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?
Here’s the key:
“a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation”
The only thing that requires a declaration is “the decent respect to the opinions of mankind”. That is not an actual requirement that must be satisfied in order to exercise the right, they are just saying it is polite to make such a declaration.
Which of course is the issue the war was fought over.
Read back thru the southern newspapers in 60/61. They are absolutely loaded with calls for “an appeal to arms!”
Apparently they didn’t realize sometimes you lose an appeal.
Many of your rebuttals consist of "Our side won! Yah! Team!"
I'm sure the Chinese Generals that brutally murdered the protestors at Tienanmen square can empathize with your position.
Apparently to your way of thinking, the only thing that makes a person right, is their ability to smash anyone who disagrees with them. Your only argument is "Ultima Ratio Regum".
No, it does not. So how could Williams claim that tariffs were the reason for the Southern rebellion?
In other words, Imports have a corresponding relationship to exports, n'est pas?
Non, elle ne le fait pas.
So are you going to tell us how you feel about the repeal of DADT? Or are you going to hid behind your fathers pants again?
No, which is why three of those states emancipated before the end of the war, and the other two had it forced on them by 13A.
Unless they are the FedGove relying on Import tarriffs paid by Cotton sales. Then taking money to keep people enslaved is just fine.
As a matter of fact, had the Fed Gov announced it would no longer take any money derived from Slavery, it would have had a moral case against fighting against it.
They did not do that. No, it appears they were simply fighting to make sure they kept getting their share.
My version of the Constitution is silent on the subject of Secession, maybe I have an outdated version. Could you post yours that has the procedures that codify secession?
“The Declaration of Independence was done in the name of all the people of the American colonies, and the war for independence was prosecuted by all, as a body.”
Of course, because until that war was over, we hadn’t yet won our sovereignty from Britain.
“The Articles of Confederation AND PERPETUAL UNION, and thereafter the Constitution of the United States, established us as one nation, under God.”
No, the Constitution formed a federal union, not a nation-state. A federal union, by definition, is composed of independent and sovereign states, and that is confirmed by the 10th amendment.
The Declaration is at bottom a moral document.
The Founders knew perfectly well that whether they succeeded or no would depend on military and political factors.
But a “decent respect for the opinions of mankind,” led them to spell out why they “of right ought to be” independent.
The Declaration was entirely and simply to spell out why they had a moral right to independence.
“The fatal flaw in your argument is that there is no right to do wrong.”
This isn’t even a relevant point. We either have a right to decide our form of government or we don’t. Whether the government we choose is “right” or “wrong” is the sole concern of the people who are establishing the government, and can’t be cited as some impediment to them exercising their rights.
“It’s the natural, moral law.”
Natural law dictates we have a right to self-governance, so I wouldn’t be quick to appeal to that if I were making your argument.
Well that depends on whether or not they were actually paying 75% of the operating costs of the Federal Government. I don't think that issue has been settled to a reasonable degree of satisfaction.
In fact, they dominated politics, and to a great extent even the courts, (remember Dred Scott vs. Sanford?)
And what is legally wrong with Dred Scott vs. Sanford? It seems correct in regards to the legal circumstances of that time period.
for decades, in defense of the tyrannical practice of chattel slavery,
All legal under the Union flag. If you are going to make an issue of it, you are going to have to ditch the connection between the Union flag and Slavery, and I don't see how you can do it. The two things were intimately connected for a very long time.
You may be confusing the concept of revolution vs the concept of rebellion. The boundary between Mexico and Texas was a work in progress and a wholly different situation in 1848, than the situation that Lincoln addressed in his First Innaugural.
Your rebuttals tend to be repetitive as well. You claim Lincoln is advocating a right to secession when in fact he's talking about a right to rebellion. And nowhere in that speech does he say that your right to rebel equates to a right to win.
I'm sure the Chinese Generals that brutally murdered the protestors at Tienanmen square can empathize with your position.
Can the Nazi analogies be far behind?
Apparently to your way of thinking, the only thing that makes a person right, is their ability to smash anyone who disagrees with them. Your only argument is "Ultima Ratio Regum".
Once again you have managed to stumble to a conclusion that bears no resemblance to reality.
i kmow that but they think he truly wanted them set free.
Without that respect the American Revolution could not, and would not, have succeeded.
And without that respect, the Confederacy quite predictably failed to enforce its rebellion.
The Union had the clear eloquent voices of an Abraham Lincoln, and a Frederick Douglass, and a William Lloyd Garrison, and a Henry Ward Beecher, and a Harriet Beecher Stowe.
But the Confederacy had no Patrick Henry. Why? Because a Patrick Henry gains his moral power to persuade from the fact he is declaiming AGAINST the chains of slavery, not FOR them.
“Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God!”
You're in real trouble then. You, and the writer, have already been crushed by the facts on that point here.
Ah. There's your problem. Like that set of tyrannical lawyers and judges who decided Dred Scott and robbed human beings of a particular skin tone of their most important God-given, unalienable rights, you have no conception of the fact that our entire form of government and claim to liberty is premised on the laws of nature and nature's God.
A very nearly fatal flaw. One that in no way excuses the slave masters of the Confederacy.
The British Union was PERPETUAL too. Even more so than ours, because the foundation of their existence did not depend on an asserted God given to leave a larger Union.
Ours did.
This means that the Southern states had a stronger claim to leave than did the Colonies. Leaving was an accepted part of our foundational principles, not those of the British Union.
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