Posted on 06/17/2017 6:14:26 PM PDT by plain talk
You had just said "black people" and I assumed you were talking about free people and not slaves, since few Northern states still had slaves at the time of the rebellion. The conditions for free blacks in the north, while far from ideal, were still an immense improvement over the lives of black people, free or slave, in the south. Unless you care to dispute that?
“On the contrary, what it meant was that slaves who fled their owners and/or wound up in territory that had been liberated from the Confederate forces could not be returned to their masters as the law required because, wait for it, they weren’t slaves anymore.”
It took an independent observer from afar to place the Emancipation Proclamation, and to some extent the entire debate over northern war aims, into perspective.
The London Spectator publication said it best about federal policy: “The Government liberates the enemy’s slaves as it would the enemy’s cattle, simply to weaken them in the coming conflict . . . the principle asserted is not that a human being cannot justly own another, but that he cannot own him unless he is loyal to the United States.”
Yup, the Emancipation Proclamation only applied to “the states now in rebellion” and it only freed slaves in the Confederate-controlled states and not in any place the Union controlled. One of the few accurate statements you have made.
If that is so, Lincoln was guilty of violently overthrowing the constitution of the United States. Slavery was enshrined in the constitution thanks to the attitudes and actions of the northern states during ratification.
But the Confiscation Acts of 1861 and 1862 gave the government the power to seize private property without compensation if that property was used to the benefit of the Southern rebellion. Slaves were certainly used for that, so Lincoln's proclamation was not only legal it was Constitutional. See 1863 Supreme Court decision in the Prize Cases (67 US 635).
Lincoln could have attempted to peacefully amend the constitution to end slavery but he chose war.
Lincoln did peacefully amend the Constitution to end slavery, once the war that the South forced upon him reached a point than enabled him to do so.
I had not thought that you meant all the Northern states regardless of admission.
Once can excuse the London Spectator's lack of understanding of the U.S. Constitution, but I'm frequently puzzled by the similar lack of understanding on the part of the Confederate supporters. But, given the lack of respect that the Davis government had for their own constitution, maybe it's no that hard to understand.
“But the Confiscation Acts of 1861 and 1862 gave the government the power to seize private property without compensation if that property was used to the benefit of the Southern rebellion.”
See U.S. constitution, Amendment V . . . “nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”
Of course, by that time, the north had already taken up arms to overthrow the U.S. constitution.
Once Cain decided to slay Able, what was one more violation of the constitutional covenants?
So if you rob a bank and the police arrest you and take your gun without compensating you then that's a violation of the 5th Amendment? Who knew?
“Once (sic) can excuse the London Spectator’s lack of understanding of the U.S. Constitution . . .”
Still, the words of the London Spectator resonates even today and helps provide context for the claim that “Lincoln fought to free the slaves.”
The London Spectator wrote in words too clear to deny: “The Government liberates the enemy’s slaves as it would the enemy’s cattle, simply to weaken them in the coming conflict . . . the principle asserted is not that a human being cannot justly own another, but that he cannot own him unless he is loyal to the United States.”
Other than you and your fellow Lost Causers I don't know anyone who is claiming that.
Exactly my point. That means it hd no real effect. IOW, even if Lincoln had the authority, he only applied the proclamation to areas his government didn't control (i.e., areas still under Confederate control.) A piurely symbolic gesture, nothing more.
Which goes back to his letter to Greeley.
What constitutional basis do they have for those decisions?
My views are based in the Constitution, not the opinions of some tyrants in black robes who neither understand nor respect it.
I suppose you would have to calculate how many people were held in bondage on January 1, 1863 and how many were held in bondage on December 5, 1865. If those two numbers were about the same then I'd agree that it was purely a symbolic gesture. But if considerably fewer people were held in bondage in December 1865 as opposed to January 1863 then I submit that it was a pretty effective war measure where freeing slaves was concerned.
They get their authority from that same constitution you claim to uphold.
Well...was he arrested and jailed? Or not? That would be the more telling “proof” of the story. Perhaps Lincoln did do it but calmer heads prevailed and the action was aborted?
God set about and put into motion, in his own clarity, the reasons for bringing the Civil War to this nation; the history of this nation since the Civil War proves his genius. As for the men who fought it, schemed through it, made fortunes by it, their reasons were many and muddled and for most, short sighted in scope.
Through this massed dusty bloody confusion of human goodness, competing notions of chivalrous honor, and utter human depravity known as the Civil War, (some aware but only barely, of being herded from above) God drew the warp and weft of his will for this nation into a fabric of his own design. Only God could see the impact of this newly tightly federalized nation(post civil war) upon the world over the next 100 years....two world wars, space travel, advances in science, (ie, the Apollo 9 astronauts who would read Genesis 1 while in orbit about the moon) , a nation strong enough to confront the bolshevist states who surely would have taken over the world, and the rebirth of modern Israel.
Try the truth, in the first place. That way you won't have to cover up your lies with more lies. Of course it is not true that "all the northern states were slave states at one time". When you realized you'd lied, you tried to correct it with another lie (i.e., "all the original northern states"). You are now using a euphemism for the original Colonies. Please bear in mind that the 13 Colonies, North and South, were under British rule. There was never a time in United States history when all the northern states were slave states. If you are referring to the British Colonies please be forthright about that. And please also note ALL the Colonies, North and South. Colonies are not the same as States. For your edification, from wiki:
"In the 1770s, blacks throughout New England began sending petitions to northern legislatures demanding freedom. Five of the Northern self-declared states adopted policies to at least gradually abolish slavery: Pennsylvania (1780), New Hampshire and Massachusetts (1783), Connecticut and Rhode Island (1784). Vermont abolished slavery in 1777, while it was still independent, and when it joined the United States as the 14th state in 1791 it was the first state to join untainted by slavery. These state jurisdictions thus enacted the first abolition laws in the Americas. By 1804 (including, New York (1799), New Jersey (1804)), all of the northern states had abolished slavery or set measures in place to gradually reduce it."
In jeffersondem's defense - and I still cannot believe I'm saying that - if we trace the creation of the original 13 states to the Continental Congress and the Declaration of Independence then strictly speaking all of them abolished slavery after they became states. On the other hand, if we trace states back to the ratification of the Constitution then you are correct and five Northern states and Vermont had abolished slavery before then.
I too am surprised that you are defending him. Maybe it’s because he said he likes you. You know that he now wants to reply with, “critic answers critic”. He has become predictable and needs fresh material. Please note again the wiki entry. Vermont was slave free when it became a state in the United States. Just prior, it was independent (not yet a part of the U.S.) and slave free. I will stand by my statement that at no time in the history of the United States can it be truly said that “all the northern states were slave states (”original” or whatever). I guess it depends on his clever cover-up of “original states” and whatever that is intended to mean in his mind.
“Other than you and your fellow Lost Causers I don’t know anyone who is claiming that.”
You have. And within the last 12 hours.
Start with that.
Or have you started to walk it back already?
Precedent is a cop out. National governments always assume greater powers in wartime situations and emergencies. That happened in the Civil War and then the federal government gave up those emergency powers. That happened in two World Wars, the Great Depression and the Cold War. It would have happened without the "precedent" of the Civil War. And the federal government didn't give up all those extraordinary powers after the crisis had passed.
Actually, yes. Switzerland has lasted far longer and survived quite nicely into the 21st Century.
Switzerland is an exception among countries. And do you really think Mississippi or Alabama or South Carolina or some Southern Confederacy really would have evolved like Switzerland?
A horse-drawn or steam-powered cotton-picker isn't much of a stretch, given developments in agricultural innovation between 1860 and 1880 or -90.
Horse drawn or steam-powered cotton-pickers didn't do the job very well. Early machines clogged easily, damaged plants, and got bogged down in the mud. Also, cotton gins couldn't handle the machine picked cotton without major upgrades to the machinery. Slave labor was cheaper than machinery. It's possible that without the war the Confederates started the South would have been richer, but when other countries got into the business, cotton prices would go down and machinery would be hard to buy.
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