150 years on, Sherman's March to Sea still vivid

Pioneer Press ^ | 11-15-14 | Christopher Sullivan

[TurboZamboni]

MILLEDGEVILLE, Ga. (AP) — At the heart of this well-preserved antebellum city, sunbeams stream through the arched windows of a grand public meeting room that mirrors the whole Civil War — including its death throes, unfolding 150 years ago this week when Union Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman launched his scorching March to the Sea.

The first major objective along Sherman's route, Milledgeville was Georgia's capital at the time, and this room was the legislative chamber. Crossing its gleaming floor, Amy Wright couldn't help recalling family stories of the hated "foragers" who swept through then. "They were just called 'Sherman's men,'" she said in a hushed voice.

[rockrr]

Perhaps it is called “common wisdom” for a good reason?!

[DiogenesLamp]

It’s not ironic or analogous. The slavocrisy may have had the prerogative to revolt, but they didn’t have the moral righteousness of their cause. Lincoln understood and respected the original text and the original intent where the south did not: you don’t rebel unless you have a damn good reason. The south didn’t have one.

A "good reason" is in the eye of the beholder. Obviously the colonists thought they had a "good reason" while the British Crown and the third of the population which remained loyalists did not think so.

This topic is not complicated, it's about consensus vs coercion. If you believe people should be compelled to do something against their will, then your place is with the totalitarians of history. If you believe people's membership in an organization ought to be voluntary, then your place is with those of us who love this concept called "freedom."

If you are on the forcing people to follow you at gun point end of the debate, you haven't grasped this fundamental concept.

The Slavers were wrong for forcing people to work for them against their will, and the Union was wrong for forcing people to obey them against their will.

Once again, the irony is lost.

[DiogenesLamp]

Is that clear enough for you?

It was never unclear, but you underestimate the influence of the Declaration of Independence. The freedom cases filed in Massachusetts and which ended slavery in that state were based on interpreting the Declaration as covering "all men" including slaves.

Even back then Liberal Massachusetts was leading the nation in re-interpreting the law based on their own preferred beliefs rather than actual original intent.

That exact same tactic was tried in Pennsylvania by William Rawle and a consortium of other attorneys, and it was voted down unanimously by the then Supreme court of Pennsylvania.

The reason I know about this is because after going down to a crushing defeat in Pennsylvania, William Rawle tried the tactic of arguing that English Common law was the basis for citizenship in the United States and that it therefore made slaves born here into free men. It didn't go anywhere while he was alive, but his famous legal book "A View of the Constitution" managed to spread the idea all across the nation, and I blame the influence of this book in no small part to the subsequent belief that our citizenship was based on English common law, rather than the natural law as expressed in the document which created US Citizenship, the Declaration of Independence.

Much mischief has been the result of this deliberate misleading, and I say deliberate because Rawle very well knew and had been informed by pretty much the entire legal community of Pennsylvania that our citizenship was based on natural law as outlined by Vattel, and not English common law. Rawle had an agenda to abolish slavery, and this was but one more vehicle he attempted to use to accomplish that task.

It didn't work, but it certainly caused a lot of other problems later.

[Bubba Ho-Tep]

If you are trying to make an analogy, I would suggest you pick a Fort that was right smack dab in the middle of an entrance to an Important city where it's presence cannot be ignored. How did the founders feel about British forts in New York or Boston Harbors I wonder?

British forts at Detroit, Mackinac, Niagara and Oswego gave the British control over the entire Great Lakes, something far more important than a minor harbor that took in less than 1% of the business the port of New York did.

[rockrr]

Your place isn’t with the “freedom lovers” it’s with the anarchists. Remember, it wasn’t so much what the confeds did that relegated them to the ashbin of history - it was the way they went about it.

I’m happy to stand with the vast majority rather than the lunatic fringe.

[Ditto]

The Union was playing chess and the South was playing poker. Can't you see that?

Looks like the South way over played their hand.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp to rockrr: "...he saw Lincoln's actions as a clever strategy to give him the upper hand in a war he wanted and badly needed.
In absence of war, the secession would have become more solid with each passing year as it gained acceptance on both sides."

Sorry, but that's exactly backwards -- Lincoln did not "need" war, did not want it, and did not start it, regardless of how mis-educated your friend is.

The person who needed, wanted and started Civil War was Jefferson Davis, and for reasons which should be obvious, and have been explained on this thread now several times.

1. Davis' rump-Confederacy of just seven Deep South states was not, by itself, viable economically, politically or militarily.
   In a nation of 31 million people in 41 states & territories, the rump-Confederacy of seven states and 2.5 million white citizens was outnumbered more that ten-to-one.
   They were also nearly outnumbered by their own slaves.

2. Economically, the rump-Confederacy had only one major product to sell, cotton, along with some tobacco and sugar, no manufacturing to speak of, and absolute dependence on foreign customers, ships and bankers.
   Yes, they had significant railroads, but those were a mish-mash of gages not always interconnected, and barely extending west of the Mississippi.

3. Yes, the rump-Confederacy was prosperous, very prosperous, arguably the most prosperous region for white settlers in the world.
   But this prosperity was 100% dependent on two factors: ever increasing international demand & prices for cotton and ever rising values of the slaves which produced it.
   These increasing asset values allowed farmers and plantation owners to borrow from international banks far beyond what their current incomes might allow, and made them extraordinarily vulnerable to any disruptions in the market-place.
   Of course, Confederates chose (unwisely) to look at it from another angle: if they stopped the flow of cotton to Britain & France, they expected it would increase cotton prices and force those countries to ally with Confederates against the United States...

4. Militarily, the rump-Confederacy could soon be overwhelmed by much larger Union Army and Naval forces.

5. Pro-Unionist sentiment, even in the rump-Confederacy would never be entirely stamped out, so long as they remained at peace.

6. Most important, Virginia and the Upper South had already voted not to join the rump-Confederacy, until or unless there was some act of "oppression" by the Union, and in practical terms, that meant there must be war.
   War would, at a stroke, at least double the Confederacy's population with four more states, plus add significant industrial war-production capacity in Virginia and Tennessee.
   And war would make slave-owning Border States (Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri) contestable by Confederate forces.

7. In the experience of senior Confederate leaders like Jefferson Davis, "Dough-faced" Northerners were unfit to make good soldiers or leaders of Armies, and so a stout show of Southern manliness would quickly scatter them from any battlefield.

8. War was also opposed by many Northern Democrats, and some "moderate" Republicans, and several sharp defeats could well force Lincoln's cabinet (i.e., Sewart) to seek a negotiated settlement with Jefferson Davis.

In short, for Davis starting a war at Fort Sumter was a no-brainer -- absolutely necessary, and only likely to lead to a greater Confederacy, military victories, and long-term preservation of their "peculiar institution".

And, if you think about it, Jefferson Davis' calculations were 100% correct, except for one (using some modern phraseology): Davis didn't know him, and mis-underestimated the stubborn strategery of the decision-maker in the White House, "Ape" Lincoln.

Southern railroads in 1861:

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp on secession: "If it is a natural right as our founders have articulated, then it does not need permission from any man made body to assert it.
It comes from God, not man."

Sure, but the fact is that no Founder -- not one -- ever asserted a "natural right" to unilaterally abrogate solemn national compacts for no good reason, "at pleasure".

Indeed, that was precisely the sin committed by Brits on May 24, 1774, when they unilaterally and at pleasure abrogated their 83 year-old compact, the Massachusetts Charter of 1691.
Their act of unilateral abrogation is what made British rule over Massachusetts invalid, and justified all American actions leading up to Revolutionary War.

And just like those Brits, in 1861 Confederates unilaterally and at pleasure abrogated their 84 year-old compact, the US Constitution.
Their act of unilateral abrogation is what made Confederate claims over Federal properties (i.e., Fort Sumter) invalid, and justified all Union actions leading up to Civil War.

DiogenesLamp: "Is your right to own a gun subject to Congress?
Is it subject to a majority? Or is it a basic human right?
So is the right of association and it's corollary the right of disassociation."

But there is no "God given right", and no Founder ever asserted such a "right" to unilaterally abrogate a solemn national compact "at pleasure".

Just the opposite, our Founders went to great pains to explain in their Declaration of Independence that they were not, to use the later term, "seceding" at pleasure, but only after years of negotiations and a long series of major, material breaches by the Brits, breaches detailed in their Declaration, including for one:

"He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. "

By sharp contrast, Confederates "Reasons for Secession" detailed not one actual material breach of the Constitution, but only their fears of what "Ape" Lincoln's Black Republicans might do at some time in the future!.
So it was strictly, 100% a secession "at pleasure" for which neither our Founders, nor anybody else, ever asserted a God-given "natural right".

Sure, you don't like it, but those are the facts, sir.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp referring to Lincoln's discussions with Virginia's secession convention leaders: "Well, at least keeping the Virginia portion of it.
Again, it's sounding either like a bit of a bait and switch, get Virginia to abandon this secessionist talk and then later go after the friends they were supporting, or an abandonment of this idea of "Preserving the Union" by keeping the most valuable state and letting the rest go. "

No, you have it all wrong.
Lincoln believed, accurately, that the majority of Virginians, and other Upper South states, were strong Unionists who would not vote to secede.
Lincoln also believed, inaccurately, that Virginians would support his efforts to restore Federal properties within the rump-Confederacy.
You may remember that, after Fort Sumter's surrender, Lincoln's call for 75,000 Union troops went out to all states, not just those north of the Mason-Dixon line.
Lincoln hoped and expected that his call for troops would be respected and responded to by Upper South and Border States as well.
He was wrong about that, but it was his intention.

The reality for Lincoln turned out, after Sumter: secessionists outnumbered Unionists about two-to-one in the Upper South (Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas), and they soon voted to join the Confederacy's war, to which they supplied most (but not all) of their troops.
But Unionists still outnumbered secessionists two-to-one in Border States (Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, Delaware), so they never voted to secede, and did send larger numbers of troops to the Union cause.

DiogenesLamp: "Your take on this might be interesting.
I'm not seeing as to how this can be portrayed as "principled" any way you go about it."

But your efforts to impose your own warped "principles" on Lincoln are not amusing.
Again: Lincoln's first principles were preserving & restoring the Union, peacefully if possible, without recognizing the Confederacy's legitimacy, while negotiating for loyalty from Unionists in Southern states whenever practical.

In my reviews of Lincoln's words & deeds, there was never a time when he abandoned, or even compromised these basic principles.

So, what exactly is your problem with that?

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "You are seemingly not groking the nature of this "Monarchy" form of government.
It's funny that you are calling it a "Constitution" when it is in fact a "Charter", and this further demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding regarding the nature of a charter, as well.
What the King hath granted, the King can taketh away. :)"

Grocking? Don't you know, it's impossible to "grok" anything until after you've smoked a whole bunch of illegal sh*t!
So don't do it! ;-)

Sir, back in the good old days, back when America was still America, and we still had real education of children, I learned that what the Massachusetts colonists expected, wanted and thought they already had were the normal "rights of Englishmen", including some form of self-government, such as the Massachusetts charter of 1691 -- their form of "constitution".

In their minds that was "legitimate government", and when Parliament unilaterally abrogated it, "at pleasure", and militarily imposed a dictatorial government, Massachusetts citizens remained loyal to their original government.

Likewise in 1861, when Confederates unilaterally abrogated their Constitution, "at pleasure", and militarily seized Federal properties, Union citizens remained loyal to their original government.

DiogenesLamp: "Over the last few years of studying the "natural born citizen" issue, I have come to realize that Madison had a tendency to articulate support for one idea when it suited him, and support the opposite idea when it suited him."

Sir, please, I beg you, take my words here seriously and deep into your heart: if you disrespect our Founders, and their intentions for their Constitution, then you don't qualify for the term "conservative".
If you are not an "originalist", then you are something other than "conservative" which makes you a poser here on Free Republic.

So, I'm asking you to go deep into your own heart, and find the source for that mocking disrespect for our Founders and their Constitution, then strangle it.
Then your thinking will clarify, and you will be a welcome asset at Free Republic.

Now, let me repeat what I've posted here before: no Founder was ever expressly contradictory to the words of James Madison when he wrote:

"The compact can only be dissolved by the consent of the other parties, or by usurpations or abuses of power justly having that effect.
It will hardly be contended that there is anything in the terms or nature of the compact, authorizing a party to dissolve it at pleasure."

DiogenesLamp: "Madison was well known to oppose secession.
Of course he would assert that it is illegal, but then so was the US Secession from Britain."

Once again: colonists of Massachusetts believed that Brits had, in effect, unilaterally "seceded" from their original compact, the 1691 Charter, to which the colonists remained loyal.
Likewise, in 1861, Confederates unilaterally seceded from their original compact, the 1787 Constitution, to which Unionists remained loyal.

So the comparison is exact: between 1774 Brits and 1861 Confederates.

[Sherman Logan]

The problem with your discussion of the MA Charter is that it was granted by the King to the colony. It was not a compact between Britain and Massachusetts.

What the British could grant they could revoke, as they revoked the earlier 1629 charter in 1684.

To my mind the British behaved legally, for the most part, in the runup to the Revolution, though remarkably stupidly.

Americans at the time fervently believed that this was all part of some deep plot to enslave them. Historians since have comprehensively proven it was no such thing. British actions were precipitated by arrogance and ignorance, not malevolence.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "If you are trying to make an analogy, I would suggest you pick a Fort that was right smack dab in the middle of an entrance to an Important city where it's presence cannot be ignored.
How did the founders feel about British forts in New York or Boston Harbors I wonder?"

Sir, you forget, don't you, that Brits never "abandoned" a single American fort -- not one, ever -- voluntarily.
The forts they left were either captured by Americans (i.e., Ticonderoga) or surrendered as part of the 1783 Treaty of Paris.
But after peace was reestablished in 1783, they still refused to leave some Northwest Territory forts (for 30+ years!), and that is the apt comparison with Fort Sumter.

For the United States to launch a military attack on British troops in British forts on US territory would certainly have been an act of war -- and also a very foolish thing to do, so our Founders never did it.

That is the entirely accurate comparison with Fort Sumter.

[DiogenesLamp]

British forts at Detroit, Mackinac, Niagara and Oswego gave the British control over the entire Great Lakes, something far more important than a minor harbor that took in less than 1% of the business the port of New York did.

Importance is relative and I think highly dependent upon who's ox is getting gored. Even if the British had interfered with no trade, the presence of British troops manning a Fort in New York or Boston would have been intolerable to the US Government.

[DiogenesLamp]

Your place isn’t with the “freedom lovers” it’s with the anarchists. Remember, it wasn’t so much what the confeds did that relegated them to the ashbin of history - it was the way they went about it.

That they mucked up the initial stages of separation there can be no doubt, but this doesn't answer the larger question. Do people have a right to separate? My answer is "Yes. Yes they do. "

You may call it "Anarchy" but is that not their choice? If a wife leaves a husband and does poorly, does this mean she ought not have the right to leave because she will do poorly?

You are advocating a position of forcing people to do what the government says... for their own good. I believe the common term used nowadays is "nanny state."

Are you an advocate for the nanny state?

Do you believe that the government knows what is best for you and ought to be able to force you to comply with what they think is best for you?

[central_va]

When the South seceded in 1861 there was zero anarchy. The legislatures of the seceding states drafted articles of secession which were ratified and signed by the Governors of each of those states. Then the secession went out for referendum to be decided by the citizens. Absolutely zero anarchy.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "My friend's claim was that Lincoln was given the option to quietly resupply the fort but chose not to do so.
He deliberately sent a message to the Governor informing him that he WOULD resupply the fort and my friend believes that Lincoln knew this would prompt an attack on the Fort because a message had shortly before been sent to Major Anderson stating that he had permission to surrender if necessary."

Obviously, neither you nor your friend know more than the proverbial "tip of the iceberg" of all that was really going on at the time.
I can recommend some books on this exact subject:

William Cooper, "We Have the War Upon Us, the Onset of Civil War, November 1860 to April 1861"

Russell McClintock "Lincoln and the Decision for War, The Northern Response to Secession"

Bruce Catton, "The Coming Fury"

DiogenesLamp: "He said his history professor had told him that it was a very clever and deliberate tactic for Lincoln to get the war he needed to reverse secession.
That Lincoln had the "touch" for clever politics is indisputable.
According to my friend and his conversation with the professor, Lincoln needed the support of the Northern Newspapers and populace, and as long as there was no conflict, he wasn't going to get it.
Most of the North was perfectly content to let the South leave, and it is only BECAUSE of the attack on Ft. Sumter that they were roused to oppose it."

Total nonsense, betraying this alleged "professor's" Lost Causer ignorant biases.
As any of the books above will show, both Buchanan and Lincoln were not trying to start war, but rather hoping to avoid it, while preserving the Union.
Indeed, the event which actually triggered Jefferson Davis' assault on Fort Sumter -- Lincoln's resupply mission -- had already been tried unsuccessfully by President Buchanan, back in January 1861.
So Lincoln did not do anything different than Buchanan, including informing South Carolina's governor.
The difference between Buchanan's mission in January, and Lincoln's in April was: instead of January's few cannon-rounds fired, and some minor ship damage from South Carolina militia, in April Davis brought down on Lincoln's ships the entire might of the Confederate Army under General Beauregard, to demand and enforce the fort's surrender.

DiogenesLamp: "The person who most benefited from the attack was Abraham Lincoln, who would have gone down in History as the man who lost the South."

More rubbish, since Lincoln had nothing to do with "losing the South", that all happened under outgoing President Buchanan.
Lincoln's challenge was to preserve and restore what he could, peacefully if possible, and that is exactly what he was hoping for, in April 1861.

DiogenesLamp: "Had Ft. Sumter not happened, we would have very likely ended up with two separate countries.
Peace was Lincoln's enemy and he had the most to gain by shattering it."

Not even close.
Yes, it's theoretically possible, though impossible to imagine, that Jefferson Davis might have decided to avoid war at Fort Sumter in April 1861, but it could not have been for long, because the entire rump-Confederacy was calling for Sumter's surrender, and Davis must sooner or later accomplish that.
But suppose Lincoln had surrendered the Fort, could that have prevented war?

No, because remember, the original rump-Confederacy was not viable by itself -- it needed at least the Upper South, and also Border States if possible.
And the only way to force Virginians & others to change their votes from Union to secession was for Davis to provoke a war, so that's what he must, must do, eventually, regardless of what happened at Fort Sumter.

Further, remember, all slave-holders of the time considered as their "prime directive": to preserve slavery, it must constantly expand into new land.
And therefore Confederates laid claim, and soon invaded, such Union territories as Oklahoma and New Mexico.
Those invasions were themselves acts of war against the United States, which no president -- Lincoln or anybody else, could accept without military response.
So, regardless of how Sumter was resolved, Davis must eventually provoke war, and the sooner the better.

DiogenesLamp: "My friend believes that Lincoln knew his announcement would provoke the hot heads in South Carolina to give him the tool he needed to win, and they did.
I don't know.
It's hard to say what a man "knew" but it's probably safe to say that if any man of the time knew how to outsmart a group of people, Lincoln would have been that man."

Sorry, sir, but Lincoln didn't "outsmart" anybody!
Davis believed his assault on Fort Sumter was a brilliant political move, for reasons I've now spelled out, at length, and it was brilliant.
That it would result in long term destruction of the Confederacy and slavery, nobody could foresee in April 1861, and indeed, except for Lincoln himself, that destruction would certainly not have happened.

DiogenesLamp: "If you are referring to the "Union" state of Maryland, then I will have to point out that it was only a "Union" state because of the actions taken by Lincoln in Jailing dissenters and Pro-Southern sympathizers.
From a pragmatic perspective, Lincoln could not let the Capital be surrounded by hostile forces, though he broke a lot of rules in putting his pragmatism into force."

On the issue of whether Maryland was legitimately Union or Confederate, let's remember some facts:

1. Even after Fort Sumter, the Maryland Legislature voted 53–13 against secession.

2. Like other Border States (i.e., Kentucky & Missouri) Maryland supplied more troops to the Union than the Confederacy, by a factor of more than two to one.

3. The arrest of pro-Confederate legislators -- about a third of all Maryland legislators, on September 17, 1861 -- is often cited as "proof" than Maryland would have joined the Confederacy, but remember first: it was only a third, well under half, and one third overall pretty much represents the number of pro-Confederate Marylanders.
   Second, and more important, remember that on May 6, 1861 the Confederacy formally declared war on the United States, which made every active pro-Confederate inside the Union, by Constitutional definition, guilty of treason:
   "Article 3, Section 3: Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort."
   
   So Lincoln had those men arrested because they were criminals, period.

DiogenesLamp: "This notion that anything is 100% one sided is not an attribute of a serious thinker, but it is completely consistent with the behavior of a cheerleader."

No sir, not at all, and I could cite an endless list of examples, which if you disagreed would show serious weakness in your own thinking.
So suppose we start at the top of the list: how responsible was President Roosevelt for Hitler's invasions of other European counties?
Answer: zero percent, Hitler was 100% responsible, and along with his Nazi party 100% responsible for the resulting destruction of Germany.

Seriously, this is not difficult, and I could list many other examples, which if you intend to disagree would expose you as a poser who really should not be arguing seriously on Free Republic, sir.
So this is not about "cheerleading", it's about the facts, and nothing but.
If you start a war, you're responsible, period.

DiogenesLamp: "I think the founders had it correct, and that people (even bad people) have a right to self determination.
I think this is a fundamental right which is right up there with the right to keep and bear arms in level of importance."

Sir, you're paying no attention, you just keep blabbering nonsense.
Listen up: your alleged "right of self determination" does not give a "husband" the right to declare war on his "wife" when he gets tired of her, and in this analogy, your beloved Confederates were the "husband".

That is your fundamental problem, and why your case is always wrong, fit only for the sentiments of Lost Causers.

DiogenesLamp: "You, on the other hand, seem to believe that the existing government cannot be dissolved without permission from the existing government.
You have taken on the mantel of slavery of a different sort.
The forced compulsion to remain under the control of people whom you don't want controlling you."

But that's not just my opinion, it was also our Founders' original intent, as expressed most clearly by James Madison.
So, if you disrespect and mock our Founders' original intent, that makes you something other than Conservative, and puts you into the same categories as today's Liberal-Progressive-Democrat-Socialists.
They all want a "living Constitution" they can interpret to their hearts' desires, and it seems, so do you, sir.

Our Founders' recognized two legitimate reasons for dis-union:

1. "Mutual consent", implying a majority in Congress.

2. "by usurpations or abuses of power justly having that effect", the word "justly" implying a Supreme Court ruling.

So our Founders well understood that any other method of secession would most likely lead to another war, such as they fought against the British, from 1775 through 1781.

Those are the facts, which you may not like, but nevertheless, remain the facts.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp to rockrr: "And so now I must wonder how New Orleans ever got by for 58 years before the United States came along? 74 years for Mobile Alabama."

Sorry, but in early 1861 the seven-state Deep-South rump-Confederacy was not economically viable, certainly short term, for several reasons beginning with the fact that they were a single-product economy, slave-produced cotton, and so subject to the vagaries of international cotton markets.
Yes, for over 50 years those markets had been robust and growing, and the Deep South the number one supplier, resulting in ever higher prosperity and ever higher slave prices.
But the Confederacy quickly learned in the 1860s that the world did not, after all, revolve around them, and could just as well get along without them.
This was the root-cause of the South's enduring-deep poverty following the Civil War.

Please see post #307 above for more details on this subject.

[BroJoeK]

DoodleDawg: "So Lincoln set a trap for the rebels and they fell right into it. Wasn't very bright of them, was it?"

DiogenesLamp to DoodleDawg: "No, it was the height of folly.
One of them even tried to warn the others that this would turn the good will they had from the North into a thousand stinging hornets, or some such."

Please note my detailed response to this argument in post #307 and summary in #316 above:

"Sorry, sir, but Lincoln didn't "outsmart" anybody!
Davis believed his assault on Fort Sumter was a brilliant political move, for reasons I've now spelled out, at length, and it was brilliant.
That it would result in long term destruction of the Confederacy and slavery, nobody could foresee in April 1861, and indeed, except for Lincoln himself, that destruction would certainly not have happened."

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "The freedom cases filed in Massachusetts and which ended slavery in that state were based on interpreting the Declaration as covering "all men" including slaves.
Even back then Liberal Massachusetts was leading the nation in re-interpreting the law based on their own preferred beliefs rather than actual original intent."

Sorry, but you've got it wrong, yet again.
By all reasonable understanding, Massachusetts courts were free to interpret Massachusetts law howsoever they wished, including basing their slavery laws on the soaring rhetoric of the Declaration of Independence!

That had nothing to do with the Supreme Court, Federal Government or US constitutional law.
Indeed, you post on the Declaration as if it were a law itself, requiring some kind of "original intent" interpretation?!
It certainly was not, and anybody is free to understand it however they wish.
"Original Intent" refers to US Constitution, which has no such language as "all men are created equal", and indeed directly implies something very different!

DiogenesLamp: "...I blame the influence of this book in no small part to the subsequent belief that our citizenship was based on English common law, rather than the natural law as expressed in the document which created US Citizenship, the Declaration of Independence."

I'd say, you're putting far more weight on the Declaration of Independence than it was ever intended to carry.
That declaration was intended to do one thing only: to explain and declare the 13 colonies to be free, independent and United states of America.
Yes, it includes some very sophisticated philosophical assumptions, ideas which became the basis for much of what we have today, but they are not themselves the law, and were never intended to be such.

So let me repeat the fact that the basic foundation for abolitionist ideas on slavery came from no place other than the Bible -- the very document which slavers used to justify their sins, abolitionists correctly showed says just the opposite.

DiogenesLamp: "Rawle had an agenda to abolish slavery, and this was but one more vehicle he attempted to use to accomplish that task.
It didn't work, but it certainly caused a lot of other problems later."

Sure, and by 1860 there were many abolitionists, and they all scared the bejesus out of Southern slavers.
However, I'll repeat, abolitionist ideology did not originate anywhere other than the Bible, as taught by many Northern pastors.
Further, these abolitionists were a very small percentage of all Republicans voters, who were themselves a small percentage of all voters.
Therefore, no major Republican politician publically advocated abolishing slavery in the South, for one reason, all understood that would lead to disunion.

Still, Southern exaggerated fears of Norther abolitionists greatly benefitted Southern Fire Eaters efforts to convince the population that secession was necessary.

[BroJoeK]

Sherman Logan: "The problem with your discussion of the MA Charter is that it was granted by the King to the colony.
It was not a compact between Britain and Massachusetts.
What the British could grant they could revoke, as they revoked the earlier 1629 charter in 1684."

Sure, but Massachusetts colonists in 1774 wanted, expected and believed they should be treated with normal "rights of Englishmen", including some form of self-government, such as the Charter of 1691.
So the Brits unilateral abrogation of the 1691 charter is exactly equivalent to 1861 Confederates unilateral abrogation of their 1787 "charter", the Constitution.

Sure, both abrogations were seemingly justified by some interpretations of law, but neither was agreed to by all those it effected -- in 1774 Massachusetts colonists, in 1861 Unionists, including President Lincoln.

And in both cases, those who opposed abrogation eventually, after long and bitter struggles, with much death and destruction, won their points.

And that's my point here...