Posted on 07/22/2015 7:36:12 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
We call the war of 1861 the Civil War. But is that right? A civil war is a struggle between two or more entities trying to take over the central government. Confederate President Jefferson Davis no more sought to take over Washington, D.C., than George Washington sought to take over London in 1776. Both wars, those of 1776 and 1861, were wars of independence. Such a recognition does not require one to sanction the horrors of slavery. We might ask, How much of the war was about slavery?
Was President Abraham Lincoln really for outlawing slavery? Let's look at his words. In an 1858 letter, Lincoln said, "I have declared a thousand times, and now repeat that, in my opinion neither the General Government, nor any other power outside of the slave states, can constitutionally or rightfully interfere with slaves or slavery where it already exists." In a Springfield, Illinois, speech, he explained: "My declarations upon this subject of Negro slavery may be misrepresented but cannot be misunderstood. I have said that I do not understand the Declaration (of Independence) to mean that all men were created equal in all respects." Debating Sen. Stephen Douglas, Lincoln said, "I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes nor of qualifying them to hold office nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races, which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality."
What about Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation? Here are his words: "I view the matter (of slaves' emancipation) as a practical war measure, to be decided upon according to the advantages or disadvantages it may offer to the suppression of the rebellion." He also wrote: "I will also concede that emancipation would help us in Europe, and convince them that we are incited by something more than ambition." When Lincoln first drafted the proclamation, war was going badly for the Union.
London and Paris were considering recognizing the Confederacy and assisting it in its war against the Union.
The Emancipation Proclamation was not a universal declaration. It specifically detailed where slaves were to be freed: only in those states "in rebellion against the United States." Slaves remained slaves in states not in rebellion — such as Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware and Missouri. The hypocrisy of the Emancipation Proclamation came in for heavy criticism. Lincoln's own secretary of state, William Seward, sarcastically said, "We show our sympathy with slavery by emancipating slaves where we cannot reach them and holding them in bondage where we can set them free."
Lincoln did articulate a view of secession that would have been heartily endorsed by the Confederacy: "Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government and form a new one that suits them better. ... Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can may revolutionize and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit." Lincoln expressed that view in an 1848 speech in the U.S. House of Representatives, supporting the war with Mexico and the secession of Texas.
Why didn't Lincoln share the same feelings about Southern secession? Following the money might help with an answer. Throughout most of our nation's history, the only sources of federal revenue were excise taxes and tariffs. During the 1850s, tariffs amounted to 90 percent of federal revenue. Southern ports paid 75 percent of tariffs in 1859. What "responsible" politician would let that much revenue go?
You do when you’ve committed to an agreement with them.
Good, because you've wasted the time of everyone who attempted to disabuse you of your illogical and contra-factual notions. I actually have no further interest in discussing this topic with you. You don't understand the material well enough to participate in this discussion, and nobody really cares to hear you do another stanza of "How much I hate slavery to pieces!"
With your involvement, the discussion does indeed become "sophomoric".
"If you have the power, anything you do is a "right." "
You seemingly don't understand the concept of "right" in the context to which we are referring.
"Right to Life" is a contra example to your understanding of the word "right."
Tariffs were collected at over 50 different locations. According to Federal Law, the payments could be delayed up to three years. That would allow an importer/broker time to transport the goods to the buyer, collect the money, and pay the tariff.
So goods entering in New York might be paid much later after a buyer in another part of the country paid.
The US Treasury tariff data due to these rules is not a reliable data point for determining who actually paid the tariff.
Not necessarily. All one has to do is look at tariff collections for FY1863. Tariff collections were over $102 million dollars, for a year without cotton exports and without Southerners consuming all those vast quantities of imported goods. How was that possible?
The entire overseas trade changed drastically in 1861. With no more cotton for northern mills, they began to import from China and India. Lincoln instituted expanded tariffs which included these goods.
Also massive food amounts formerly imported from the South stopped. Food was now imported.
All sorts of war material was now being imported. Keep in mind that the government did not manufacture arms, and importers paid large tariffs.
The most important issue in all this is hidden. At the time of secession, there was not nearly enough specie on deposit in the Treasury or banks to maintain trade. Had it not been for war, the government would not have been able to finance much. Instead, once Europe saw that Lincoln was going to seize Southern assets, the lending began.
And that was the reason that Lincoln sent the Navy to Charleston.
I find the idea more credible that they were imposing a deliberate monopoly so that they themselves could reap the benefit of it. By banning importation, they grab the market for their own supply.
It's about money, and probably nothing else.
As is explained here over and over again,
I would say it's repeated "over and over again", but not explained. Argumentum ad nauseum is a standard tactic for those trying to justify the Union Invasion.
Southern states got money from exporting cotton and used it to buy things from Northerners. We know that cotton was the major part of America's exports. But we don't know that cotton growers were the major consumers of foreign goods.
I assume you have some passing familiarity with math? Pray tell how Southern exports make up the bulk of financial exchanges with Europe in the one direction, but not the other?
Would you have us believe that the Southern States shipped out exports while the Northern States collected the money for them and used it to buy European products?
What were the Northern States doing to acquire European currency to pay for European exports?
The Europe/US equation seems out of balance. How do you square that circle?
“Not true. A caged man with no hope of escape still has the intrinsic God-right of self-determination. He simply lacks the power to exercise that right.”
I think we agree and are just talking past each other. Of course he has the right, even if he lacks the power to exercise it, that is my position as well. What I am arguing against is people saying that you don’t have a right unless you ALSO have the power to exercise it, which is obviously false.
You’re probably right, but it might help some to understand the Declaration’s import if they understood better the ideas that it is based on. Many seem to lack that fundamental foundation of knowledge, at least it seems so from this thread.
This is interesting. I'd like to know more. From what I've read the northern states fed itself and there were no significant imports of foodstuffs.
The slaves saw it differently.
...and in the fullness of time, we saw Abraham Lincoln, after giving the slave-holders three months’ grace in which to save their hateful slave system, penning the immortal paper, which, though special in its language, was general in its principles and effect, making slavery forever impossible in the United States. Though we waited long, we saw all this and more.That was Frederick Douglass, speaking in 1876. But what did he know, huh?Can any colored man, or any white man friendly to the freedom of all men, ever forget the night which followed the first day of January, 1863, when the world was to see if Abraham Lincoln would prove to be as good as his word? I shall never forget that memorable night, when in a distant city I waited and watched at a public meeting, with three thousand others not less anxious than myself, for the word of deliverance which we have heard read today. Nor shall I ever forget the outburst of joy and thanksgiving that rent the air when the lightning brought to us the emancipation proclamation. In that happy hour we forgot all delay, and forgot all tardiness, forgot that the President had bribed the rebels to lay down their arms by a promise to withhold the bolt which would smite the slave-system with destruction; and we were thenceforward willing to allow the President all the latitude of time, phraseology, and every honorable device that statesmanship might require for the achievement of a great and beneficent measure of liberty and progress.
I can’t buy that argument because it simply eviscerates the right. Everybody is in some sort of agreement with their current government, whether explicit or implicit. So what you are arguing effectively puts us in bondage to our current form of government, since governments rarely agree willingly to the grievances of citizens who wish to separate.
If you give the state a veto over this right, it will almost universally exercise it, and then you have no right at all.
Where did you read that?
And where do you get this notion from? By tariffs collected? Not a good measure. Very bad, in fact.
If 75% of exports were Southern agriculture products, it would seem that 75% of imports must be in payment of those products in one form or another.
That is an equation that must balance. Fake or misleading history does not suspend the laws of economics.
In other words they collected that total.
No. The one thing does not mean the same as the other. The end user pays the tariffs, even if the tariff is collected in New York.
In fact, as has been shown over and over again, Southern ports collected around 5% of all tariff revenue.
Which ought to be an immediate head scratching moment for anyone contemplating that 75% of the exports were Southern Agriculture products.
Are you suggesting they are shipping out 75%, but collecting only 5% of the total goods and services in return?
Show me your math, cause this I gotta see.
civilwarhome.com, nps.gov, wacktpedia, ncpedia.org, etc.
Pick one and lets see a quote.
In 1860, the South was still predominantly agricultural, highly dependent upon the sale of staples to a world market. By 1815, cotton was the most valuable export in the United States; by 1840, it was worth more than all other exports combined. But while the southern states produced two-thirds of the world's supply of cotton, the South had little manufacturing capability, about 29 percent of the railroad tracks, and only 13 percent of the nation's banks. The South did experiment with using slave labor in manufacturing, but for the most part it was well satisfied with its agricultural economy.The North, by contrast, was well on its way toward a commercial and manufacturing economy, which would have a direct impact on its war making ability. By 1860, 90 percent of the nation's manufacturing output came from northern states. The North produced 17 times more cotton and woolen textiles than the South, 30 times more leather goods, 20 times more pig iron, and 32 times more firearms. The North produced 3,200 firearms to every 100 produced in the South. Only about 40 percent of the Northern population was still engaged in agriculture by 1860, as compared to 84 percent of the South.
Even in the agricultural sector, Northern farmers were out-producing their southern counterparts in several important areas, as Southern agriculture remained labor intensive while northern agriculture became increasingly mechanized. By 1860, the free states had nearly twice the value of farm machinery per acre and per farm worker as did the slave states, leading to increased productivity. As a result, in 1860, the Northern states produced half of the nation's corn, four-fifths of its wheat, and seven-eighths of its oats.
Then all laws are void whenever someone decides he doesn't feel like abiding by them.
That's not a recipe for self-government.
It's a recipe for lawlessness.
You have no God-given right to violate the God-given right to government by consent of the whole body of the American people.
Unless you can provide a strong and compelling moral basis for the separation.
The defense of the atrocity of chattel slavery, which even you admit to be evil, doesn't cut it in that regard.
(Source, Annual Report of the US Treasury, 1859; US Census 1860, Thomas P. Kettell, "Southern Wealth and Northern Profits", pgs 73, 74, and 75.
Data from Reports:
1859 Value of Southern Produce sold to the North...$200,000,000.
1859 Value of produce and grains exported from the North to Europe...$40,047,700.
Quote: "The exports of bread stuffs and provisions are also due to the South, since but for the quantities of these which are sent North to feed the Eastern States, little or no Western produce could be spared for Europe, even at high prices. (pg. 72, Kettell).
Quote: "The barren hills of New England...they have hitherto had their food and materials brought to them." (pg. 72, Kettell).
Quote: (1859 food exports from the North)"...The quantity of these articles which went direct from the Northern States did not exceed the quantities which that section received from the South and from Canada." (pg. 73, Kettell).
“Then all laws are void whenever someone decides he doesn’t feel like abiding by them.”
Now you’re conflating a collective right with an individual right in order to argue against it.
So many problems with this article. First off, there’s the statement that it wasn’t a Civil War because only wars with two or more entities trying to take over the central government can be caused Civil Wars. First off, this definition is wrong, and secondly, who cares! By any name it was an illegal war over slavery.
The next big problem is that the article talks about outlawing slavery and poo-poos the Emancipation Proclamation. So, for at least the fifth time, the Union was not fighting the Civil War to outlaw slavery, it was fighting the war to maintain the Union, and because the Confederacy started the shooting part of the war by engaging in an unprovoked attack on Fort Sumter.
When I say the war was about slavery what I am talking about is why the Southern States seceded and started the war. The reason, as in shown in the Articles of Secession (for 5 states at least, the other states did not list a reason in their Articles of Secession) was slavery. I will conclude with my go-to statement from the Mississippi Articles of Secession “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery - the greatest material interest of the world.”
So, to summarize, this article splits hairs over a word meaning, and then talks about an issue that is not in contention at all (that the North didn’t fight the war to outlaw slavery), without once ever discussing who started the war (the South), and why (defense of slavery).
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.