HISTORICAL IGNORANCE II: Forgotten facts about Lincoln, slavery and the Civil War

FrontPage Mag ^ | 07/22/2015 | Prof. Walter Williams

[SeekAndFind]

We call the war of 1861 the Civil War. But is that right? A civil war is a struggle between two or more entities trying to take over the central government. Confederate President Jefferson Davis no more sought to take over Washington, D.C., than George Washington sought to take over London in 1776. Both wars, those of 1776 and 1861, were wars of independence. Such a recognition does not require one to sanction the horrors of slavery. We might ask, How much of the war was about slavery?

Was President Abraham Lincoln really for outlawing slavery? Let's look at his words. In an 1858 letter, Lincoln said, "I have declared a thousand times, and now repeat that, in my opinion neither the General Government, nor any other power outside of the slave states, can constitutionally or rightfully interfere with slaves or slavery where it already exists." In a Springfield, Illinois, speech, he explained: "My declarations upon this subject of Negro slavery may be misrepresented but cannot be misunderstood. I have said that I do not understand the Declaration (of Independence) to mean that all men were created equal in all respects." Debating Sen. Stephen Douglas, Lincoln said, "I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes nor of qualifying them to hold office nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races, which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality."

What about Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation? Here are his words: "I view the matter (of slaves' emancipation) as a practical war measure, to be decided upon according to the advantages or disadvantages it may offer to the suppression of the rebellion." He also wrote: "I will also concede that emancipation would help us in Europe, and convince them that we are incited by something more than ambition." When Lincoln first drafted the proclamation, war was going badly for the Union.

London and Paris were considering recognizing the Confederacy and assisting it in its war against the Union.

The Emancipation Proclamation was not a universal declaration. It specifically detailed where slaves were to be freed: only in those states "in rebellion against the United States." Slaves remained slaves in states not in rebellion — such as Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware and Missouri. The hypocrisy of the Emancipation Proclamation came in for heavy criticism. Lincoln's own secretary of state, William Seward, sarcastically said, "We show our sympathy with slavery by emancipating slaves where we cannot reach them and holding them in bondage where we can set them free."

Lincoln did articulate a view of secession that would have been heartily endorsed by the Confederacy: "Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government and form a new one that suits them better. ... Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can may revolutionize and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit." Lincoln expressed that view in an 1848 speech in the U.S. House of Representatives, supporting the war with Mexico and the secession of Texas.

Why didn't Lincoln share the same feelings about Southern secession? Following the money might help with an answer. Throughout most of our nation's history, the only sources of federal revenue were excise taxes and tariffs. During the 1850s, tariffs amounted to 90 percent of federal revenue. Southern ports paid 75 percent of tariffs in 1859. What "responsible" politician would let that much revenue go?

[jeffersondem]

“Your bitterness against those who hated the enslavement of other men is undying.”

Let me try to explain what I see this way.

Your statement leads me to believe that you see slavery (and perhaps racism) as my problem, or a southern problem, rather than a national or global problem.

You don’t refute that every northern colony signed on for slavery - you ignore it.

I can understand your thinking because we see it on display so often today - every time the television is turned on.

You can tell all your friends you are not prejudiced, or you are not a racist, because you are emotionally schnchonized with Abraham Lincoln and he, after all, “freed the slaves.”

In other words, cheap grace.

[EternalVigilance]

The provision you hang your hat on was an unjust inclusion in the original Constitution. It should never have been there in the first place, because it violated the laws of nature and nature’s God and the first stated natural law principles of the republic. It treated men like cattle, instead of like the men they were, made in the image and likeness of God, endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, starting with the rights to life and liberty.

But it was demanded by the slaveholders, with the threat of the dissolution of the national Union that had been forged in the fires of the Revolution.

Sadly, the founders, so wise in most things, succumbed to the temptations of political expedience and compromise.

But the later opposition of good men to the injustice of the practice of slavery, especially the injustice that forced them and their states to offer physical support to the injustice, made conflict inevitable.

The abolitionists had a moral basis for their opposition to the unjust constitutional provision.

The slaveholders had no moral basis for their claim to property in human souls, even if countenanced by the Constitution.

Natural right precedes and supersedes all human laws and constitutions, you see.

And a breach of natural right, of the laws of nature and nature’s God, will always catch up with you, or a nation, sooner or later.

That’s just the way the cookie crumbles, whether you like it or not.

[EternalVigilance]

You’re just making stuff up. Even new words, I guess. lol...

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "Well that's just bad logic.
That Lincoln trampled constitutional principles, and most especially trampled the Declaration of Independence which was the foundational principle of this nation, does not establish the confederacy as a threat one way or the other."

But Lincoln "trampled" nothing, not constitutional principles and especially not the Declaration of Independence.
Lincoln merely responded, as the Constitution requires, to the Confederacy provoking, starting and declaring war on the United States, while sending military aid to pro-Confederates in the Union state of Missouri.

The Constitution specifically requires Federal responses to "rebellion", "insurrection", "domestic violence", "invasion" and "treason" -- all of which Lincoln faced, and responded to appropriately.

So, no "trampling", except by the Confederacy.

DiogenesLamp: "Every time I see someone bringing up "Slavery" as the South's reason for leaving, I think "Liar wants to change the subject."
If something is a "right" then they don't have to have reasons of which you approve to exercise that right.
The main point here is "Do they have a right?"
If they do, then their "reasons" don't matter.
They are entitled to do it anyway. "

Sorry, FRiend, but all the lies are coming from your side.
But I'll acknowledge that your argument here is subtly different from most Lost Causers, who insist that slavery was only a minor issue, or not really important, and something else was the real reason.
At least it appears here that you don't deny the importance of slavery, at the time, it's just that you say secessionists "have a right" regardless of their reasons, right?

Fine... I agree with a "right of rebellion", when conditions become as intolerable as they were to our Founders in 1776.
But our Founders never exercised, and never justified a "right of rebellion" at pleasure, for no particular reason.
It's also instructive that our Founders never formally declared war on Britain, and were wise enough to figure out a strategy for victory over the Brits vastly more powerful military force.

Indeed, it's more instructive that in 1807, when President Jefferson suspected his former Vice President, Aaron Burr, of travelling to New Orleans to set up a new state and declare his secession, Jefferson had Burr chased down, arrested and tried for treason.

So much for our Founders' belief in a "right to leave" at pleasure.

DiogenesLamp: "What you are trying to do is dismiss their right by focusing on their reasons which are objectionable, and thereby deceive people regarding the fact of their rights. "

But what you are doing is throwing up great clouds of smoke to obscure the fact that the Deep South did secede without causing war, and only their own actions to provoke, start and formally declare war on the United States lead to their ultimate downfall.

DiogenesLamp: "And of course we find out from Abraham Lincoln and General Sherman that it is an utter lie that the Union fought because of slavery.
The Union fought ONLY to subjugate the South, and not because they gave a whit about the peculiar institution."

Like all Lost Cause pro-Confederates, you are dead-set determined to confuse the facts, the issue, yourself and anybody else you can.
In fact, the Union's response to Confederate aggressions was not at first to "free the slaves", nor to "subjugate the South", but at first just to defeat the military power which first provoked, started and declared war on the United States.
Freeing slaves eventually became a Union strategy for winning the war, a strategy which fit nicely with their previous abolitionist beliefs.

And you well know, with half a mind you'd understand all that in a second, and not prattle on endlessly about alleged "lies" from others.

DiogenesLamp: "The General simply admits the obvious.
'Stop fighting and you can keep your slaves.
Stop resisting control from Washington D.C. and you can keep your slaves.' "

Which is somewhat true, at the war's beginning.
After the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862, then, well, not so much.

DiogenesLamp: "So why are you talking about Slavery when that is not the Moral reason for why the Union invaded and destroyed the South?"

Because, FRiend, slavery was certainly the "Moral reason" (or rather the im-moral reason) the Deep South declared it's secession, and having once launched and declared war against the Union, slavery was the "Moral reason" why the South did not seek peace until utterly defeated militarily.

So slavery was the South's alpha and omega of Civil War.

DiogenesLamp: ""DECEIT" is the only reason that comes to mind.
You want the evil which was done by the Union atoned for by the after the fact good that was done by the Union, and you want to completely ignore the fact that the Union never had any intention of doing this "good thing" and when they finally did it, they didn't do it because it was the right thing to do, they did it for reasons of 'Military/Tactical Advantage,' and 'REVENGE' and 'PUNISHMENT.' "

Complete and utter rubbish, not a word of truth in it, just the raging insanity of your own mind, FRiend.
You're probably going to need professional help for that.

DiogenesLamp: "You just want to believe that your team was the "good guy" and it really bothers you when the correct and proper truth is pointed out to you.

"No, your side was not the good guy in this story.
Your side was the most evil of all participants.
When it finally did do something good, it didn't do it because it was good, it did it just to be a little bit more evil."

Sorry FRiend, but when you start & declare a war, and then lose, you have little call to complain about the motives, good or bad, of the victorious side.
Starting a war has a moral quality all its own, which outweighs and obviates many other considerations.

[BroJoeK]

Tau Food to DiogenesLamp: "I believe that you have stated in the past that you consider all of us in this country to be slaves, but the vast majority of the people who live in this country (including those who live in the South) do not consider themselves to be slaves."

DiogenesLamp responding: "The discussion generally goes like this:

"People have a right to leave the United States."

'Why do you support Slavery?' "

In fact, nobody on this thread has accused our FRiend DiogenesLamp of "supporting Slavery".
What we have done is point to facts which demonstrate that protecting slavery was indeed the reason Deep South Fire Eaters declared secession, and after starting Civil War then refused to surrender until thoroughly defeated militarily.

But DiogenesLamp wishes to change the subject, away from slavery to something called "a right to leave", using the Confederacy as the example.
But the Confederacy is such a poor example, there's just no way to win this debate.

The Confederacy was all about slavery, and you'll never change slavery into "a right to leave".

[BroJoeK]

celmak: "You may also know that every Confederate force (including Robert E Lee’s) operating in Union states or territories kidnapped free (Black) people there and sent them back to Democrat slaver territory to be slaves..."

Thanks for reminding me.
All discussions of Confederate soldier "good behavior" end when the subject is African-Americans in Union states or territories.

[jeffersondem]

“The abolitionists had a moral basis for their opposition to the unjust constitutional provision.”

I didn’t think I would ever dislodge you from your contention that the north was on the side of the constitution - but I have. You rest your case on moral, not constitutional, grounds.

I don’t know how you make a strong moral argument against human bondage based on Mosaic Law, or the Koran. You have a better argument within Christian teaching, especially if you can discredit Saint Paul and find a passage where Jesus speaks out against it (human bondage).

Your case will be even stronger once Christianity is adopted as the official religion of the United States.

You didn’t ask me, but my understanding is this:

If you, or your grandfather, owned slaves and you do not accept Jesus as your personal savior, you WILL go to hell.

If you, or your grandfather, did not own slaves and you do not accept Jesus as your personal savior, you WILL go to hell.

Is that your understanding too?

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "Didn't they rule Lincoln's actions were justified as a necessity of war?
Funny how that works.
You win, the Courts back you up. :) "

Years after the Second World War, the US Supreme court ruled Roosevelt's actions regarding 100,000+ Japanese Americans to have been unlawful, and Congress awarded them official apologies along with monetary reparations.

By stark contrast, no court ever ruled against Lincoln's Civil War actions, and Congress never paid reparations, except to Southern Unionists who lost property defending the Union.

DiogenesLamp: "Wasn't he thinking of arresting Justice Taney?"

Chief Justice Taney was a tool of the Slave Power, chief author of the Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision, and deeply opposed to "Black Republicans" like "Ape" Lincoln.
But in the 1860s, Taney no longer spoke for a majority of the Court.
Reports of Taney's arrest were greatly exaggerated.

[Partisan Gunslinger]

The Southern States cause was Independence and just like the founders, they owned slaves.

No, in their Declarations of Secession, they say their cause was slavery.

The Union freed no slaves because they were moral, the Union freed slaves as punishment to the South for trying to be independent.

So you're a mind-reader? No, there was a lot of moral objection to slavery. Even the 49ers hated slavery. When gold was discovered there, southerners would take their slaves to do the panning while they did nothing. 49ers not from the south wrote in their diaries how disgusting it was to see that.

As I have already pointed out before, but perhaps you didn't see it because you don't look like you are reading anything very closely, according to General Sherman, the South could have kept their slaves if they just accepted rule from Washington D.C.

Accepted their agreement they made in ratifying the Constitution and not attacked Sumter maybe.

General Sherman addressing a crowd at a Southern Town which his troops were occupying: " Last year they could have saved their slaves, but now it is too late."

Yep.

Do you know what is immoral? Fighting a war to subjugate another people, and then lying about it by telling everyone you fought to free slaves when you really fought to make slaves.

Lincoln said he responded to the attack to save the union. Where is the lie?

[Partisan Gunslinger]

I had always thought of article IV as the “Full Faith and Credit Clause”, plus Sections dealing with Privileges and Immunities, and Service and Labour and new state admission, and Republican Form of Government. Now you tell me there is Secession provision in Article IV. If so, it must be in the Full Faith and Credit clause. The traditional explanation of Section 1 is usually something along the lines of that found in “The Heritage Guide to the Constitution.” It reads, in part: “An essential purpose of the Full Faith and Credit Clause is to assure that the courts of one state will honor the judgments of the courts of another state without the need to retry the whole cause of action. It was an essential mechanism for creating a “union” out of multiple sovereigns. The first sentence of the Full Faith and Credit Clause appeared almost verbatim in Article IV of the Articles of Confederation, which read: “Full faith and credit shall be given in each of these States to the records, acts and judicial proceedings of the courts and magistrates of every other State.” At the Constitutional Convention, the originally proposed article also specifically required each state to enforce the other states’ judgments regarding debts, but that portion was dropped. There was little discussion of the constitutional provision during the Convention and ratifying period, but it was commonly assumed that the clause was at least in part intended to ensure that debtors could not escape their creditors by crossing into other states. Moreover, the “public Acts” requirement was apparently added to force state courts to enforce each other’s insolvency laws.” Please cite any founding fathers that state or imply the Full Faith and Credit Clause (or any other part of Article IV) was intended to regulate secession. I've never heard of it but I'm willing to learn.

Is secession an act of a state? If so, can Congress lay general rules on how a state proves that act?

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "We stole the entire Island from Spain, so what was anybody gonna do about it?"

The terms ending that war gave the US a lease on Guantanamo Bay, a lease which the US has exercised and paid ever since.
So no American actions in manning, resupplying or reinforcing our forces at Gitmo is an act of war against Cuba, but any assault by Cuba against our forces there would be an act of war against the United States.

Gitmo and Fort Sumter are identical in that regard.

DiogenesLamp: "Congress was not the sticking point.
The guy with all the soldiers was the sticking point."

But that "guy" Lincoln was not going to ever negotiate with Confederate emissaries on a matter over which the Constitution gave Congress authority.
And Jefferson Davis well knew that.
It's why he made a show of sending people to see the President, not Congress.

Davis had no real interest in peace.

DiogenesLamp: "Had Lincoln allowed the Democratic process to work in it's normal manner, there was a good chance that such a thing might have happened.
Lincoln locked up Legislators in Maryland to prevent a vote for secession."

If you knew your history, you'd know that Maryland's legislature did vote on secession, and defeated it overwhelmingly.
That was before the Confederacy started and formally declared war on the United States, acts which made any pro-Confederate Marylanders guilty of giving aid and comfort to the enemy -- treason.
Once the Confederacy declared war, then there could be no more question of Maryland lawfully declaring secession.

DiogenesLamp: "That is a fact not in evidence."

Given the Union's initially poor military leadership, Confederate victory might have come despite their manifest disadvantages.
It would almost certainly have come, had the odds been more in their favor.

As for who would dominate the other... well, a victorious slave-power would certainly have wished to have its agenda items satisfied, and sooner, not later.

[Tau Food]

I don't want to speak for anyone else, but my impression is that these folks don't support slavery. I think that the range of views about the 1860's here at FR reflect the range of views out in the real world. Here is a 2011 public opinion poll regarding some of these issues.

In a sense, we might just as well be talking about the Battle of Culloden. Nobody at FR was around in the 1860's and nobody at FR has ever even known anybody who was around in the 1860's. Surely, some of us have ancestors who were around, but we didn't know any of them.

I really think that most of the people who speak favorably about secession do so in large part because they see in secession some sort of answer to their frustrations about life in America now. The problem is that when they make their pitch for secession they allow themselves to get all tangled up with the controversies surrounding the secessions of the 1860's and the next thing you know they find themselves arguing that slavery was irrelevant (despite what the secessionists back then claimed) and that the USA is just some sort of a joint venture of states, etc.

The interesting question for me is why some of these folks find that life in the USA seems so intolerable. Obviously, we all have some good reasons to criticize this or that, but all in all this country seems to me a paradise compared to most places in the world. I feel very lucky to have been born here. And, I know that the things that must change will change with time. I don't feel like a slave and I don't feel that we are living in a fascist state. I have been given many opportunities in this country that I wouldn't have received elsewhere and, for the most part, I feel pretty free. So, I think it's unfortunate that a lot of these folks are having so much trouble finding the happiness here that I have found.

[Partisan Gunslinger]

Your statement helps me to better understand why you write the things you do. You want to see slavery (and perhaps racism) as a southern problem rather than a national or global problem. You don't refute that every northern colony signed on for slavery - you ignore it.

Slavery was definitely a southern problem in 1861. Other states were moving away from it, the south vowed to perpetuate it.

I can understand your thinking because we see it on display so often today - every time the television is turned on. You can tell all your friends you are not prejudiced, or you are not a racist, because you are emotionally schnchonized with Abraham Lincoln and he, after all, “freed the slaves.” In other words, cheap grace.

Yeah, okay.

[BroJoeK]

Tau Food to DiogenesLamp: "With all due respect, I think it is you who is challenging the right of people to decide 'rightly or wrongly the course they wish to take in their lives.' "

Thanks for a very civil discourse, much appreciated.

[EternalVigilance]

I rest my case on constitutional grounds, as long as the constitution is moral. My obligations to God outweigh my obligations to men.

The case against chattel slavery is an easy, simple one. First, God forbids man-stealing, which is what chattel slavery is.

And the second table of the law is to love our neighbor as ourselves.

Since I know for sure I have absolutely no interest in being a chattel slave, the answer is crystal clear on that.

I love freedom. And since I love freedom for myself, my obligation to share the same concern for my fellow man is an obvious one.

As to your final question, I have great-great grandfathers who were abolitionists who fought and bled for the Union. And I also have a great-great grandfather who owned slaves right up until he freed them in Missouri in 1863. He came from a long line of slaveholders going back to the earliest days of Tidewater Virginia.

They were all professiong Christians, near as I can tell.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it"

But the real truth is: the US Federal Government in December 1860 was not destructive of any ends -- it had the same pro-slavery Dough-faced Democrat President Buchanan elected in 1856, the same pro-slavery Democrat dominated Congress elected in 1858, and the same pro-slavery Supreme Court that issued the 1857 Dred-Scott decision.

There was no material action by the Federal Government to justify Deep South Fire Eaters' declarations of secession.
That makes those declarations "at pleasure", which was never what any Founder in 1776 intended, FRiend.

Finally, our Founders' Constitution established many lawful methods by which government could be altered, or even abolished.
But Deep South secessionists chose not to employ those methods, but instead to declare secession unilaterally, and then provoke, start and declare war on the United States.

[Partisan Gunslinger]

I just noticed this. Yes, you are absolutely right. Why didn't I see this sooner? It was absolutely horrible that they murdered those people at Ft. Sumter. Yes, Lincoln was absolutely justified in sending a 35,000 man invasion force to revenge the deaths of all those people that the Confederates killed at Ft. Sumter. It was an act of barbarism, and it should have been swiftly punished by the Army Invading Richmond, but which had no orders to free any slaves. Yes, those Confederates really shouldn't have murdered those Union Soldiers at Ft. Sumter. They just shouldn't have done that. No siree, that was just wrong. If they had simply blown up some rocks, but not killed anybody, that would have been one thing, but murdering those people at Ft. Sumter was just unforgivable. Once you've killed people, you deserve a vengeful response. Yup, the Union certainly taught them that murdering people at Ft. Sumter was wrong. Had they not murdered anybody they wouldn't have needed such a harsh lesson, but because they murdered those people at Ft. Sumter, they needed hundreds of thousands of men killed, lands burned, property seized, and lives wrecked. If only they hadn't murdered those people at Ft. Sumter.

The intent was there, it doesn't matter that they were so bad at it. Did they try to murder people at Fort Sumter?

[Partisan Gunslinger]

If there was still any nagging doubt about its liberal tactics, just take a gander at the DegenerateLamp’s post #657

Yeah. What did he say earlier, that northerners are "fanatical" because they wouldn't just give up?

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "Stop pretending the Union wasn't planning on keeping them in slavery during the first two years of the war.
I am not going to let you take credit for something you had no intention of doing in the first place, and only did out of spite when you did finally do the right thing."

Well... first of all, "I" didn't do any of this, though one of my great-grandfathers, non-English speaking, fresh off the boat from Europe, did serve and was wounded in the war.
Still, I would not blame him for anything you put on Lincoln, FRiend.

But to your point: in fact, the original idea for the Emancipation Proclamation came from former President John Quincy Adams when he was again in Congress, along with Representative Abraham Lincoln, in 1847.
And basically, he just revived the British Revolutionary War strategy of freeing "contraband" slaves in rebel areas.

It was a military strategy which matched perfectly with Republican abolitionist ideals, but Lincoln delayed issuing the Emancipation Proclamation until he had some sliver of Union military victory (Antietam) to make it seem realistic.

So your irrational hatreds of Union motives are simply unjustified, FRiend.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "Somehow 54% has to come back in money or products, and if it comes back in money it has to eventually come back in products when they spend the money."

Point is: that money was not necessarily spent on European imports by Southern cotton growers.
Growers often bought goods made in the USA, which created revenues for others to buy other goods, some of them imports.

DiogenesLamp: "The South was apparently ending up with quite a lot of European Money, and some how the tariffs on European products had to be paid out of that chunk of money."

There is no doubt that a relatively small number of Southern planters were extraordinarily wealthy, thanks to their "peculiar institution" and the soaring demand for cotton.
But it does not follow from that to say "Southerners paid the tariffs" for all or most of America's imports.