Abe Lincoln was a dictator??? (Need Help combating loony argument)

As best as I can tell, many violations took place as early as 1808, if not before. It was after that date when there were clear violation of the 3/5 compromise - limitations to expansion of slavery and sunset of the importation of slaves. The south continued to import slaves as well as capture free blacks in the north imposing bondage upon them.

I don't understand the "if not before" part of your comment. Would you please explain what you mean.

FYI, here is an estimate of the number of slaves smuggled into the US illegally between 1808 and 1861 [Link]:

In 1807 the U.S. Congress passed the Act to Prohibit the Importation of Slaves, which ended large-scale importations of slaves into the United States. The law went into effect on January 1, 1808. In the eight years before the Act to Prohibit the Importation of Slaves made the trade illegal, the United States imported about forty thousand new slaves from Africa. From 1808 until the Civil War broke out in 1861, less than a fifth of that number of slaves would be illegally smuggled into the nation.

That totals to about 8,000 slaves in 53 years, or about 150 per year. That is equivalent to maybe one ship per year slipping through. These were illegally imported slaves, typically imported in Northern ships IIRC. Were Southern states themselves behind this illegal importation or was it the act of individuals sneaking ships into backwaters to offload slaves illegally.? I do not know.

In contrast, some Northern states actually passed laws to prevent the return of states to the South, forgetting a great compromise in the Constitution that made the Constitution possible. In addition to this nullification of the Constitution by some Northern states, many individuals in the North opposed the return of fugitive slaves to their owners in the South. On at least one occasion a Northern mob killed the person seeking to return slave(s) to their owner(s).

It was the apparently unconstitutional actions of the Northern states themselves that concerned Southern leaders. Once states started seceding, a number of Northern states repealed or amended their offending laws, but it was too late to save the Union as it was.

I imagine that on occasion free blacks who were not fugitive slaves were captured in the North and taken to the South. However, about ten times as many slaves escaped as were returned. Under the Fugitive Slave Law there were Federal commissioners set up to determine if a captured person was a fugitive slave or not. If he determined to the best of his ability that the person was a fugitive slave, any laws of Northern states regarding the fugitive and his rights no longer applied. The Fugitive Slave Law was ruled constitutional by the Supreme Court.

"I don't understand the "if not before" part of your comment."

Secessionist sympathizers often quote a "states rights" myth when discussing the Civil War, which falls flat when looking how long they continually violated the rights of other states.

"Historian Henry Brooks Adams explains that the anti-slavery North took a consistent and principled stand on states' rights against Federal encroachment throughout its history, while the Southern states, whenever they saw an opportunity to expand slavery and the reach of the slave power, often conveniently forgot the principle of states' rights—and fought in favor of Federal centralization:

Between the slave power and states' rights there was no necessary connection. The slave power, when in control, was a centralizing influence, and all the most considerable encroachments on states' rights were its acts. The acquisition and admission of Louisiana; the Embargo; the War of 1812; the annexation of Texas "by joint resolution" [rather than treaty]; the war with Mexico, declared by the mere announcement of President Polk; the Fugitive Slave Law; the Dred Scott decision — all triumphs of the slave power — did far more than either tariffs or internal improvements, which in their origin were also southern measures, to destroy the very memory of states' rights as they existed in 1789. Whenever a question arose of extending or protecting slavery, the slaveholders became friends of centralized power, and used that dangerous weapon with a kind of frenzy. Slavery in fact required centralization in order to maintain and protect itself, but it required to control the centralized machine; it needed despotic principles of government, but it needed them exclusively for its own use. Thus, in truth, states' rights were the protection of the free states, and as a matter of fact, during the domination of the slave power, Massachusetts appealed to this protecting principle as often and almost as loudly as South Carolina.[4]

Sinha[5] and Richards[6] both argue that the states' rights that the Southern states claimed were actually:

States' rights to engage in slavery;

States' rights to suppress the freedom of speech of those opposed to slavery or its expansion, by seizing abolitionist literature from the mail;

States' rights to violate the sovereignty of the non-slave States by sending slave-catchers into their territory to enforce the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, to seize supposed runaway slaves by force of arms.

States' rights to send armed Border Ruffians into the territories of the United States such as Kansas to engage in massive vote fraud and acts of violence; see Slave Power and Bleeding Kansas;

States' rights to deem portions of their population "beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect", by means of the Dred Scott decision;

States' rights to secede from the United States after an election whose result they disagreed with, the election in 1860 of Abraham Lincoln;

States' rights to seize forts and arsenals of the United States following their purported secession; see Fort Sumter; "Historians, like contemporaries, have long noted that an overwhelming majority of South Carolinians were for secession. But a majority of South Carolinians had nothing to do with secession or the glorification of human bondage. A majority of South Carolinians in 1860 were slaves."

States' rights to have a less democratic form of government; Sinha, in particular, argues this point, illustrating that the state of South Carolina, home of John Calhoun, the ideological godfather of the Slave Power, had a far less democratic order than the several other United States. Although all white male residents were allowed to vote, property restrictions for office holders were higher in South Carolina than in any other state.[3] South Carolina had the only state legislature where slave owners had the majority of seats.[3] It was the only state where the legislature elected the governor, all judges and state electors.[3] The state's chief executive was a figurehead who had no authority to veto legislative law.[3]

States' rights to overturn the ideal expressed in the Declaration of Independence — that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness".

Sinha and Richards conclude their cases by arguing that the Civil War had nothing to do with "states' rights", democracy, or resistance to arbitrary power. They argue that it was instead the result of the increasing cognitive dissonance in the minds of Northerners and (some) Southern non-slaveowners between the ideals that the United States was founded upon and identified itself as standing for, as expressed in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, and the Bill of Rights, and the reality that the slave-power represented, as what they describe as an anti-democratic, counter-republican, oligarchic, despotic, authoritarian, if not totalitarian, movement for ownership of human beings as the personal chattels of the slaver. As this cognitive dissonance increased, the people of the Northern states, and the Northern states themselves, became increasingly inclined to resist the encroachments of the slave power upon their states' rights and encroachments of the slave power by and upon the Federal Government of the United States. The slave power, having failed to maintain its dominance of the Federal Government through democratic means, sought other means of maintaining its dominance of the Federal Government, by means of military aggression, by right of force and coercion, and thus, the Civil War occurred."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/States'_rights

I suppose I should have included the context. That portion of the speech was in reference to his home state of Tennessee providing 55,000 troops and $5,000,000 to the confederacy while still remaining in the union, a clear violation of the Constitution.

Thanks. I don't know a lot of Tennessee history. The legislature voted to secede on May 6, 1861 subject to approval by the voters of the state [Link]. Secession and joining the Confederacy were confirmed by the people of the state on June 8. It could be argued that they were effectively out of the Union on May 6th subject to later confirmation by the voters. Other states secessions were also subject to approval by state voters (an action that exceeded what the states originally did to ratify the 1787 US Constitution). Actions were taken by other states (before their people voted) to put those states in the best defensive position given the possibility that the Federal government would (and did) try to coerce them into staying. It was Lincoln's call for 75,000 troops to invade the South that caused four states to secede including Tennessee.

According to this site [Link 2]. the provisional state army raised by Tennessee Governor Harris did not join the Confederate army until July 1861, after secession was confirmed by the voters.

There certainly were many organized military groups effectively under state control across the US in both the North and the South, and state money was expended to equip them. I gather the $5,000,000 was for equipping this Tennessee state army [Link 3].

The Constitution, however, says that troops should not be kept by the states and that militia groups were to be organized and equipped by the Feds. I'm not sure that's the way it always worked in practice. Massachusetts comes to mind [Source: The Richmond Daily Dispatch, March 27, 1861]:

Military preparations in Massachusetts.

An official report to the Massachusetts Legislature shows that the Quartermaster General of that State has contracted for 4,000 military overcoats, 4,000 knapsacks, 1,000 pair of blankets, 200,000 ball cartridges, and 300,000 percussion caps, for the use of the military of that State.

FWIW, Tennessee also apparently entered into a temporary military agreement with the Confederacy the day after the legislature voted for secession [Link 4].

States' rights to overturn the ideal expressed in the Declaration of Independence — that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness".

You need to be careful using Wikipedia. It is often wrong or slanted. There is an awful lot of citing of one side's opinions in what you posted from Wikipedia.

From your above quote, I gather that you are not aware that the Declaration of Independence also condemned to king (though his agent, Lord Dunmore) for fomenting domestic insurrections (freeing slaves and indentured servants that would fight for the British). In other words, all men are equal but leave our slaves alone.

Some people incorrectly assert that Northern personal liberty laws countering the return of fugitive slaves were expressions of states rights by the Northern states. States rights concern powers and rights not delegated to the central government or prohibited to the states. The return of fugitive slaves was called for in the Constitution and approved by the states ratifying the Constitution. Laws that prevented the return of those slaves were unconstitutional.

I found the following in the Philadelphia Public Ledger of December 20, 1860 (my bold red font below):

THE CITIZENS OF MASSACHUSETTS AND THE PERSONAL LIBERTY BILLS

Chief Justice Shaw, B. R. Curtis, Joel Parker, and other citizens of Massachusetts equally distinguished, have addressed a letter to the people of that State on the Personal Liberty Bills, which they declare to be unconstitutional. They urge strongly the repeal of them and say:

We know it is doubted by some whether the present is an opportune moment to abrogate them. It is said -- We grant these laws are wrong, but will you repeal them under a threat? We answer no. We would do nothing under a threat. We would repeal them under our own love of right; under our own sense of sacredness of compacts; under our own convictions of the inestimable importance of social order and domestic peace; under our feeling of responsibility to the memory of our fathers and the welfare of our children, and not under any threat. We would not be prevented from repealing them by any conduct of others, if such repeal were in accordance with our own sense of right.

He who refuses to do a right thing merely because he is threatened with evil consequences, acts in subjection to the threat. His false pride may enable him to disregard the threat, but he lacks the courage to despise the wrong estimate of his own conduct, which conduct he knows would spring from his own love of duty. If every right-minded man must admit that he ought to govern his own conduct by these principles, are they applicable to the conduct of a great and populous State? On what ground can it be maintained that hundreds of thousands of innocent citizens are to be subjected to suffering, because the false pride of their rulers refuses to do right? Mankind have been afflicted long enough and grievously enough by commotions and strifes and wars springing from such causes. We had hoped that the nature of our government would protect us from swelling the great sum of human misery, produced by the evil passions of rulers. We had hoped that, inasmuch as the masses of people can have no interest but to do right, they would have the discernment to perceive and the manliness to do it, and would be too calm, too wise, too magnanimous intentionally to persevere in any wrong, and we hope so still.

But what is meant by the exhortation not to repeal these laws under a threat? Who threatens us if they should not be repealed?

Whatever may have been true in the past, whatever faults of speech and action may have been committed on the one side or the other, we firmly believe that the men from whom the worst consequences to our country and ourselves are likely to proceed, have no wish that these laws should be repealed, and no disposition to use any threats in reference to them. On the contrary, they desire to have them stand as conspicuous and palpable breaches of the national compact by ourselves; and as affording justification to themselves, to the world and to posterity, for the destruction of the most perfect and prosperous government which the Providence of God has ever permitted the wisdom of man to devise.

For your information, Lemuel Shaw was Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court. Benjamin R. Curtis was a former Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court. He resigned from the Supreme Court in protest of its Dred Scott decision. Joel Parker was professor of constitutional law at Harvard and former Chief Justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Court.

The south wanted continued expansion of thier "Slaveocracy" into already designated free territories and states. Here's another site that dispells many of the myths surrounding the confederate "cause"....

"Myth Conception 2: But South Carolina democratically voted to secede from the Union -- so everyone supported the idea.

Actually, the Convention that voted to abolish the Union in South Carolina was carefully picked by the legislature. Of the 169 delegates almost all were slave holders -- and nearly half owned 50 or more slaves. This group represented the elite of South Carolina's political and slave-holding class: five former governors, 40 former state senators, 100 former state representatives, 12 clerics, and many lawyers. This was no cross-section of South Carolina (remember that only 47% owned slaves, only 9% of the slave owners held 50 or more slaves, and only about 4% of all of South Carolina's families held 50 or more slaves). This group had a vested interest in making sure that slavery continued unmolested.

In fact, when you look at all of the state conventions you see a similar scenario. The Union was dissolved not by any popular vote, but rather by 854 men (no women), all selected by their various state legislatures. And 157 (nearly a fifth) of these actually voted AGAINST secession. So the fate of the Union -- and the fate of 9 million people -- was decided by fewer than 700 mostly middle or upper class white males. And in Tennessee, where a popular vote did defeat secession, the governor orchestrated the dissolution of the Union single handedly!"

http://www.chicora.org/myth-conceptions.html

Then there's this tidbit from the BS "constitution" adopted by South Carolina on Christmas Eve, 1860

"But 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."

So much for the "states rights" argument applying to other NON-SLAVE states.

I've been reading up on secessionist Alexander H. Stephens "Cornerstone Speech" from Savannah, Georgia delivered on March 21, 1861:

"The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the "storm came and the wind blew."

A 'storm' created by secessionist DUmocrats and a 'wind' originating from the secessionist windbags in South Carolina - Christmas Eve 1860. He continues....

Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition."

The south wanted continued expansion of thier "Slaveocracy" into already designated free territories and states.

Consider the terms of the treaty by which we obtained the Louisiana Territory where much of the territory existed:

The inhabitants of the ceded territory shall be incorporated in the Union of the United States and admitted as soon as possible according to the principles of the federal Constitution to the enjoyment of all these rights, advantages and immunities of citizens of the United States, and in the mean time they shall be maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty, property and the Religion which they profess.

Slaves were considered property. So, by the treaty slaves could be taken anywhere in the territory. Since Lincoln and other northern politicians wanted the territories for white settlers (their constituents and voters) who would then have no competition with slave labor, they ignored the treaty by which we got the territories. Apparently, we should give the Louisiana Purchase back to France for abrogating the treaty.

And in Tennessee, where a popular vote did defeat secession, the governor orchestrated the dissolution of the Union single handedly!

If anyone did it single handedly, it was Lincoln. Lincoln's proclamation calling for 75,000 troops to invade the South played the key role causing Tennessee's secession. (Read the statements of Daniel Crofts about the change of the public attitude on Wikipedia on Tennessee in the American Civil War.) The governor and state politicians recognized that Lincoln had changed the playing field with his proposed coercion of the South. They then put the question of secession directly before the sovereignty of Tennessee, the voters. Seems to me that the June vote of 104,913 for secession to 47,238 against was more than a single person (other than Lincoln) causing secession in Tennessee.

By the way, the Union didn't dissolve when Tennessee seceded, unlike the hyperbole of your quote. It continued right along but without 11 states. Without those 11 states the remaining union was about as large as the whole nation had been in 1850, so it was certainly viable. It was powerful enough to wage and win a four-year long war against a determined South.

Virgina had a similar experience. Before Lincoln's call for troops, the Virginia secession convention voted against secession 80 to 45 . After Lincoln did his thing, the delegates voted for secession 88 to 55, and the voters of the state later approved it, 132,201 to 37,451.

IMO, Lincoln's objective was war.

I've been reading up on secessionist Alexander H. Stephens "Cornerstone Speech" from Savannah, Georgia delivered on March 21, 1861:

You seem to be under some misconception that I don't think slavery was the main cause of the war. It was not the only cause, but it was the main one. Lincoln and the North went to war for economic reasons -- without the South the North would have faced unemployment and a severe balance of payments problem. The South went to war for slavery -- the Southern economy depended on slavery.

Both sides certainly treated blacks unfairly, the Union less so than the South. The main good that came out of the war was the freeing of slaves.

So much for the "states rights" argument applying to other NON-SLAVE states.

You've completely lost me here. If I was not clear enough before, let me restate my position for you. Many people, including some on these threads, have tried to justify the Northern personal liberty laws that were intended to prevent fugitive slaves from being returned to the South as being an application of States Rights by the North. In fact, what the Northern states were doing was unconstitutional and a nullification of the Constitution, not an exercise of their States Rights.

Perhaps I misunderstood you, and perhaps we actually agree that Northern states were not exercising a States Right in their personal liberty laws.

Secessionists like to use lie that “states rights” was the breaking point that they were somehow slighted and justified in treason against the United States. The point is, the south cannot claim “states rights” were violated (none were violated), when they had no problem violating the rights of northern states and territories where slavery did not exist.

So we fall back to the sole issue with the cause of the war, whether or not a state can decide for itself to enact certain laws that affect those outside it’s boundaries. In the case of the south, promoting slavery was the south’s way of imposing on the rest of the country laws enacted in their own states, much like the DUmocrats continue to do today with abortion, gay “marriage” and illegal “immigration”. If the north had been forced to follow slave codes of the south, they would have been in many cases in violation of their own state constitution.

Passing laws in one’s own state cannot over-ride the laws of another state and only the federal government can issue laws broad enough that effect all of the states. That was the sole reason for secession...the perceived potential threat of lossing power in Congress in 1860 and rather wait till the election of 1864 to convince the population to vote in more slavery advocates.

It appears that the south already knew that was a lost cause since the balance of power of the ratio of slave states to free states. They instead opted for another lost cause, insurrection.

That stresses the point of making sure not to elect people to Congress who are willing to step on the rights of other states in order to benefit the desires of their home state as well as electing those to state legislatures that understand their role not to impose laws that unravel the fabric of our Constitutional Republic.

Secessionists like to use lie that “states rights” was the breaking point that they were somehow slighted and justified in treason against the United States.

Slighted? This is hopeless, but I'll start with this word of yours anyway. That is all this post will cover. Emphasis (bold font, red font) in the posted items below is by me.

Here are some things you should understand about the return of fugitive slaves. US Constitution. Article IV, Section 2, Clause 3, to which all states agreed:

No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.

Now a Supreme Court opinion on what that means in practice. From Prigg v. Pennsylvania 41 US 539 (1842) [emphasis and paragraph break below are mine]:

The clause [rb: Clause 3 above]manifestly contemplates the existence of a positive, unqualified right on the part of the owner of the slave, which no state law or regulation can in any way qualify, regulate, control or restrain. The slave is not to be discharged from service or labor, in consequence of any state law or regulation.

Now certainly, without indulging in any nicety of criticism upon words, it may be fairly said, that any state law or state regulation which interrupts, limits, delays, or postpones the right of the owner of the slave to the immediate possession of the slave, and the immediate command of his service and labor, operates, pro tanto, a discharge of the slave therefrom.

Immediate? The last slave returned to its owner from Massachusetts was in 1854. Here is what the Michigan legislature and the Detroit Free Press said about Michigan's personal liberty law. From March 2, 1861, issue of the State Gazette of Austin, Texas quoting an article from the Detroit Free Press [italics theirs, paragraph break and emphasis mine]:

Absurd and Impudent Action by the Michigan Legislature

We can conceive of nothing more absurd than the passage by either house of the Legislature, at Lansing, of the resolutions which are reported to have passed concerning national affairs, while the personal liberty bill still stands. The personal liberty law -- so the legislature of 1859 construed it, and such is the only construction which it will bear -- "was designed to and if faithfully executed will prevent the delivering up of fugitive slaves." It is therefore plain, palpable, unadulterated nullification of the fugitive slave law.

Michigan, for six years past, has stood in the attitude of open and avowed hostility to the authority of the Constitution of the United States. Until she has changed this attitude -- until she has hauled down the flag of rebellion -- until she is fully within the line of her constitutional duty -- how absurd is it, how impudent is it, in her to pass resolutions that the Constitution of the United States, and all laws in pursuance thereof, "are the supreme law of the land" -- that "there is no method for a State, or the citizens of a State, to escape the obligations imposed by the Constitution except by and through an amendment of that instrument" -- that "Michigan is now, as she has always been, entirely loyal to the Constitution;"

... We know of nothing better calculated to stimulate secession than this action, especially as it is the action of a State whose professions of loyalty to the Constitution are a lie. -- Detroit Free Press

Now from Massachusetts Senator Daniel Webster in 1851 [emphasis mine]:

If the South were to violate any part of the Constitution intentionally and systematically, and persist in so doing, year after year, and no remedy could be had, would the North be any longer bound by the rest of it? And if the North were deliberately, habitually, and of fixed purpose to disregard one part of it, would the South be bound any longer to observe its other obligations? I have not hesitated to say, and I repeat, that if the Northern States refuse, willfully and deliberately, to carry into effect that part of the Constitution which respects the restoration of fugitive slaves, and Congress provide no remedy, the South would no longer be bound to observe the compact. A bargain cannot be broken on one side and still bind the other side.

A thousand fugitive slaves lived in Chicago, a sanctuary city. [Sources: The Slave Catchers, Enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law, 1850-1860 by Stanley W. Campbell and articles by the New York Times] See: Link.

Let's consider tariff issues and sectional aggrandizement by the North. Here is what the Daily Chicago Times said on December 10, 1860:

The South has furnished near three-fourths of the entire exports of the country. Last year she furnished seventy-two percent of the whole . . . We have a tariff that protects our manufacturers from thirty to fifty percent, and enables us to consume large quantities of Southern cotton, and to compete in our whole home market with the skilled labor of Europe. This operates to compel the South to pay an indirect bounty to our skilled labor, of millions annually.

The Morrill Tariff which greatly increased protectionist tariffs had been passed by the House in 1860 and was likely to be passed by the new Senate in 1861 even if all Southern senators had remained. A head count by Texas Senator Wigfall had that conclusion. Lincoln and the Republicans were for it. Here is what the New Orleans Daily Picayune said on April 3, 1861, a month after the Senate passed it and it was signed into law:

Some months ago we said to the Northern party, "You sought sectional aggrandizement, and had no scruples as to the means and agencies by which to attain your unhallowed purposes. You paid no heed to the possible consequences of your insane conduct." The fact was then patent that the condition in the bond by which the Northern protectionist party gave its weight and influence in aid of Black Republicanism was the imposition by the party of a protectionist tariff. The South was to be fleeced that the North might be enriched.

Having driven the South to resistance, instead of adopting a policy of conciliation, it added to the existing exasperation by adopting a tariff as hostile as could be to Southern interests. The estrangement of North and South was not sufficiently marked and intense. New fuel must be added to the fires of strife, new incentives to embittered feelings.

Perhaps this and what I've posted before will help you better understand states rights, the "fleecing" of the South by a protectionist tariff that benefitted Northern manufacturers and provided jobs to Northern workers at the expense of the South, and the impact that unconstitutional personal liberty laws by some Northern states had on the South.

Jefferson Davis's Letter to Walker (Cleburne's Proposal)
Confederate Correspondence, Orders, And Returns Relating To Operations In Southwestern Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, West Florida, And Northern Georgia.--#24
O.R.--SERIES I--VOLUME LII/2 [S# 110]

RICHMOND, VA., January 13, 1864.

General W. H. T. WALKER, Army of Tennessee, Dalton, Ga.:
GENERAL: I have received your letter, with its inclosure, informing me of the propositions submitted to a meeting of the general officers on the 2d instant, and thank you for the information. Deeming it to be injurious to the public service that such a subject should be mooted, or even known to be entertained by persons possessed of the confidence and respect of the people, I have concluded that the best policy under the circumstances will be to avoid all publicity, and the Secretary of War has therefore written to General Johnston requesting him to convey to those concerned my desire that it should be kept private. If it be kept out of the public journals its ill effect will be much lessened.
Very respectfully and truly, yours,
JEFFERSON DAVIS.
Source: Official Records of the War of the Rebellion

yawnnnnnnnnn, keep on truckin’ mac.

Why did the south need to MORE slave states and oppose every new state that entered the union as a free state? The over production of their primary cash crop (cotton) rather than utilize crop rotation made their soil less fertile for growing. It was their reduced crop yields and reduced profitability that ultimately caused a need to expand slavery into the free territories to the west where more fertile land could be found.

When citizens of those new states did not want to participate in the trappings that slavery wrought, a pro-slavery minority resorted to violence to make certain slave-friendly measures would be put in place. That fact backs up my earlier statement that southern states had no problem imposing their will over other fellow citizens who chose for themselves to live amongst free people.

However, even if they had succeeded, expansion of their agricultural base into free territories would not be enough. They also would require a new influx of imported slaves from Africa to maintain a labor force to achieve any profit, so the law banning slave import would also have to be removed (which the DUmorats attempted many times prior to the Civil War).

In the 1860 election, they failed to elect pro-slavery DUmocrats to promote their agenda in Congress and impose their will over whoever won the election. Rather than adapt to the current conditions, they chose a treasonous secession and war. There was no justification for adopt sedition in going to war with the United States over the results of one election, especially since no laws against slavery expansion existed during the transition period. I have yet to see where anyone condemns Buchanan for Morill tarriff, as that was passed prior to Lincoln taking office, so the only reason logical was simply because Lincoln was elected and the fact they lost a majority representation in Congress. They have themselves to blame for their loss of votes by pushing a radical pro-slavery agenda.

All the reasons secessionists give all point back to profit and the expansion of slavery, thus the only reason to go to war I have stated above - losing Congress and the Presidency. Although Lincoln had no initial plans to disrupt the use of slave labor when elected President (as you have duly noted), the appeasement of the rebels by Andrew Johnson after speaking against them while still in Congress illustrates clearly that the DUmocrat party itself chooses party unity over principle when the rubber meets the road. They are the same as they have always been.

It also becomes clear that the slave issue if passed to future generations would also result in conflict even if South Carolina had not condemned themselves to making war against their own country and treason while leading others over the cliff under false premise of “states rights” (to maintain slavery) even though no laws had been that worked against their interests.

A fact left out of our discussion is that when most people emigrated to this country during that period, they chose the north to settle for more liberty and freedom to make their own place in the world without the yoke of pro-slavery laws around their necks. So as the northern states gained in population in the years prior to 1860, the southern states lost population by those heading north for work in cities or to farm more fertile land for themselves.

The 3/5 Compromise that initially kept southern DUmocrats in power (by allowing more apportioned representatives than they deserved by free population) had ceased to be beneficial when it became obvious that representation in Congress was soon to dwindle due to population alone. I would expect that further exploration of the census of 1860 would show a mass migration to the north. However, due to the session of southern states, I think it would be impossible to see how that would have effected their representation in Congress in future elections.

Another thing that baffles me is that Christian men could not see the fate in which they condemned themselves by subjugating a people to perpetual bondage if they had really learned the lessons from the teachings of Moses against the Pharaohs. They mistakenly thought themselves above God and chose the Pharaoh's fate.

Well, that was a nice R&R if I say so myself. Perhaps today I will do a better job then I did last week.

When I said, "linky no worky"; I should have said brainy no worky. I had 3 sessions open and couldn't even handle 1! I just googled the points to see if the info is easy to find and was copying the links over. I got to thinking, if I can find this so easy why can't he? Believe it or not, I don't care much for argument. So I googled De Bow's book and you see the results. By the time you said I could elucidate, I thought it read, did she just hallucinate? Looks like I was getting close!!

Anyhoo, back to the topic. De Bow's book really is why my research began. Here is the quote that grabbed me: "The negros from the Middle* and the New-England states, who under the emancipation laws of those states, were forced into the markets of Virginia and other southern states, did not thereby become more of slaves than they were before. There was a transfer of the place of servitude-that was all. Not a slave the more was made." *Calling Middle States, New-York, New-Jersey, and Pennsylvania, only. (M.F. Maury The Industrial Resources, Etc. of the Southern and Western States Vol. III 1853 p.13)

I also found the statistical analysis, of free colored persons, on p.12, of interest. No, I don't agree with much of the book but it did pique my curiosity about the whole era.

Moving on to the abolition groups. They were all seeking to end slavery regardless of what name they went by. Some were religious in nature others were not. Some groups sought to petition legislatures and others mission was to physically or spiritually aid the slaves, in whatever manner they could. Some groups sought to relocate the slaves others did not.

The major difference between the groups was that some groups were gradualists (Jeffersonians) and others were immediatists (Garrisonians). Nothing radical going on until the Garrisonians. The Garrisonian groups pursued radical tactics such as attacking the slave owners instead of the institution itself, attacking the colonization societies (even though most Garrisionians supported colonization prior to 1831), general agitation of society through inflammatory speech and writing, and by encouraging uprisings and insurrection. In other words, the ends justified the means. This is what caused the abolition groups, as a whole, to splinter in about 1838.

Do I disagree with this? No, b/c slavery should have never existed and if I was a slave I would fight back too. But, those were different times and I'll tell ya at the end what it all means to me.

The radical tactics started when William Lloyd Garrison began printing, The Liberator, on January 1, 1831. How radical was the publication? Well, they were calling for SECESSION from the union. Please see below.

The Liberator Files Boston-based Abolitionist newspaper, published by William Lloyd Garrison, 1831-1865 Capital Punishment and Criticism of Garrison For Annexation of Texas;NO UNION WITH SLAVEHOLDERS May 31, 1844

At the tenth anniversary of the American Anti-Slavery Society, in New York City, May 7th, it was decided by a vote of nearly three to one of members present; that the existing national compact should be instantly dissolved; that secession from the government is a religious and political duty, that the motto inscribed on the banner of Freedom should be NO UNION WITH SLAVEHOLDERS; that it is impractical for tyrants and the enemies of tyranny to coalesce and legislate together for the preservations of human rights, or the promotion of the interests of Liberty; and that revolutionary ground should be occupied by all those who abhor the thought of doing evil that good may come, and who do not mean to compromise the principles of Justice and Humanity...

Please see links below for just a couple of other Garrisonians who were sharing the same message.

http://www.blackpast.org/?q=1844-charles-lenox-remond-dissolution-union

http://wapedia.mobi/en/Wendell_Phillips

These people were even causing riots in the North. Please see links below for just a couple of examples.

http://www.accessgenealogy.com/african/nyriots/abolition_riots.htm

http://www.nha.org/history/hn/HN-n40n3-brotherhood.htm

This one is getting rather long so I'll break it up with another post. My next post will address the abolition groups and legislative petitions in four southern states.

Wish me luck with my html in this post!

Links didn’t work! I’ll try again.

For just a couple of the Garrisionians who shared the secession message please see:

http://www.blackpast.org/?q=1844-charles-lenox-remond-dissolution-union

http://wapedia.mobi/en/Wendell_Phillips

For a couple of the riots the Garrisonians started in the North, please see:

http://www.accessgenealogy.com/african/nyriots/abolition_riots.htm

http://www.nha.org/history/hn/HN-n40n3-brotherhood.htm

Thanks for your reply.

Why did the south need to MORE slave states and oppose every new state that entered the union as a free state?

For the same reason that Massachusetts threatened to secede over the admission of Texas to the Union [Link]. Texas came in as a slave state and thus decreased the advantage of the free state voting block. Increasing the number of slaves states might ultimately prevent ratification of a constitutional amendment ending slavery by three-fourths of the states.

When citizens of those new states did not want to participate in the trappings that slavery wrought, a pro-slavery minority resorted to violence to make certain slave-friendly measures would be put in place. That fact backs up my earlier statement that southern states had no problem imposing their will over other fellow citizens who chose for themselves to live amongst free people.

Both sides resorted to violence. Consider the contents of an abolitionist circular of 1859 [Source: Congressional Globe]:

Our plan is –

1. To make war (openly or secretly, as circumstances may dictate,) upon the property of the slaveholders and their abettors – not for its destruction, if that can be easily avoided, but to convert it to the use of the slaves. If it cannot be converted, then we advise its destruction. Teach the slaves to burn their master’s buildings, to kill their cattle and horses, to conceal or destroy farming utensils, to abandon labor in seed-time and harvest, and let crops perish. Make slavery unprofitable in this way if it can be done in no other.

Precisely that happened in Texas in the summer of 1860 when 11 towns and many farms burned and slaves said that abolitionists had incited them to harm their masters' properties.

They also would require a new influx of imported slaves from Africa to maintain a labor force to achieve any profit, so the law banning slave import would also have to be removed (which the DUmorats attempted many times prior to the Civil War).

I have seen articles in the prewar papers proposing that, but when the Confederacy was formed, slave imports from overseas were not permitted by their Constitution:

Sec. 9. (1) The importation of negroes of the African race from any foreign country other than the slaveholding States or Territories of the United States of America, is hereby forbidden; and Congress is required to pass such laws as shall effectually prevent the same.

(2) Congress shall also have power to prohibit the introduction of slaves from any State not a member of, or Territory not belonging to, this Confederacy.

Rather than adapt to the current conditions, they chose a treasonous secession and war.

I take it you can prove secession was treason. I invite you to try to do so. I am not aware of any Confederate convicted of treason after the war. If you are, please let me know.

There were treason trials of Confederates in Tennessee, for example, but as far as I know, no one was convicted or if they were, they received presidential pardons. The so-called "Indianapolis Treason Trials" of four Northerners by military tribunal was overturned by the US Supreme Court in the famous Ex Parte Milligan decision.

I have yet to see where anyone condemns Buchanan for Morill tarriff, as that was passed prior to Lincoln taking office, so the only reason logical was simply because Lincoln was elected and the fact they lost a majority representation in Congress.

Lincoln and the Republicans had pushed for the Morrill Tariff. Buchanan did a number on Lincoln by signing the Morrill Bill, leaving Lincoln with a law pushed by Republicans that had much higher tariffs than the Confederate tariff. This difference in tariff rates favored many imports going directly to the South rather than to import warehouses in the North. Large losses of jobs associated with the import business happened very quickly in the North, and the level of US government income from imports was greatly reduced in 1860 dollars for the duration of the war.

The 3/5 Compromise that initially kept southern DUmocrats in power (by allowing more apportioned representatives than they deserved by free population) had ceased to be beneficial when it became obvious that representation in Congress was soon to dwindle due to population alone.

Without the three-fifths compromise, the Constitution may not have been ratified. And it is not as though the North got nothing out of that compromise. They got a stranglehold on shipping and trade.

The following table on the number of representatives from the North and South in the US House comes from Albert Taylor Bledsoe in his 1866 book, Is Davis a Traitor, or Was Secession a Right Prior to the War of 1861:

Census.................North......South......Majority

Before Census......35.............30...............5
1790........................57.............53...............4
1800........................77.............65..............12
1810......................104.............79..............25
1820......................133.............90..............43
1830......................141...........100..............41
1840......................135.............88..............47
1850......................144.............90..............54

The method for calculating the number of representatives changed over time resulting in the strange drop in 1840.

Precisely that happened in Texas in the summer of 1860 when 11 towns and many farms burned and slaves said that abolitionists had incited them to harm their masters' properties.

I believe that we've covered this before. There's no evidence of arson, or of white abolitionists convincing slaves to start the fires. What there was, on the other hand, was an incredibly hot summer, a new type of match that would self-ignite under those circumstances, and a general atmosphere of paranoia whipped up by a few agitators. From the Texas State Historical Society:

Regularly constituted law-enforcement agencies stepped aside to allow the vigilantes to do their work. Although no hard evidence was ever adduced to prove the guilt of a single alleged black arsonist or white abolitionist, many unfortunates of both classes were nevertheless hanged for their alleged crimes. It can be established from eyewitness reports that at least thirty blacks and whites died by the hands of the secretive vigilantes, but other reports indicated that the actual number of deaths may have been closer to 100.