Posted on 03/06/2012 8:27:38 AM PST by donmeaker
There are, generally speaking, three types of libertarian perspectives on the Civil War. Many libertarians actually support the war, some condemn it without defending the Confederacy, and some are actually pro-Confederate.
“SO - the question I have is regarding Lincoln - was he wrong to disallow secession? “
Was it Lincoln who “disallowed” secession, or was it the Northern States and people, with Lincoln acting as their agent?
“Or was he right to use the power at his disposal to end slavery?”
As I recall, he ended slavery only in the States which were in opposition to the Union and did so as a wartime tactic or strategy. He was tactically or strategically right only in so far as the effort was successful.
“What should Lincoln have done, given the choices with which he was faced?”
Perhaps, comply with the will of the Northern States and people or resign or be replaced.
Total nonsense. In 1860, slavery had never been more profitable and would have continued to remain profitable for many more generations had it continued. Cotton was still picked by hand all the way into the 1950s. And even today, we still have migrant 'stoop labor' working on farms.
True.
Because, if slavery was NOT expanded, the abolitionists would have control of Congress. When that state finally occurred, the representatives of these “Free” states imposed high tariffs and excises on overseas trade - which mostly impacted the South and favored Northern industries.
When faced with the reverse - a independent South with a 10% tariff, the North saw grass growing the deserted streets of New York and Boston - and no alternative but war.
So he was a Confederate at heart?
If the South was allowed to secede, the Federal Government's revenue (no income tax at that time!) would have dropped by more than half. With a 10% tariff and control of the mouth of the Mississippi River, Northern ports would have been empty and the South would have controlled most of the trade west of the Mississippi.
Secession was simply not an option. It would have beggared the Federal government and the rest of the North.
So you are saying that the million or so 'Boy's in Blue' who volunteered to risk their lives defending the Union were just an invading horde, and not patriotic young men doing what they thought was right?
So he was a Confederate at heart?
Clearly, US history is not your strong suit.
Yes.
So you admit then, that the war was not about slavery?
Unilaterally? They can just take their ball and go home and to hell with the other partners to the national contract we call the Constitution?
Do states have responsibilities to other states?
Looks like you need a refresher, Professor.
Article I Section 9 - Confederate Constitution
No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed.
So of course God was on OUR side;)
Had the South won militarily, or been allowed to secede, it was possible the non-Southern states would have gone their own way, for instance, the Old Northwest (Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois), still mainly agricultural, had longer established trade ties with New Orleans than with the Northeastern ports. To compete with the Southern ports, downstate New York (including New York City) and New Jersey, where Union support was lukewarm during the war, might have set up as a free state to avoid Federal tariffs. The manufacturing-based New England states might have gone their own way, maybe even joining the Dominion of Canada. No doubt the Mormon enclave in Utah would have declared independence, as well as California and its neighbors. Britain might have reasserted its claim to Washington and Oregon from its military forces based in British Columbia.
The dissolution of the United States into multiple entities in competition with each other would have brought British and French, and later German, intervention into the Americas, as the Monroe Doctrine would have become moot.
The end result however, is that Lincoln's actions led to the liberation of blacks, and Churchill's actions led to the end of genocide against Jews.
Slavery was enshrined as an untouchable principle in the Confederate Constitution. No idiot neo-Confederate can change those facts.
If they can make a case for it, and if they can enforce it with blood and/or treasure, then yes.
This either means something, or it doesn't:
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
If it doesn't, we're effed under the current regime.
The end result was the enslavement of all Americans.
Slavery was enshrined as an untouchable principle in the Confederate Constitution. No idiot neo-Confederate can change those facts.
"No Amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any state, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State." --Joint Resolution of Congress, Adopted March 2, 1861
"holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable." Abe Lincoln
Only for the Confederates. Most Union men fought to preserve the Union. The Confederate leadership was only interested in preserving and expanding chattel slavery. Those are the people you constantly defend.
“I think the seeds of the destruction of this nation were sown before the nation became a nation. It is in our acceptance of slavery and even protecting it with the creation of the nation.
We will never recover. Slavery was fatal to us. It has just taken a long time for the infection to kill us, even though the original projectile was removed by the Civil War.”
Some harvests of wrath take centuries to grow.
You’re right, of course. The finest observation I ever read on the peculiar institution:
“We should have picked our own cotton.”
Somebody else wrote that, but I wrote this:
“We should have mowed our own lawns....”
They had a far more compelling problem than that. If slavery were not expanded to new markets, two things would have happened because of the rapidly growing slave population. First, the price of slaves would have collapsed wiping out the biggest source of capital in the South. Second, they would eventually be hopelessly out numbered by slaves with the very real possibility of Southern States ending up like Haiti.
The entire John Brown scenario was the worst fear for the old slave masters.
Then you are talking about The Right to Revolution, not unilateral secession for what ever reason you choose.
I believe that under the Constitution, states could legally secede if that secession is agreed to by the other parties to the national contract. A simple reversal of the Statehood provisions written into the Constitution.
In my readings, if the South had taken that route in 1860, and petitioned congress to that effect, they probably would have been successful. They chose instead a route that guaranteed war. They were very foolish and arrogant men.
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