Posted on 01/18/2013 5:53:09 PM PST by Para-Ord.45
This Humean notion of Americanism that acknowledges the right of a self-governing people to secede is framed in the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration is primarily a document justifying secession, but it has been thoroughly corrupted by Lincoln’s reading of it and the ritualistic repetition and expansion of that reading. The Lincoln tradition reads the Declaration as affirming a metaphysical doctrine of individual rights (all men are created equal) and takes this to be the fundamental symbol of the American regime, trumping all other symbols, including the symbol of moral excellence internal to those inherited moral communities protected by the reserved powers of the states under the Tenth Amendment. Indeed, this tradition holds that the Declaration of Independence is superior to the Constitution itself, for being mere positive law, the Constitution can always be trumped by the “higher” metaphysical law of equality.
The Constitution of the United States was founded as a federative compact between the states, marking out the authority of a central government, having enumerated powers delegated to it by sovereign states which reserved for themselves the vast domain of unenumerated powers. By an act of philosophical alchemy, the Lincoln tradition has transmuted this essentially federative document into a consolidated nationalist regime...
Lincoln’s vision of a consolidated nationalism in pursuit of an antinomic doctrine of equality had its roots in the French Revolution, which sought to unify the decentralized traditional order of France into a consolidated nationalism in pursuit of the rights of man. But Lincoln’s vision was also forward looking. By the 1830s, the forces of nationalism and industrialism were sweeping Europe, and had begun to have an impact on an industrial North all too eager to compete on the world stage with the empires of Europe. For this project, centralization and consolidation were necessary. Lincoln’s vision of consolidating the states into a nationalist regime was of a piece with that of Garibaldi in Italy, Bismarck in Germany, Lenin in Russia, and the general consolidating, industrializing, and imperializing forces on the move in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
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Care to provide evidence that southern states were debating abolition during the 1850s? Most of them passed laws prohibiting even the mailing or possession of abolition literature.
Not chronologically correct.
The Morrill tariff passed the Senate on February 20, by a vote of 25 to 14. It was finally approved on March 2.
This was well after seven southern states, with 14 senators, had seceded and formed their new government on February 8.
I assume you are capable of doing the math that shows why the tariff passed in 1861 when it had failed in 1860?
By the 1850s the North had majority.
The Tariff act wa in it`s infancy well back in 1859.
Were the nullifications all about anti-slavery laws ?
The point is that the Deep South did not secede because the Morrill Tariff passed, the tariff passed because those states seceded.
Confusing cause and effect and all that.
Thirty years before. And it was defeated. After that even mere discussion of abolition was suppressed.
Technology, moral suasion, policy would have eventually killed it off.
You mean the mechanical cotton picker which didn't become common until the 1940s. Eighty years after secession!
“Nice” people would’ve eventually given it up, then it would’ve become illegal and the rest would be a local police action.
There were enough "nice" people in the CSA who supported slavery to guarantee its survival for generations to come. A Confederate victory would have set back the pace of emancipation for decades.
Say you're right, though. Say that there was a move to "abolish slavery" to win over the goodwill of England and France. Something very similar to slavery would have been put in its place. As in fact happened.
My point, though, is that a fair-minded, well-informed person looking at the situation in 1860 would not have assumed that slavery was dying out on its own. It had become more and more profitable in the 1850s.
Support for slavery in the cotton states had become more enthusiastic and monolithic among the educated classes. Given their own country they would have taken steps to spread their beliefs to shore up their institutions.
And even if, as happened as a result of Britain's turning to other sources for cotton, prices eventually fell as they did in the 1870s, this wasn't something people could forsee in 1860s. Simply letting pro-slavery forces have their own way was no recipe for emancipation. Saying we care nothing for freedom would have been a major setback to the progress of emancipation.
You forgot the key difference between the confed constitution and the US Constitution: the confeds immortalized in perpetuity the institution of slavery.
They had the votes regardless of secession and the Southern States congealed around Nullification based on Tariff laws being passes, not anti-slavery laws which did not exist.
*passed
You so conveniently forget that slavery was legal under the Constitution and some of the Founders were slave-owners.
I believe Thomas Jefferson was a prominent one,yet we quote Jefferson's views on many other points of freedom.The ownership of arms comes to mind.(Which I would be surprised if Jefferson promoted amongst his slaves!)
NOT saying slavery ever was a good thing but it was a part of early America.
The Southerners feared,and I believe rightly, that they were going to be deprived of their legal property without compensation.And they were.
Far better and cheaper it would have been had the abolitionists passed a law declaring the end of slavery in the United States with the provision that slave owners would receive fair compensation.I think the Southerners fought as much against the arrogance of the bog city self-righteous New Englanders as anything. And just who built most of the ships anyway.
The issue of “ex post facto” laws is addressed in the Constitution,I think.
Declaring a heretofore legal activity suddenly illegal and confistcating the property related without payment is itself unethical.
Senator Feinstein would like to confiscate,no doubt without payment, all firearms from private citizens.Various political entities have taken the home of one person and awarded the property to another on the premise the new “owner” will pay higher taxes.And then the new business fails anyway so the original person is deprived of their property AND the government ends up with less money as well.
Be very careful about using the giant club of the government to force YOUR wishes.
I will continue to hold my opinions and criticize or praise actors of the political stage here on FR regardless of your opinions.
If you feel strongly enough then you are free to request Mr. Robinson or the moderators ban me and all those who dare disagree with you.
That is of course why the seceding states all or at least almost all referenced the dispute over slavery as the primary cause for secession. While AFAIK none referenced tariffs.
Also, do you seriously contend that secession was really justified over import taxes that applied equally to northern buyers of imported products?
Better, yes. Cheaper, not so much.
The fair market value of all slaves in 1860 was in the vicinity of $3B. At a time when the 1860 federal budget totaled $60M.
IOW, buying all the slaves would have cost 50x the annual federal budget.
The war cost a multiple of that, but not a huge multiple. Estimates vary, but the USA and CSA probably spent directly something like $8B, with pensions and other benefits for veterans and devastation to the south probably running the eventual total cost of the war up to around $20B.
Multiple attempts were made by Lincoln and others over the course of the war to get Union slave states to agree to emancipation with compensation subsidized by the federal government. They always refused, despite the reasonably obvious indicators that the institution was going down the drain.
Also, the federal government did in 1862 free DC slaves with (partial) compensation.
Doesn`t negate the South`s Nullifications and certainly did not give one man the right to void the Constitution, suspend habeas corpus , send 600,000 to their deaths, burn cities,and create a massive centralized statist govt.
York Tribune (Feb. 5, 1860): “If tyranny and despotism justified the Revolution of 1776, then we do not see why it would not justify the secession of Five Millions of Southrons from the Federal Union in 1861.” Detroit Free Press (Feb. 19, 1861): “An attempt to subjugate the seceded States, even if successful, could produce nothing but evil – evil unmitigated in character and appalling in content.” The New York Times (March 21, 1861): “There is growing sentiment throughout the North in favor of letting the Gulf States go.”
So as Williams already stated slavery would have died an economic death and the immutable laws of economics prove as much therefore I fall into the category of Natural law, inalienbale rights and the enlightenment. Can we assume then you prefer Lincoln`s methods of creating a centralized govt., habeas corpus and laws when felt like it and it`s results we see today, run amuck Statism.
Unfortunately, all of these are completely in opposition to slavery.
The Declaration of Independence, in particular, does not say men have a right to set up whatever government they please.
They have a right to rebel when their inalienable rights are infringed. By that basis, the slaves of the South had a right to rebel. The whites of the South, whose inalienable rights had not been infringed, did not.
According to the Declaration, the moral right to rebellion exists when it is to promote inalienable rights. A rebellion specifically intended to protect and extend the denial of those rights to others, in at least two states a majority of the population, was not justified by the principles of the Declaration.
What does Barbara Streisand have to do with this?
You so conveniently forget that slavery was legal under the Constitution and some of the Founders were slave-owners.
I forgot nothing but your point is irrelevant.
I believe Thomas Jefferson was a prominent one,yet we quote Jefferson's views on many other points of freedom.The ownership of arms comes to mind.(Which I would be surprised if Jefferson promoted amongst his slaves!)
Actually jefferson was a very minor participant in the founding of our country. He was hired because he was a gifted writer and showed his strength on the DOL. He was also a committed Francophile who would rather we patterned our country after France. He had no participation in the formation of the Articles of Confederation and openly eschewed the Constitution.
The Southerners feared,and I believe rightly, that they were going to be deprived of their legal property without compensation.And they were.
Thank you for making my point. The southron slavrocrisy availed themselves of their constitutional rights when it suited them, and then abandoned them whenever they didn't get their way. Cowardly. Feckless. Traitors.
Far better and cheaper it would have been had the abolitionists passed a law declaring the end of slavery in the United States with the provision that slave owners would receive fair compensation.
That was one of the potential solutions presented and summarily dismissed by the slavrocrisy.
I think the Southerners fought as much against the arrogance of the bog city self-righteous New Englanders as anything.
And the unionists fought against the bog(sic) self-righteous slavers. So what?
And just who built most of the ships anyway.
Irrelevant.
The issue of “ex post facto” laws is addressed in the Constitution,I think.
Irrelevant.
Declaring a heretofore legal activity suddenly illegal and confistcating(sic) the property related without payment is itself unethical.
What does that have to do with anything?
Be very careful about using the giant club of the government to force YOUR wishes.
Again, what does that have to do with anything?
If you feel strongly enough then you are free to request Mr. Robinson or the moderators ban me and all those who dare disagree with you.
I believe that is is an established courtesy to "ping" a party if you quote or name them. This is jimrob's house and his rules. All I was saying is that he probably wouldn't appreciate FReepers soiling FreeRepublic's reputation by besmirching one of America's greatest presidents. You're certainly entitled to your opinion, no matter how wrong. ;-)
You do realize that the confeds created a more centralized, statist government than the one they rebelled against, right?
So Lincoln being your champion of natural law disregarded them all in order to save them. The South`s idea of permanent slavery would have died a natural economic death as the laws of economics and liberty would have slowly overwhelmed them.
Lincoln was merely the first Saul Alinsky.
Create a crisis and capitalize on it. Pass the Morrill Tariff and the Permanent Slavery Amendment days apart knowing the South would balk and by hook or by crook Lincoln would reach his ends, create centralized Statism by taxation or by force.
If slavery were the only issue the South merely had to return to Congress and ratify the North`s Permanent Slavery Amendment which Lincoln endorsed:
“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. Holding such a
provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no
objection to its being made express and irrevocable.”
“Cuba already had slavery, and indeed didn’t give it up till 1886.”
Nor did the United States until after the war. The war was an apostate puritans’ honor killing. The Salem witch trials writ large, but this time in the service of secular power.
>>Nor did the United States until after the war.
I got so tired of this repeated canard that I put together the following timeline of emancipation. It shows that all but 50,000 of the 4,000,000 slaves (98.75%) were freed before the war ended. The rest were in the process of being freed by 13A, which was passed by Congress in January and by the end of the war had been ratified by all but 6 of the states needed for ratification.
1861
May: General Butler refuses to return three slaves being used to build CSA fortifications to their owner. Concept of “contraband of war” invented.
August: Confiscation Act of 1861 declares that any property, including slaves, used by CSA could be confiscated by military action.
September: “Contrabands” employed by US Army and Navy paid wages, in addition to rations
November: Nathaniel Gordon convicted and sentenced to death in NYC for slave trading (classified as piracy)
1862
February: Nathaniel Gordon executed
March: Washington, DC slaves freed by Congress, with partial compensation to owners
Return of escaped slaves to their owners prohibited by Congress
April: Congress offers compensation to any state that emancipates
May: Lincoln publicly entreats the border states to free their slaves
Slavery prohibited in all territories
July: Lincoln appeals again to the border states
September: Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation
1863
January: Final Emancipation Proclamation
July: WV slaves freed by state action
1864
January: 13th Amendment introduced
March: AR slaves freed by state action
April: 13th Amendment passes Senate
June: Congress repeals Fugitive Slave Law
September: LA slaves freed by state action
November: MD slaves freed by state action
1865
January: MO slaves freed by state action
13th Amendment passes House
February: TN slaves freed by state action
April: Lee surrenders
December: 13th Amendment ratified
Slaves in KY (50,000) and DE (<200) freed
This statement is tremendously silly; almost as silly as the claims being made by the slavers on these and similar threads.
Had Jefferson's influence been merely limited to the propagation of ideas already codified in Virginia, he would still have been an important founder, even if he had not written the Declaration.
The importance of the Declaration itself really can't be understated, and it was more than simply an elegant regurgitation of ideas already ascendant in the Enlightenment.
You forget he was governor of [by far] the most powerful and important state of the Union during the Revolutionary War.
You also forget the influence he had on Madison, who was central to the writing of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and on Monroe.
The resistance of his Party to the demons of the darker nature of the Federalists was also important, and would not have been successful without his prestige.
Only Washington is more important to the founding of America than Jefferson. Without Washington, there is no USA. But Jefferson's presidency is part of a Founding that was still going on in 1800; and his first term was as successful as that of any American President. Serious historical arguments should not throw the baby of the American Founding out with the dirty bathwater of Jefferson's often contradictory actions and words on slavery.
Williams claims in this regard are silly and have not been backed up by any economic history. Slavers always find new, and often more profitable ways to employ slave labor.
I am speaking from experience: during the last three decades, American agriculture has been falling behind Europe in the mechanization and automation of farming, despite an enormous lead which we held and greatly expanded after WWII and well into the 1950's. Why? Because of the availability of what is essentially slave labor imported from Mexico which, like slavery, will need to be paid for for generations after all of us are dead. By contrast, European farmers have no access to such labor and their farms use more robots and more sophisticated computer systems than ours.
American laborers are the most productive in the world by far. Yet it is more profitable to relocate manufacturing to China. Why? Because no one is productive enough to complete with slave labor.
Jefferson Davis's great dream post Southern independence was to create a Slave Empire that would subjugate the inferior races of Central America and possibly extend into South America, an opinion he expressed publicly and on several occasions, and which was enshrined as a foundational principle in the Constitution of the "Confederate States of America." Does this really sound like the vision of a man who believed slavery was finished?
Please be serious.
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