Replies

First I said:
“You mean like John Brown murdering and terrorizing non-slaveholders in Kansas...”
Then you responded:
“But John Brown was captured (by Col. Lee), tried and lawfully hanged for his crimes, on December 2, 1859, well more than a year before Lincoln took office. So that issue was long settled.”
I countered:
“John Brown was never punished for his murders in Kansas (or Missouri) he was hung only for his transgression(5 murders, etc) at Harper Ferry. Therefore those murders are not “long settled” often they are hardly mentioned.”
Then you argued:
“But “Bleeding Kansas” suffered deaths & destruction from terrorists on both sides, not just John Brown.
Do you recall how many pro-slavery terrorists were punished for their actions, FRiend?”
.....
I don’t engage in arguments where the subjects are always morphing into different arguments.
Incidentally the May 6, 1861 date is not a date the Confederacy “Declared War”, it is the date the Confederacy RECOGINIZED a state of war existed between the US and the Confederacy. The state of war had existed for some months before. There is a difference.
bye

BilLies: "Then you argued: 'But “Bleeding Kansas” suffered deaths & destruction from terrorists on both sides, not just John Brown.
Do you recall how many pro-slavery terrorists were punished for their actions, FRiend?'
.....
I don’t engage in arguments where the subjects are always morphing into different arguments"

No, you argued that John Brown deserved to be punished for his terrorist actions in Kansas.
I simply asked if pro-slavery terrorists in Kansas were ever punished?
If not, shouldn't they have been, along with John Brown?

So I'm not saying John Brown was innocent of anything, only that if we wished to punish one, shouldn't we punish them all for the same crimes?

BilLies: "Incidentally the May 6, 1861 date is not a date the Confederacy “Declared War”, it is the date the Confederacy RECOGINIZED a state of war existed between the US and the Confederacy."

It was certainly a declaration of war, in every sense of that word, establishing a formal state of war, and making any pro-Confederates in Union states subject to arrest for treason.

After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt declared war on Japan in exactly the same language:

"I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire"

So a declaration of war is a declaration of war, regardless of how much you gussie up the language.