Was the Civil War about Slavery?

Acton Institute, Prager University ^ | 8/11/2015 | Joe Carter

[iowamark]

What caused the Civil War? That seems like the sort of simple, straightforward question that any elementary school child should be able to answer. Yet many Americans—including, mostly, my fellow Southerners—claim that that the cause was economic or state’s rights or just about anything other than slavery.

But slavery was indisputably the primary cause, explains Colonel Ty Seidule, Professor of History at the United States Military Academy at West Point.

The abolition of slavery was the single greatest act of liberty-promotion in the history of America. Because of that fact, it’s natural for people who love freedom, love tradition, and love the South to want to believe that the continued enslavement of our neighbors could not have possibly been the motivation for succession. But we should love truth even more than liberty and heritage, which is why we should not only acknowledge the truth about the cause of the war but be thankful that the Confederacy lost and that freedom won.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "What is your legal argument here? "

First of all we need to point to the glaringly obvious fact that in order to defend Deep South secessions, you must also defend slavery.
That is not a position any reasonable person wants to take.

Second, since in 1787 some states had already begun to outlaw slavery, it's impossible that our Founders intended to make unlawful abolition within states.
Any suggestion they did, or that the US Constitution can be so interpreted is pure malicious mendacity.

And yet that's just what Tanney said in Dred-Scott.

[DiogenesLamp]

But state responsibilities for capturing and returning Fugitive Slaves were eliminated by the Compromise of 1850 Law, which transferred the job from states to Federal Government.

The Constitution is not amended by "compromise". It is amended by a clearly enumerated process. Nothing short of a constitutional amendment will repeal that clause in Article IV.

Till that is done, states are obligated to do what the constitution says, or am I mistaken about this?

You see, if you argue that states don't have to do what the constitution says, I fear there goes most of your larger argument.

[DiogenesLamp]

Only your delusions, not the Declaration of Independence, support your position.

The Declaration enabled the US Constitution. It was under the government formed by the Declaration that the Articles of Confederation came to exist.

From whence came the power to write the articles? Was it from Britain? I don't think so.

By what authority do the articles of confederation serve as law? From whence did their legitimacy come?

[DiogenesLamp]

First of all we need to point to the glaringly obvious fact that in order to defend Deep South secessions, you must also defend slavery.

One need not defend slavery at all. One only need point out that it was the then existing legal paradigm. In this respect one is arguing law, not defending slavery.

It may be a law with which I disagree, but I can still comprehend it to be the law. Can not you?

I notice you dodged the question. I take this to mean that you cannot answer it in a manner that preserves your argument.

If you disagree, how about you answer? What is your legal argument here?

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "You are I, DiogenesLamp am like a Hare Krishna disciple.
No matter what is said to you, you me, I simply continue chanting your my mantra[s].
Demonstrating that you are I am wrong on any particular point (such as the Constitution deriving it's legitimacy from the Declaration) has no effect on you, me."

I see you made a lot of typos on that, but think I fixed them all for you. Yes, you're welcome.

The US Constitution derives some of its legitimacy from the Declaration, and some from other sources, such as it's ratification by, now, all 50 states.

But since you, DiogenesLamp are like a Hari-Krishna, I wouldn't expect you to grasp such an advance concept...

[DiogenesLamp]

I’m going to pass on trading snark with you. I’m actually waiting to hear your answer to the legal question I have put before you.

[BroJoeK]

Mollypitcher1: "IContinue down your my chosen path, deaf, dumb and blind to the true facts which you I bury under your my repetition of a few “talking points.”
I Live on in oblivion.
I You have attempted to broaden your my horizon, and widen your my perspective but to no avail.
So, You I continue to bray like a mule or donkey with blinders on."

Believe me, it does get tiresome correcting so many of you people's typos.
So how about next time you feel the urge to insult yourself, just stifle it?

[BroJoeK]

HandyDandy: "DiogenesUnion would do himself a favor if he were to return to the positions he held in his youth (Lincoln as an American hero) than to try to further lose himself in his newfound twisted and distorted perspective."

Indeed.

[BroJoeK]

rockrr: "By virtue of their constitution all confederate states were required to embrace slavery."

Yes, the Confederate constitution made explicit what the US Constitution must be twisted & misinterpreted by the likes of DiogenesLamp to mean: slavery lawful in all states.

[DiogenesLamp]

Yes, the Confederate constitution made explicit what the US Constitution must be twisted & misinterpreted by the likes of DiogenesLamp to mean: slavery lawful in all states.

I am waiting for you to explain how article IV does not do something very much like that.

Tell me how a state gets around the requirement of article IV. I would really like to hear your explanation for this.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "Meaning that going to another state will not free a slave from the labor he owes to whomever has the legal right to his labor."

So, you not only justify slavery in the South, you also deny the constitutuional right of Northern states to abolish slavery within their own boundaries?

What we know for certain is that Northern states began abolishing slavery in 1777, and by the time of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, all but New York and New Jersey had passed such laws.
So, there's no suggestion from our Founders that slavery could not be abolished by states which didn't want it.
Indeed, all indications are the opposite -- slavery was in those days expected to be abolished, gradually, lawfully, even in the South.
That's what abolishing international imports of new slaves was all about.

Fugitive Slave provisions were understood to mean just that: when runaway slaves were captured, they must be returned to their "owners" -- it certainly did not mean that Southern tobacco farmers could bring their slaves north to grow tobacco in, say, Pennsylvania.

So, Tanney and now you are providing a Constitutional interpretation which was and is firmly rejected by scholars, historians and absolutely rejected by Northern voters in 1860.

[BroJoeK]

Mollypitcher1: "Your idea of the word ‘civil” is, like all your other arguments so totally blind and one sided..."

No, "civil" means civil, as in how many civilians were killed in the war?
In the Second World War that number is: around 50 million.
In the US Civil War that number has never been credibly counted, though actual records show dozens, a few hundred maybe, all told.

Yes, with so many young men away and killed, fewer babies born, the population growth rate did sag a bit, maybe, or maybe it was just poor counting in 1870.
At any rate, by 1880, Southern populations were back to where they would have been otherwise.

And I'm truly sorry if that doesn't match up to the mythology you learned as a child, but as President Reagan used to say: "facts are stubborn things."

Mollypitcher1: "Your use of “Total population is a sly way of avoiding and altering the overall effect of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation which was dated in JANUARY 1863, well after the beginning of the war."

I don't "get" your point here...
Total slaves in 1860 were around four million, of whom 90% lived in the 11 Confederate states.

The Union Army had been informally freeing "contraband property" slaves since almost the war's beginning, and Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation was first released on September 22, 1862, after Union victory at the Battle of Antietam/Sharpsburg, September 17.
Final release was January 1, 1863.

Beginning in December 1863, Congress considered bills for a 13th Amendment abolishing slavery throughout the United States.
That amendment passed Congress in early 1865, was fully ratified in December 1865.

So, tell us please, what exactly is your problem with all this?

[BroJoeK]

x: "Don't get me started on the Hunkers, the Barnburners, and the Locofocos."

Ha! LOL

[HandyDandy]

DL No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.

I understand this to mean that no state can pass a law depriving a man "from such service or labour" as he is legally due.

Meaning that going to another state will not free a slave from the labor he owes to whomever has the legal right to his labor. Do you understand this to mean something different?

Tsk. Tsk. This is your argument that the Constitution forced all States to "embrace slavery" (as Davis did)? Let me put the Article in terms that maybe you can understand.

"No owned Slave from a Slave State, escaping from his owner into a Free State, is then considered Free, but rather must be returned to his owner in the Slave State."

You see, the article is about the Slave and the recognition of the rights of Slave States by Free States. Article IV is not about the owner of the slave. The owner must remain in the Slave State. That owner was not allowed to bring his Slave into a Free State. Nothing in the Constitution says that all States must "embrace slavery".

[rockrr]

I think that DegenerateLamp has a point (besides the one on top of his head). He should petition SCOTUS with his brilliant logic to overturn the 13th Amendment so that he can reclaim his, er, property rights....LOL

[DiogenesLamp]

So, you not only justify slavery in the South, you also deny the constitutuional right of Northern states to abolish slavery within their own boundaries?

I'm asking you if that is what it means. Unless my English is faulty, I read it as a rendering null any state law designed to free a slave.

If you do not think that is what it means, why don't you explain to me what you think it means?

[DiogenesLamp]

Tsk. Tsk. This is your argument that the Constitution forced all States to "embrace slavery" (as Davis did)? Let me put the Article in terms that maybe you can understand.

"No owned Slave from a Slave State, escaping from his owner into a Free State, is then considered Free, but rather must be returned to his owner in the Slave State."

You are Liberalizing it. You are "living constitutioning" it. You are reading a meaning into it beyond what the words say. You are limiting it's scope in such a way that the words do not clearly mean.

I know you want it to mean that, but you are not showing that it does in fact, mean that.

What does that clause say about Dred Scott? What does it say about a slave owner traveling with his slave into a "free" State?

Does the constitution say he shall be free, or does it say he shall continue to provide labour to whom it is due under the laws of that time?

I never really paid a lot of attention to that clause before, but now that this discussion has focused my attention on it, I am at a loss to understand how it can be interpreted in a good way for your side's position.

That owner was not allowed to bring his Slave into a Free State.

And where does it say that in the Constitution? I was of the opinion that citizens could travel wherever in the United States they chose to go, and that they could bring along with them whatever companions they so choose.

By what authority can you claim they have no right to do this? You've already said that a slave would be returned if found in another state. Where does it say the person who claims him may not be also in the same state?

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "I'm asking you if that is what it means.
Unless my English is faulty, I read it as a rendering null any state law designed to free a slave.
If you do not think that is what it means, why don't you explain to me what you think it means?"

But the truth of this matter has already been explained to you several times, by myself and others.
You simply refuse to acknowledge it.

The Constitution in those days provided for the return of Fugitive Slaves.
It also contemplated the eventual abolition of slavery, beginning with stopping imports from abroad.
But no Founder contemplated slave-holders taking their slaves to Free States without being subject to the abolition laws of that state.

So, if you decide -- using your own vast imagination and Roger Tanney's Dred-Scott decision -- that the Constitution made slavery lawful in every state, regardless of the state's own laws, then your interpretation is simply not historical, or logical, Tanney notwithstanding.

If you further decide, in support of Tanney's Dred Scott, that not just slaves but all African Americans could never be US citizens, then I'd say you truly are ready for commitment to an institution for nut-cases, FRiend.

[DiogenesLamp]

But the truth of this matter has already been explained to you several times, by myself and others. You simply refuse to acknowledge it.

Assertions only. That is not the same thing as an explanation.

I can see why you are tiptoeing gingerly around this point. This is a real conundrum for your position.

If you take the words of the US Constitution at face value, they seem to say that any law freeing a slave is null and void.

Now you tell me it is only intended to be used in the narrow scope of fugitive slaves, but that is not what the words say. (Doesn't matter anyway, the Northern States routinely disobeyed it regarding fugitive slaves.)

Your problem is not with me... it is with the words chosen by the framers of the Constitution. They left the meaning open to a much broader interpretation than what you claim was their intent.

But no Founder contemplated slave-holders taking their slaves to Free States without being subject to the abolition laws of that state.

And how do you know this? In 1787, I think only Massachusetts had abolished slavery. The bulk of the nation was still slave holding states.

You cannot say with any degree of intellectual honesty that the founders only intended what you claim. I know you wish it to be true, but where is your proof that this was their intention? It certainly cannot be discerned from the words they chose.

then I'd say you truly are ready for commitment to an institution for nut-cases, FRiend.

How about you give up the childish tactic of asserting that disagreement with you is equivalent to a mental illness? You don't seem to have a temperament for actual debate, you simply want people to agree with you.

As I mentioned before, I never spent much time contemplating that clause in the US Constitution until this discussion focused my attention on it. Now that I read it closely, I'm having a hard time seeing it by even the most Liberal Interpretation as corresponding to what you claim it means.