them down. The rebs were not motivated by noble concepts of liberty, but merely interested in increasing political power in the service of the institution of slavery. Thus the persistent devotion to what Lincoln well termed the "magical omnipotence of 'State rights'". For if there was something magical about absolute sovereignty at the state level, state government power could be increased absolutely while at the same time denying any individual or local sovereignty.
Not only was this the foundation of the rebellion, but later this doctrine also buttressed the oppressive Jim Crow era social regulation by southern government.
"You appear to be accurately describing the Reconstruction Period of American history 1866-1873."
Sounds like it to me as well. Red Badger has a valid arguement but racial tensions to this day stem mostly from the Civil War and reconstruction, not slavery, IMO. If the industrial revoloution had killed slavery, and it probably would have, the KKK would have never existed and blacks would be more integrated in society than they are now. A lot of the punishment dished out to the south during the harsh reconstruction was taken out on blacks.
It's easy to claim that no looking back over 140 year and with nothing but your own opinion to base your claim on. But I'm not aware of a single quote from a single Southern leader of the time that indicates they believed slavery had such a short time to run.
It is my greatest regret that the leading figures of the time, from Lincoln to Jefferson Davis, did not have the wisdom to understand that slavery was bound to wither on the vine.
The North was only anti-slavery after they realized that they were unable to make any money from instituting slavery in the industrialized states. Lord knows, they tried.
Not like this, it wasn't:
Article 1: In all the territory of the United States now held, or hereafter acquired, situate north of 36 degrees 30 minutes, slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, is prohibited while such territory shall remain under territorial government. In all the territory south of said line of latitude, slavery of the African race is hereby recognized as existing, and shall not be interfered with by Congress, but shall be protected as property by all the departments of the territorial government during its continuance. And when any territory, north or south of said line, within such boundaries as Congress may prescribe, shall contain the population requisite for a member of Congress according to the then Federal ratio of representationof the people of the United States, it shall, if its form of government be republican, be admitted into the Union, on an equal footing with the original States, with or without slavery, as the constitution of such new State may provide.
Article 2: Congress shall have no power to abolish slavery in places under its exclusive jurisdiction, and situate within the limits of States that permit the holding of slaves.
Article 3: Congress shall have no power to abolish slavery within the District of Columbia, so long as it exists in the adjoining States of Virginia and Maryland, or either, nor without the consent of the inhabitants, nor without just compensation first made to such owners of slaves as do not consent to such abolishment. Nor shall Congress at any time prohibit officers of the Federal Government, or members of Congress, whose duties require them to be in said District, from bringing with them their slaves, and holding them as such during the time their duties may require them to remain there, and afterwards taking them from the District.
Article 4: Congress shall have no power to prohibit or hinder the transportation of slaves from one State to another, or to a Territory, in which slaves are by law permitted to be held, whether that transportation be by land, navigable river, or by the sea.
Article 5: That in addition to the provisions of the third paragraph of the second section of the fourth article of the Constitution of the United States, Congress shall have power to provide by law, and it shall be its duty so to provide, that the United States shall pay to the owner who shall apply for it, the full value of his fugitive slave in all cases where the marshall or other officer whose duty it was to arrest said fugitive was prevented from so doing by violence or intimidation, or when, after arrest, said fugitive was rescued by force, and the owner thereby prevented and obstructed in the pursuit of his remedy for the recovery of his fugitive slave under the said clause of the Constitution and the laws made in pursuance thereof. And in all such cases, when the United States shall pay for such fugitive, they shall have the right, in their own name, to sue the county in which said violence, intimidation, or rescue was committed, and to recover from it, with interest and damages, the amount paid by them for said fugitive slave. And the said county, after it has paid said amount to the United States, may, for its indemnity, sue and recover from the wrong-doers or rescuers by whom the owner was prevented from the recovery of his fugitive slave, in like manner as the owner himslef might have sued and recovered.
Article 6: No future amendment of the Constitution shall affect the five preceding articles; nor the third paragraph of the second section of the first article of the Constitution; nor the third paragraph of the second section of the fourth article of said Constitution; and no amendment will be made to the Constitution which shall authorize or give to Congress any power to abolish or interfere with slavery in any of the States by whose laws it is, or may be, allowed or permitted.
The Crittenden Compromise would have limited that to a smaller area of the country. And it would have achieved those limits properly - by Constitutional Amendment.
No, it wouldn't. The way things were swinging electorally, it is doubtful there would ever have been another "slave territory" in the wake of the Free Soil movement. It would have made it manditory that any territory south of 36 degrees 30 minutes allow slavery, regardless of what laws Congress wrote. The Crittenden amendments would have made this condition of slavery permanent and irreversable. That means areas in the West, where the population despised slavery would have had it thrust upon them until they could get enough population for statehood. That would have brought on the same pro-slave carpetbagging that caused the Bloody Kansas conflicts.
That also means, assuming that upon Statehood it rejected slavery, it would have been immutably legal in Hawaii until 1959, Oklahoma until 1907 and in Arizona and New Mexico until 1912. It means that Article V of the Constitution was no longer capable of affecting certain Amendments.
The Crittenden Compromise was just another kicking the can down the road, which, just as the Missouri Compromise before it, would have just made things worse. The Civil War was inevitable as long as the "House was divided against itself". How much worse might it have been, if it had occurred in 1875, with transcontinental communication and transportation? With repeating arms commonplace? With masses of immigrants swelling the numbers?
Would you rather have a nuclear World War III now? Or kick the can down the road another 40 years, when a lot of the problems may be resolved?
Crittenden, God Bless him , wanted to "kick the can down the road", and save 600,000 lives.
On the contrary, Lincoln's goal in limiting slavery to where it currently existed was to have it wither on the vine. Davis' goal in heading the Southern rebellion was to prevent that from happening. Both knew what they were doing.
The North was only anti-slavery after they realized that they were unable to make any money from instituting slavery in the industrialized states. Lord knows, they tried.
How so?
Slavery was legal in all of the Northern states and colonies prior to 1800. They voluntarilly abolished slavery on a state by state basis, WITHOUT ANY WARS.
Because none of those states chose to rebel and start a war in order to protect the institution of slavery. Unlike the Southern states.
The bad treatment of the freed slaves started long before the reconstruction got "harsh". Under Democrat Johnson's presidential reconstruction, the south had a chance to have things their own way but through their policy of the black codes, the confederates again proved themselves unworthy of self-government. Therefore the "harsh" congressional reconstruction policies then followed to prevent open season on the freed slaves.
And what was the truly harsh treatment that was dished out to the South? I wouldn't describe the prospect of a drone class having to actually do their own work as being harsh treatment. Or maybe it was the fact that wholesale abuse of black people was restrained was consdered harsh by many southerners. If I had been in charge back then the treatment would have been a lot more harsh that it actually was
Impossible to prove, even with the benefit of 140 years of hindsight which Crittenden lacked. I contend there would have been more deaths, a wider theatre of conflict, and possible foreign entanglements and other revolutions sparked. However, we do know the crafters of the 1820 Missouri Compromise kicked it down the road and got the 600,000 dead.
"And what was the truly harsh treatment that was dished out to the South?"
Either you are being obtuse or you are a complete idiot. I have no intention of giving you the history lesson you should have gotten in school.
Congratulations to that important ruling. Thank God that the Supreme Court got this one right.
Lincoln offered that proposal many times. The Slave Power was not impressed.
The Missouri Compromise was invalidated by the Dred Scott Decision. Blame that on the Supreme Court, not the great statesmen of the 1820s.
The Statesmen of the 1860s were midgets by comparison, including the beloved Lincoln.
He ended slavery , sure, but at what cost. And it would have disappeared regardless, as it had in all of the other countries.
Brazil was the last country with slavery in 1888. WITHOUT A WAR.
Thank you Mr. Lincoln!
The South would not accept a buy out of slaves in 1860.
But they would by 1880, when they would be losing their ass financially as industrialization continued at a blistering pace.
Slavery was legal in all of the Northern states and colonies prior to 1800. They voluntarilly abolished slavery on a state by state basis, WITHOUT ANY WARS.
'Because none of those states chose to rebel and start a war in order to protect the institution of slavery. Unlike the Southern states."
Slavery in Massachusetts or New York would make as much sense as trying to grow coffee or cotton in those states. There was no money in it. Thus there was little opposition to abolishing slavery.
Slavery would have been popular in the South as long as you could make big money that way. But industrialization and the mechanization of the South would have destroyed slavery voluntarilly, just as it did in the New England states.
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