Posted on 09/24/2012 11:57:08 AM PDT by iowamark
Countless school children have been taught that Abraham Lincoln was the Great Emancipator. Others have been taught — and many have concluded — that the Emancipation Proclamation, which Abraham Lincoln announced on Sept. 22, 1862, has been overemphasized, that it was inefficacious, a sham, that Lincoln’s motivations were somehow unworthy, that slavery was ended by other ways and means, and that slavery was on the way out in any case.
The truth is that Lincoln’s proclamation was an exercise in risk, a huge gamble by a leader who sought to be — and who became — America’s great liberator.
Since before his election in 1860, Lincoln and his fellow Republicans had vowed to keep slavery from spreading. The leaders of the slave states refused to go along. When Lincoln was elected and his party took control of Congress, the leaders of most of the slave states turned to secession rather than allow the existing bloc of slave states to be outnumbered.
The Union, divided from the Confederacy, was also divided itself. Many Democrats who fought to stop secession blamed Republicans for pushing the slave states over the brink; some were open supporters of slavery. And if the Democrats were to capture control of Congress in the mid-term elections of November 1862, there was no telling what the consequences might be for the Republicans’ anti-slavery policies.
The Emancipation Proclamation wasn’t always part of the plan. Republicans, Lincoln included, tried push their anti-slavery program by measured degrees, since they feared a white supremacist backlash. That was what made Lincoln’s decision to issue an emancipation edict, and to do it before the mid-term congressional elections of 1862, so extraordinarily risky...
After Lee’s invasion of Maryland was stopped in the battle of Antietam on Sept. 17, Lincoln made up his mind to go ahead...
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com ...
Actually, very little of what your friend said was right.
For example, your listing of the communication between Lincoln and Chew mentions resupply but says nothing about a "supply train" as you stated.
Here is the relevant part of the message with no mention of "supply train": "I am directed by the President of the United States to notify you to expect an attempt will be made to supply Fort Sumter..."
So, your friend's assertion is not validated by your own quote:
You also listed a letter of April 4 from "Abraham Lincoln to General Anderson."
It was not Lincoln that wrote this, but SIMON CAMERON, Secretary of War. Washington, D. C., on April 4, 1861. Reference here
Anderson was not a General but a Major in the U. S. Army.
You also said:
"Lincoln dispatched a letter to the commander of Fort Sumter informing him that he would soon be attacked by the Confederates, and that he was to take all steps to reduce loss of life, hold the Fort for one day, and then surrender it, which is exactly what happened."
The actual quote makes no mention of an order to "hold the Fort for one day". See here
One final comment and I won’t bother you anymore.
You said: “In any case, it is my understanding that the Nation accepted Southern Secession as a fait accompli, and made no bones over it. It was only Lincoln, who faced the humiliation of being the President who presided over the division of the Nation that was loath to accept what was then the status quo.”
Over the months leading to and after secession, the opinions varied but generally the newspapers were accepting secession and calling for peace.
That changed radically in March of 1861. As soon as the Confederacy announced its tariff rates, everyone began calling for war.
Lincoln quickly found that there was great interest in a military attack on the South by most of the governors and businessmen of the North. His own cabinet was reluctant as well as his military.
That precedent didn't have many effects for 50 or 75 or 100 years. Government remained rather small for two generations after Lincoln died. Whatever Lincoln did or didn't do, two World Wars, a Depression, a Cold War, a civil rights movement, a War on Terror would have had similar results to what actually happened.
We're a modern advanced industrial country. We have the problems other advanced industrial societies have -- probably less than others. The situation would be similar if Lincoln had never lived -- or things would be worse. Latin American federations broke up into smaller countries and weren't any freer or happier or more stable than our own country.
Suspension of Habeas Corpus? Arresting the legislature of Maryland? Forced Impressment of Immigrants into the army? Suppression of protesters with military force in New York and Chicago? The Establishment of the Federal Uber alles philosophy of Government?
Similar things happened in the Confederacy.
Lincoln was even going to let them keep slavery if they would simply quit fighting! How's that for a principled stance?
Well, his goal was to preserve the Union, and for generations Southern slaveholders had been worried about assaults on their "institutions." The principled stand was for Union and against the expansion of slavery. That didn't change.
Somehow those Confederates got the notion that they were entitled to independence from a government in which they no longer believed.
Not all Southerners felt that way. Indeed, some of the best didn't think that way at all. If the more responsible, level-headed, and statesmanlike Southerners had prevailed, history would have been very different.
So you admit you are ignorant of history and just refuse to acknowledge it. That’s OK with me. Don’t respond if you think you are in a conversation where you are unqualified to participate.
And your point is what?
The London Spectator spoke for the business class in England who supported the Confederates because they were the primary source of cotton for their mills. Kind of like the New York Times supporting Obama today.
But the Emancipation Proclamation threw British public support to the Union side because the overall opion in Britain then, aside from the textile mill contingent, was anti-slavery.
Don't be so happy about that British support you saw in those early years of the war BTW. If the South had been successful, the British saw the opportunity to refold them into their empire to again become colonies, and very profitable ones at that.
It was exactly the opposite and frankly Rusbucket, I have lost a lot of respect for you with that post. You and I have had a lot of conversation over the years and I never saw you as a stand waite or central va. type crazy poster. Perhaps, I was mistaken.
For anyone who would care to look at the proposal Lincoln put before the Congress in 1849, Here's a link.
Please stop dissing the guy's Lost Cause fantasies. He was so comfortable in them. :!))
I’m glad you brought that out. I read the link too and pondered over if I was mis-reading it or...?
Or Rustbucket mischaracterized it for a cheep debating point thinking no one would notice?
Texas was independent, and had been for about 10 year when the US annexed Texas. The 1848 war had to do with Mexican attacks on Americans in the area between the Rio Grand and the Nueces. Of course the Slave Power had some interest in getting more land south of the southern border of Missouri, and when Texas was annexed, they had the option to break the state into as many as 5 states, so to be used to balance the increasing number of Free states.
Another reason why the pretended southern concern with northern states getting outnumbered was a falsehood. They had the means for up to 4 more states to hand in Texas.
Um, I don’t think the New York Times supports the business class. Nor does Obama. What does the Obama Administration supply the Times other than perhaps talking points and possibly leaked classified information?
If the South had been successful, the British saw the opportunity to refold them into their empire to again become colonies, and very profitable ones at that.
Good heavens, the South would have switched from being treated like a colony by the North to being treated like a colony by the British? Nearly 40 cents of each dollar of cotton revenue was already taken by Northern fees, freighting charges, taxes, etc. [Sources: “God Knows All Your Names: Stories in American History” by Paul N. Herbert, page 148 Link and according to PeaRidge, Kettell’s “Southern Wealth and Northern Profits” Thanks, Pea.].
The colony status of the South was illustrated by an editorial in the Daily Chicago Times on December 10, 1860 [as reported in the New Orleans Picayune]:
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.
Keep in mind that the significantly higher Morrill Tariff had not yet passed the Senate when that was published. If the South had stayed in the Union, the Morrill Tariff would have had the effect of increasing the transfer of wealth from the South to the North beyond that resulting from the tariff mentioned above.
I figure that the Slavocrats would have been allied with Germany, with the rest of the US being allied with Britain and France. Germany wasn’t prissy about things like that.
Consider trench lines in front of Richmond, augmented with barbed wire instead of abbatis, and Maxim machine guns instead of Gatlings, and a huge battle with a mine going off.
The Lusitania was carrying munitions but not of the kind that would have subjected it to attack. Even if it was carrying munitions, naval attacks had in all circumstances to make provisions for the passengers.
Unless you were a German. They didn’t intend to lose, and if they won, the rules wouldn’t matter.
The rapid sinking had something to do with the torpedoes.
You win the internets for the day!
Don’t post lies about me.
Better, don’t post lies.
Best, don’t post.
I have the advantage of having the facts on my side. That is because I decided my side after learning the facts.
So what does that have to do with the London Times in 1863?
And I would say today that the NY Times and just about all of the mainstream media side with the biggest business in the US. Not Apple or Microsoft or General Electric --- they are small businesses.
There is only one Big Business and that is this thoroughly corrupt Federal Government we have today. $4 Trillion year -- and GROWING!
NT Times... London Times... 150 years difference... textiles --- corrupt government... big money... what's the freaking difference?
Money is money and people are people. 150 years does not change that.
Your first link worked just fine, it took me to Lincoln;s 1849 bill to end slavery in DC. The link you just posted took me to some bibliography. What's your point?
Plus, it's time for me to sign off tonight. I have to be at a funeral for an old and dearly missed friend in the morning. He was a WWII vet and one hell of a good guy.
Good night rustbucket.
I linked to the whole bill including its objective to free the slaves in the District of Columbia and particularly noted its Section 5 which was a fugitive slave law.
Section 5 That the municipal authorities of Washington and Georgetown, within their respective jurisdictional limits, are hereby empowered and required to provide active and efficient means to arrest, and deliver up to their owners, all fugitive slaves escaping into said District--
Lincoln's bill required municipal authorities to provide the means to arrest and return fugitive slaves to their owners. Is that not a fugitive slave law?
From the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act (my emphasis and underline below):
when a person held to service or labor in any State or Territory of the United States, has heretofore or shall hereafter escape into another State or Territory of the United States, the person or persons to whom such service or labor may be due, or his, her, or their agent or attorney, duly authorized, by power of attorney, in writing, acknowledged and certified under the seal of some legal officer or court of the State or Territory in which the same may be executed, may pursue and reclaim such fugitive person, either by procuring a warrant from some one of the courts, judges, or commissioners aforesaid, of the proper circuit, district, or county, for the apprehension of such fugitive from service or labor, or by seizing and arresting such fugitive, where the same can be done without process, and by taking, or causing such person to be taken, forthwith before such court, judge, or commissioner, whose duty it shall be to hear and determine the case of such claimant in a summary manner; and upon satisfactory proof being made, by deposition or affidavit, in writing, to be taken and certified by such court, judge, or commissioner, or by other satisfactory testimony, duly taken and certified by some court, magistrate, justice of the peace, or other legal officer authorized to administer an oath and take depositions under the laws of the State or Territory from which such person owing service or labor may have escaped, with a certificate of such magistracy or other authority, as aforesaid, with the seal of the proper court or officer thereto attached, which seal shall be sufficient to establish the competency of the proof, and with proof, also by affidavit, of the identity of the person whose service or labor is claimed to be due as aforesaid, that the person so arrested does in fact owe service or labor to the person or persons claiming him or her, in the State or Territory from which such fugitive may have escaped as aforesaid, and that said person escaped, to make out and deliver to such claimant, his or her agent or attorney, a certificate setting forth the substantial facts as to the service or labor due from such fugitive to the claimant, and of his or her escape from the State or Territory in which he or she was arrested, with authority to such claimant, or his or her agent or attorney, to use such reasonable force and restraint as may be necessary, under the circumstances of the case, to take and remove such fugitive person back to the State or Territory whence he or she may have escaped as aforesaid. In no trial or hearing under this act shall the testimony of such alleged fugitive be admitted in evidence; and the certificates in this and the first [fourth] section mentioned, shall be conclusive of the right of the person or persons in whose favor granted, to remove such fugitive to the State or Territory from which he escaped, and shall prevent all molestation of such person or persons by any process issued by any court, judge, magistrate, or other person whomsoever.
Lincoln's bill did not have any of the court and commissioner hearings and potential safeguards that the 1850 fugitive slave act had.
Rusbucket, I have lost a lot of respect for you with that post.
For that, I'm sorry. Apparently I pointed out that Lincoln proposed to arrest and return fugitive slaves and that doesn't fit the standard Lincoln narrative. I'd never heard that before. I found reference to this proposal of Lincoln's in the book "April 1865" by Jay Winik. Winik says,
It was to be enacted by local referendum, but the politician in him led Lincoln to soften the blow, adding a section that required municipal authorities of Washington and Georgetown to provide "active and efficient means" of arresting and restoring to their owners all fugitive slaves escaping into the District. In effect, the bill sought to split the difference between the two extremes of slave owners and slaver haters, but in seeking to offend nobody, Lincoln only ended up offending everyone. As soon as his plans were made public, all support for the measure vanished.
Winik's book has been given high praise, such as by the New York Times Link -- "marvelous book" "brilliant" "freshness of the argument". It is one of the better books I have ever read about the war. I recommend it to you.
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