Posted on 05/17/2002 1:51:36 PM PDT by aconservaguy
Freud is so unappreciated.
This may be true of contemporary Confederate sympathizers, but it wasn't true of the Confederacy. Why did the southern states choose that precise point in history -- after the election of Abraham Lincoln -- to leave the Union? It had nothing to do with an abhorance of "big government" (it was result of the Civil War that the federal government grew; a big, centralized federal government was not an issue when Lincoln became President). It had everything to do with the shrinking political base of the slave states, the momentum of free soil sentiment in Congress, the tip in the balance of power in Congress away from slave states, and the election of a Republican President.
It is true that Lincoln's initial justification for the war was to perserve the Union, but in the end, after the Emancipation Proclamation, it became a war to save the Union, AND to end slavery. And both those who fought for the north, and for the south, knew it. Lincoln and his supporters were ridiculed by anti-abolitionists (all Democrats, BTW) as a "Black Republicans" for their support for the end of slavery.
Contemporary libertarians who might find heroes in the Confederacy to promote their views of federalism and states rights undercut their arguments by adopting icons that were less interested in the cause of liberty, and more interested in preserving their "peculiar institution" of slavery. I've always been of the opinion that had the Confederacy been about preservation of the Constitution, states rights, and liberty against a growing national government, they might have had a point. But since these things were used, primarily, as justifications for protecting slavery, their position is untenable.
Hey, wait a minute. Only days ago I was assured in quite unsoothing tones that Lincoln's election wasn't an issue in the secession. Heck, he wasn't even a real abolitionist!
Now you mean to tell me that it was, and he was?
Gasp! I've been lied to by those wily scholars of Southern history!
LOL! Gird your loins for yet another round of confederate non-scholarship....
People who made much less provocative statements were actually subjected to worse.
The states right argument ignores the entire history leading up to the Civil War. The balance Senate, slave as a 2/3 vote, Ohio Valley Territories, Texas “Lone Star”, were all about preserving an alliance that formed to defeat the British in 1776.
Ah, that's just because those folks can't win arguments on the merits of their cause.
You can take da Aggie outta da "hood"...but ya can't take da "hood" outta da Aggie....
Thanks for causing me to laugh out loud....it's been a long paperwork filled afternoon:>)
As for those who wish to engage in a spirited defense of the Confederacy, I'm pleased to let them put down in writing, in public, their support for that dastardly conspiracy against human rights and the nation. History has proven them wrong.
Few authors and commentators on the war have dared present one basic fact that overthrows the myth of Yankee beneficence toward the slaves. On 2 March 1861, the 36th U. S. Congress (minus, of course, the seven seceded states of the Deep South) passed by a two-thirds majority a proposed amendment to the Constitution. Had it been ratified by the requisite number of states before the war intervened and signed by President Lincoln (who looked favourably on it as a way to lure the Southern states back into the Union), the proposed 13th Amendment would have prohibited the U. S. government from ever abolishing or interfering with slavery in any state.
The proposed 13th Amendment reads: "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."
Note well that this amendment was designed to be unrepealable (i.e. "No amendment shall be made . . . .") This gives the lie to claims that a righteous North went to war in 1861 to free the slaves. Moreover, it undermines the claim that the South seceded to preserve the institution of slavery. If that had been the South's goal, then what better guarantee did it need than an unrepealable amendment to the Constitution to protect slavery as it then existed?
It's clear that Lincoln did not make the abolition of slavery the objective of the war, but preservation of the Union. What many do not realize is that the Emancipation Proclamation only "freed" slaves in those states that remained in rebellion to the Union -- slave states still aligned with the Union did not come under the Proclamation. By its very design, the Proclamation was unenforceable in those states to which it applied because they were still in rebellion. But it helped to undermine slavery in those states.
But, there is ample evidence that Lincoln thought that slavery was a doomed institution. I think it was his theory that had the south rejoined the Union peacefully, with slavery unmolested, slavery would have died its own death.
Certainly, by the end of the Civil War, Lincoln had changed the terms of the war, making abolition of slavery to be a primary objective. He issued the Emancipation Proclamation because he believed that denied the institution of slavery, the South's rebellion would collapse. He believed that the Emancipation Proclamation was the "right thing to do," and strongly resisted suggestions that he rescind it once the south capitulated. He believed that "Providence" (or God) would not give the Union victory unless the terms of the war changed to include the end of slavery. He was also instrumental in getting the eventual 13th Amendment approved by Congress prior to his assassination.
It cannot be denied that one of the significant motivating factors on the part of the capital owning establishment in the South was preserving the investment value of their slave property. They clearly and properly felt threatened by the slave/non-slave division and since this group put up much of the wealth in support of defense of the war, their participation was essential and was motivated in large part by the slave ownership capital position.
The language your post lifts from the secession documents and from the constitution of the confederation is addressed to the slave owning class to solicit their support for these reasons and these are, as you well recognize, political documents.
Had the war not ensued, would the north have abolished slavery in 1862? I think not. Did the south need to defend the war (or for that matter to secede) to avoid termination of slavery? I think not also. Had the south folded on the immediate political issue, there would have been no war and no abolition in the 1862 time frame either.
There were certainly a number of reasons why the south was prepared to fight at that instant in time; and as to part of the political coalition that funded and organized the south's defense, the implications of the long term threat to slavery were certainly an important factor.
However a careful look from a historical perspective leaves us with some other thoughts. For one thing, it is indisputable that slavery was a doomed institution by 1860, whether or not the war was fought. The defense offered above of the economics of the most important export is not well founded--the cotton gin would make slave labor uneconomic. It is also indisputable that the immediate direct result of the war was a substantial decline in the standard of living of the slaves. Not in any way intended as a defense of slavery, even for the short period between Emancipation and the probable end of slavery without the war.
Under the circumstances, the most significant modern consequence of the war is the decline in legal significance of the constitutional relationship among the states and the federal government. The compact of individual freedom that was the foundation of the War of Independence was effectively abrogated.
It is also beyond any argument that the significant motivating factor that led to initiation of armed conflict in the war was collection of tarriffs which were devastating to the economy of the southern states; benefited the aggressors directly; in exactly the kind of abuse of the collective power of the majority to exact benefits from the minority that the state power provisions of the constitution were designed to give the minority the power to defeat--by the threat to withdraw from the union in the ultimate extreme.
So when you sum up Lincoln and the defining event of his life, there is no doubt that he was a brillent man and one of the great lawyers of American history; probably the smartest president. But the war was a great waste in American history and the argument that the country is worse off today because it was fought has great merit.
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