Posted on 05/01/2017 3:39:29 PM PDT by Timpanagos1
US President Donald Trump has stirred debate by asking why the American Civil War happened, and pondering whether it could have been "worked out".
In a radio interview, he suggested the conflict might have been avoided if President Andrew Jackson had still been in office.
The 1861-65 Civil War between the northern and southern states was principally caused by slavery.
(Excerpt) Read more at google.com ...
The original 13th amendment?
Most of the GNP of the US came from the south - agriculture. The south felt like it was being ignored by the US Government and most of its attention was focused on the North.
A lot of Hummel's opinions are contradicted by the writings of the men of the time. And even Hummel admitted that the Southern cause was motivated by defense of slavery.
(Here is some interesting context.)
On April 7, 1798, the fifth Congress passed an act that imposed a three hundred dollar per slave penalty on persons convicted of performing the illegal importation of slaves. It was an indication of the type of behavior and course of events soon to become commonplace in the Congress. In the Slave Trade Act of 1800, Congress outlawed U.S. citizens’ investment in the trade, and the employment of U.S. citizens on foreign vessels involved in the trade.
The Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves of 1807 (2 Stat. 426, enacted March 2, 1807) is a United States federal law that stated that no new slaves were permitted to be imported into the United States. It took effect in 1808, the earliest date permitted by the United States Constitution.
However, it was not always well enforced and slaves continued to be imported in *limited* numbers.
This meant that by the time of the American Civil War, in 1861, there were almost no originally imported slaves left, only their descent. That is, children born into slavery.
So the way to end domestic slavery should have been through a process of gradualism, a “phasing out” of slavery. So how could this be accomplished?
1) Taxation. Gradually make slave owning prohibitively expensive. Establishing high slave transfer taxes as well.
2) Require better and better living conditions for the slaves, to include schooling for children, mandatory instruction in Christianity along with weekly church attendance, etc. All very slowly.
3) By 1816, the American Colonization Society supported the migration of free African Americans to the continent of Africa. It helped to found the colony of Liberia in 1821–22 on the coast of West Africa as a place for free-born American blacks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Colonization_Society
The southern states and slaveholders could have been offered many incentives to encourage slaveholders to eventually manumit (free) their slaves on condition they be transported back to Africa, and thus not become public charges. Done over the course of 50-75 years, slavery would have diminished to just a shadow of its former self.
Granted all of this would have taken a lot of time, but it might have removed so much of the core reasons for the Civil War that it wouldn’t have happened.
There is only one 13th Amendment. Between the ratification of the 12th Amendment and the ratification of the 13th Amendment, two proposed amendments were sent to the states for ratification and failed to be approved by enough states. So no, I'm not referring to the Title of Nobility Amendment - the "original 13th amendment - and I'm not referring to the Corwin Amendment either. I'm talking about the one that was ratified.
“On September 3, 1861, Confederate Maj. Gen. Leonidas Polk ordered Brig. Gen. Gideon Pillow to seize Columbus, Kentucky on the Mississippi River before Union forces could do so.[10] This ended Kentucky’s neutrality, led to Union Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s seizure of Paducah, Kentucky on September 6, 1861,”
Kentucky was invaded by the confederacy. But nice try
Most of the exports did. That's not the same as GNP.
The south felt like it was being ignored by the US Government and most of its attention was focused on the North.
Nonsense. Prior to the rebellion, most of the presidents and vice-presidents had been southerners, congressional leaders had been southerners, Supreme Court justices had been southerners, and so forth and so on. The South was not and never had suffered from lack of attention.
There was no declaration of war. The South launched the war when they attacked Sumter.
And the kicker is that it’s universal.
The Union allowed their slave states to keep slaves during the war.
the Federal government maintained the same stance with ‘their slave states’ as it had with the antebellum states that subsequently seceded; can’t imagine what point you’re attempting to make...
The war was caused by taxes. The northern states were based on industry while the southern were based on agriculture. Congressmen got in power who exploited the rural parts of the country (kinda like now!) and passed the Morrill Act which hit them with a 40% tax. The Morrill Tariff raised rates to encourage industry and to foster high wages for industrial workers (kinda like now!).
Lincoln even said it was about taxes, not slavery, in his speeches. http://www.al.com/opinion/index.ssf/2015/06/war-over-slavery_rhetoric_is_i.html
The 1861-65 Civil War between the northern and southern states was principally caused by slavery.
No, slavery had nothing to do with the war until it was nearly over.
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Yep, I caught that right away. The revision of that historical record is now cast in stone, and it wouldn’t surprise me to hear in the news one day that the refutation of it has been codified as a HATE CRIME!
Sure something could have been worked out. Lincoln coulda left the confederacy the hell alone.
That's a pretty idiotic stretch. Was it worth 600,000 lives for the treasonous slavers to incite and wage war against their own countrymen?
I like president Trump a lot, but he needs to stay in his lane. He’s not a 19th Century American History Scholar.
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First I’ve heard about having to be a 19th Century American History Scholar to express such an opinion.
“I realize that any result of the Civil War was not worth the loss of 600,000 men killed...”
The latest tally has it at 720,000. That doesn’t include the many thousands of Southern civilians in the South.
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