Posted on 10/03/2015 1:28:14 PM PDT by Kaslin
Although the American Revolution resulted in independence for the United States and World War II made it an international power, the American Civil War was arguably the most important war in American history. It truly was an American watershed.
In order to appreciate that war’s significance, it must be understood what the Civil War was about. Contrary to all-too-popular opinion, the Civil War was not about states’ rights. Instead it was all about slavery and white supremacy. As shown in my just-released book, The Myth of the Lost Cause: Why the South Fought the Civil War and Why the North Won, there is compelling evidence that secession and the Confederacy were the result of Southerners’ desire to preserve slavery and white supremacy – not to promote states’ rights.
The evidence of the seceders’ motivations is clear-cut and convincing. Only slave states seceded, and the greater the percentage of slaves and the percentage of slave-owning families the more likely a slave state was to secede. Those states complained that the Federal Government was doing not too much but too little – Southerners wanted the central government to more aggressively enforce slavery, especially to return runaway slaves. They also were upset that other states were passing “liberty laws” to make it more difficult to retrieve runaways. The issue was not who had the power to do what but instead whether their powers were being used to promote slavery. Far from respecting individual states’ rights, they wanted to compel the Federal and other state governments to enforce slaveholders’ rights and preserve slavery.
The strongest evidence of seceders’ motivations is the language they used in their own secession documents. What could be more telling? Six of the seven early seceding states provided clear statements of their reasons for seceding. Their reasons included the election of Abraham Lincoln, who opposed extension of slavery into territories; the runaway slave issue; the threat to slavery’s existence with the possible loss of four to six billion dollars in slave property (the largest component of Southern wealth); the perceived end of white supremacy and the resultant political and social equality of blacks and whites, and desperate warnings of the effect all this change would have on Southern Womanhood.
South Carolina’s declaration of the reasons for secession said, “an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution [runaway slave return provision].”
As he called for a secession convention, Mississippi’s governor declared, “The existence or the abolition of African slavery in the Southern States is now up for a final settlement.” Citing only slavery-protection reasons, that state’s legislature convened a secession convention. The latter’s declaration of the causes of secession got right to the point in its opening line: “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery – the greatest material interest of the world.”
Not only did their own secession resolutions reveal slavery and white supremacy as their causation, but the seven states who seceded even before Lincoln’s inauguration immediately began an outreach campaign to other slave states. Their correspondence and speeches relied only on slavery-related issues to encourage other slave states’ secession. They only lobbied slave states.
Much other evidence demonstrates that slavery and white supremacy preservation were the causes of secession and even trumped possible Confederate victory in the war. All efforts to avoid war by compromise focused only on slavery issues. Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens said slavery was the “cornerstone” of the Confederacy and Thomas Jefferson and the Founding Fathers had erred in stating that all men were created equal.
Even though it had a tremendous manpower shortage, the Confederacy officially rejected the use of slaves as soldiers (as inconsistent with its white supremacy views) and rejected one-on-one prisoner exchanges for captured black Union soldiers. Just as American colonists needed European intervention to win the Revolutionary War, the Confederates were desperate for British and French intervention; however, they declined to end slavery in order to achieve involvement by the slavery-hating Europeans.
Union victory ended slavery and kept America from being an international pariah. It also resulted in passage of the 13th, 14th and 15th constitutional amendments; these provided the legal basis for ending legal segregation and providing blacks with voting and other civil rights.
Despite the compelling evidence of slavery’s and white supremacy’s roles in fomenting secession, the Confederacy, and the Civil War, too many contemporary Americans cling to the myth that somehow states’ rights were at the root of the Civil War. We need to accept the reality of the racial underpinnings of that critical war in order to contemplate, confront, and overcome the continuing racial tensions in America.
Take that issue up with Thomas Jefferson and the 13 colonies. They didn't intend for the Declaration to apply to slaves. If they did, they would have immediately freed their own. They didn't.
You are aware that New Mexico became a state in 1912, aren't you? I don't think that slavery was much of a factor by then.
You just do not understand how the finances of that time period worked. 75% of everything exported was Southern Agriculture products. The import equation must balance, and it cannot balance unless you acknowledge that the biggest chunk of that import money/goods/services was paid for by those exports.
The record keeping is irrelevant, the place where the tariff's were collected is irrelevant, the only thing that matters is that Southern Products were most of what was being sold to Europe, and therefore most of the money earned from Europe was the consequence of those same products.
And short of becoming the kind of economic basket case the Republic of Texas became, I can't imagine what would ever make the Southern states decide to give up their independence and subordinate themselves to the greater U.S. again.
I know that. My information came from here. http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2013/apr/21/paul-ryan/lincoln-backed-slavery-measures-us-rep-paul-ryan-s/
The area of a place did not necessarily mean statehood.
Beside the point. Had they done so, Lincoln would have likely taken the deal. At least that is what he says when he wrote that letter.
Of course there is always the possibility that he might be a two faced liar, but I wouldn't think you would find that a likely possibility.
If you think Lincoln would have kept his word, the US would have likely kept slavery had the South conditionally agreed to stop fighting as of August 22, 1861.
And it prepped the way for total emancipation.
It got everyone ready for a vast theft of all their invested wealth.
Yes agree the south was terrible at attacking forts, but still the attack was an act of war.
“You aren’t grasping the meaning of the Declaration of Independence. Independence is always lawful.”
The delicious irony of it all; you are failing to grasp how you are arguing for the usurpation of the rights of the independence of the U.S. citizens to exercise their own right of self government by a self-appointed mob of treasonous Confederate conspirators employing voter fraud and armed coercion in contempt for the Declaration of Independence ,, Articles of Confederation, and Constitution.
“England had a law against independence too. Our founders declared that “the laws of nature, and of nature’s God” over rode the laws of England. They also override the US Constitution.”
Unlike England or the United Kingdom of Great Britain, the Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, and Constitution provide the means for the people to revolt against the government by many different means and even to secede from the Union of the United States without depriving the citizens of the United States their personal sovereign rights. The Confederate conspirators acted in contempt of those foundational documents and the principles for which they stood in an attempt to usurp the independence of the U.S. citizens in all states, including the Southern states and the Southern citizens.
You make claims like “Lincoln permitted it”. How was he supposed to stop it?
No, it is not "in" South Carolina, it is a man-made island built from the seafloor by the federal government. South Carolina had no right to it.
Now the issue that led to secession was slavery. No doubt about it.
And this is an accurate assessment.
Slavery was economically the "fossil fuel" of the South. Calls to abolish it in Southern States would be regarded as similar to calls to abolish fossil fuels today.
People dependent upon fossil fuels would look at you like you were a nut. Many of the Northern States had gone "green", and just expected everyone else to do the same thing or they were a bad person.
This is the similarities between Liberals then, and Liberals now.
Baloney! The South was represented by the members of Congress, and their control of the Supreme Court. They just didn’t get their way and were willing to fight to prevail.
The Southern Democrats represented the politics of the Fugitive Slave Act, the Dred Scott Decision, and later Jim Crow.
In fact slavery was so important to the Southern Democrats that they seceded from their own party before the seceded from the Union. They refused to back Stephen Douglas when their party chose “States Rights” as a party plank, instead of supporting slavery. They backed John Breckinridge as a third party candidate, while threatening Civil War if Lincoln won the election.
All because of Slavery.
No, I'm not. For some reason St. Louis is the collection point for the states I've lived in for paying federal taxes.
Again, tariffs are put on foreign exporters, not a nation's own exporters. lol
A bit of a stretch. And it still ignores the fact that when the letter was written the Emancipation Proclamation was well underway.
Of course there is always the possibility that he might be a two faced liar, but I wouldn't think you would find that a likely possibility.
A conclusion that would not surprise me coming from you. But you are correct that I wouldn't agree with you.
If you think Lincoln would have kept his word, the US would have likely kept slavery had the South conditionally agreed to stop fighting as of August 22, 1861.
August 1862, but who's counting. And you overlook the fact that had Lincoln surrendered to the Confederacy on August 22, 1862 then the South would have kept their slaves as well. But I think that surrender was about as likely as Confederate surrender was, and Lincoln knew it.
Enough of this for me today. I’ll look in tomorrow.... maybe.
They would not be subordinate; they would be equal, as was the original intent of the Constitution.
So, what you’re saying is that Ft. Sumter is outside the boundaries of the state of South Carolina? Who knew?
They were equal before; it didn't stop them from trying to leave.
The “attack” on Ft. Sumter was the result of months of provocation. Mr. Lincoln could not let the south leave as it was the means of largess to the other nation-states.
Mr. Lincoln was beholding to the northern industrialists who benefited mightily from the southern state’s capital.
Funny!
I think these threads gain such traction as folk from the bible belt are grossly weary of being lorded over by sodomites, Goldman Sachs, and another of Illinois’ favorite sons, Barach Bathouse Behngazi Obama.
Just sayin’.
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