Posted on 06/23/2016 2:04:08 PM PDT by ColdOne
A measure to bar confederate flags from cemeteries run by the Department of Veterans Affairs was removed from legislation passed by the House early Thursday.
The flag ban was added to the VA funding bill in May by a vote of 265-159, with most Republicans voting against the ban. But Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) both supported the measure. Ryan was commended for allowing a vote on the controversial measure, but has since limited what amendments can be offered on the floor.
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
But here's the key fact (remember those, facts? They're stubborn): so did Jefferson Davis know full well that he was starting Civil War when he launched military assault on Union troops in Union Fort Sumter.
He was warned by his own people!
Indeed, Davis expected something very important immediately from his war -- he expected Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas to join his Confederacy, and they did not disappoint him, well, except for Western Virginia.
HangUpNow: "...economic reasons and insider monkey-business was THE driving force of the CW.
'Freeing the slaves' was merely the public mask, aided by a willing, compensated media, lending the much needed moral reason for the amazingly amount of bloodshed, rape of the South, and raw abuse of unconstitutional federal power."
All nonsense.
In fact, Northern leaders were primarily concerned to preserve the Union, not so much for economic reasons (sorry Marxists, but you missed the truth yet again), but rather because, in Lincoln's words referring to his Oath of Office:
As a secondary issue, Northerners well knew that civil war would provide an opportunity to accomplish their long-term abolitionist ideals, and abolish slavery.
It was an extremely important side-effect.
As for the economics of it, they were certainly as important to Lincoln in his day as they were to, for example, Franklin Roosevelt in WWII, meaning as always economics are significant, but not the driving motivation.
Sorry, but if you cherry-pick numbers you can make them say whatever you wish.
So here is a source which compares average rates from Day One.
Note they peaked at 35% in 1830 the "tariff of abominations" then again at 44% in 1865 as a result of Civil War.
But the average rate in 1863, even after the Second Morrill Tariff was 25.9% and that was passed after the Confederacy declared war on the United States.
Point is: the original 1859 Morrill proposal and even the First Morrill law were both significantly less than the 25.9% overall average of 1863.
DiogenesLamp: "Lincoln took up the mantle of the American System, and he supported some of the most onerous tariff increases in American history."
It's a fact of history -- long trumpeted by such pontificators as Patrick Buchanan -- that the era of highest Republican tariffs (1865 through 1900) was also the era of fastest US economic growth, growth rivaling any we see today in such developing countries as China or India.
DiogenesLamp: "It is well documented that both Henry Clay and Daniel Webster received kickbacks for their service to the agenda of the national bank."
Both Kentucky Senator Clay and Massachusetts Senator Webster were Whigs, meaning successors to Northern Federalists and predecessors to Republicans.
That was also Lincoln's party before Whigs separated over slavery into Northern and Southern branches, and Lincoln became Republican.
So the basic Republican economic program, inherited from Whigs, called for higher tariffs to protect US producers.
Note: that did not mean just Northern producers, but all US producers, regardless of region, and included such items as Southern sugar, which is still protected to this very day!
Whether Clay & Webster were any more corrupt than your average politician of that day, I couldn't say.
But it does seem to put the lie to DiogenesLamp's claim that our "Gilded Age" "robber barons" were "the most corrupt in history".
Sadly, as the Bible tells us, humans have been sinners for thousands of years, and so it is highly unlikely that any one generation was statistically more or less corrupt than any others, except where corruption ruled from the top -- as it would, for example in a Hillary administration.
But what is most curious on a conservative site like Free Republic is our pro-Confederates invariably taking the side of Democrats over those Federalists / Whigs / Republicans who supported greater US economic self sufficiency.
National Socialism??!
Wow. So please don't let anybody say DiogenesLamp has grounding in anything resembling historical facts.
Obviously devoted to colorful fantasy over all else.
One can well see DiogenesLamp dreaming of Clay & Webster wearing little mustaches and goose-stepping across the Washington mall.
Hey, if facts don't matter, then anything is possible.
DegenerateLamp has never had an original thought in its entire miserable existence, and it isn’t having one now. Look at its sources - mises.org and lewrockwell. They make Art Bell appear (almost) normal by comparison ;’}
Actually, the House vote in May 1860 was more complicated than that, since 56 Congressmen abstained, mostly Democrats and enough to have defeated Morrill, if there were passion motivating them to vote.
But the anti-Morrill Congressmen did not care enough to get many of their fellow Democrats to vote against it.
HangUpNow: "The Morrell Tax was legalized extortion.
The voting of northern Congressmen vs. Southern Congressmen says volumes."
Total rubbish about "legalized extortion" since the Morrill tariff was no higher than some others passed in previous years.
The real problem was anti-Morrill Democrats didn't care enough about it to get all their fellow Democrats to vote against it.
DiogenesLamp: "Morrill Tariff raised the average rates to 36.2%, and it was subsequently revised upward in 1864, and the average rate stood at 47.56%."
Those numbers resulted from Civil War, not from the original Morrill bill.
HangUpNow: "Why won't they admit that they just may just be wrong about the motivation and reason for Lincoln and his cadre of northern/Yankee industrialists facilitating the un-necessary brutality of Civil War?
My guess is "Santa Claus Syndrome"."
More rubbish.
The war's "un-necessarily brutality" resulted from the Confederacy's refusal to quit fighting on any terms other than "unconditional surrender".
HangUpNow: "No question that there's been a line of secession maintained by these very same original "Elites";
They are indeed the ancestral root of today's GOPe pro-illegal immigration/cheap labor express and NAFTA/TPP/UN supporters."
You mean Democrats, of course, not Republicans.
The Whig-Republican program called for higher tariffs to protect US employers and high-paying US jobs.
It was Democrats who wanted cheap imports from foreign countries, to h*ll with US workers.
Had the Southern States not been an economic threat to them, they wouldn't have given a sh*t about their secession."
Spoken like a true-believer Marxist & progressive Democrat.
Of course it's total rubbish.
It's like saying Roosevelt fought WWII "over money".
Ridiculous.
Just as the US base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba remains US despite the Communist Cubans claims it now belongs to them, so Fort Sumter, and other such forts, remained Union property regardless of what secessionists claimed.
So, when Confederates attacked Union troops in Union Fort Sumter it was the exact equivalent of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
That's a fact.
HangUpNow: "2) Northern casualties vs. 2,000?
Have you SEEN film of the damage at Pearl??
Read THE history?"
Sorry if you can't do math, but here it is: Fort Sumter Union casualties were 7% (6 of 85) roughly the same as Pearl Harbor casualties (3,500 of 50,000+ US forces in Hawaii).
HangUpNow: "Your analytic analogous "logic" remains a stunning curiosity -- in faaaar off in a distant Universe."
No, it's just facts of history are stubborn things, even more stubborn than your typical pro-Confederate lies.
Agreed, up until your final words.
Yes, it is possible to imagine Border States like Delaware, Maryland and even Missouri entertaining serious abolition movements by, say 1870.
That's because slavery was already showing signs of dying out in those states by 1860.
So, in due time they could have joined their Northern cousins in peaceful gradual abolition.
But the Deep Cotton South was a very different situation.
There slavery and cotton had resulted in the most prosperous white people, on average, on earth.
And there was no possible way, so long as that remained the case, they were going to give up slavery peacefully.
So for the Deep South the moment was far from imminent in 1860.
HangUpNow: "Why *should* the South have rolled over for an occupying military army who disrespected and dismissed their sovereignty? "
Of course, in 1860 there was no military, period.
HangUpNow: "It may be true in certain cases that a small number of Slave-Owners were adamant about maintaining and defending the slavery status quo tooth and nail, but NOT the vast majority.
Again as a reminder, the end of Slavery as an institution WAS imminent; Even Southerners knew that and accepted it."
Your claim here is pure fantasy, absolutely in the Deep South.
Even in Border States, where abolition movements could be imagined, as of 1860 there were none, zero, zip, nada.
HangUpNow: "Another reminder: -- poor whites were *also* indentured "slaves," working to repay their own debts."
Sure, just as the Bible says we are "slaves to sin," but those are metaphorical senses of the word "slave", and in no way apply to the legal status of four million African Americans as of 1860.
HangUpNow: "Despite continued historical mythology, the South DID NOT nor would NOT fight the CW simply over MAINTAINING slavery;
FACT: As has been proven, just a minuscule number of southerners actually owned slaves."
Those numbers you cite are very misleading, since they only refer to the adult white males of large families which owned slaves.
So, if you consider not just the men, but also their families, then it turns out that in the Deep Cotton South, almost half of families owned slaves.
In the Upper South of Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas, where large regions (i.e., mountains) had no slave-holders, there on average about 25% of families owned slaves.
In Border States it was only about 15% of families which owned slaves, and that explains why in 1861 those states refused to vote for secession, even after Fort Sumter.
HangUpNow: "Slave-Holder cotton producers were merely participating and profiteers themselves who shipped their product TO Robber Baron factories, within THEIR system."
I'll cite for you again numbers from New Orleans in the late 1850s showing that half the US cotton crop shipped from New Orleans and 85% of that went directly to Europe, not to Northern US "robber barons".
So Southern planters were nowhere near as subject to the Northern "system" as you might suppose.
Also, remember than within their own states, large planter/slave-holders totally controlled the legislatures and laws they needed for successful enterprises.
Yes, their Southern enterprises were somewhat different than Northern, but their influence over Legislatures no less.
HangUpNow: "Funny how 'Slavery' didn't become an issue for a suddenly social justice warrior Lincoln and morally outraged North. UNTIL t was clear the Confederacy was willing to aggressively defend their soil."
Nothing "funny" about it.
When the Confederacy started and declared war against the United States, President Lincoln's first priority was to defeat the military forces which threatened Washington and the Union.
Slavery only became an issue because slaves themselves made it an issue, by escaping their masters and running to Union army lines.
What was the Union army to do, return them?
No, it was quickly decided runaway slaves would be protected and put to work for the Union.
As the war went on, these runaway slaves became a larger and larger factor, and some were willing to enlist in the Union Army, at which point President Lincoln began to consider the Emancipation Proclamation.
Since Republicans were ideologically opposed to slavery, Civil War provided them an opportunity to accomplish quickly what otherwise would have taken decades & generations -- abolition, voting rights and civil rights.
It's an amazing accomplishment, and gave the Civil War a higher purpose than simply brother killing brother.
HangUpNow quoting BJK: "My analogy is Pearl Harbor, about which you might argue the "proximate cause of war" was economics..."
I notice a typo there which makes some of your words appear as if they are mine.
Fortunately, I don't disagree with you on this question, so will not make a big issue of it.
HangUpNow: "While you're busy insisting on creating the Pearl = Fort Sumter strawman meme, can you please point to the Confederacy's own Jap-like sphere of influence, and their expansionism of their empire by the sword? (no, THAT coercive sword would be wielded by LINCOLN and the NORTH.)"
Sure, the Confederacy's false claims to and demands for Union surrender of Fort Sumter, and it's military assault on Union troops in Union Fort Sumter, all correspond to the Japanese expansionist empire into lands that were not theirs.
Plus, among a long list of similarities between Pearl & Sumter is both the Japanese commander and the Confederate Secretary of State warned their leaders that starting war could lead to ultimate defeat:
Yamamoto before Pearl Harbor:
Yamamoto's alleged "awaken a sleeping giant" quote is apparently a product of Hollywood's "Tora Tora Tora".
HangUpNow: "Lol -- who are you trying to convince of that, "Confederate assault on and seizure of Fort Sumter" as essentially THE declaration of war??
You haven't read or understood a SINGLE solitary word, sentence or paragraph by DiogenesLamp in addressing the dynamics and "cause" of Lincoln's War against the South (as well as the Fort Sumter subterfuge) IN CLEAR AND CONCISE DETAIL, have you?"
Always remember, as a conservative Freeper, I am never impressed with your Marxist-Alinskyite interpretations of historical events.
HangUpNow: "The tyrannically insane Lincoln and his Robber Baron overlords who plotted the incident at Fort Sumter via subterfuge;
An Abe Lincoln (who by his writings appeared to regret his decision in the FIRST PLACE) and his Robber Baron/Banker elite overlords insisted the South be subjugated, coerced, cratered, plundered, and razed for daring to defend THE RIGHT to their own liberty, economic preservation, and personal and State sovereignty."
Total complete rubbish.
In fact, in the last months of the war, barely 10 weeks before Unconditional Surrender at Appomattox Court House, there were peace negotiations at Hampton Roads between Lincoln & Confederate leaders, during which Confederates were offered much better terms than they actually received 10 weeks later.
But they turned them down, preferring to fight on to unconditional surrender.
If that's not a definition of pure insanity, I don't what would be.
HangUpNow: "*SMH* so now you're justifying Sherman's and the North's brutality, plunder, and scorched earth policy AND making it as necessary or peace as dropping an A-Bomb on say Richmond and Charleston? Wow."
Remember, just as Germans & Japanese in WWII could have ended their wars months or years earlier, at times when they would have suffered vastly less death & destruction, so also Confederates.
But total insanity took hold of them, and so they insisted on Unconditional Surrender.
Don't ask me why, I can't explain insanity.
HangUpNow: "Post WWII Japan was treated with faaar more respect and dignity than the Post-CW Confederacy.
Can you explain WHY that was. Joey?"
Only in your wet dreams is that true, Hungy-boy.
In fact, after WWII, over 10,000 Japanese were tried for war-crimes and 2,000 of those executed, while thousands more got life sentences.
In all the years since, the Japanese have continued to issue official apologies and pay reparations to victims of Japanese atrocities.
Sure, my Dad was there, and he did treat Japanese with great respect, which they returned (thank God!), but there was certainly no effort to give Japanese representation in Congress (!), or the electoral college (!!) as happened in the South after the Civil War.
So there is no comparison, none, nada, and it's only your own warped senses and utter ignorance of historical facts that could let you think so, Hungy-boy.
HangUpNow: "You aren't even dealing with Apples vs. Oranges; You are offering analogies, events and "facts" that are so utterly bizarre, that they can't be remotely be considered from any intellectual degree of honesty and reality."
Sorry Hungy-boy, but it's you who are in total denial & ignorance of real history.
My condolences.
Sure, and the internet is also chock full of BS & nonsense appealing to many people with no real understandings and a hunger for self-serving lies, people like our pro-Confederate posters.
I return insults for insults, nothing more, nothing less.
When the insults to me stop, I stop the returns.
I never attack first, but do, ahem, counter-punch.
Thanks! Great piece of sleuthing there, nice work, just as I suspected.
No! Are you sure?
I would never have suspected.
**NOT**
;-)
Nice try. The 68 Republican members of Congress endorsed the book on March 9, 1859 according to this 1859 New York Herald article [Link]:
On the 27th of October, 1858, William H. Seward made his brutal and bloody speech at Rochester, in this State, laying down the programme of the “irrepressible conflict,” which was to end in converting New Orleans and other Southern cities into marts for the products of free labor only, or else to turn Quincy Market in Boston into a slave pen. On the following 9th of March [That means 1859, BJK.] sixty-eight Republicans signed a secret circular recommending Helper’s revolutionary book, which calls upon the poor-non-slaveholders in the South to make an agrarian revolution and destroy the property of their more wealthy neighbors.
Seward, of course, had also talked about “higher law than the Constitution” to combat slavery.
There were only 112 Republicans in Congress in March of 1859, 20 senators and 92 representatives. 68 is more than half of 112.
But of course, the Republican party represented no economic threat against slavery, since their platform merely called for Western territories to vote on whether to admit slavery or not.
No threat? On November 26, 1859, The New York Herald reprinted the names of the 68 endorsers of Helper’s book along with other supporters including the governor of New York and Thurlow Weed and a list of contributors to the publication and distribution of 100,000 copies of an abridgement of Helper’s book. Subheadings of the Herald article include “Incitement to Treason and Civil War” and “The South to be Throttled and the Negroes Freed.” Here is a [Link] to that paper which contained the following extracts from Helper’s book in the article.
… we appeal to you to join us in our earnest and timely efforts to rescue the generous soil of the South from the usurped and desolating control of those political vampires. Once and forever, at least so far as this country is concerned, the infernal question of slavery must be disposed of; a speedy and absolute abolishment of the whole system is the true policy of the South – and this is the policy we propose to pursue. Will you aid us? will you assist us? will you be freemen? or will you be slaves?
Do not reserve the strength of your arms until you have been rendered powerless to strike; the present is the proper time for action under all the circumstances, apathy or indifference is a crime. First ascertain, as nearly as you can, the precise nature and extent of your duty, and then, without a moment’s delay, perform it in good faith. To facilitate you in determining what considerations of right, justice and humanity require at your hands, is one of the primary objects of this work; and we shall certainly fail in our desire if we do not accomplish our task in a manner acceptable to God and advantageous to man.
REVOLUTION – PEACEABLY IF WE CAN, VIOLENTLY IF WE MUST
The following comments in this paragraph are paraphrased or quoted from “The 1859 Crisis over Hinton Helper’s Book, the Impending Crisis: Free Speech, Slavery, and Some Light on the meaning of the First Section of the Fourteenth Amendment – Symposium on the Law of Slavery: Constitutional Law and Slavery,” by Michael Kent Curtis, 68 Chi.-Kent. L. Rev. 1113 (1992) [Link].
- A grand jury in North Carolina called upon the governor of New York to deliver up the Republican endorsers of the book for indictment and punishment.
- Once Democrats started blaming John Brown’s October 1859 attempt at Harper’s Ferry to incite slaves to revolt on Helper’s Book, a few Republicans “rushed to dissociate themselves from Harper’s Book. … Several recanted their endorsements, pleading ignorance, and repudiated the book.”
- “Southern nationalists used Helper, Seward, and Harper’s Ferry to show why secession was imperative if a ‘Black Republican” were elected President; …”
- “A Republican victory, Sherman [insert by rustbucket: General W. T. Sherman’s younger brother, a failed candidate for Speaker of the House because he had endorsed Helper’s Book] insisted, would encourage emancipation by the Southern states themselves. In this sense the Southern fear of an attack on the South was well founded.
But more to the point, neither the proposed Morrill tariff nor Confederates 15% rate were even on the radar screen when South Carolina first began to organize for secession in November 1860.
So tariffs are irrelevant to this discussion.
The Morrill Tariff had passed the House in the spring of 1860, IIRC. All that was needed was the Senate approval. A vote count of the new Senate elected in November 1860 showed that showed that the Morrill Tariff would probably pass in the next session of the Senate even if all Southern Senators stayed and no state seceded. From a post by GOPcapitalist citing a December 12, 1860 comment by Texas Senator Wigfall [Link]:
"Tell me not that we have got the legislative department of this Government, for I say we have not. As to this body, where do we stand? Why, sir, there are now eighteen non-slaveholding States. In a few weeks we shall have the nineteenth, for Kansas will be brought in. Then arithmetic which settles our position is simple and easy. Thirty-eight northern Senators you will have upon this floor. We shall have thirty to your thirty-eight. After the 4th of March, the Senator from California, the Senator from Indiana, the Senator from New Jersey, and the Senator from Minnesota will be here. That reduces the northern phalanx to thirty-four...There are four of the northern Senators upon whom we can rely, whom we know to be friends, whom we have trusted in our days of trial heretofore, and in whom, as Constitution-loving men, we will trust. Then we stand thirty-four to thirty-four, and your Black Republican Vice President to give the casting vote. Mr. Lincoln can make his own nominations with perfect security that they will be confirmed by this body, even if every slaveholding State should remain in the Union, which, thank God, they will not do."
The second category, "mutual consent" you mention here, while calling it "unilateral", when in fact it was the exact opposite of "unilateral".
Eventually the old Articles of Confederation were withdrawn by 100% mutual consent, and act of Congress, to be replaced by the newly ratified Constitution.
It was peaceful, lawful, orderly mutual consent of which our Founders totally approved.
Actually, nine states were all that was needed to form the new government under the Constitution. The states unilaterally one by one withdrew from the Union under the Articles. They did form a new government before all thirteen states had ratified the Constitution. Until the last two states (NC and RI) ratified the Constitution, they were not considered to be part of the new Union, and some of their imports into the United States were to be taxed like imports from foreign countries. I wouldn’t call it mutual consent at that point. All thirteen did eventually join the new Union, but it was after the new government was already operating without all states being on board.
Once again, the key word here is not "happiness", but rather "necessary" and refers to the categories of "necessary" listed in the Declaration of Independence. But no condition even remotely similar to July 1776 existed in December 1860.
Madison defined it as “public happiness” or “dissatisfaction” with the government. We didn’t have a king in 1860-61 and a long list of grevances against the king. I dare say that Madison, Jay, and Hamilton would laugh at what you consider “necessary” to mean. The South faced a sectional president, possible serious threats from Republicans over their slave based economy, and likely increased sectional aggrandizement under Lincoln and the Republicans. First thing right off the bat after a number of states had already seceded, the Republicans passed the Morrill tariff that was going to harm the South. That was sectional aggrandizement. That protective tariff was in their platform. Lincoln was for it. It wasn’t any secret.
But no US Founder ever made that argument, and Founders fully understood the differences among "mutual consent", "material breach of compact" and secession "at pleasure".
Founders would consider Deep South declarations of secession as "at pleasure" and not approved.
You don’t think some Northern states blocking the return of fugitive slaves was not a material breach of contract? They were nullifying a section of the Constitution that had been unanimously agreed to during the compromises in the Constitution that made the Union possible. What was it those distinguished Massachusetts judges said in 1860 about Massachusetts’ personal liberty laws [Link]:
[they] stand as conspicuous and palpable breaches of the national compact by ourselves.
I’ve cited what Jay, Hamilton, and Madison said concerning reassuming or resuming their own governance. I gather from what you say that you don’t consider them to be Founders. Your version of history is certainly different from theirs and from mine as well. I trust what Jay, Hamilton, Madison said, and Jay and Hamilton agreed that the Constitution was consistent with what they said.
You apparently have sent what Jay, Hamilton, and Madison said down your version of 1984's Memory Hole.
Ow! December 8, 1941!!
Project much do you?
And I submit that the Founders would be aghast and mortified by the actions of the insurrectionists - but only long enough to catch their wind before taking up arms against them.
I kind of like "Hungy-Boy"; Sounds quite manly, thank you :-) (Wait -- was that supposed to hurt??)
Me thinks you're projecting.
That said, so when shall we be expecting your next guest appearance and historical sermon from atop the Mount in Galilee? Surely *you* are THE fount of TRUTH and Light.
Can't wait to see who (BroJoe??) attempts to refute any number of indicting revelations. FOR INSTANCE:
BroJoe:
"But of course, the Republican party represented no economic threat against slavery, since their platform merely called for Western territories to vote on whether to admit slavery or not."
Rustbucket:
"No threat? On November 26, 1859, The New York Herald reprinted the names of the 68 endorsers of Helper’s book along with other supporters including the governor of New York and Thurlow Weed and a list of contributors to the publication and distribution of 100,000 copies of an abridgement of Helper’s book. Subheadings of the Herald article include “Incitement to Treason and Civil War” and “The South to be Throttled and the Negroes Freed.”
"Here is a [Link] to that paper which contained the following extracts from Helper’s book in the article...."
Rustbucket:
Madison defined it as “public happiness” or “dissatisfaction” with the government. We didn’t have a king in 1860-61 and a long list of grevances against the king. I dare say that Madison, Jay, and Hamilton would laugh at what you consider “necessary” to mean.
The South faced a sectional president, possible serious threats from Republicans over their slave based economy, and likely increased sectional aggrandizement under Lincoln and the Republicans. First thing right off the bat after a number of states had already seceded, the Republicans passed the Morrill tariff that was going to harm the South. That was sectional aggrandizement. That protective tariff was in their platform. Lincoln was for it. It wasn’t any secret.
HEAR HEAR!
The deeper real CW history is unearthed, the smaller and more corrupt and reptilian Lincoln and the Northern state reps get.
At this juncture the US wasn't a "Representative Republic," it was about to become a banana republic as the North plotted premeditated tyranny and war.
Wow! I love it, thanks for the corrections, and news article, and thanks too for getting it wrong so I can correct you too, sir.
This is a good day. ;-)
When exactly this happened matters to whether we are talking about "more than 50%" or "less than 50%" of Republicans in Congress supporting North Carolinian Hinton Helper's 1857 anti-slavery book The Impending Crisis of the South.
Here is the explanation I read:
So when exactly did this happen?
Now, your article says those 68 Republicans signed their endorsements on March 9, 1859.
So, we can look it up, was March 9 the 35th or 36th Congress?
As it happens, March 9 was at the beginning of the 36th Congress, so Republican numbers then were 25 Senators and 113 Congressmen = 138 total, of which those 68 would be 49%.
No problem, you're welcome sir.
rustbucket quoting 1859 NY Herald: "On the 27th of October, 1858, William H. Seward made his brutal and bloody speech at Rochester, in this State, laying down the programme of the 'irrepressible conflict,' which was to end in converting New Orleans and other Southern cities into marts for the products of free labor only, or else to turn Quincy Market in Boston into a slave pen."
Sort of sounds like " 'A house divided against itself cannot stand.'
I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free.
I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided.
It will become all one thing or all the other."
That was from June 1858.
The Seward quote is from October 1858.
Interesting
rustbucket quoting Curtis: "Once Democrats started blaming John Brown’s October 1859 attempt at Harper's Ferry to incite slaves to revolt on Helper’s Book, a few Republicans 'rushed to dissociate themselves from Harper’s Book. … Several recanted their endorsements, pleading ignorance, and repudiated the book.' "
As usual, many Republicans were just cowards.
But here is a more likely explanation of what was really going on:
This version met with fierce opposition in the South and many places banned it.
Possession of a copy was treated as criminal offense.
Distributors of the book were arrested, and three men in Arkansas were hanged for possession of it.[3]"
So what happened was: Southerner Hinton wrote a book intended for other Southerners, with strong anti-slavery language.
Republicans abridged and sanitized a version of Hinton's book for their own political purposes.
Democrats, especially Southern Democrats, were horrified & outraged by Hinton's book and Republican support for it.
But naturally Dems focused not on the sanitized abridged version, but Hinton's original unabridged & highly inflammatory version, which many of those 68 Republicans were far too cowardly to own up to.
Politically, Republicans used Hinton's words as a wedge issue against Democrats.
They were certainly not advocating war, but naturally that's what Dems accused them of, since that worked better for Dems.
So, politics as usual, but this time all sides were playing with real fire.
rustbucket quoting Wigfall from December 1860: "Tell me not that we have got the legislative department of this Government, for I say we have not...
There are four of the northern Senators upon whom we can rely, whom we know to be friends, whom we have trusted in our days of trial heretofore, and in whom, as Constitution-loving men, we will trust.
Then we stand thirty-four to thirty-four, and your Black Republican Vice President"
Of course, Wigfall was a Fire Eater who campaigned for both secession and war against the United States.
So in this quote Wigfall is making his case, as a senator from Texas, against the Union based on his idea that, for virtually the first time ever, the South was now a minority in Congress.
But the truth is, the South had many more potential friends than Wigfall here admits.
They included:
So the situation for Southerners in December 1860 was nowhere near as dire as Fire Eater Wigfall here claims.
But regardless of the facts, Wigfall's and other Fire Eaters' arguments carried the day in the Deep South and soon they abandoned all representation in Congress.
rustbucket: "I wouldn’t call it mutual consent at that point.
All thirteen did eventually join the new Union, but it was after the new government was already operating without all states being on board."
Then you would be wrong, FRiend, since it absolutely was "mutual consent" and indeed that process defines historically exactly what the term "mutual consent" means!
Here is a timeline for the Articles of Confederation last days:
So, our Founders' actions here, as in so much else, totally define what the term "mutual consent" means.
rustbucket: "The South faced a sectional president, possible serious threats... and likely increased... under Lincoln and the Republicans... Lincoln was for it. It wasn’t any secret."
And bla, bla, bla, since none of that had happened as of December 1860 when Deep South Fire Eaters began declaring their secessions, at pleasure.
There were no actual changes in their political "happiness", only exaggerated fears of what was "possible", or "likely" or "Lincoln for it".
Even that Morrill tariff, which you harp endlessly on, didn't pass until long after secessionists walked out of Congress.
The very term "politics as usual" means you have to show up to defend and promote your ideas.
When you do, you very often end up with at least "half a loaf".
But when you walk out, you have no room to complain when somebody else gets your half of the loaf!
rustbucket: "You don’t think some Northern states blocking the return of fugitive slaves was not a material breach of contract?
They were nullifying a section of the Constitution that had been unanimously agreed to during the compromises in the Constitution that made the Union possible."
I think the whole issue of fugitive slaves was hugely exaggerated for political purposes by the very people who were least affected by it: the Deep South.
Here's why they were least effected: of South's 4 million slaves, 60% lived in the Deep Cotton South.
To escape, those slaves had the furthest to run, many hundreds of miles and all of it through other slave-states patrolled by slave catchers and US marshals so that only the strongest, luckiest and most wily made it.
Most were quickly captured and returned.
So, what are we talking about?
This source (which I highly recommend!) reports estimates that 50,000 slaves attempted to escaped each year, which would be roughly 1% of slaves per year.
However, 98% of those were quickly recaptured by slave-catchers and other organized forces, such that only about 1,000 per year successfully and permanently escaped.
So 1,000 escapees of 4,000,000 slaves is about one in every 4,000.
So, imagine a typical large plantation with 100 slaves, then one slave per plantation, on average, attempted escape each year, but only one in every 40 such plantations proved successful.
All the rest did not get far and were soon returned.
But this is far from realistic regarding the Deep South, because the vast majority of successful escapes came from Border States like Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky & Missouri.
So the very region which had the most slaves (60%) had by far the fewest successful escapes, a few hundred at most, meaning one in 12,000 or one in 120 typical large plantations.
I would call that roughly one successful Deep South fugitive slave per county per year.
And this is what we're talking about when we hear the whining & complaining from pro-Confederates about how fugitive slaves created some sort of "crisis of Union".
They didn't, except for secessionists' propaganda purposes.
rustbucket: "I’ve cited what Jay, Hamilton, and Madison said concerning reassuming or resuming their own governance.
I gather from what you say that you don’t consider them to be Founders. Your version of history is certainly different from theirs and from mine as well.
I trust what Jay, Hamilton, Madison said, and Jay and Hamilton agreed that the Constitution was consistent with what they said."
Then you totally misunderstand both those three Founders and yours truly, BroJoeK.
None of them ever supported unilateral, unapproved declarations of secession, "at pleasure".
And yet that is just what Deep South Fire Eater secessionists did starting in December 1860.
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