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?
There is a form of fallacy in which something minor is seized upon in order to misdirect attention from the larger point. That it wasn't Southern points that collected it may be an error, but it isn't consequential to the salient point.
Who was paying the tariffs?
Does it bother you at all that what he said is untrue?
If it is significant, and factually untrue, then yes, it bothers me. If it is a quibble, and factually untrue, it bothers me that people will attempt to use a minor mistake to derail the larger point. That is more deceitful than just making a minor mistake. That is more objectionable.
Most of what was imported thru NY was distributed to the rest of the country. The final purchaser actually paid the tariff, albeit indirectly, thru a higher price.
And there it is. So why bring up how much tariff money was collected by New York? Isn't that irrelevant to the bigger question? Who pays the cost of these Tarrifs? Out of who's pocket is coming the money to finance the FedGov?
The increase in price was exactly the same whether in south or north.
Which also ignores the larger point. Increases in import tariffs for people who don't import much doesn't constitute much of a burden on them compared to people who do. Does it?
You can raise my Luxury taxes to 100% for all I care, because I do not buy Luxury Items. Your point deliberately ignores the differences between on whom the burden falls, and on whom it does not.
What Walter was probably thinking about in his 75% number was the value of exports. For which the South did provide something along that percentage, mostly cotton.
But there is a huge gap between value of untaxed exports and amount of tariffs on imports.
One would presume that if Europeans were paying for exports with currency other than specie, then European products would have to be sold to buy back the European currency.
This would seem to me to make the necessity of balancing the trade deficits on the heads of the people collecting most of the European money in exchange for their products, i.e. the Southern States.
In other words, Imports have a corresponding relationship to exports, n'est pas?
Complete and utter nonsense.
"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."-- Opening lines of The Declaration of Independence
True dat.
In a murder trial, a lawyer may not be convinced that his client is actually culpable to the full extent of the law.
In a property recovery litigation, the lawyer knows exactly what property his client wants back and is resolved to get it.
Murder trials are about interpreting facts.
Recovery litigation is about getting concrete things back in the client's hands.
Just stop. Your pretense has worn thin. If you bring up the topic of slavery, you are effectively arguing that it is justification for the Union's invasion of the South.
If you don't want to argue this, don't bring up the topic. It has no relevance to the Union's reasons for invading. It is just an ex post facto rationalization for what they did.
"These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it."
-- Abraham Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address
Were it ridiculous, you could answer it without handwaving.
The Supremacy Clause is pretty straightforward.
It doesn't derogate at all from self-governance, because the Federal government which reviews state acts is elected by the people themselves.
I have pointed out the fact the Emancipation Proclamation was a political tool to keep Europe from entering the war on the side of the south and nothing more for decades, as does any true student of history.
Whenever I have anyone argue me this point, I ask them to read the document, and tell me what it says. When they finish reading the second paragraph I stop them, and ask them to read it again.
I ask them do you understand what you just read? This instantly separates someone who has had just a remote amount of true history about the Civil War, from the mindless drones who graduated form US Public High Schools. Because anyone who has just an inkling of true exposure to this period of our history will know that that both MD and WV were both states where slavery was legal and were part of the Union during the civil war, in fact its how WV became a state to begin with.. as it did not want to leave the Union with the rest of Virginia.
The second paragraph makes it quite clear that it does not free all slaves, it only freed slaves in territories currently in rebellion, of which at the time the US government had no active authority over. Had Lincoln truly desired to free the slaves, all slaves, he could have not conditionalized this document to only cover those in the CSA.
The Emancipation Proclamation was a political step, that made it impossible for Europe to enter the war, which they were debating and quite likely going to do, on the side of the CSA. This document instantly made it politically impossible for the nations of Europe to do so, but also made sure that no slave owners or their interests in WV and MD would be wronged and risk political fallout up to and including further secession of states into the CSA.
However, facts don’t matter, as we have a nation of idiots today that are truly becoming dumber and less informed with every passing day.
But the law of God as they wrote in the Declaration does not place conditions on the right to leave.
This is good, because if it placed the same conditions on them that people try to place on the South, then the 13 slave holding colonies wouldn't have been permitted to secede either.
The Confederacy had an immoral basis, one which unsurprisingly therefore lacked the moral power to convince anybody in the end.
Tell me my Friend, are your rights contingent on your morality? Must you be moral to exercise a right? It would seem to me that if you must be moral to exercise a right, then we are all doomed, because there is often not much agreement on what constitutes "moral".
I have to conclude that the Union didn't regard slavery as a "moral" issue upon which the rights of others is contingent, because the Union had five slave states that remained with it throughout the war.
Is it okay when they did it?
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.
Thus, according to Lincoln and Williams, the right to secession or independence is dependent upon the power to successfully effectuate the change. Neither Lincoln nor Williams suggests that an existing government cannot or should not resist an attempt to secede or an attempt to declare independence.
And, that's what happened. Some Southerners attempted to secede, the existing government resisted and the existing government prevailed.
Anyone has the ability to attempt to resist or to overthrow the existing government in a geographical area. As long as you acknowledge that the existing government has a right to defend itself, there is nothing particularly controversial about any of this. I think the controversy surrounds the suggestion by some that the existing government cannot properly contest an attempted secession or declaration of independence.
Except when 13 slave holding states asserted a right from God to do so, and did exactly that.
You are going to have to pick a side. Either both sides had a right to leave, or both sides did not.
Of course it does. The first paragraph makes that abundantly clear. If what you say were true, there would also be absolutely no need for their long delineation of the abuses of the British Crown.
are your rights contingent on your morality? Must you be moral to exercise a right?
The foundation of the claim to liberty, and particularly the American claim to liberty, is morality. Those who think they can maintain the enjoyment of their rights without morality are self-deceived.
It would seem to me that if you must be moral to exercise a right, then we are all doomed, because there is often not much agreement on what constitutes "moral".
I'm sorry you're confused about that. There was very little such confusion in the founding generation.
I have to conclude that the Union didn't regard slavery as a "moral" issue upon which the rights of others is contingent, because the Union had five slave states that remained with it throughout the war.
God in His providence, via circumstance, eventually cured them of their compromising attitude.
And that is a fair question. Anyone who would trade slavery for dominance over others, certainly does not regard slavery as the priority.
Much of this article consists of his rather lame and entirely inaccurate attempt to say Lincoln was not particularly opposed to slavery.
Relative to ruling over the South, he wasn't. He says so many times. Between the two issues, slavery is less important to him than holding the Southern States.
Why are you quibbling over William's salient point?
As has your's.
If you bring up the topic of slavery, you are effectively arguing that it is justification for the Union's invasion of the South.
The justification for the Union's invasion of the South was the fact that the South started the war.
“It doesn’t derogate at all from self-governance, because the Federal government which reviews state acts is elected by the people themselves.”
Of course it does, because if we need to seek permission to exercise a right, then it isn’t a right anymore. That is pretty basic stuff, but I guess I can’t expect you to understand that, since you are a statist.
That's pretty much my main point in this exchange. It was okay when the founders of this free republic did it. They made the moral case to the whole world, and demonstrated the physical fortitude to back up their moral position. The Confederacy could lay claim to neither the legitimate moral right to what they did, nor the power to back up their immorality in the physical, martial sense.
OK. Let’s us be exceptionally generous of spirit and assume Williams was trying to say the South paid 75% of the tariffs as the ultimate consumers.
Do you have any evidence for this remarkable assertion?
The Union states contained about 21M free people, the CSA states roughly 6M free people. Slaves didn’t consume much of anything, more or less by definition.
Do you have a reason to believe the consumption of imported goods differed between the sections? That the South consumed vastly more than the 22% proportionate to their share of the population? Or that the eventual Union states consumed, and therefore paid the tariffs on, much less than the 78% proportionate to their population?
The fatal flaw in your argument is that there is no right to do wrong. Never has been. Never will be.
Things always come down to simple right and wrong in the end.
It's the natural, moral law. Which is, of course, the premise of this free republic.
A lot of Freepres are dyed in the wool kool aid drinkers that have bought into the cookie cutter CYA version of the “recent unpleasantness”.
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.