Lincoln’s War

Tenth Amendment Center ^ | May 04, 2009 | Judge Andrew P. Napolitano

[cowboyway]

One of the greatest misconceptions of American history is that the Civil War was fought over slavery. Those who subscribe to this belief see President Abraham Lincoln as the benevolent leader who made unimaginable sacrifices in human blood to wipe out America’s greatest sin. While the human sacrifice is indisputable and the sin was monumental, the war’s purpose was not to free blacks from the shackles of bondage. Rather, the Civil War was fought with one purpose in mind: To preserve the Union at all costs. And, to put it in Lincoln’s terms, with no ifs, ands, or buts. You’d better agree with the president, or else.

[cowboyway]

"However, Lincoln chose to ignore the historical underpinnings of the American political system; the right of secession followed from the American Revolution as the colonists separated from the British Empire and declared their independence. President Lincoln also made the faulty assumption that the Union takes precedence over the states, as the goal was “to form a more perfect Union.” He failed to recognize that states are free and independent, and combined they form the Union. As Ronald Reagan would say in his first inaugural address over a century later, “the federal government did not create the states; the states created the federal government.” This subtle distinction is an important aspect of State sovereignty. The United States was founded on the ideals that federal power could be challenged by the states. Lincoln overlooked the fact that the states had formed a voluntary agreement and did not have the ability to surrender their sovereignty forever to a centralized power."

Too bad all yankees can't be as honest as Judge Napolitano..............

[cowboyway]

As Ronald Reagan would say in his first inaugural address over a century later, “the federal government did not create the states; the states created the federal government.”

[mo]

Lincoln was as much a tool of Northern industrial interests as Obama is of financial interests. It should and will be a Constitutional crisis.

[Tublecane]

The invasdion of the Southern states by the national government, the Constitutional liberties taken by Lincoln, the bad precedent set for the expansion of federal power, and all the carnage would have been worth it, in my opinion, if they’d have said from the outset “We’re invading to set the negro free.” That’s not what it was about.

[laconic]

“It was about slavery, period”. General James Longstreet, CSA.

[JohnBrowdie]

index for later

[Non-Sequitur]

One of the greatest misconceptions of American history is that the Civil War was fought over slavery.

It was:

"What did we go to war for, if not to protect our [slave] property?" - CSA senator from Virgina, Robert Hunter, 1865

In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course...Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery, the greatest material interest of the world. --Mississppi Declaration of the Causes of Secession

SIR: In obedience to your instructions I repaired to the seat of government of the State of Louisiana to confer with the Governor of that State and with the legislative department on the grave and important state of our political relations with the Federal Government, and the duty of the slave-holding States in the matter of their rights and honor, so menacingly involved in matters connected with the institution of African slavery. --Report from John Winston, Alabama's Secession Commissioner to Louisiana

This was the ground taken, gentlemen, not only by Mississippi, but by other slaveholding States, in view of the then threatened purpose, of a party founded upon the idea of unrelenting and eternal hostility to the institution of slavery, to take possession of the power of the Government and use it to our destruction. It cannot, therefore, be pretended that the Northern people did not have ample warning of the disastrous and fatal consequences that would follow the success of that party in the election, and impartial history will emblazon it to future generations, that it was their folly, their recklessness and their ambition, not ours, which shattered into pieces this great confederated Government, and destroyed this great temple of constitutional liberty which their ancestors and ours erected, in the hope that their descendants might together worship beneath its roof as long as time should last. -- Speech of Fulton Anderson to the Virginia Secession Convention

Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one of the Confederated Union to promote her welfare, insure domestic tranquility and secure more substantially the blessings of peace and liberty to her people. She was received into the confederacy with her own constitution, under the guarantee of the federal constitution and the compact of annexation, that she should enjoy these blessings. She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery-- the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits-- a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time. -- Texas Declaration of the causes of secession

What was the reason that induced Georgia to take the step of secession? This reason may be summed up in one single proposition. It was a conviction, a deep conviction on the part of Georgia, that a separation from the North-was the only thing that could prevent the abolition of her slavery. -- Speech of Henry Benning to the Virginia Secession Convention

This new union with Lincoln Black Republicans and free negroes, without slavery, or, slavery under our old constitutional bond of union, without Lincoln Black Republicans, or free negroes either, to molest us...If we take the former, then submission to negro equality is our fate. if the latter, then secession is inevitable --- -- Address of William L. Harris of Mississippi

But I trust I may not be intrusive if I refer for a moment to the circumstances which prompted South Carolina in the act of her own immediate secession, in which some have charged a want of courtesy and respect for her Southern sister States. She had not been disturbed by discord or conflict in the recent canvass for president or vice-president of the United States. She had waited for the result in the calm apprehension that the Black Republican party would succeed. She had, within a year, invited her sister Southern States to a conference with her on our mutual impending danger. Her legislature was called in extra session to cast her vote for president and vice-president, through electors, of the United States and before they adjourned the telegraphic wires conveyed the intelligence that Lincoln was elected by a sectional vote, whose platform was that of the Black Republican party and whose policy was to be the abolition of slavery upon this continent and the elevation of our own slaves to equality with ourselves and our children, and coupled with all this was the act that, from our friends in our sister Southern States, we were urged in the most earnest terms to secede at once, and prepared as we were, with not a dissenting voice in the State, South Carolina struck the blow and we are now satisfied that none have struck too soon, for when we are now threatened with the sword and the bayonet by a Democratic administration for the exercise of this high and inalienable right, what might we meet under the dominion of such a party and such a president as Lincoln and his minions. -- Speech of John McQueen, the Secession Commissioner from South Carolina to Texas

History affords no example of a people who changed their government for more just or substantial reasons. Louisiana looks to the formation of a Southern confederacy to preserve the blessings of African slavery, and of the free institutions of the founders of the Federal Union, bequeathed to their posterity. -- Address of George Williamson, Commissioner from Louisiana to the Texas Secession Convention

"But not to be tedious in enumerating the numerous changes for the better, allow me to allude to one other though last, not least. The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution African slavery as it exists amongst us the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split." He was right." -- Alexander Stephens, March 1861

[Tublecane]

“Lincoln was as much a tool of Northern industrial interests as Obama is of financial interests”

I disagree. That’s like saying fascist leaders were the tool of Big Business. It’s an example of post hoc ergo propter hoc. Just because Big Business happens to benefit from the expansion of government, and just because many Big Business leaders supported Hitler and support the Democrats, does not mean fascistic policies are serving the interests of Big Business.

On the contrary, when the central government takes control of some private authority—be it the Church, the steel industry, or whatever—it’s all about the government. Obama isn’t serving the interests of financiers. He’s serving his own interest: the interest of government power. He’s interfering in the financial market because he thinks it’s a good idea for the government to control the financial industry. If certain financiers benefit from his intervention, that’s a side issue.

[pepsi_junkie]

The claims that the civil war was fought over states rights, not slavery, is silly. It’s akin to saying the cause of death in flu victims is coughing. What caused the couging though? Oh yeah, flu! Likewise, what was the right the states were most concerned about? The right to keep slaves! This was viewed as critical to their economic viability and was the result of a tremendous and sustained political stalemate in the nation. Bleeding Kansas, Missouri compromise, etc. Lincoln’s election signaled that the North was in political ascendancy and the stalemate on slavery was doomed. Best to secede now before it comes to that. So did the north march south specifically on a moral crusade to free the slaves? No, they did so to “preserve the union” after the southern states seceded. But let’s not forget why they seceded.

[Non-Sequitur]

During the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858, Lincoln stated: “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.”

Yo, Judge. Lincoln gave that speech in June 1858 in Springfield, when he accepted the Republican nomination for the Senate. The Lincoln-Douglas debates occured in August, September, and October.

[cowboyway]

“It was about slavery, period”. General James Longstreet, CSA.

Well, the abolitionist movement certainly was..........

Get real. Even politically correct historians are beginning to admit that 'slavery was the cause for the war' is an oversimplification and has been the PC party line to appease the blacks.

Besides, everybody knows that Longstreet was bitter following the war. He was the only former Confederate officer to join the Republican Party during Reconstruction.

[downtownconservative]

“As Ronald Reagan would say in his first inaugural address over a century later, “the federal government did not create the states; the states created the federal government.”

This subtle distinction is an important aspect of State sovereignty. The United States was founded on the ideals that federal power could be challenged by the states.”

Lincoln overlooked the fact that the states had formed a voluntary agreement and did not have the ability to surrender their sovereignty...to a centralized power.”

I found this excerpt to be quite interesting/thought-provoking. Imagine “sovereign states”. Puts a whole new light on the subject of federal power.

[fr_freak]

I generally find that there are two main groups of people who want to deny that the Civil War was fought due to slavery:

1) Leftist anti-Americans who want to diminish the sacrifice that white men made on behalf of black men, thereby eliminating any redemption this country might have earned for slavery.

2) Southerners who don't want to believe that their great-granddaddies fought to defend slavery. Granted, most Confederates didn't own slaves, and there was definitely a great amount of regional loyalty for even those Confederates who didn't like slavery, but had there never been slavery in the US, there never would have been a Civil War. Period.

[Tublecane]

You have to ask why Lincoln didn’t emancipate slaves until two years into the conflict. The answer will be that practical matters prevented him from doing so. Strategy and the Constitution and the like. And then you will have destroyed the idea that it was ALL about slavery. For how could it be all about slavery if he had gone so far to make war on a whole section of the country without addressing the slavery issue.

The war was about succession and union, which in turn was about slavery. That’s the trick. It was about slavery all along, but slavery once removed. It wasn’t about slavery directly until two years in. To argue otherwise is to ignore most everything Lincoln said.

[Non-Sequitur]

In South Carolina the legislature chose not to have candidates for president on the ballot, in apparent anticipation of secession.

Yo, Judge. South Carolina had never had a candidate for president on their ballot. In every single presidential election prior to 1860 the legislature had awarded the electoral votes.

[BillyBoy]

As Ronald Reagan said in the very same inaugural address a century later:

“Beyond the Reflecting Pool the dignified columns of the Lincoln Memorial. Whoever would understand in his heart the meaning of America will find it in the life of Abraham Lincoln. ” — Ronald Reagan, Tuesday, January 20, 1981

Too bad you neoconfederates can't get over losing a war 150 years ago, and still whine about an imaginary "war of northern aggression" even though the south seceded before Lincoln was even sworn in and fired on the north first. Even Gore supporters don't whine that much while spouting their delusions of the "stolen election" of 2000.

[Lee'sGhost]

Imagine that. Longstreet speaking was the spokesman for Lincoln and the North.

Who knew?

[Non-Sequitur]

Far from over- whelming support, he received only 39 percent of the popular vote,

Yo, Judge. Lincoln received 180 electoral votes, 59.6% of the total. He won every state he carried by a clear majority except for California and Oregon. Had he not carried those states, he still would have had 173 electoral votes - 21 more than necessary.

[cowboyway]

The claims that the civil war was fought over states rights, not slavery, is silly.

I agree with the Judge: the WAR was fought over Lincoln's despotic desire to maintain the union.

The South SECEDED over states rights.

You like analogies? Try this one that I posted on another thread:

For all the 'slavery was the cause' crowd, consider this hypothetical:

The state of Kansas passes a law granting the right of same sex couples to marry. Homosexuals only make up 3% of the population but 92% of Kansans voted for the law.

An amendment to the US constitution banning same sex marriage is subsequently ratified and becomes the law of the land.

Kansas declares that it is the right of the people of their state to decide who marries who and secedes.

Did the people of Kansas secede because A) states rights, or, B) they are all flaming homosexuals and desire to marry someone of their own sexual orientation?

[Non-Sequitur]

However, Lincoln chose to ignore the historical underpinnings of the American political system; the right of secession followed from the American Revolution as the colonists separated from the British Empire and declared their independence.

Yo, Judge. Unless I'm mistaken, the Brits took a dim view of the colonies "secession" and actually took steps to try and prevent it. If secession was a right in 1776 then why did they have to fight for it?