Posted on 10/31/2017 8:17:25 AM PDT by rightwingintelligentsia
Fixed it for you.
No problem, you're welcome.
Fixed it.
I love all our American history and am not a Southerner. My people did not wash up at Ellis Island until 1904 so we were not even around during The Civil War. I revere all Confederate and Union monuments and statues. All part of out great history, though the Civil War was a bloody couple of chapters.
Before the 13th Amendment Lincoln had no constitutional authority to abolish slavery in loyal Union states.
He could, however, legally declare runaway salves from states in rebellion as "contraband of war" and that's what the Emancipation Proclamation was all about.
Earlier though the opportunity was there but not the will.
IIRC all states were on board with Madison’s proposal during the NW Territories negotiation- except for SC which was dependent on (rice or indigo, I forget) plantations.
There’s lesson for us today in how the interests of the ‘elite’ prevented the South from taking long-term economic actions that would have benefitted all.
For starters, Federal ownership of many seized properties throughout the South, including forts, ships, arsenals & mints.
True. During the Revolution there was talk of arming slaves and freeing them after the war, but SC slaveowners wouldn't be convinced. Before 1830 or so, there were plenty of plans for emancipation, but eventually, high cotton profits killed off such projects.
Total nonsense, by 1860 all Northern states had gradually abolished slavery and by the 1860 census only New Jersey still showed a handful -- 18.
New York's last slaves (4) were reported on the 1840 census, none thereafter.
PJammers: "GB was against slavery, but ran the slave trade."
To the contrary, after about 1840, the British navy enforced abolition of the international slave-trade on the high seas.
PJammers: "What the south was doing was unconstitutional.
No state is to enter a trade agreement.
Especially, with a hostile nation."
That is pure nonsense.
Before 1861 there were no separate trade treaties and the Brits were far from a hostile nation.
What's certainly true is that Deep South cotton exports totaled roughly half of all US exports and were very important not only to the Deep South, but also to Northern cities like New York.
One way to look at it is to ask, “How many countries used a Civil War to end slavery?”
I’m guessing the answer is...one!
That would suggest alternatives were possible.
When US political parties first formed in the 1790s, they were pro-Constitution Federalists and anti-Constitution anti-Federalists.
Federalists eventually became Whigs who became Republicans.
Anti-Federalists became Jefferson & Jackson Democrats.
The Whigs split & became defunct in the 1850s over the issue of slavery.
Northern Whigs opposed slavery & became Republicans.
Southern Whigs supported slavery, but remained Unionists in 1860 and eventually formed the core of today's Southern Republicans.
Yes, in 1860 slavery was declining in such Border South states as Maryland, Delaware & Missouri, but the reason was because slavery was hugely profitable in the Cotton South and that prosperity drove prices for slaves so high they were no longer profitable in non-cotton states.
In 1860 there was no suggestion in the Deep South that slavery might not last forever.
Indeed, insuring that was the main reason given for declarations of secession, in late 1860 & early '61.
Vlad The Inhaler: "And there were more than just a few although far, far less than in the south."
In fact, by 1860 there were just a handful of slaves in one Northern state, New Jersey -- 18.
In 1790 there were 40,000 Northern slaves and 650,000 Southern slaves.
By 1860 there were 18 Northern slaves and 4 million Southern slaves.
I’m guessing the answer is...one!
Haiti: Violent revolution to get rid of slavery.
Brazil: Emperor overthrown because of slavery.
Most new world lands with slavery were either colonies that had to go along with what the mother country decided, or they had so few slaves that slavery wasn't much of an issue.
But in fact, in many countries, emancipation happened during or after the bloody wars for independence from Spain.
However you look at it the answer was more than one.
You just admitted that the reasons besides protecting the union were secondary, as if they mattered in the end when they didn’t.
Fast forward 150 years and look at Catalonia which is trying to secede for purely economic reasons, and how many world leaders support them and/or would oppose the Spanish military keeping them in by force? Not many. In fact, I can’t think of one.
It's impossible to say how long slavery would have survived in the Deep Cotton South, had there been no Civil War.
But we know for certain secessionist leaders in 1861 gave protecting slavery as their main reason for declaring separation.
And as late as early 1865 they still refused to consider compensated emancipation.
So it's impossible to think that generation would ever consider abolition & full citizenship for slaves.
Indeed, their descendants refused to grant full citizenship until forced by Federal government to do so.
So there's nothing to suggest that Deep South slavery was headed for early or peaceful extinction in 1860.
Both sides of the political spectrum have their useful idiots. The left can reliably count on their constituents who care not a whit about morality. The right has their own version, those who cannot quite conceive their leaders use them to satisfy their own selfish ends.
Here's a question for you: why the high suicide rates among former military? Could it be veterans found out the truth after they were used, abuse and discarded, much like a cheap whore? Next, I imagine you're going to assert that GW1 & 2 were *not* about blood for oil.
I don't have an issue with those who wish to entertain morality and other theological motivations; but, please, keep it to yourself. It's the height of foolishness to engage in the wider field abroad.
Slavery was not a secondary issue to secessionists who declared their separations to protect it.
Nor was slavery secondary to the Union troops who marched into battle singing Julia Ward Howe's song:
You insult history and Americans by denying the centrality of slavery in the US Civil War.
It’s time for the Ctrl-Left thugs to start compromising. Let’s repeal half of Obamacare now and let the other half fester u til a 2018 repeal. Let’s eliminate half of the EPA now and let the other half harass the innocent until next year. Let’s fire half of the Department of Education now and the other half next month. They need to start compromising or start training as well as we have.
Nothing about the word "patriotism" excludes hopes for greater US "power, wealth & control" over global forces of chaos & tyranny.
But US patriotism is far more, including our moral sense of what's right & wrong.
US foreign & domestic policies have never been divorced from such higher concerns, and they never will be, your unlimited cynicism not withstanding.
Perhaps I should have written, “How many democracies used a Civil War to end slavery?”
After all, a revolt by the slaves to gain freedom really wasn’t an option in the USA.
Brazil:
“Brazil’s 1877–78 Grande Seca (Great Drought) in the cotton-growing northeast led to major turmoil, starvation, poverty and internal migration. As wealthy plantation holders rushed to sell their slaves in the south, popular resistance and resentment grew, inspiring numerous emancipation societies. They succeeded in banning slavery altogether in the province of Ceará by 1884...
...In 1872, the population of Brazil was 10 million, and 15% were slaves. As a result of widespread manumission (easier in Brazil than in North America), by this time approximately three quarters of blacks and mulattoes in Brazil were free.
Slavery was not legally ended nationwide until 1888 by the Lei Áurea (”Golden Act”), a legal act promulgated on May 13 by Isabel, Princess Imperial of Brazil. In fact, it was an institution in decline by this time (since the 1880s the country began to attract European immigrant labor instead). Brazil was the last nation in the Western world to abolish slavery, and by abolition had imported an estimated total of four million slaves from Africa. This was 40% of all slaves shipped to the Americas.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Brazil#Steps_towards_freedom
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