Posted on 03/31/2010 3:04:35 PM PDT by TitansAFC
Ron Paul: Why didn’t the north just buy the south’s slaves and free them that way?
Getting down to the last two questions here…. Most people consider Abe Lincoln to be one of our greatest presidents, if not the greatest president we’ve ever had. Would you agree with that sentiment and why or why not?
No, I don’t think he was one of our greatest presidents. I mean, he was determined to fight a bloody civil war, which many have argued could have been avoided. For 1/100 the cost of the war, plus 600 thousand lives, enough money would have been available to buy up all the slaves and free them. So, I don’t see that is a good part of our history.....
(Excerpt) Read more at hotair.com ...
Nope.
The importation of any new slaves was already illegal under the Constitution, since 1808. Honestly, go read it.
That's what "Charlespg" was trying to tell you, I think.
lentulusgracchus, I thought I should alert you since the argument about whether Buchanan made such a pledge or not comes up on these threads occasionally. non-seq, I copied you for your general edification.
What I found is an unsent letter of Attorney General Edward Stanton that gives his recollection of the December 27, 1860 cabinet meeting where Secretary of War John Floyd made the statement about Anderson violating the solemn pledges of the Government that I posted in post 1,196 and subsequent cabinet meetings the next couple of days. The contents of Stanton's unsent letter were later verified by another member of Buchanan's cabinet and attendee of the cabinet meetings in question, Postmaster General Joseph Holt.
Stanton said the following about Buchanan's pledge [my red bold below]:
I cannot at this distance of time state the exact words of Mr. Buchanan before the Cabinet. According to my recollection, the statement in the "extract" is substantially true. For a considerable period during the pendency of the discussion, which continued several days, Mr. Buchanan manifested a determination to order Major Anderson back, upon the ground that it was essential to the peace of the country, and also that the movement was a violation of some pledge or promise of his, which he was bound to fulfill. Floyd and Thompson both stated repeatedly, in Mr. Buchanan's presence, that such a pledge had been given by him, and during three days debate I did not hear him deny it, although members of the Cabinet asked for a specification of the time and place, and insisted that it was impossible that such a pledge could have been made. ...
... the adoption of Floyd's proposition by Mr. Buchanan would have instantly been followed by my resignation and that of other members of the Cabinet. ... my resignation was signed and ready to be delivered on the spot, the instant the order should be made. Two other members of the Cabinet informed me that they would also resign, and I believe they would have done so.
The correctness of Stanton's account in the letter was confirmed by Postmaster General Joseph Holt, who was also a participant in the cabinet meetings. In fact, Stanton had read and discussed the unsent letter with Holt in 1863 but decided not to send the letter. It was later found among Stanton's possessions. All of this can be found at Link to Stanton's words on pages 155 and 156 and Holt's confirmation of those words on page 158.
Buchanan's later public claim not to have made a pledge about the forts does not ring true according to Stanton's recollection and Holt's confirmation of the cabinet meetings. The pledge was discussed and not denied by Buchanan. However, by denying the pledge in public, Buchanan managed to keep three of his cabinet members from resigning.
... the adoption of Floyd's proposition by Mr. Buchanan would have instantly been followed by my resignation and that of other members of the Cabinet. ... my resignation was signed and ready to be delivered on the spot, the instant the order should be made. Two other members of the Cabinet informed me that they would also resign, and I believe they would have done so.
The crunch was occasioned by Major Anderson's move from Ft. Moultrie to Ft. Sumter, the news of which was actually first communicated to the Buchanan Administration by the South Carolina commissioners, who'd been informed independently.
John Nicolay records the same crisis point Stanton does, putting it this way:
For two days [Buchanan] hesitated, leaning evidently to the counsels of his secession[ist -- this is Nicolay's coloring, which is pervasive and highly torqued -- LG] advisers. There were protracted Cabinet sessions, acrimonious debates, and a final struggle between the President's disloyal counsellors from the South and the loyal ones from the North, over the possession and control of their temporizing, vacillating chief. It was not till the latter were on the point of resigning that the President was brought to a direct decision against the conspirators; even then, but for an outside complication, the result might have been doubtful. For about a week, [Sec of War] Floyd and [Treasury Secretary] Thompson had both been in bad odor...... [Floyd was forced to resign by a court action ..... the Attorney General, Stanton, having come into his position only two weeks earlier. It didn't take him long to bring an action against Floyd! Floyd's departure amounted to a putsch in the Cabinet, and President Buchanan fell immediately and consequentially into the hands of the Northern hard-line cabinet members.]
The spell was finally broken on December 31st, when Mr. Buchanan accepted Floyd's resignation ... [tendered on the 29th]; he also sent the commissioners their definite answer, namely: that ..... he could not and would not withdraw the Federal troops from Sumter. This ended the rebel mission. ....
The Cabinet crisis of December 31st, and he retirement of Floyd, greatly changed he attitude of the Government toward rebellion .... General Scott was placed in military control; and the President, being for a period kept by loyal advice in a more patriotic mood, permitted various precautionary measures to be taken, among which, a well-designed, though finally abortive effort to reinforce Sumter, was perhaps he most noteworthy. [Emphasis added.]
-- John G. Nicolay, The Outbreak of Rebellion, pp. 31-33 passim.
This passage, and the material in Stanton's papers, describes a palace revolution that "captured" President Buchanan, reversed his nonconfrontational policies n/w/s 1) the legal opinion against coercion of a State that he had received from (then) Attorney General Black, 2) his own "trucial" policy attested by Stanton and Holt (but significantly disavowed by Buchanan publicly, after he had changed counsellors and policies), and 3) Major Anderson's midnight demarche that precipitated the crisis (hmmm, where did Anderson possibly get that idea? Hmmm?), and thereafter commencing the steps that represent what we could call a recognizable "Lincoln policy" of retention and reinforcement toward the forts and their use in the commencement of the Civil War.
It would be interesting to know whether, with all this going on, our interlocutor still thinks that Abraham Lincoln did not "take a hand" in the struggles within Buchanan's cabinet. With the evidence of his correspondence with Gen. Scott, and the congruity of Scott's advice with both Lincoln's and the Unionist cabinet members' position (and there is no daylight between them now, now that the sources of the advice have been elucidated), it would appear that indeed Lincoln took a hand at least w/r/t Scott. Next up: Lincoln's correspondence with Stanton. Did Lincoln prompt AG Stanton to force Floyd to resign? That would be the smoking gun I'd be looking for next. (And yes, Lincoln did know Stanton.)
I think that's correct; that the Abolitionists, the people to whom emancipation mattered most, were pretty well vested in the idea of uncompensated emancipation -- uncompensated on grounds of "moral illegitimacy" or some such excuse.
As such, emancipation was envisioned as an uncompensated taking; and it was never contemplated that the ex-slaves would be free to move north and compete with free labor there: the Northern states did enact some exclusionary black codes that remained on the books for some time after the Civil War.
Prewar, Illinois enforced its black code by arresting, fining, and then "selling south" any blacks who entered the State.
For some obscure reason people are always more willing to fund a war than an effort to prevent one. Sort of along the same line there’s never time to do it right, but always enough time to do it over.
One of the smarter things I've seen posted about the Civil War.
Official US government estimate in 1879 is that the war cost a little over $6B. .... There were 4M+ slaves in 1860. I doubt the owners would have been willing to sell at $15 each.
Texas historian T. R. Fehrenbach once estimated that the value of slaves held in Texas in 1860, where btw there were fewer slaves held per capita of free citizens than in some other States, was more than the value of all the improved real estate in the State.
The cost of compensated emancipation would have been beyond the moon in any orderly market, where young, strong field hands brought over $2000 each, less capable slaves were still over $1000, and even children several hundred dollars each, gold.
That is the danger of quoting just one or two favorite, cherry-picked documents. If you look at South Carolina's call to the other Southern States, or the Texas Declaration of Causes, you get a much wider picture and a much longer list of grievances. South Carolina remembered the Tariff of Abominations and the Nullification Crisis of 30 years earlier, and Texas had border-security issues with Congress, which had refused to appropriate moneys for frontier defense in the face of Comanche raids and Mexican border raids.
It wasn't about just one thing; but if there were "one thing" that caused the Southern States to bail, especially the States of the "upper South" (Tennessee, Virginia, North Carolina), it was Northern hostility to the South across a range of issues, coupled with impending Northern preclusive control of the U.S. Government.
Posting known libels disproved on earlier threads?
What up, liar?
Why should we believe they would have said yes? After all, they were willing to rebel over the mere threat to the expansion of slavery to the territories. That doesn't sound like a group chomping at the bit to give up their chattel. When Lincoln floated a compensated emancipation plan for the slave states which hadn't joined the rebellion he was met with a thunderous silence. Compensated emancipation required the willingness on the part of the slave owners to participate, and there is absolutely no evidence supporting the idea that they were interested in emancipation under any circumstances.
Eleven Southern states were so concerned about their slaves that they were willing to launch an insurrection to protect against the threat to the expansion of slavery into the territories. Don't you think they would have reacted the same to a government plan to take their property altogether?
I find it helpful when faced with that argument to quote the Mississippi Declaration of Causes of Secession:”
You will find Freepers who go on at length about “The South was evil Slave traders and Lincoln and the North were merely fighting for humanitarian reasons”. Hogwash
Lincoln talks of his humanitarian reasoning:
“Now irrespective of the moral aspect of this question as to whether there is a right or wrong in enslaving a negro, I am still in favor of our new Territories being in such a condition that white men may find a home—may find some spot where they can better their condition—where they can settle upon new soil and better their condition in life. I am in favor of this not merely (I must say it here as I have elsewhere) for our own people who are born amongst us, but as an outlet for free white people everywhere, the world over. . . .”
More humanitarianism's:
“I repeat this now. If Jefferson Davis wishes, for himself, or for the benefit of his friends at the North, to know what I would do if he were to offer peace and reunion, saying nothing about slavery, let him try me (…).”
The Great humanitarian,Congressman David Wilmot of Pennsylvania:
I would preserve to white labor a fair country, a rich inheritance, where the sons of toil, of my own race and my own color can live without the disgrace which association with Negro slavery brings upon free labor.”
I’m a Southerner. It’s not my concern how the North would have fed it’s people. They would have had extra needs they had they could have acquired from the CSA through international trade.
However, you’ve made an assumption that being a superpower is somehow a desireable thing and that the prevention of that would have been a bad thing. What if I don’t accept the premise that being a superpower is a good thing? Especially when every superpower in the history of the world has had a peak and then a decline that has made life for its own citizens totally miserable.
It is also very likely that the South would have sought alliance with Latin America, particularly the Empire of Brazil, before they sought alliance with Europe.
“Eleven Southern states were so concerned about their slaves that they were willing to launch an insurrection to protect against the threat to the expansion of slavery into the territories. Don’t you think they would have reacted the same to a government plan to take their property altogether?”
What insurrection ?
I will say this again:
The only ‘insurrection’ or ‘rebellion’ was - Lincoln vs The very document he was sworn to protect..
Is prevention of Secession - Delegated? Before you go off ‘half cocked’ and claim it’s “implied”.
Remember: “that the powers not given to the government, were withheld from it” You know the source
The Southern Insurrection 1861 to 1865. It was in all the papers.
The only ‘insurrection’ or ‘rebellion’ was - Lincoln vs The very document he was sworn to protect..
No, that's not it.
Remember: “that the powers not given to the government, were withheld from it” You know the source.
Yeah I do. What you conveniently forgot to include was the part "or denied by it to the states". That would include unilateral secession.
What I continue to maintain is:
The seceding ststes had a right to take that action.
By establishing themselves as a confederacy bound by a constitution which explicitly protected human slavery, they were separating themselves from the American tradition of inalienable rights which began in 1776 and was reinforced in 1787.
So if Southerners and their supporters wish to say, "Just leave us and our economic system alone", that is a sentiment I can at least respect.
But when they claim to be acting in the cause of "freedom" I'm not buying it.
On the 11th of May, the next day after the capture, and while on our way back to Macon, as officer of the guard over the distinguished prisoners, I rode by the side of Mr. Reagan, later a senator from Texas. I found him a very fine gentleman. During that day's march a courier from Macon notified us in printed slips of the $100,000 reward offered for Mr. Davis' capture, and which notice connected Davis with the assassination of President Lincoln. When Mr. Reagan read the notice, he earnestly protested that Mr. Davis had no connection whatever with that sorrowful affair. History has shown that he had none.
Besides the suit of men's clothing worn by Mr. Davis he had on when captured Mrs. Davis' large waterproof dress or robe, thrown over his own fine gray suit, and a blanket shawl thrown over his head and shoulders. This shawl and robe were finally deposited in the archives of the war department at Washington by order of Secretary Stanton.
The story of the "hoopskirt, sunbonnet and calico wrapper" had no real existence and was started in the fertile brains of the reporters and in the illustrated papers of that day. That was a perilous moment for Mr. Davis. He had the right to try to escape in any disguise he could use.
The masses have ceased to think for themselves, thanks to public education. It may well prove to be our ultimate undoing. But, thankfully, the jury is still out on that one. The real test may come in November of 2010 and 2012. <<<
True............
Eleven Southern states were so concerned about their slaves that they were willing to launch an insurrection to protect against the threat to the expansion of slavery into the territories.
If that was the threat, then which territories did they plan to expand themselves into after effectively leaving Kansas and Nebraska to the Union as they departed? Barring a war of conquest against their neighbors, did they not take that issue out of the equation via secession?
The seceding ststes had a right to take that action.
By establishing themselves as a confederacy bound by a constitution which explicitly protected human slavery, they were separating themselves from the American tradition of inalienable rights which began in 1776 and was reinforced in 1787.
So if Southerners and their supporters wish to say, “Just leave us and our economic system alone”, that is a sentiment I can at least respect.
But when they claim to be acting in the cause of “freedom” I'm not buying it.”
It was Freedom. Slavery would have been protected under this proposed Amendment:
“Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the following article be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which, when ratified by three-fourths of said Legislatures, shall be valid, to all intents and purposes, as part of the said Constitution, namely:
ART. 13. 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.
—12 United States Statutes at Large, 36th Congress, 2nd Session, 1861, p. 251.”
They decided to leave regardless of this proposed amendmendment. It was self Government they sought. There is No difference between the war for Southern Independence and that of 1776. Remember, our original thirteen colonies owned slaves.
Audemus jura nostra Defendere!
Ninth Amendment:
“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”
Tenth Amendment:
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
You like claiming that the General Government, which was created by the several States and delegated the right to use force to prevent secession. That is asinine! Secession is a Natural Right.
You also conveniently forget what Madison said during the convention:
“A Union of the States containing such an ingredient seemed to provide for its own destruction. The use of force against a State, would look more like a declaration of war, than an infliction of punishment, and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound.”
I agree with you on the effects of the split. IF a ‘peaceful’ split had occured, there would have been war anyway as the two would have fought over the land and resources of the west as they expanded in that direction.
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