Posted on 07/25/2012 9:50:49 AM PDT by BO Stinkss
On this day in 1861, the U.S. Congress passes the Crittenden-Johnson Resolution, declaring that the war is being waged for the reunion of the states and not to interfere with the institutions of the South, namely slavery. The measure was important in keeping the pivotal states of Missouri, Kentucky, and Maryland in the Union.
This resolution is not to be confused with an earlier plan, the Crittenden Compromise, which proposed protecting slavery as an enticement to keep Southern states from seceding; the plan was defeated in Congress. Many Northerners initially supported a war to keep the Union together, but had no interest in advancing the cause of abolition. The Crittenden-Johnson Resolution was passed in 1861 to distinguish the issue of emancipation from the war's purpose.
The common denominator of the two plans was Senator John Crittenden from Kentucky. Crittenden carried the torch of compromise borne so ably by another Kentucky senator, Henry Clay, who brokered such important deals as the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and the Compromise of 1850 to keep the nation together. Clay died in 1852, but Crittenden carried on the spirit befitting the representative of a state deeply divided over the issue of slavery.
Although the Crittenden-Johnson Resolution was passed in Congress, it meant little when, just two weeks later, President Abraham Lincoln signed a confiscation act, allowing for the seizure of property—including slaves—from rebellious citizens. Still, for the first year and a half of the Civil War, reunification of the United States was the official goal of the North. It was not until Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of September 1862 that slavery became a goal.
(Excerpt) Read more at history.com ...
I think the opinion was very prevalent.
http://www.slavenorth.com/exclusion.htm
RICHARD B. LATNER Professor Ph.D., UW Madison, 1972
Richard B. Latner specializes in Jacksonian America; Sectionalism and Civil War; and Information Technology.
“(1) The aggressor in a conflict is the side that fires first.
The side that fired first was not the Union.”
No they just refused to leave your house when ordered and given ample time. I call that an act of aggression, particular when it is combined with the anti-southern Independence rhetoric of the north.
Only an insane man would stand by and do nothing.
“(2) It was clear from the very beginning that the Union’s chief motivation in responding to that Southern-initiated aggression was to preserve the Union.”
This fact I will not dispute, although I would remind you that by preserving they meant imposing upon people who no longer consented, thus suppressing their inalienable right of revolution. The exact same right by which the union was formed in the first place.
If the cost of preserving a tool is the destruction of that which it is for, then the tool has usurped the master. Such was the case with the Federal Government then as now.
“The Confederacy was fighting a war for the expansion of slave territory, the Union was fighting for the Union.”
Rather difficult to do without territory in which to expand into. Non-slave territory remained with the union.
Seriously wideawake you need to think about what you write before you write it. That statement is quite impossible to believe as it is contracted by the very Independence the South was fighting to preserve.
A.P. Hill had to deal with thousands of prisoners at Harpers Ferry and subsequently had a forced march from Harpers Ferry to Sharpsburg. One of my great-great grandfathers was a Sgt in the 49th Regiment Va Infantry in Jackson’s Corp at Sharpsburg.
A.P. Hill had to deal with thousands of prisoners at Harpers Ferry and subsequently had a forced march from Harpers Ferry to Sharpsburg. One of my great-great grandfathers was a Sgt in the 49th Regiment Va Infantry in Jackson’s Corp at Sharpsburg.
The southron slavrocracy most certainly sought to expand their holdings beyond their borders.
The Emancipation Proclamation only freed slaves in states that were in rebellion, and specifically also excluded New Orleans and few other parishs in Lousiana that were under Federal control. BTW, Delaware was another slave state that never joined the Confederacy.
Slavery was legal in Massachusetts until 1781, the first state to outlaw it. Most Northern states followed shortly thereafter.
The problem was, it was not the Confederacy's house.
their inalienable right of revolution. The exact same right by which the union was formed in the first place
The Union was not based on an "inalienable right to revolution." It was based on the right of representation, and the decision to take arms was based on the UK government's denial of that right.
The states that made up the Confederacy were - thanks to the Constitution - actually overrepresented in the nation's councils. They were not denied representation.
Rather difficult to do without territory in which to expand into.
Which was why two of the Confederacy's first projects were to invade the New Mexico territory and to interfere in the Oklahoma territory.
Non-slave territory remained with the union.
Not in the Confederacy's opinion.
Seriously wideawake you need to think about what you write before you write it.
Oh, I have.
That statement is quite impossible to believe as it is contracted by the very Independence the South was fighting to preserve.
It's very easy to believe when one acquaints oneself with the Confederacy's actual behavior instead of only listening to its rhetoric.
The hypocrisy of the Confederacy was evident from the very first.
“Confederates and confederate sympathizers agitated in every western state and territory in attempts to declare those localities in alliance to the rebel states.
The southron slavrocracy most certainly sought to expand their holdings beyond their borders.”
No doubt people who simpatico with the right of revolution which the confederacy in its irritating act exercised supported the confederacy everywhere they stood.
The Federal Government in numerous acts of repressive deviance suppressed them quite often. The Constitution under Lincoln was but a thing of paper. Indeed Lincoln even went so far as to proclaim that if his acts were unconditional he would be unable to carry them out.
So Lincoln & his men suppressed those advocating for our natural rights everywhere. The fact that they were less successful in the West is not surprising. The west at that time was still wild as it would be for many decades to come.
He argues that it was primarily a moral protest, but that many also had a racial motive.
I'm sure for many rank-and-filers that was the case - but for even more it was not, and for the leadership it was not at all.
The reason the North wanted to retain the Southern states in the Union was because immigration trends and settlement in the West was going to result in an overwhelming free soil country, and when that happened the abolitionists were going to roll over the slave holders. Pure and simple. This was also why the South wanted out of the Union.
I think the Civil War was a completely avoidable disaster. No one, Yankee or Rebel, foresaw the enormous cost of the War in blood and treasure. If the North had known before hand how bloody the War was to be, they never would have fought it. Obviously, if the South had known the outcome before hand, neither would they have instigated it.
My reading of history is that slavery in the South was moribund. No one really believed that it was morally justified, and it was only marginally economically advantageous. The result of the War was to poison race relations in this country and in the South for a hundred years. Had Southerners been allowed to dismantle slavery with their own institutions, as the North had, the treatment of the freed slaves would have been gentler (imho) and the transition to equality faster and less controversial.
They actually didn’t gain much traction for their insurrection at all. Most westerners wanted to keep the ugliness of the slavrocracy far far away from them.
On the contrary, it makes a great deal of sense.
Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to preserve the Union...not abolish slavery.
However, slavery was a significant issue between north and south since the Declaration of Independence. It, slavery, raised the anger level on both sides to a frenzied height.
This has been a classic disagreement between historians since the end of that war. That is, what caused the war in the first place?
Thanks for the post.
It certainly can’t be argued that the South went to war to free the slaves.
Damn Reb, did you ever regret the fact you weren’t born in the right century?
The war was unavoidable and the south was always going to lose.
Over 90% of the pig-iron, copper, coal, textiles, boots, shoes, hats, locomotives, etc produced in the United States were produced in the north.
The north had a dense network of railroads and canals.
The south by comparison was backward and underdeveloped.
An agricultural economy with no chance in a modern industrial war.
By choice, not by circumstance. An important distinction.
The history of the civil war has been distorted and simplified to push the idea that it was all about slavery, and that the motivation of the northern states and the federal government was a noble concern for the well being of the blacks.
The notion that northern citizens were solely driven by charity and a desire to free blacks while the south was driven by greed and malice toward blacks is a gross simplification of the true forces in play at the time.
Very few people today understand that Lincoln’s Emacipation Proclamation applying to slaves in the southern states was not primarily motivated by a charitable desire on the part of the federal government to end all slavery.
(ie: it did not end slavery in the “border states” that had not taken sides in the war)
It was a political decision to create havoc in the southern states and to damage the ability of the Confederacy to wage war against the north. In the time leading up to the decision to announce the emancipation the northern army was getting its butt kicked by the south.
The hope was that announcement of emancipation would lead to large scale insurrection on the part of the remaining slaves in the southern states, crippling the south and help turn the tide of the war in favor of the north.
The reality is, that at the time, blacks were treated as bad, or worse, in the northern states. Yes, they were “free” in the northern states - free to starve, to work for slave wages (literally) and free to be abused without repercussion.
In the NY City draft riots of 1863 it is estimated that at least 100 blacks were beaten to death, burned to death, hung to death from lamp posts. There was great resentment in the north that sons, husbands and lovers were being killed by the thousands to free blacks in southern states. I was made worse as whites were drafted to fight in the south and their jobs were filled with blacks who were not included in the draft. It all came to a head in the draft riots.
IMHO -If Lincoln was anywhere near as great as he is portrayed in the history books, he would have been able to negotiate a reasonable accomodation to end the war and prevented the brutal slaughter of more than 600,000 Americans.
In the event, the War happened, so by that standard, it was unavoidable.
There was plenty of open and vocal abolitionist sentiment in the South prior to the War. Once the War began, they shut up.
I agree that it would have been far better had we been able to find a non-violent alternate solution. You will recall however that South Carolina started the Carnival Ride From Hell before Lincoln took office. He did try several efforts to placate the south, but they weren't having any part of it. His hand was forced.
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