Cannons are at the ready at Vicksburg National Military Park in Mississippi, scene of a Civil War battle in 1863. Sentiment in the North against slavery may not have been as strong as believed.
Posted on 03/05/2003 8:20:29 PM PST by stainlessbanner
The National Park Service was recently induced to add at its Civil War battlefield sites information about the role slavery played in causing the South to leave the Union and go to war with the North.
Is it going to follow a balanced policy and describe many Northerners' willingness to let slavery continue to exist in the South?
Although he did not approve of slavery, President Lincoln considered blacks inferior to whites. Whites and blacks, he believed, could not coexist in equality. His pre-war solution to this problem was to return them to Africa.
In his first inaugural address, Lincoln assured the nation that he neither wished to nor had the power to abolish slavery.
Furthermore, in 1861 the U.S. Congress passed a never-ratified Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that Lincoln supported that read as follows: "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."
In an 1862 letter to New York newspaper editor Horace Greeley, Lincoln wrote: "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and it is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union."
Lincoln revoked Union Gen. John C. Fremont's 1861 emancipation of Missouri's slaves, and Lincoln's 1863 Emancipation Proclamation did not free any slaves because it applied only to that part of the Confederacy still under Confederate control. Slave states still in the Union were exempted, as was Washington.
Many historians believe that he hoped that this proclamation would prevent the slavery-hating English from entering the war on the side of the South. He may also have hoped that it would lead to a slave insurrection in the South like the one that had taken place in Haiti, where, despite the fact that its white men were not off fighting a war, many whites were slaughtered.
According to some foreign observers, Lincoln's motivation for preserving the Union was financial. English writer Charles Dickens said, "The Northern onslaught upon slavery was no more than a piece of specious humbug designed to conceal its desire for economic control of the Southern states."
Just as eliminating slavery may not have been the North's prime motivation, the fact that late in the war, Confederate soldiers successfully petitioned their Congress and president to allow the enlistment in the army of slaves who would be promised their freedom suggests that preserving slavery may not have been the most important reason for the Southern states fighting for their independence.
Carole E. Scott is a professor emeritus of business administration at the State University of West Georgia.
Cannons are at the ready at Vicksburg National Military Park in Mississippi, scene of a Civil War battle in 1863. Sentiment in the North against slavery may not have been as strong as believed.
And Martin Sheen's Great-great-grandfather ( who was not a General, but played one in the theater ) wore a sign saying " No War for Cotton ! "
Fact: Lincoln abolished slavery.
Fact: Lincoln did not establish a seperate black nation.
Southern apologists can attempt to revise history all they want. But facts are facts. Slavery was abolished because of the action of the north in opposition to the south, under the administration of President Licoln.
You don't know what you're talking about.
No he didn't.
As I understand it, the guy was given somewhat the 19th Century version of the Padilla treatment. He suspended habeas corpus. He engaged in other usurpations of the Constitution.
You need to read up on Jefferson Davis sometime. Did you know that when they assumed office confederate presidents were not required to swear to uphold the constitution? There was a reason for that.
Fact: The south fought to maintain slavery.
False. The South fought to maintain their rights to run their states teh way they chose. Tariffs were as much an issue as slavery. The war was about states' rights. It was not about slavery, and if you believe that was the issue, you hav fallen victim to the same Northern propaganda that I was taught.
The South did to us essentially what we did to Britain. They exercised their self-determination.
Fact: Lincoln abolished slavery.
Absolutely false. No slaves were freed in Kentucky, Delaware, Maryland, or any part of any Confederate state that was under Union control. And Lincoln admitted that he had no Constitutional authority to free the slaves, nor did he particularly want to. It was propaganda.
Southern apologists can attempt to revise history all they want. But facts are facts.
A concept you apparently don't understand. Slavery was abolished because of the action of the north in opposition to the south, under the administration of President Licoln.
False. The end of slavery came after Mr. Lincoln was dead and buried.
No he didn't.
Yes, he did. A Congressman from Ohio spoke out agasinst some of his excessive policies and Mr. Lincoln had him arrested. You need to read up on things like this.
No he didn't. Clement Vallandigham was a former congressman not a sitting congressman. He was arrested on the orders of General Ambrose Burnside, Comanding General of the Departmant of the Ohio, for violation of an order that Burnside had issued, not arrested on orders of President Lincoln. The only part Lincoln played in the whole issue was to commute Vallandigham's two year sentence to deportation to the confederacy. See, I have read up on things like this. You should try it some time.
BTW, Vallandigham died in 1871. He was demonstrating for some fellow attorneys how a defendant's supposed victim may have accidentally shot himself when the gun went off and he accidentally shot himself. One of the original Darwinisms. IMHO, of course.
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