Posted on 01/19/2011 11:35:34 AM PST by kosciusko51
One hundred and fifty years after the Civil War began, we're still fighting it -- or at least fighting over its history. I've polled thousands of high school history teachers and spoken about the war to audiences across the country, and there is little agreement even on why the South seceded. Was it over slavery? States' rights? Tariffs and taxes?
As the nation begins to commemorate the anniversaries of the war's various battles -- from Fort Sumter to Appomattox -- let's first dispense with some of the more prevalent myths about why it all began.
1. The South seceded over states' rights.
Confederate states did claim the right to secede, but no state claimed to be seceding for that right. In fact, Confederates opposed states' rights -- that is, the right of Northern states not to support slavery.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
I stopped after seeing the heading (turd mark) Washington Post. N-S and his south hating genre here probably subscribe.
What self standing individual wouldn't?
“When was the Emancipation Proclamation announced?”
January 1, 1863
“Was the Civil War still on-going?”
Yes.
“Since the South hadn’t surrendered a case can be made that the EP had no effect. It was a proclamation, not a law”
Not sure what you’re saying here. No, it was not a law. It was an executive act, deriving its authority from Lincoln’s wartime powers as commander in chief. Which is exactly why the only way the EP would have an effect is if the war was still going.
I don’t know about you particularly, but the anti-EP argument seems to be that the EP only applied to rebellious territory, that rebel territory was outside Lincoln’s control, and that by the time it all came under Lincoln’s control the war was over. Therefore, it didn’t do anything. And if it did, there was never any authority to do so anyway.
Nevermind that we know for a fact slaves were freed, which alone tells me at least that the argument went wrong somewhere. This line of thought is unsound on its face. Rebel territory was not all of one piece. The North conquered it piecemeal, freeing slaves as it went. People seem to think rebel territory was somehow by definition territory that Lincoln did not control. It wasn’t. It was any territory that had been in rebellion up until it wasn’t. In other words, anywhere in the Confederacy, with the exception of the parts of Virginia then morphing into West Virginia.
“Not so. The EP did not free a single slave”
Are you trying to argue that 50,000 slaves weren’t officially freed the same day it was passed? Or that 4 million hadn’t been freed by 1865? Or is the idea that they would have been freed anyway, by the logic of an invading army, and that the proclamation was little more than PR? Or is the idea that they weren’t really freed before the 13th amendment did the job, and everything before that was a show?
Granted, the EP is over-praised. Its chief worth is as a first step, and a largely symbolic one at that, on the road to eventual general manumission, yes. However, the idea that it did nothing is preposterous. We KNOW it directly freed slaves. Even if it’s just the ones you admit existed, namely the ones who rounded up for corvée labor.
“many were actually rounded up and concentrated into so-called ‘contraband camps’ where they were pressed into unpaid labor for the Union.”
Yes, our government does things like that. Same way it coerced labor from Northerners via the draft. Not unpaid, exactly, but involuntary and below market wages.
“the extent that those two principles are legitimate South Carolina was clearly acting on a basis other than just might makes right”
I suppose I should say I don’t see how South Carolina’s claims are any less a matter of Might Makes Right than the U.S.’s, then. Because similar principles dictate that nations continue to lay claim to far-flung territory no matter who happens to later claim it for themselves. We didn’t give up Guantanamo Bay after Cuba went commie, did we? Cuba, for its part, would argue that it’s their rightful land and our retaining it is a matter of Might Makes Right. But they can go suck an egg.
Do you want to think about that and try again?
“The E. P. only had effect in the North since the Southern States had succeeded.”
What? This makes no sense. Unless by “the North” you mean whatever previously rebellious territory had been conquered by the North.
“So, I think your premise is correct - he only freed the slaves in the North.”
Again, unless you have an idiosyncratic operational definition of “the North,” no, he didn’t. He was expressly forbidden by Dred Scott from doing so.
But that is indeed a might makes right argument isn't it?
But it all goes back to the EP. A proclamation. Not an executive order or anything like that. When was there another proclamation by a president? Lincoln could just have announced “all you slaves are free” and that was that. Sure as the Union Army captured Southern territory the slaves were basically set free. That is until after the Democrats took over and started the whole segregation thing. But that’s a whole other topic. So the EP had really nothing to do with it. Lots of interesting stuff on Google/BING about pro/con.
“the Emancipation Proclamation did not free all the slaves in the United States”
Obviously, since it didn’t apply to the border states.
“The Emancipation Proclamation didn’t actually free any slaves”
Yes it did.
“because it related only to areas under the control of the Confederacy”
No, it referred to states where people were now in rebellion. As you may have heard, the U.S. government was then at war with said states, and was in the process of retaking control of them. As they conquered, they freed. That’s how it worked.
“The South broke away from the North, and President Lincoln couldn’t make slave owners living in the Confederate states of America obey the Emancipation Proclamation.”
Yes, he could. He used his army.
“After the Civil War ended and the South became part of the United States again, the South had to obey Lincoln.”
By that time, of course, the EP no longer applied. The 13th amendment was needed to ensure slaves stayed free, as indicated in the quote.
“Although no slaves were actually freed by the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863”
This claim is repeated, though I didn’t see it supported anywhere in that rambling and disjointed paragraph.
“’Would the Cubans be justified in shelling the base?’
‘Yes.’”
Would we be in the wrong to defend it?
“Actually there were no slaves in the North. The North were free states.”
Ever heard of the “border states”? We consider them part of “the North,” since they stayed in the Union.
"Did the Emancipation Proclamation free all the slaves in the United States? Many people think it did, but the Emancipation Proclamation did not free all the slaves in the United States and here is why. The Emancipation Proclamation didn't actually free any slaves because it related only to areas under the control of the Confederacy. The South broke away from the North, and President Lincoln couldn't make slave owners living in the Confederate states of America obey the Emancipation Proclamation. After the Civil War ended and the South became part of the United States again, the South had to obey Lincoln. The Emancipation Proclamation didn't include slaves in the border states and in some southern areas under the North's control, such as Tennessee and parts of Virginia and Louisiana. Although no slaves were actually freed by the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, it did lead to the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. The 13th Amendment became a law on December 18, 1865, and ended slavery in all parts of the United States."
“Did he have any legal power over the seceded area?”
Yes, as commander in chief of the U.S. armed forces. The EP was an executive order issued under wartime powers.
“They were in legal terms no longer part of the United States.”
Not after the Union army conquered them.
“I do know no slaves were freed”
I don’t know how you know that, especially as it’s not true.
Maybe it didn't free any slaves at that exact moment, but as United States forces pressed deeper into the rebelling states, it had the effect of freeing hundreds of thousands, if not millions. And just look up how the south screamed about it. Here's what Frederick Douglass had to say on the subject of the Emancipation Proclamation:
...and in the fullness of time, we saw Abraham Lincoln, after giving the slave-holders three months' grace in which to save their hateful slave system, penning the immortal paper, which, though special in its language, was general in its principles and effect, making slavery forever impossible in the United States. Though we waited long, we saw all this and more.As late as January 1865 Lincoln was still open to the idea of a compensated emancipation and offered 400 million dollars for that purpose at the Hampton Roads conference.Can any colored man, or any white man friendly to the freedom of all men, ever forget the night which followed the first day of January, 1863, when the world was to see if Abraham Lincoln would prove to be as good as his word? I shall never forget that memorable night, when in a distant city I waited and watched at a public meeting, with three thousand others not less anxious than myself, for the word of deliverance which we have heard read today. Nor shall I eve forget the outburst of joy and thanksgiving that rent the air when the lightning brought to us the emancipation proclamation.
The confederates should have taken his offer. The 13th amendment had finally passed the House of Representatives just a few days before, thanks to the recent elections finally giving the necessary supermajority to the Republicans.
Bubba Ho-Tep wrote:
“Gee, if only they’d actually mentioned the Morrill Tariff in their Declarations of Causes instead of constantly going on about slavery and the threat to it presented by the election of Lincoln, you might have a point.”
____________________________________________________________
Seven states had seceeded from the union before Lincoln was ever President: South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas.
Lincoln did not favor immediate abolition of slavery, equal rights for blacks or even co-existance with them. He held the same predjudices and false ideas about them as others of his day. His “Emancipation Proclamation” was simply a ploy to silence his critics and gain favor for his agenda. It only freed slaves in the Confederate States, leaving the slave-holding border states to continue to freely practice it.
The delicate balance of power between the “slave-holding states” and the “non-slave holding states” was the basis of the contention, not the right of either to exist.
Yes. When the host country wants you out you leave, even if the host country is Cuba. We defy them because we can and because we want to destabilize the Cuban regime. That doesn't change the basic principle though. If they tried to evict us, using every reasonable method short of force first, and if we forcefully resisted, would any other country anywhere support us?
While the vision of most southern leaders was that there was no question at all. Negro slaves were their property and that was the end of it.
“If they tried to evict us, using every reasonable method short of force first, and if we forcefully resisted, would any other country anywhere support us?”
I should hope so. It was ours first.
“Please explain what is disjointed and rambling about:”
I believe I did, implictly, by parsing it. But specifically, the sentences don’t flow together. There’s no discernable line of thought. It’s one idea after another. At least one of those ideas (”no slaves were actually freed by the Emancipation Proclamation”) is baldly unsupported. Others are merely dubious.
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