Posted on 02/12/2018 3:57:10 AM PST by harpygoddess
It has long been a grave question whether any government, not too strong for the liberties of the people, can be strong enough to maintain its existence in great emergencies.
~ Lincoln
February 12 is the anniversary of the birth of the 16th - and arguably the greatest - president of these United States, Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865). Born in Kentucky and raised in Illinois, Lincoln was largely self-educated and became a country lawyer in 1836, having been elected to the state legislature two years earlier. He had one term in the U.S. Congress (1847-1849) but failed (against Stephen A. Douglas) to gain election to the Senate in 1856. Nominated by the Republican party for the presidency in 1860, he prevailed against the divided Democrats, triggering the secession of the southern states and the beginning of the Civil War. As the course of the war turned more favorably for the preservation of the Union, Lincoln was elected to a second term in 1864, but was assassinated in April 1865, only a week after the final victory.
(Excerpt) Read more at vaviper.blogspot.com ...
And yet those who've studied Dickens most have something quite different to say about him:
DiogenesLamp: "He was just telling the truth.
The Squabble between the North and South was over who was going to collect and spend all that slave produced money."
Dickens was just a Brit who got treated very shabbily by the Northerners he visited here, so took out his anger against them by misinterpreting the Civil War in terms that only a self-loathing Northerner like DiogenesLamp could sympathize with.
Yes it was, but the map illustrates where those slaves went, and gives you an idea of how big each slave industry was. The Carribbean slave business was bigger than the Southern state slave business.
The possibility of the South expanding there would have required them to compete with the existing and much larger slave plantations already in place.
So did Democrats, for Southern Democrat produced products like cotton, sugar and rice.
And, naturally, Southerners didn't like paying tariffs on their luxury imports, or the high prices tariffs protected on the $200 million Southerners "imported" from the North.
DiogenesLamp: "They believed in liberal causes of the day.
When they finished with the abolition of slavery, they picked up enfranchisement of women, then abortion, and on and on to all the other liberal causes of the era."
Certainly in 1860 few Republicans, if any, believed in such causes.
But there was no time when Northern Democrats did not also participate, and by the era of Franklin Roosevelt, Dems led many of them.
The 16th Amendment was typical, as we discussed before, ratification lead by former Confederate states.
1973's Roe v Wade was also typical: one Dem (White) and one Rep (Rehnquist) opposed, four Dems and two Reps in favor.
DiogenesLamp: "The Republicans were the liberals of the 19th century, and much of the 20th century."
Only in the classical sense of that word, "liberal".
The explosion of Big Government did not seriously begin until FDR's New Deal and was almost always lead by Democrats.
Neither was Charleston Harbor to the Confederacy, as DoodleDawg so well pointed out in Post #487 or 489 above.
Anyone in a free country can pick up and move whenever & wherever they wish.
Nobody stops them except to the extent they break laws moving.
But our Founders believed a Declaration of Independence required one of two conditions: 1) necessity as in 1776 or 2)mutual consent as in 1788.
Unilateral, unapproved declarations of secession "at pleasure" Founders considered nothing more than a start of rebellion, insurrection, domestic violence, invasion and/or treason.
None ever supported such things.
If you simply consider the Second World War, there were plenty of economic motives on all sides.
But no free nation, especially the United States, went to war for just economic motives.
There had to be something more, a trigger, such as the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Just as in 1861...
In 1800, Virginia was the number one population state and half of Americans lived in the South.
So there's no reason to think Southerners in 1800 had fewer printing presses than Northerners.
By 1820 when the term "is" was used about 1/3 of the time, Virginia had fallen to 3rd most populous (behind NY & PA) and the South to roughly 45% of all Americans.
Still there's no reason to think Southerners had fewer printing presses than Northerners or that the "era of good feelings" was felt less by Southerners than other regions.
Sure, by 1860 the North & west were beginning to run away with population numbers, but the "era of good feelings" was past and only 20% of usage went to "is" versus 80% to "are".
Who exactly in 1860 were the "isers" and who the "arers", we don't know, but we do know "isers" increased steadily until around 1900 they made it official & permanent.
Yes, nobody disputes that the last famous holdouts for "are" were Democrats, but they were Northern Democrats, your alleged "Northeastern Power Brokers" heavily dependent on Solid Democrat South votes.
Point is: it's not all "North vs South", but rather various sometimes shifting alliances which since at least 1836 have included Northern Big City Democrats with Southern Democrats.
I think today all sides use whatever means necessary to get as many supporters as needed to important places, conventions, etc.
So here's the question you need to ask yourself, FRiend:
Seward was the big loser, had the biggest grudge to carry against Lincoln if he felt mistreated.
But how, in fact, did Seward come to view Lincoln?
I'd suggest to you that party leaders in Chicago, who knew both Seward and Lincoln well, understood that Seward would make the greatest possible Secretary of State and Lincoln the greatest President and so chose consciously & knowingly.
I believe they were wiser than you give them credit for.
Anybody who reads your posts (or mine) judges whether you make sense or not.
I judge that there's nothing in your data or reasoning which even remotely supports the outrageous claims you present here.
DiogenesLamp: "And which is exactly what they had done to Article IV, Section 2.
They interpreted it to mean something other than exactly what it said.
What it said was that NO STATE LAW could interfere with returning a slave to his master, so long as that slave was held by the laws of other states.
No wiggle room there."
"No wiggle room", but only in your fantasies, applying long after the fact what you wish they had meant by their words.
What they actually meant they clearly showed in their words & actions after 1788, which in no way support your outrageous claims here.
Slave-holders, up to and including President Washington, respected and obeyed the abolition laws of Pennsylvania, and that's the bottom line, yours & Roger Taney's ridiculous opinions notwithstanding.
Note the key word here, "destructive".
"Destructive" does not mean "at pleasure" or "whenever they see fit", but rather "destructive" means what the rest of the Declaration makes explicit: necessity.
In 1776 it was necessity.
In 1788 it was mutual consent.
Those are the two, and only two, conditions our Founders considered acceptable for disunion.
According to no law ever.
Land always belongs to the deed-holder until it is lawfully transferred, which Fort Sumter never was.
DiogenesLamp: "Apparently they had been led to believe that the Secretary of War was going to turn it over to them peaceably, as this account by a Union officer relates."
Whatever intentions may or may not have been expressed, no permission was ever given, and that makes South Carolina's actions lawless.
DiogenesLamp: "If he's letting several pieces of it go, (In exchange for Virginia staying) then "preserving" the Union must not be such an important principle.
In fact, if it can be broken, it isn't even a principle.
It's just a slogan."
A fort for a state would have been a good trade in most anyone's mind, giving up something relatively small to preserve the principle of Union.
So I judge your argument here to be without merit.
DiogenesLamp: "Except for the pieces that didn't get preserved. How are you preserving the Union when you willingly let states go?"
No, no, "a fort for a state" -- Lincoln keeps the state of Virginia, thus preserving the Union and peace, in exchange for handing over Fort Sumter to Confederates.
That was the deal discussed, not the other way around.
DiogenesLamp: "This thing doesn't make any sense.
If you are willing to fight a war that kills 750,000 people to "preserve the Union", then aren't you really just fighting for Virginia?
Cause you were going to let the rest of them leave, right? "
No, you totally misunderstand, is that deliberate, or can simple facts sway your POV?
DiogenesLamp: "Maybe, but we do know that he offered to trade Virginia for the rest.
I guess some states are more important to principles than are others."
No, {sigh}, just so we're clear on this, one more time:
the offer it's reported Lincoln discussed with Virginia Unionists was to peacefully leave Fort Sumter in exchange for a promise by Virginians to end their secession convention and remain in the Union: "a fort for a state."
Lincoln keeps Virginia, Confederates get Fort Sumter.
But it never happened because Virginians would make no such promise.
Clear now?
The US Constitution there refers to more than just slaves.
The Confederate Constitution refers specifically & only to African slaves.
It's a distinction Confederates went out of their way to make clear.
A mind is a terrible thing to waste.
Protectionism isn't the same thing as a command economy. Not every divergence from laissez-faire is a command economy.
If that were true, we could easily say that the Confederacy was a command economy par excellence.
Nor was 19th century protectionism the same as 16th century mercantilism. Only in the world of propaganda and sloganeering is that the case.
They believed in liberal causes of the day. When they finished with the abolition of slavery, they picked up enfranchisement of women, then abortion, and on and on to all the other liberal causes of the era.
No major national party picked up the cause of women's suffrage until fifty years after the Civil War. And what if they did? Are we to assume that it was wrong because it was "liberal" in it's day?
Taking up abortion as a cause in the 19th century meant banning abortion, not legalizing it. No major national party took up the pro-abortion cause until about a century after the Civil War. But what if one party did take up the "progressive" (i.e. anti-abortion) cause of the day? Would that have been a bad thing?
The Republicans were the liberals of the 19th century, and much of the 20th century.
Not so much. Party politics in the 19th and early 20th century didn't fit into the narrow molds of 21st century ideologies. Race, ethnicity, regionalism, and economic interest were more important in determining party loyalties in the 19th century than the kind of ideologies that predominate today.
There were individuals in a narrow layer of the population that you might call progressive in today's terms, but they didn't have a party or a movement or even a program of their own. Were they necessarily wrong if they did believe in abolition and civil rights?
But it wasn't just a matter of "enforcement", but rather of interpretation, what did Founders' mean by their words?
Prior to 1857 nobody understood them to mean what Roger Taney and DiogenesLamp pretended they meant.
Remember, Founders' Original Intent defines the word "conservative", but if you proclaim yourself a flaming Liberal, then you are free to "interpret" the Constitution according whatever turns you on today, be that Dred-Scott or Roe v Wade.
Once you come out as a Liberal, then you can proclaim whatever-the-heck you wish.
But if you wish to be Conservative, then begin with Founders' Original Intent.
Actually, no, begin with the Bible, then go to Founders Intent, otherwise none of it will make sense.
Try it, you'll like it, I promise.
You are trying to get the indentured servants "Tail" to wag the Slavery "Dog."
The constitution was specifically referring to slavery. There is no need to tell states to respect criminal convictions (prisoners) or contract law (indentured servants) of other states.
Nonsense, all wars have economic components, again, consider the Second World War, plenty of economic motives to go around.
But no free nation went to war strictly over economics, there were always other higher issues involved, sometimes even contrary to economic interests.
The US specifically did not enter WWII until attacked at Pearl Harbor.
Likewise the Union did not respond militarily until...
DiogenesLamp: "You said that earlier, and so I suppose we are to believe that the other 99% of the Southern population were manikins or something that had no role in producing that output."
So, by that same logic, do you suppose other states were just "manikins or something that had no role in producing that output"??
How about the people who produced the $200 million per year in Northern products "exported" to the South so the South could focus its energies on cotton, etc.?
Wouldn't you say they too had a role?
DiogenesLamp: "One would have thought that the other 99% would eventually get annoyed that only 1% was getting all the money."
Or that Northern states which produced $200 million per year for Southerners might "get annoyed" at being told "only the South" produced all of America's wealth??
Point is: your claim that 1/4 of the citizens ("the South") produced 80% of US exports is ludicrous.
I think I've dealt with that claim at some length now.
Do you still need more?
But Charleston was far from closest to the South's largest export commodities, cotton, sugar, tobacco, etc.
So there's no natural reason why Charleston should ever be favored over Southern ports with much more to ship: New Orleans, Galveston, Mobile, Pensacola, Savanah, Wilmington, Norfolk, Baltimore.
You might, but it wouldn't be the US Constitution, it would be the Confederate Constitution, enshrining slavery forever.
No thanks!
But that blockade totally puts the lie to your ludicrous claims (i.e., post #153) that "The South paid the bulk of the revenues, between 72% and 83%."
In fact, when the South was removed from the US revenue stream, "Southern exports" fell only 70%, 30% remained and other exports increased 50% leaving a net export reduction in 1861 of only 30% despite all allegedly "Southern products" being gone!
See my post #488 on this.
DiogenesLamp: "The evidence that this was a money war is all about you, and you just don't want to see it."
Nobody denies that every war includes economic factors.
But free people don't go to war just over economics.
There are always more important factors, in 1861 those included preserving the Union, Federal properties and the status of slavery.
As you well know but like to pretend otherwise.
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