Posted on 01/20/2014 1:42:16 PM PST by mhutcheson
“There is a reason that Lincoln is referred as the Great Emancipator.”
Hagiography? Good marketing?
“To wish assassination of ANY president is contemptible and the product of a diseased mind.”
Are you saying a legitimate case couldn’t be made to assassinate a US President? Ever?
If you are, may your chains rest lightly upon you.
Eventually, the south would have done in ‘60 what they did in 32 - threaten to nullify and secede again if they didn’t get a reduction in the tariffs.
The other economics of the time that hasn’t been addressed was what the cost of emancipation would be on producing commodities. Even if the South had been willing to emancipate (England wanted that very vociferously), the tariffs likely made it much harder to do and stay afloat.
If you ever fly in to DC, you’ll see that what was true in 1860 in terms of unbalanced infrastructure spending is truer now in 2014.
This is an excellent thread.
“Lincoln was morally opposed to the institution of slavery and sought to bring about its discontinuance by legal and Constitutional means, rather than by unconstitutional means.”
Actually, he was a flip-flopper on this. He declared that he didn’t want to be painted with the abolitionist brush soon after he was elected.
He made the shift to keep England from jumping in on the side of the South. It was a brilliant strategic move on his part.
Self determination. In much the same way today that large sections of many states are impressed servants of major cities. When the constitution was ratified it was understood that states could leave the union if desired.
Obama’s not stupid.
He can’t imprison journalists, but he can hire them all.
There are folks today that look at the crap Lincoln got away with, see his face on Rushmore, and just burn with envy wishing they could get away with it.
FDR too. Interred all those Japanese and pissed on the Constitution and he’s a hero.
“2. The ship building ports and industry were in New England “
You seem to be pretty up on the fact that the South was not industrialized. You post it constantly. Facts are difficult pesky little things. :-)
Show me some evidence that the South had any resources or skilled artisans to build ships. :-)
Show me some evidence that any significant exports were being shipped out of Charleston or Savannah. :-)
Show me the money. :-)
There’s a school in Queens that made the news recently that would beg to differ.
“They’ve seen more movies than Siskel and Ebert.”
I’m saying that such a case has never been made against Lincoln. If you think otherwise then your chains are substantially heavier than mine.
And I’m saying that only a scum-sucking pig would utter such a thing about Lincoln.
Utter nonsense.
2. The ship building ports and industry were in New England
What about Norfolk? What about Pensacola? Don't you even know your own history?
3. 65% of all the exports in the US at that time were Southern cotton and it was all sent up to Northern ports and shipped out of NY because all the ships were in the North and the North realized about 40 cents out of every dollar on the deal.
Balderdash. Most was shipped from New Orleans, Charleston, and Mobile. You might recall that those are southern cities.
But the war started over slavery.
Finally you got something right! Bravo!
Well it was more like 65%. The cotton trade was a significatnt portion of the total exports of the USA. Most of it was exported on ships out of NY. So the South got stuck sending their cotton up to NY and than paying fees, commissions etc to the tune of about 40 cents on the dollar to ship it to Europe. The Cotton Tariff stipulated that all exports had to be shipped out of the country on American built ships. Well the ship building business was located in New England and most of the ships were up North.
Since the South did not have the capability of producing ships they not able to ship significant exports out of Charleston and Savannah.
All of this information is in the public domain. You can Google it in 5 minutes.
Rinky dink towns. New Orleans was the second busiest port in the US in the 1850s. By some estimates, it also had the largest cotton and slave markets in the country (Charleston and Washington DC also claimed the largest slave market -- the second busiest cotton port was Mobile, Alabama).
In 1840, New Orleans was the third largest city in the country after New York and Baltimore. The population more than doubled from 1830 to 1840. In 1850, it was the fifth largest (Philadelphia and Boston having crept in ahead of NOLA).
So I don't know what Charleston or Savannah were up to, but New Orleans was doing pretty well before the Civil War, and no Yankee tariff or shipping conspiracies kept it down.
“Lincoln did what he had to do.”
Yeh to keep the reveues flowing in so the Northern economy would not collapse. It had nothing to do with legitimately keeping the US together.
States have every right to secede from the Union. The states created the Federal govt not theother way around.
“In 1840, New Orleans was the third largest city in the country after New York and Baltimore. The population more than doubled from 1830 to 1840. In 1850, it was the fifth largest (Philadelphia and Boston having crept in ahead of NOLA).”
1840? 1850? Whats that got to do with the Civil War?
Show me evidence that 65% of all US exports in 1861 were not Soutern Cotton and not being shipped out of New York.
By 1861, the war had already started. Trade was disrupted and not much cotton was being shipped from anywhere.
But for the years immediately before the war, here's your evidence. Enjoy.
Water transport being cheaper than land transport, doesn't it stand to reason that more cotton would have been shipped out from New Orleans than taken over land to New York?
Would’jah stop bein so partisan.
Your knowledge of the Vietnam War is seriously lacking... as in Jane Fonda lame.
Uhm, I think that response should have gone to ought-six?
“Actually, he was a flip-flopper on this.”
On the contrary, Licoln did not waver one inch on his moral conviction that slavery was immoral. Lincoln’s adversion to the Abolitonists was rooted in their desire to achieve the abolition of slavery by unconstitutional means and without compensation to the property owners, which threatened the destruction of the Republic with disunion and abandonment of the Constitution and its rule by law. Lincoln sought to use the rule of law to establish a moral rule of law and a moral Constitution freed from the hypocrisy of slavery.
From the Wikipedia article for example:
In 1855, Lincoln wrote to Joshua Speed, a personal friend and slave owner in Kentucky:
You know I dislike slavery; and you fully admit the abstract wrong of it. ... I also acknowledge your rights and my obligations, under the constitution, in regard to your slaves. I confess I hate to see the poor creatures hunted down, and caught, and carried back to their stripes, and unrewarded toils; but I bite my lip and keep quiet. In 1841 you and I had together a tedious low-water trip, on a Steam Boat from Louisville to St. Louis. You may remember, as I well do, that from Louisville to the mouth of the Ohio, there were, on board, ten or a dozen slaves, shackled together with irons. That sight was a continued torment to me; and I see something like it every time I touch the Ohio, or any other slave-border. It is hardly fair for you to assume, that I have no interest in a thing which has, and continually exercises, the power of making me miserable. You ought rather to appreciate how much the great body of the Northern people do crucify their feelings, in order to maintain their loyalty to the Constitution and the Union. . . How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes, be in favor of degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that “all men are created equal.” We now practically read it “all men are created equal, except negroes.” When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read “all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and catholics.” When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty— to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be take pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.[17]
Also:
On August 22, 1862, just a few weeks before signing the Proclamation and after he had already discussed a draft of it with his cabinet in July, he wrote a letter in response to an editorial by Horace Greeley of the New York Tribune which had urged complete abolition. Lincoln differentiates between “my view of official duty”—that is, what he can do in his official capacity as President—and his personal views. Officially he must save the Union above all else; personally he wanted to free all the slaves:
I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be “the Union as it was.” If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves 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; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.
I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free.[21]
Just one month after writing this letter, Lincoln issued his first Emancipation Proclamation, which announced that at the beginning of 1863, he would use his war powers to free all slaves in states still in rebellion (as they came under Union control).
Also revealing was his letter[22] a year later to James C. Conkling of August 26, 1863, which included the following excerpt:
There was more than a year and a half of trial to suppress the rebellion before the proclamation issued, the last one hundred days of which passed under an explicit notice that it was coming, unless averted by those in revolt, returning to their allegiance. The war has certainly progressed as favorably for us, since the issue of proclamation as before. I know, as fully as one can know the opinions of others, that some of the commanders of our armies in the field who have given us our most important successes believe the emancipation policy and the use of the colored troops constitute the heaviest blow yet dealt to the Rebellion, and that at least one of these important successes could not have been achieved when it was but for the aid of black soldiers. Among the commanders holding these views are some who have never had any affinity with what is called abolitionism or with the Republican party policies but who held them purely as military opinions. I submit these opinions as being entitled to some weight against the objections often urged that emancipation and arming the blacks are unwise as military measures and were not adopted as such in good faith.
You say you will not fight to free negroes. Some of them seem willing to fight for you; but, no matter. Fight you, then exclusively to save the Union. I issued the proclamation on purpose to aid you in saving the Union. Whenever you shall have conquered all resistance to the Union, if I shall urge you to continue fighting, it will be an apt time, then, for you to declare you will not fight to free negroes.
I thought that in your struggle for the Union, to whatever extent the negroes should cease helping the enemy, to that extent it weakened the enemy in his resistance to you. Do you think differently? I thought that whatever negroes can be got to do as soldiers, leaves just so much less for white soldiers to do, in saving the Union. Does it appear otherwise to you? But negroes, like other people, act upon motives. Why should they do any thing for us, if we will do nothing for them? If they stake their lives for us, they must be prompted by the strongest motive—even the promise of freedom. And the promise being made, must be kept.
Lincoln addresses the issue of his consistency (or lack thereof) between his earlier position and his later position of emancipation in an 1864 letter to Albert G. Hodges.[23] In that letter, Lincoln states his ethical opposition to slavery, that he did not think he had the constitutional power to abolish it everywhere initially, and that emancipation became necessary for the preservation of the Union.
That is not true, and never had been.
The coastal trade, (between US ports had to be on American ships,) but foreign ships were always allowed to both deliver goods or to purchase US goods.
2. The ship building ports and industry were in New England
Why was that? There was no law forbidding building a ship anywhere you wanted. No one stopped Southerns from entering the shipping trade. There were shipyards in Virginia and Maryland, but the Deep South wanted no part of that by their own choice.
Shipping was a very risky business, and really still is. You could lose your entire investment with one storm. The antebellum South found that land and slaves were a far less risky place to invest money so they relied on those grubby merchants and mechanics from the North to transport their products.
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