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 ...
The fortifications were built long after we won our rebellion against the Brits. Sumter was built upon shoals using granite. Until the US government constructed it it didn't exist. So no - the Brits never owned it.
By giving up those Forts, it established the precedent of doing so, and an acknowledgement that the USA recognized the Confederate States claims on them. From what I have been reading, Washington was sending mixed signals about giving up on Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens as well.
At the beginning, the South said "We Secede." The North said "You can't secede." When the war was over, the South said, "Okay, since we can't secede, we will send our Representatives and Senators back to Congress. The North said "No. You Rebelled."
Owning the land is the most important aspect about owning what is on top of the land. I'm pretty sure the British Owned the land. A trivial point anyway.
The Question remains, do people have a right to 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 "?
Or do they not?
Wow. Such a clever mind has discovered sophistry.
About half the counties in the present state of West Virginia voted for secession in May 1861. The greatest “West Virginian” is still Stonewall Jackson (of course, he is really a Virginian).
The God-given right of rebellion is immutable. Of course winning is crucial to ones continued viability. The colonists won their rebellion. The confeds did not.
The south could have tried secession - no not the phony “spit in your eye” unilateral secession, but true negotiated withdrawal. Instead they had a national tantrum and started a war they could not possibly win.
No, our nation isn’t like a trite song that treats us like inmates. But it isn’t like a magazine subscription that we can ignore and walk away from any time we get a bee in our bonnets.
And you revert to type.
The South fired on Ft. Sumter. Southern plutocrats launched a war they deliberately provoked after seceding from the Union and a war meant to maintain their slave economy.And no, I’m not a Holocaust denier. Are you?
Good point, thanks. What I always tell them is that I find it odd that people who claim to be conservatives here are always venerating a bunch of Dixiecrats.
True indeed sir.
I dare say the Confederates put up a bigger fight than did the Colonists. Lincoln was just more willing to kill people than was George III.
The south could have tried secession - no not the phony “spit in your eye” unilateral secession, but true negotiated withdrawal.
Oh, they did secede. Had they left Fort Sumter alone, they would have also succeeded.
Instead they had a national tantrum and started a war they could not possibly win.
Just like the Colonists. I suppose if the Confederates had merely encountered a contingent of Union Troops and traded gunfire with them, thereby killing 73 of them, that would have been acceptable from your perspective? Obviously bombarding a bunch of rock walls while killing no one is just way over the line.
Hard to resist when you pretend to have made a point by playing word games. I'm actually getting bored with reading your end of the discussion. Jazz it up a bit or something.
They did not secede. They committed insurrection. After the insurrection, they had to be readmitted, just like any territory.
Is this too hard for you? Too many big words?
How so. Even the Emancipation Proclamation was carefully constructed so it did not usurp the courts or the Constitution. It only applied to areas in rebellion which the Militia Act of 1797 gave him every constitutional right to do.
George Washington surly didn't think that when he put down the Whiskey Rebellion. Are you saying that a President today should be powerless to put down a rebellion?
Considering that the pretended confederacy declared war on the United States, it was certainly a war begun by the South. The South called for 100,000 soldiers before Lincoln called for 75,000. There was no reason for the south to withdraw. It was a temper tantrum. The slave power demanded the right to throw a temper tantrum when ever they wanted.
It doesn’t have legal merit. It doesn’t make sense. That is, still what they did.
By contrast, in 1775 England pretended the right to tax the colonies, and made war against them before the colonies declared that because of England making war, they were of right independent.
I doubt that it was hard at all.
How did firing at Ft. Sumter help them maintain their slave economy? Seems to me that it did the exact opposite, and that if they wanted to maintain their slave economy, they would have been better off leaving Ft. Sumter alone.
Seriously? How do you get "maintain their slave economy" from firing on Ft. Sumter? Firing on Fort Sumter was all about Arrogance, and nothing else.
Oh, and for what it's worth, this is what Lincoln had to say on the subject.
Abraham Lincoln to Horrace Greeley: August 22, 1862.
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.
Not very helpful to your "them bad, Us good," characterization, eh?
Lee posted his will in what is now West Virginia. Because of that, it was not known until recently that he was a slave owner. His will was not executed, and sat in the files.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.