Posted on 12/30/2023 12:56:39 PM PST by Starman417
Well, this week Republican Presidential candidate Nikki Haley said something that upset people who weren’t going to vote for her anyway. At a Town Hall setting someone asked her “What caused the American Civil War?” It’s not at all a question with great relevance 163 years later, but it is a modern litmus test for many people on the left, i.e. people who likely weren’t going to vote for her anyway.
History is amazing. Like all hindsight, it can be 20-20 in vision and clarity. Over the past 30 years, this is less and less the case. Led by late-night comics and pretend “news” history-when told in partiality and half-truth, is stranger than fiction. It’s entertaining. Political activists, politicians, media, and academia have all since found that telling half of history is a great way to manipulate people. Rather than be steered by what can be learned from studying all of history, they’ll tell us half a story that would lead to a conclusion that would support their activist causes. There is no better example of this, NONE, than the American Civil War.
Those who advocate for studying more “Black History” in school inevitably and emphatically declare that, unlike every war in all human history, the American Civil War was caused by one thing: slavery. Slavery was an aspect of the causes of the American Civil War, but the ultimate proof that it was NOT the cause, is to point out that even if there were no slavery, the war still would have happened.
Those who want to really learn about history-all of it-will study more than just “Black History.” One simply cannot learn with the intent of repeating mistakes, by studying a single facet. These people will remember the first time the United States almost fell to Civil War. In 1832 and 1833 there was an event in American history called, The Nullification Crisis. President Andrew Jackson was trying to balance the Federal budget. At the time, there was no income tax all income came from tariffs on goods. Led by states in the North, the tariffs were raised. This hurt southern agrarian-based economies. Not even 50 years old, people in the South wondered why they should be taxed to help get money to the North. They felt like their representation in Congress was zero. The issue got so hot that the Vice President resigned, and he went to South Carolina to lead the rebellion. There, the state was considering secession based on the idea that higher tariffs were unconstitutional/not for the general welfare, and just for the welfare of the Northern states. President Jackson prepared to personally lead troops into South Carolina and vowed to personally hang anyone who opposed him-including and specifically the former Vice President. The crisis ended when both sides agreed to raise tariffs temporarily, and then gradually lower them back down to about 20%.
Civil War over taxes was avoided.
In the following years, more and more states joined the Union. As they did, an agreement was made that for every state admitted that allowed slavery, another state could be admitted without slavery. The idea was that states where slavery existed would not be outnumbered in the House and Senate, and thus another tariff that would hurt slave/agrarian states would not happen. This worked until The Mexican War happened (1846-1848). After that war, the Federal government needed money again, and so politicians began examining ways to raise tariffs. In Kansas and Missouri, a micro Civil War erupted as wealthy people in the South tried to make both states slave states, and wealthy abolitionists in the North tried to make them both free states. If either group of powerful people had their way, then the balance of power in Congress would be tilted and increased tariffs would pass or fail.
The abolitionist movement in the North grew, but it never became a majority. Its leaders all had far more to gain from raising tariffs than they ever did from freeing slaves. Followers of the movement became increasingly radical. They threatened terrible violence in the South. John Brown, one of the popular followers (more celebrity than leader), went to Kansas and Missouri. There he led violent raids against people who wanted to make the states slave states. One night he and his family broke into some pro-slavery family homes, pulled people out in the middle of the night, and butchered them all. A few years later he and his family tried to seize control of the Federal armory at Harper’s Ferry Virginia (1859). A young Colonel Robert E Lee led a band of US Marines and put down the pathetic attempt to start a slave rebellion.
Slave rebellions were a serious fear in the South. Many believe that the fear of reprisals is what convinced slave owners to stand firm and demand that the US Constitution allow slavery back in 1789. In fact, the year after it was ratified (1792) all the slaves in Haiti rebelled, tortured, and killed everyone who was white or even 1/8 white. There had been several smaller attempts at slave rebellion in the South as well. Given the choice to keep slavery or to risk being butchered in retaliation, most powerful people in the South chose to keep slavery. John Brown’s raid shocked the people in the North, but in the South, it spread terror.
Immediately following John Brown’s raid, Abraham Lincoln and the new Republican Party began their push for the Presidency. In his highly distributed debate transcripts, Lincoln said the way to handle the debt from the Mexican War was to dismiss the Compromise of 1833 and raise tariffs as high as 45%. This upset people in the South, but in Charleston, Carolina it caused fury. Lincoln was an abolitionist celebrity at the time-though not one pledging violence like most of the abolitionists in 1860. Southern states refused to allow someone like Lincoln to become President so they removed him from the Presidential ballots in the South.
THIS is a lesson today as blue states are doing the same thing to President Trump in an era when people are openly talking about Civil War. People who only study “Black History” and convince themselves that the Civil War was just about slavery, will never learn this important lesson for today and next year.
(Excerpt) Read more at floppingaces.net...
The Confederates were LUCKY that Lincoln was President. I’m telling you Jackson WOULD have hung EVERY single Rebel Leader.
I would have answered:
“Sin aka Evil caused the Civil War”
“That would not have happened under Jackson, who would hav3 crushed treason quickly.”
He sure did a number on the Cherokees!
“For openers, try any of Thomas Delorenzo’s works.”
Why should I read someone’s opinion when I can read the actual documents produced by the people who did the seceding?
The Declaration of Causes documents made it clear they were seceding because of slavery.
The Confederate Constitution where they prevented any state from abolishing slavery also showed their priorities (so much for states rights). “No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed. “
Arkansas,Tennesee, Virginia and North Carolina all seceded to stop the “federal invasion” of the South. Slavery was not mentioned at all in their secession ordinances.
I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views. I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free.
Many of these historically ignorant people are Republicans.
Makes one wonder...
Hmmm. I don't think so...
The indians weren’t particularly fond of the “Great White Father” in Washington and his policies.
Oh, you better belive it. Lincoln fought the war with 1 hand behind his back. Jackson would have adopted Sherman style tactics in 1861.
You are an @$$.
Yeah, i'm trying to hide it from him. That's why I told him exactly where it came from.
You imagine things that your own mind manufactures.
If you were in my presence, I would have hit you in the mouth for suggesting I was being dishonest.
I just grabbed the paragraph the way I found it. Copy and Paste. I don't even know what the last sentence was.
https://housedivided.dickinson.edu/sites/lincoln/letter-to-horace-greeley-august-22-1862/
If you want to blame someone for leaving off the last sentence, blame the guy who created that page.
Fully documented eye-opener.
That’s because by far and large slave owners were benevolent and not bull whippers.
You are sloppy and dishonest. Lost Causers draw from Lost Cause sources. I have added the final qualifying sentence of Lincoln’s many times on these threads. See my post #20 (again, for the first time).
“I suggest you watch the famous documentary by Ken Burns.”
Burns is a pinko. Watch the Shelby Foote series of interviews,
All 5 million of them, eh?
You let 4 minority states tell you what to think, and *IGNORE* what the other 7 had to say. Why do you do this? Because you want to believe what you want to believe, and you aren't interested in anything that doesn't support what you wish to believe.
Virginia seceded because they viewed the Federal government attempting to raise an army to subjugate their sister states as Tyranny. Virginia was the most important state in the Confederacy, yet you ignore what the most important state had to say to focus on what bugtussel Mississippi had to say.
Not very objective, that.
“The South maintained slavery because it was integral to the economic and social structure.”
Exactly.
It will make it harder for them to refute a Republican who says to watch Ken Burns in their answer about the Civil War.
-PJ
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