Posted on 04/08/2018 3:39:59 PM PDT by iowamark
A friend recently posed this question: “If you had to recommend one book for a first-time visitor to the U.S. to read, to understand our country, what would it be and why?”...
If the goal is an education, we could recommend Samuel Eliot Morison and Henry Steele Commager’s Growth of the American Republic, a two-volume history that used to be required reading...
Huckleberry Finn may be the greatest American novel... But there is no single novel, no matter how great, that can do the job alone.
Consider instead the great American essayists who invented a new style of writing in the 1920s and founded The New Yorker. E. B. White’s One Man’s Meat is the finest such essay collection... Joseph Mitchell’s Up in the Old Hotel is nearly as great...
Teddy Roosevelt’s short book The Strenuous Life, which opens with his 1899 speech by that name, is an explanation of America’s view of itself — a view that greatly shaped the 20th century. It was the peculiar marriage of power and prosperity together with a sense of moral urgency. Roosevelt demands an active life, a life of struggling for personal and national virtue. He commends a triad of strength in body, intellect, and character — of which character is the most important. America must meet its moral obligations vigorously, he tells us: “It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.”...
The origin of that moral urgency was America’s most important spiritual crisis. It is best expressed in a single speech, rich in Biblical imagery and contemporary prophecy: Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address, which is the greatest of all American writing. It is a tone-poem or photograph of the American soul. A complete understanding, in just 697 words.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
Thanks for reminding us of that very important point.
Indeed, far from supporting "states' rights", secessionists used Northern states' rights in fugitive slaves as their legal basis for declaring secession!
As always, Democrats wanted one set of rules for us, a different set -- or better yet, no rules -- for them.
SoCal Pubbie: "So it shows that Democrats haven’t changed much in 150 years.
Not only are they still rejecting the results of elections like in 1860, but they were really the ones doing what they accused others of doing back then, just like today!"
Amen, bro.
Aside from the fact that any law supporting slavery is reprehensible, I have no objection to the Constitution overriding state law. You miss the irony of course that when it benefited them, antebellum Southerners were all for a strong federal government. When it didn’t, they were all for states rights.
Absolutely. It produced 200 million per year (funneled through New York) and was making money for both sides. That's why it was valued at 4 billion. If it weren't producing the money, it wouldn't be worth anything to the people who ran those economies back then.
But look there. You created another opportunity to say the word "slave" while dripping it with the appropriate level of disgust. Once more you have reminded us how very very very much you hate slavery. Good Job!
The Milk of human kindness was not motivating either the Southerners or the Northerners at this point in history. It was all about the money.
So then Southerners DID secede to preserve slavery, since that was the source of their money. That’s the inescapable conclusion to be drawn from your own words.
"States Rights" cannot be extended to something explicitly prohibited by the US Constitution. The states voluntarily gave up that particular right by ratifying the Constitution as it was written.
You seem to have a cognitive dissonance on this point.
Well that's interesting, because you were previously complaining about the Feds interfering with state fugitive slave laws. I simply pointed out that states could not legally, under the US Constitution, make any laws that interfered with the return of slaves.
You miss the irony of course that when it benefited them, antebellum Southerners were all for a strong federal government.
And upon what particular event do you base this assertion? When were the Southerners calling for a stronger Federal government? I think Texas was wanting more troops on it's border with Mexico, but other than that, I'm not coming up with any examples of them wanting a stronger Federal Government.
When it didn’t, they were all for states rights.
I think they were pretty much for states rights from the very beginning. They weren't all that enthralled with joining the Union in the first place. Were it not for the efforts of Francis Marion dragging the British all through the South and greatly angering them, they would have likely remained as Colonies of England.
The hole in your theory is the fact that they would still have slavery if they *didn't* secede. It's funny how you keep zooming right past that without acknowledging that the Union was going to keep legal slavery for at least 40 more years.
Their 4 billion in assets would not be lost from staying in the Union. Kinda blows your whole motive thing.
That’s the inescapable conclusion to be drawn from your own words.
Inescapable? Wasn't even confining. It was tissue paper.
The only complaint I made in such regard is that these laws undermined the ex post facto Southern argument that Washington was undermining Southern interests before the Civil War. As BroJoeK pointed out numerous times, Southern interests virtually ran the federal government in the antebellum era.
“When were the Southerners calling for a stronger Federal government?”
Oy vey! In what world is setting up a hitherto nonexistent nationwide system of fugitive slave commissioners working for the feds with the power to impress citizen labor at will, NOT making a stronger Federal government?
“Their 4 billion in assets would not be lost from staying in the Union.”
Wait, that’s the EXACT opposite of what you posted before. Kinda blows your whole motive thing.
Let’s see if you will answer two more simple questions. Maybe I can go two for three at least.
First, you claim that Northern interests were skimming profits off Southern agricultural production, mostly cotton, correct?
Second, what was the percentage of that skimming?
Second that, too.
He’s so emotionally overwrought he no longer knows what he is saying.
They were not calling for any such thing until it became apparent that states would refuse to enforce Article IV, Section 2. To what other authority were they to appeal to enforce the law?
Blame Prigg vs Pennsylvania, and Justice Joseph Story for ruling that states didn't have to enforce Federal law, and could even interfere with others enforcing it, is what created this need for Federal agents.
And how much was this going to cost anyway? Are we arguing over a molehill instead of a mountain?
No it isn't, unless you have badly misunderstood what I said. They would retain their 4 billion in assets if they remained in the Union. The Corwin Amendment would have made them even more secure.
Last year I found a source that put it at 40% of the total. I think BroJoeK is the one who initially linked to it, and I found that further down past the point he wanted us to read.
It was an article that focused mainly on New Orleans and how New York had secured virtually every cotton contract that came available.
If you want me to find it, I'll start looking for it, but i'm not going to be in a hurry.
Tu quoque is also a fallacy.
“They were not calling for any such thing until it became apparent that states would refuse to enforce Article IV, Section 2.”
So you’re agreeing with me. When it suited the South, fedgov was great. When it didn’t it was a bunch of no good, Yankee scalawags out to tarnish the honor of the South and ruin the virtue of the white race!
“So 1/4th of the population of the South, was paying 75% of all the revenue.”
How did figure that, anyway? Your only stats covered the percentage of foreign trade generated by Southern products, and tariffs collected at various US ports. Explain again how you make this leap?
So out of that 40%, which shows the South was making most of the profits by the way, how much would you deduct for the cost of:
Shipping
Warehousing
Insurance
Losses not covered by insurance
Sales commissions for brokers contracting with foreign buyers
Interests to pay investors
All of which would have to be paid by Southern interests instead of Northern ones if New York were cut out of the deal.
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