Posted on 07/11/2015 9:54:21 AM PDT by golux
You've been reading far too much Chuck Baldwin.
The national debt at the end of FY1859 was about $65 million dollars.
She took her own property. You know, the stuff that was hers before the marriage.
The mints and the forts and the arsenals and the court houses and the customs houses and the revenue cutters and all the rest of the property the South took were there before they became states? You sure about that?
Keep your analogy straight. "Firing Shots" is lethal force directed at the Husband.
And a 24-plus hour bombardment would qualify as lethal force directed at Sumter as well. The fact that they didn't kill anyone doesn't negate the fact that they tried really, really hard to do so. Likewise if your wife took shots at you on her way out the door and missed doesn't mean the authorities would conclude no crime had been committed.
Until you provide some support for your claim that something was owed to them, you don't have an analogy worth discussing.
If members of your organization walk out on the organizations debts and obligations and takes a substantial share of the organizations assets are you still saying that the remaining members should have no recourse whatsoever?
And that is something you wish to believe.
I've seen a lot of wishful thinking from Confederate supporters, too.
Of course most, though not all, Republicans believed whites were racially superior to blacks.
But they did not believe in a Master Race in the same way Nazis and Confederates did.
They didn’t believe the superior race should dominate and enslave the others.
There is, after all, a pretty big difference between second-class citizenship and chattel slavery. Those who conflate the two do so, generally, to make the claim that all those not in favor of total equality are “the same” as those in favor of slavery. Which is a ludicrous argument.
Many leading Americans, notably including Jefferson, thought colonization would be best for both blacks and whites. This was based on the not inaccurate realization that most whites were unwilling to live with large numbers of free blacks.
By no means were all Republicans proponents of this approach. It had a run of experimentation during the first couple years of the war and was then dropped.
Lincoln, unlike some of the other proponents of colonization, again notably including Lincoln, never had any idea to make colonization involuntary. The idea foundered on the paucity of volunteers. And on the fairly obvious logistical and financial challenges, which meant it had never been anything other than a pipedream.
You’d think Jefferson would be better at math than this. Probably he wanted so badly to believe it was possible he ignored the realities.
You’d think Jefferson would be better at math than this. Probably he wanted so badly to believe it was possible he ignored the realities.
To what you are referring are examples of "liberals" once more being gobsmacked by reality and human nature.
They literally do not count the cost to others of their liberal dreams. They simply keep pushing them until they run out of other people's money. Or lives.
It is not enough to list what it was, you have to list how it came to be, and who got what and who contributed what.
The mints and the forts and the arsenals and the court houses and the customs houses and the revenue cutters and all the rest of the property the South took were there before they became states? You sure about that?
The real estate was always there and always belonged to the states in which it was located. As for the rest, I would assume Southern revenue cutters were paid for by the tax dollars they collected. I'm sure the Confederates were not interested in taking any which were paid for by Northern taxes in Northern waters.
And a 24-plus hour bombardment would qualify as lethal force directed at Sumter as well.
You keep mixing up your analogies. Had it killed anybody, you could argue it was lethal force directed at individuals, but on the scale of a nation it was not even a pinprick, let alone anything approaching lethality to a nation. On the scale of a nation, it was a slap on the hand.
The fact that they didn't kill anyone doesn't negate the fact that they tried really, really hard to do so.
I imagine that if that had been their intention, they would have succeeded.
Likewise if your wife took shots at you on her way out the door and missed doesn't mean the authorities would conclude no crime had been committed.
Mixing up your analogies again. Look, a "wife took shots at you" constitutes a threat of being killed by her actions. Blasting the rocks at Ft. Sumter never rose to the level of a threat against the continued existence of Washington D.C. Washington D.C. was never at risk of being killed by what happened at Ft. Sumter.
You are deliberately mixing up the levels of threat between the analogies. You can't accept the fact that Ft. Sumter was no sort of threat at all to the Union, it was a hand slap in real terms.
On the other hand, sending an invasion force to seize Richmond was the equivalent of using a club on someone's head.
The correct analogy is Wife tells husband to remove hand from her knee. Husband refuses. Wife slaps Husband's hand, Husband tries to knock wife out.
Are you saying Lincoln's proposed 13th amendment is not true?
According to this article, it is in fact true.
Two days before his first inauguration in March 4, 1961, Lincoln and the Republicans passed a proposed 13th Amendment, which enshrined slavery by prohibiting Congress from abolishing or interfering with state-allowed slavery.
I'm saying Lincoln didn't propose it. I'm saying that the claim that Lincoln authored it and proposed it while president, which Baldwin claims and you apparently believe, is complete nonsense. The dates don't match for one thing. The record of the amendment doesn't support it for another. Was there a 13th Amendment proposed in Februaru 1861? Yes. Did it pass out of both the House and Senate? Yes. Did Lincoln propose it? No. Did he author it? No.
Now you're just being silly.
The real estate was always there and always belonged to the states in which it was located.
No it did not. It was the property of the U.S. government, which exercised exclusive legislation over it through Congress. The local states had no claims to it at all.
As for the rest, I would assume Southern revenue cutters were paid for by the tax dollars they collected. I'm sure the Confederates were not interested in taking any which were paid for by Northern taxes in Northern waters.
Now you're just being sillier. You really think that someone in DC kept a ledger? South Carolina finally paid $10,000 in taxes so now we can build that revenue cutter they always wanted, something like that? Really?
Look, a "wife took shots at you" constitutes a threat of being killed by her actions. Blasting the rocks at Ft. Sumter never rose to the level of a threat against the continued existence of Washington D.C. Washington D.C. was never at risk of being killed by what happened at Ft. Sumter.
Sillier still. So if that wife of your's sat on the front lawn and blazed away at the house without hitting you, the police would come and say, "No laws broken since you weren't hurt. I don't suppose there is any way we could find out, do you?
So your quibble is whether Lincoln was the author. Again, that article seemed to indicate that he supported it, whether or not he was the author of it.
And he said:
"holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable."
It is silly to demand an accounting before you saddle someone with an "owed" debt?
Today the Nation owes ~17 trillion dollars in admitted debt. it more likely owes 100 trillion dollars in unfunded liabilities.
What do you think my share of the debt ought to be? How much of it was run up with my consent, rather than my screaming at Washington D.C.'s spending policies for decades?
Do I want to walk away from that debt which I didn't create, got little if any benefit from, and which was spent over my objections? Yes. That others would heap debt on me against my will does not make me morally obligated to pay that debt.
No, an appropriate accounting is not silly. I say the people who ran up the debt, should be the ones obligated to pay it.
So if that wife of your's sat on the front lawn and blazed away at the house without hitting you, the police would come and say, "No laws broken since you weren't hurt. I don't suppose there is any way we could find out, do you?
You insist on being obtuse. You cannot characterize a wife as having "blazed away" if what she did could not possibly threaten the Husband's life.
You keep trying to make Ft. Sumter into a DEADLY THREAT when it was nothing of the sort. The Union was never in any danger over what happened at Ft. Sumter. Therefore if your attempt at an analogy implies danger, it is a flawed analogy.
I'm beginning to think your cognitive powers don't rise to the level of comprehending analogies. You Keep wanting to make a pin prick into a deadly threat. You keep trying to force a situation in which no possible threat to the Union was the equivalent of a wife "blazing away" at a husband.
Either you don't understand how analogies work, or you are being deliberately dishonest. If there is a third possibility, I don't see it.
No, the Baldwin article says he wrote it, and wrote it while president. There is no doubt that Lincoln said he supported it. There is no evidence he wrote it, much less wrote it after his inauguration.
Well it appears that he is absolutely wrong about that. I see Lincoln reluctantly supporting it as a necessary compromise. I read nothing that indicates Lincoln Authored it or was even aware of it until after the fact.
Yes, Baldwin gets a lot of stuff wrong, and exaggerates a lot as near as I can tell. He goes too far, just as I said when I first read it.
So, in your version of history, the ruling elite of the South all woke up one morning and said, “youi know, looks like a good day to secede from the union, for no reason at all. It might cause a war that will devastate the country and kill over half a million people, but f*ck it, I have the right to do it, so I will”?
I do have a question, though. If most of the states gave no reason for seceding, at least 4 did. And in the case of Mississippi, they said, and I quote, “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery - the greatest material interest of the world.” So, they (and South Carolina, and Texas, and Georgia) thought it was important that they stated their reason, and the reason was slavery. Do you disagree with them?
You can try to dodge the question by stating that they had no reason for secession, but for those 4 states, at least, the historical record is clear - they had a reason and the reason was slavery.
And so you are going to insist on arguing like a f***ing child? According to what I read earlier, Virginia's secession resolution passed by a 6 to 1 vote of the people. Kinda blows a big f***ing hole in your "Ruling elite of the South" bullsh*t.
This is the problem with your side. You WILL NOT be objective. You resort to red herring, to childish outbursts, to subterfuge, to bait and switch, but the one thing you will not do is accurately portray the social dynamics occurring at that time.
they had a reason and the reason was slavery.
And I will repeat, it is none of your f***ing business why someone no longer wishes to associate with another group. The higher principle in this dispute is the freedom of Association with it's corollary. The freedom of Disassociation.
What you are saying is that other people don't have a right to leave unless *YOU* say so. You are not God. You don't get to tell other people for what reason they must remain connected to people with whom they do not wish to associate.
Stop trying to be God. Especially a retroactive God that punishes people after the fact for something you also did prior to the fact. It's like a thief shooting someone else for being a thief because he wasn't getting any more of the loot.
YOU supported slavery too. Your president was willing to make it Permanent through a constitutional amendment. You have no moral high ground to condemn people for something you yourself condoned, and you are an intellectually dishonest person to even attempt to make something your side condoned into the primary issue.
They got upset because Lincoln represented a purely sectional party, the idea of which the founders had always dreaded. Lincoln was not anti-slavery. He was in favor of passing an amendment which would make it impossible for Congress to touch the slavery issue. He was also a white supremacist who believed that blacks would never the social equals of whites and was in favor of returning all blacks in America to Africa.
Of course he wouldn't arrest all of them, there were no doubt some who were staunch unionists, and he would leave those well alone. The fact remains however, that the federal government stooped to arresting members of a state legislative body in order to manipulate the vote and thus the will of the people.
The "other country" part is open for debate
In that case you will have to agree that if the South had no right to declare themselves free and create their own country, neither did the patriots during the revolution. But if you study American history you will find that they actually had even more of a right to break away than did the patriots, because the states created the Federal government, whereas Britain created the colonies.
but what it did do was make sure that any Southern slaves who ran off couldn't be returned
They weren't being returned anyway. if that were the reason for the proclamation you would have to admit that it worked
Yes, it did.
Declarations of the Causes of Secession
Yes, some did mention the slavery issue (primarily regarding the returning of runaways). However I believe you keep missing the point that these were no longer issues after they left the union and after Lincoln gave his inaugural address. They didn't go to war over that.
There was no 40% tax on Southerners.
The tariff the North was trying to push through would have been nation wide, however the South, being mainly agrarian and relying on imports for many of its manufactured goods, would bear the brunt of it. As usual, they would lose by the tariff while the Northern manufacturing economy gained by it. If you don't believe that tariffs can be a huge cause of contention, then review the history regarding the Tariff of Abominations, in which South Carolina almost seceded over tariffs.
Lincoln could have said he was dead set against it and it wouldn't have made a difference. The president plays no part in the amendment process. He doesn't vote on them, doesn't sign them, can't veto them, nothing.
Of course he couldn't. All he could do was promote, which he did. In the inaugural address he stated that he was in favor of its being made "express and irrevocable.". It was ratified by Maryland and Ohio, and endorsed by Illinois before being withdrawn. And Yes, Lincoln did not write it, he only endorsed it.
“That’s right - they were subject to the terms of the confederation they joined before their pretend secession, during their pretend secession, and after their pretend secession. The terms of their confederation prohibited them from forming separate alliances or confederations outside of congress.”
If it was a pretend secession, then why did the U.S. invade its own states? One can’t invade oneself.
I stand by my comment. You speak like a good little Bundist.
South Carolina mentioned tariffs as a reason for secession, but in a different document. In 1860 South Carolina declared unfair taxes as a cause of secession in her Address of South Carolina to Slaveholding States:
“The British parliament undertook to tax the Colonies, to promote British interests. Between taxation without any representation, and taxation without a representation adequate to protection, there was no difference.” “And so with the Southern States towards the Northern States, in the vital matter of taxation, they are in a minority in Congress.” “The people of the Southern States are not only taxed for the benefit of the Northern States, but after the taxes are collected, three-fourths (75%) of them are expended at the North.” (Paragraphs 5-8)
Georgia also declared tariffs to be an issue in their Causes of Secession, issued January 29, 1861:
“The material prosperity of the North was greatly dependent on the Federal Government; that of the South not at all. In the first years of the Republic the navigating, commercial and manufacturing interests of the North (i.e. Wall Street industries) began to seek profit and aggrandizement at the expense of the agricultural interests.”
Also, I'm not sure if you realize, although some states did cite slavery issues as causes for secession, they did not fight a war to defend slavery. By leaving the union they abandoned all claims regarding slavery in the territories and returning of fugitive slaves, and Lincoln had promised that congress would not touch the issue of slavery. So slavery was no longer an issue. Thus, while for certain of the states such issues may have been a cause for secession, they were not a cause for war.
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