Posted on 04/25/2011 9:31:58 AM PDT by Iron Munro
I am responding to a column by Leonard Pitts Jr., a noted black columnist for The Miami Herald, entitled, "The Civil War was about slavery, nothing more" (Other Views, April 15).
I found this article to be very misleading and grossly riddled with distortions of the real causes of the War Between the States. I find it so amusing that such an educated person would not know the facts.
I am a proud native of South Carolina. I have spent my entire life in what was once the Confederate States of America. I am currently associated with Southern Heritage causes, including the Sons of Confederate Veterans in Tampa.
It's been 150 years since brave, patriotic Southerners drove the imperialist Yankee army from Fort Sumter, S.C. It also marked the beginning of the Confederates' fight to expel this foreign army from the entire Southern homeland.
After all these years, there still exists national historical ignorance and lies about this war. The War Between the States was about states' rights — not about slavery.
Remember, the original colonies voluntarily joined the union and never gave up their individual sovereignty. These independent states always retained their right to manage their domestic affairs and to leave this voluntary association at any time.
This voluntary union was for limited reasons such as national defense from the foreign powers, one language, interstate commerce, disputes between the sovereign states and matters of foreign affairs.
When the Southern states tried to leave this union, the Northerners had to put a stop to this. The slavery issue was masterly inserted into the movement of Yankee aggression.
We are a union of independent and sovereign states free to determine our own destiny. This sovereignty is meant to be free of Yankee federal domination and control. This should still be in principle and practice today as it was before the first cannon shots at Fort Sumter.
Slavery of any people is wicked and morally wrong. Domination of one people over another is just as evil and morally wrong.
The facts are that throughout history, just about every race of people has been slaves to another people. Slavery has always been a failed institution and a dark mark in history. One-hundred years before the first slave made it to the auction blocks in Virginia, African kings were running a booming enterprise of selling their own people into slavery. It was also customary that defeated people became slaves.
Slavery as an institution worldwide was coming to an end before the War Between the States. Slavery in America would probably have come to an end within 50 years.
The great eternal lie — that the war was to "free the slaves" — is still being propagandized today by modern spin-makers, schools and even scholars. But the facts are plain and quite evident if you were to take off your Yankee sunglasses.
The Army of the Potomac invaded the South to capture, control and plunder the prosperity of Southern economic resources and its industries. This army also wanted to put a final nail in the coffin of states' rights.
If, and I say this with a big if , the War Between the States was to free the slaves, please answer these simple questions:
Why didn't President Lincoln issue a proclamation on day one of his presidency to free the slaves? Why did he wait so many years later to issue his proclamation? Why was slavery still legal in the Northern states? Before 1864, how many elected members of the imperialist Yankee Congress introduced legislation to outlaw slavery anywhere in America?
The slaves were freed — and only in territories in rebellion against the North — because the Army of the Potomac was not winning the war and Lincoln was fearful of foreign nations recognizing the Confederacy.
The Northern states needed a war to fuel their economy and stop the pending recession. The North needed rebellion in the South to cause havoc in the Confederate states. The North wanted the hard foreign currency being generated by Southern trade.
I hope this year not only marks the celebration of the brave actions of Southerners to evict the Northern Army at Fort Sumter but leads to the truthful revision of history about the war. Future generations should know the truth.
Al Mccray is a Tampa businessman and managing editor of TampaNewsAndTalk.com
LOL. Original Source BURN!
Ever heard Rush when he plays rapidfire clips from across the MSM of lib talking points. That’s what you guys sound like.
Has anyone ever argued that Lincoln the candidate and early president wasn’t a free soiler and existing slavery non-interferer? That is, aside from paranoid secessionists? When was it ever the position of non-lost causers that Lincoln was an abolitionist in 1861? It was only later that he found religion and became the Great Emancipator.
“Original Source BURN!”
Burn? As if we’re not aware of it already, as if you people don’t bring up the same things over and over and over, etc.
“That the 13th Amendment freed the slaves, not Lincoln’s war Procolmation, is history as it is.”
Let’s come at this from the other side. If the EP didn’t free any slaves, what did it do? Outlaw square dancing? Declare war on Russia? Legalize man-dog marriage?
If, as Lincoln claimed, the Southern states were still in the Union, the Emancipation Proclamation was not Constitutional. Thus, he had no authority to free any slaves at all.
Not true. Aside from the border states, Virginia, New Orleans, and various other exceptions, there were in fact areas of federal control (or quasi-control) where the EP held sway. Some 20,000 or so slaves were manumitted immediately.
Except, except, except.....
where's the four million?
Is this a serious question? Because of: A) the border states and the variosu exceptions outlined in the EP, and B) to smother possible doubts as to the EP’s legitimacy after the emergency was over.
There's those exceptions again. If everything was legit, how could there be any doubt?
Lincoln had no authority to free slaves in the areas that weren't in rebellion. That would require a Constitutional amendment, and the Democrats in congress blocked such an amendment until after the election of November, 1864. The one place not in rebellion where a simple majority Congress could end slavery was in DC, and this was done in April, 1862.
Now, maybe you think that Lincoln should have overstepped his authority and simply freed all the slaves by fiat, even those in areas that remained loyal to the United States. He thought different.
“had the EP expired upon ‘peace’, you maaaay be able to stretch that 200K figure out as the “freed” number”
What is the argument here? That the feds didn’t finish conquering the Confederacy when it surrendered, and certainly hadn’t physically freed all its slaves, therefore anyone who the feds hadn’t gotten to was not to be free? The EP did not say “At such a time as federal troops physcially regain authority over states or parts of states in which people are engaged in an ongiong rebellion against the U.S., but only while said rebellion is still ongoing...” No, no, no.
It said, “I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free...” Henceforward from the issuance of the EP, all slaves then in rebellious states were to be free forever. The idea was not that the slaves were legally free as the feds advanced, and that anyone they didn’t get to before the coming of peace stayed enslaved. Advancing troops were only de facto liberators. The slaves were already de jure free.
“Advancing troops were only de facto liberators. The slaves were already de jure free.”
Assuming, that is, the feds won the war. I realize that ultimate victory was more than a formality.
Lincoln's position, which held that the Confederates States were still in the Union, put the EP in direct odds with the Constitution. So, according to Lincoln's position, what did it do?
“If, as Lincoln claimed, the Southern states were still in the Union, the Emancipation Proclamation was not Constitutional. Thus, he had no authority to free any slaves at all.”
Huh? Why? Explain.
The EP specifies that it covers slaves in states or parts of states in rebellion against the U.S., and that Lincoln’s authority to issue it derived from his position as commander in chief in time of emergency. We can haggle over whether this was undue extension of his authority; certainly there’s no expressed Constitutional power to do so. However, I don’t know what that has to do with whether or not the rebels remained in the union.
“Except, except, except...”
Like I said above, it’s funny how people on your side (if not you), normally strict constructionists and endlessly forgiving of the Confederacy’s wartime compromises and expediencies, can be so flippant about Lincoln’s very serious limitations.
“where’s the four million?”
As I already laid out above, I was careful to originally say “about 4 million.” The exceptions cover at most less than 1 million, leaving more than 3 million, which I rounded up.
“There’s those exceptions again. If everything was legit, how could there be any doubt?”
Don’t be glib. If so many can deny the plain language of the Second Amendment can be interpreted to mean something other than that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, anything can be doubted. Other of Lincoln’s extraordinary war measures were questioned or outright ruled against. Best to be safe. Also, best to be sure all slaves, not just ones in formerly rebellious states, would be free.
Apparently you are incapable of understanding that a state could be in rebellion and subject to a military measure like the EP, but still remain a state within the union.
“If so many can deny the plain language of the Second Amendment can be interpreted to mean something other than that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, anything can be doubted.”
That would be better written as: “If so many can deny the plain language of the Second Amendment means that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, anything can be doubted.”
“So, according to Lincoln’s position, what did it do?”
What it said it did, i.e. free the slaves in states whose people were then in rebellion against the U.S.
“There was no constitutional authority to outlawing slavery in any state’s borders”
There was no explicit authority, but of course the Constitution doesn’t specify everything a commander in chief can do, nor what everything that’s different about a time of emergency as opposed to peacetime. I’m not much for implied powers, and contra-Marshall would demand we give the benefit of the doubt to not doing what the Constitution doesn’t say you can. But to say that there is no extra authority in times of war just can’t be.
We can argue over the necessity and morality of the EP, but not dismiss its constitutionality out of hand. It makes a pretty good case for itself in its own text.
“the EP was a wartime measure aimed at areas in ‘rebellion’”
Yes.
“and they feared the measure would expire when there was peace”
Yes.
“they didn’t nevermind this”
Neither did I.
“but openly expressed how seriously they believed this would happen and urged the 13th, especially after his assassination.”
Okay, so there weren’t mere doubts, these doubts were Hugh and Series, therefore the EP wasn’t worth the paper it was written on. Did it ever occur to you that it could have stood on its own merits, no matter what abolitionists thought? For all your talk about the principle of secession being bigger than and not living or dying with the Confederacy, I wouldn’t think you of all people would wrap the EPs constitutionality up in what partisans at the time thought might happen. The EP’s legality supercedes any and all considerations of practicality.
1) The proclamation presupposes that State secession was unconstitutional, and could be equated with “rebellion against the United States.” That question had not been settled at the time of the proclamation (and given the juvenile, revisionist substitute for actual reasoning and historical fact which the majority opinion in Texas v. White offered up, might be said to be unsettled to this day). Had secession been vindicated in federal court following the war, the proclamation would have, in effect, been null and void.
2) One might ask, by what authority Mr. Lincoln supposedly freed “some 4 million” slaves? The proclamation claims to free “slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion,” suggesting that such authority was somehow founded on martial law. Such authority may allow the military to seize property for government use during an emergency, but would hardly convey permanent ownership in any legal sense, particularly after the emergency had passed. To suggest otherwise would be to negate the 6th Amendment (“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated..”) as well as the 7th (“…nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation”).
3) Even supposing that Mr. Lincoln’s military authority somehow extended to permanently seizing the property of citizens engaged in rebellion, it most certainly could not be similarly extended, following the cessation of the supposed rebellion, to citizens who had not rebelled. For such loyalists, I suspect it would have simply been a matter of bringing the issue before a federal judge, and establishing the facts, to regain possession of any property seized by the federal executive branch.
In summary, then, I suggest that Mr. Lincoln’s proclamation never had a hope or prayer of freeing every slave, “thenceforward, and forever,” even in the so-called rebel States.
Finally, someone here asked, “Do you disagree that ending slavery was the right thing to do?” One must first answer a more important question: “Shall government be bound by law, or by morality?” I would say “by law” – if you disagree, feel free to justify your position…
;>)
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