On this date in 1863

A glorious 4th of July for the Union cause. General Lee's Army of Northern Virginia begins it retreat from Pennsylvania after having been defeated by General Meade's Army of the Potomac at the Battle of Gettysburg. General Grant accepts the surrender of the City of Vicksburg from General Pemberton. About 32,000 Confederate soldiers stack their weapons and are paroled by the Union forces. This is the second Confederate Army to surrender to Grant. The Union now controls the Mississippi river and the Confederate state is split into two parts.

gandalftb: "I never said that my family committed violence against slavers, read my post.
I said that my family broke federal law because of their faith."

Actually you did imply violence, and that's what I responded to.
Your post #74:

"When religiously driven abolitionists, like my family, chose their faith over the rule of law, the resistance and eventual fighting over slavery began."

Your post #80:

"Well, my family, two branches, started shooting."

"eventual fighting" and "started shooting" sounds like Jayhawkers in Kansas, which we now know your ancestors were not.
And yet you're here hand-wringing over your family's contributions to the Civil War, and I'm here to tell you: knock it off, that's ridiculous.
If you think you can positively influence, say, DiogenesLamp, or others by self-flagilation, you can't.
They will simply use whatever supports their own narratives and disregard the rest.

So I'll ask you again to consider the following question: why were your ancestors allowed help the Underground Railroad?
Answer: obviously, because law enforcement was weak.
Why was Democrat-run Federal law enforcement so weak?
Answer: four things come to mind:

The numbers of Fugitives were relatively insignificant in a slave population of 4,000,000.
The original sources of most escaping slaves were Border States like Missouri & Maryland where by 1860 slavery was marginal at best, arguably even dying out, so did not threaten slavery's center of gravity.
Allowing a small number of discontented slaves to escape was arguably more likely to prevent mass slave-revolts.
Finally, and I think most importantly, Southern Democrats in Washington, DC, needed something they could point to as a "material breech" of the Constitution to legally justify declarations of secession, and Northern opposition to Fugitive Slave laws served that purpose nicely.
In short: they didn't want to stop it entirely because they needed the issue to justify secession.

gandalftb: "“anti-slavery Border State areas (i.e., Missouri, Maryland)” ???
Better check your facts, those were slave states that didn’t secede."

Right, and there's a key point here that everyone needs to wrap their minds around.
By 1860 both of the following statements are true:

Slavery had never been more profitable, slave prices were never higher and slaves were never more in demand, in the Deep South.
Partly because of that, slavery was dying-out in Border States like Maryland & Missouri.
Another reason was huge immigrations of anti-slavery Northerners & Europeans to Border States thus potentially tipping the balance of political power in favor of freedom.

Missouri was one state where anti-slavery immigrants greatly outnumbered slaveocrats, they are why it remained loyal to the Union.

I agree with you about the Deep State (Jesuit banksters?) in Lincoln’s day.

I think it was more than bankers. I think it was the shipping moguls, Insurance people, warehousing people, manufacturing people. In short, I think it was everyone who was making money off of the South's trade with Europe.

But I also agree that Lincoln sweated over and hated slavery.

I think Lincoln actually hated slavery, but I am less sure about this than I was at one time, because i've seen so many examples of him massaging the appearance of his conduct to place it in a better light.

He was from Kentucky, and I believe he had an uncle that had slaves, and so it's a little unclear how he might have developed a hatred for slavery having grown up amongst it. I now believe this may have been an artifice meant to appeal to the voting segment he saw as his path to power

He may have projected this as his public persona, and perhaps he even convinced himself over time that this was correct, but it seems strange that he would eschew his own culture and embrace that of others.

As a Christian, I believe God is intimately involved in the affairs of men, and that He put the burden of the sinful horror of slavery upon Lincoln.

You can look at it that way. You could also look at Joseph Stalin as the instrument of God in defeating the Nazis. But if you look at Joseph Stalin in that way, it becomes unclear why God would work through such an evil man who murdered more people than did the Nazis.

Maybe Stalin wasn't the instrument of God, and perhaps Lincoln wasn't either? I've noted in these discussions how much personal suffering the Lincoln family endured during the war years, and i've expressed bafflement that God would so badly treat a man doing God's work.

One would think God would at least shield and protect a righteous man from tragedy and his enemies.

That said, I completely agree with you that Lincoln waged an economic Civil War.

The evidence shows this clearly to be the case. I did not even know of this three years ago, and I finally started to realize the truth because I became aware of two pieces of information that didn't make any sense.

1. New York paid most of the tariffs (taxes) into Washington DC.
2. The South produced 80% of all export value, and import values must roughly balance, therefore the South was producing most of the money that ended up in New York.

What I couldn't understand was why the money was ending up in New York when it was produced in the South.

My great-great grandfather took wagons to the dock at Clayton, IA picked up the escaping slaves there and sent them on through the network of Methodist abolitionists north to Minnesota and Canada.

Just plain fact that abolitionists violated federal law helping fugitive slaves. There were many in NE IA along the MI River.

Looking at a map, it leads me to believe that any slaves escaping through Iowa likely came through Missouri, which was a Union slave state during the war. I recall you saying Iowa Militia wanted to take up arms against the other slave states, but did it not occur to them to attack the closest slave state?

What's up with that? Why go so far to fight slavery when they could have fought it so much closer?

Also when they were helping slaves escaping from Missouri, was this not hurting their fellow ally Missouri?

Lots of mixed up stuff in this conflict.

I try to speak directly, you misunderstood, my family took up arms after the Civil War began, not before.

There was no violence when we broke the law helping fugitive slaves.

No hand-wringing or self-flagellation, real simple, I try to be completely honest and open. Both sides have their points.

You ask: “why were your ancestors allowed help the Underground Railroad?”

My family acted on their own initiative, based on common decency and faith. Law enforcement efforts were largely irrelevant.

Remember, the Constitution guarantees justice. Fighting slavery was a simple recognition that slaves were people and deserve to be treated as such, not property.

You say “Allowing a small number of discontented slaves to escape”. Who did this allowing? Slaves were worth an average of about $1,000 (1860 dollars). Property owners would not have allowed such valuable property to be lost.

The escaping slaves traveled up the Mississippi River, rarely going onshore until they got to Iowa.

The Mississippi River is several miles wide and has many sand bars and islands to hide on from about the Minnesota line on south.

My understanding is that many of the slaves came from the deep south and and had little understanding of geography. They generally knew to go north and the Mississippi River went straight north and going upstream was all the slaves needed to know to reach safety.

Going onshore anywhere along the river meant slave catchers. However, the MI River narrows and the current is imposing from about Clayton, IA on north. So the escape network largely became overland from there o the north.

Missouri favored the Union providing 110,000 troops to the Union versus 40,000 to the Confederacy. So fighting in MO was largely internal and a stalemate. Once St. Louis was captured, Vicksburg was the big prize to the Union and that is where the Iowa and Wisconsin regiments went.

Good aggregation of information, but pointless I think. ... Our opposition ... ... will heed nothing that interferes with what they wish to believe.

I had previously posted the information in post 108 in bits and pieces over many years. When it came time to find a specific quote or data, I had to search through my thousands of posts or find them in a small index I have of some of my posts.

I struggled with how to simplify my searches and make them less time consuming. Putting a large number of quotes and data into one post will make it easier for me to find specific related pieces of information in the future. I decided I would put a lot of information in one post. I'll be able to check post 108 to find information on secession, the ratifying conventions, statements by Founders, etc. That was why I made the post so long. I had an ulterior motive.

You are no doubt correct that my post won't affect our usual opponents. And the reverse/corollary is probably true as well. Both sides should provide backup for their arguments and try to avoid insults.

I have exactly this same problem, both with what I post, and with information that I find, but don't post. Many's the time I wanted some piece of information that I had previously posted, and could no longer find it.

Funny you should mention that. I had the same thing in mind regarding your post. I have it bookmarked. Of course I have a forest of bookmarks, so it's not always easy to find a particular one when you want it.

Both sides should provide backup for their arguments and try to avoid insults.

Insults are rather pointless. Nobody is going to mock or shame someone into agreeing with them.

They acted upon it in the only manner in which they can act safely, effectively and wisely, on such a subject — by assembling in convention. It is true, they assembled in their several States — and where else should they have assembled? No political dreamer was ever wild enough to think of breaking down the lines which separate the States, and of compounding the American people into one common mass. Of consequence, when they act, they act in their States. But the measures they adopt do not, on that account, cease to be the measures of the people themselves, or become the measures of the State governments. [Chief Justice John Marshall, McCullough v Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, (1819)]

That does not contradict what I was saying. The Constitution was going to have to be ratified in each separate state in order to become valid. There wasn't going to be a grand national ratification convention. Nor were state governments and state boundaries to be eradicated. But the acts of ratification did create or affirm a federated nation and an American people, and a convention in one state breaking with the Constitution and the nation was bound to be problematic.

All of this was debated at length a century and a half ago. The one thing we can say for sure is that there was no simple answer to the question of secession. Under those circumstances it was necessary to proceed circumspectly and with the involvement and consent of all parties concerned, not rashly, unilaterally, and in rage. Lawyering and case building now doesn't change the fact that there was no consensus and no obvious answer, other than perhaps cooperation of North and South to achieve a solution to the impasse.

[Lincoln] was from Kentucky, and I believe he had an uncle that had slaves, and so it's a little unclear how he might have developed a hatred for slavery having grown up amongst it.

Did you really not know that Lincoln's family moved to Indiana when he was about seven years old?

I now believe this may have been an artifice meant to appeal to the voting segment he saw as his path to power.

Did you really not know that Illinois was a Democrat state? Or that Lincoln lost his race for the Senate against Douglas?

Slaveholding wasn't Lincoln's culture. And do you automatically support things that you think wrong because they are part of you "own culture"?

And what's with the compulsion to ascribe opportunistic motives to people you disagree with or don't like anyway? I doubt you've made a serious study of Lincoln's motivations or of those of other people then or now, so maybe you shouldn't be so quick to cast aspersions on people and their motives.

Did you really not know that Lincoln's family moved to Indiana when he was about seven years old?

So you are suggesting he was traumatized by all the wicked slavery going on in Indiana at the time? (Been years since I've read a Lincoln biography.)

Slaveholding wasn't Lincoln's culture. And do you automatically support things that you think wrong because they are part of you "own culture"?

When it's part of your culture, it doesn't occur to most people to regard it as wrong. This sort of Oikophobia is normally a characteristic of Liberals.

And what's with the compulsion to ascribe opportunistic motives to people you disagree with or don't like anyway?

Because the evidence supports it. Lincoln repeatedly said he would do nothing to interfere with Slavery. For a year and a half, he was going to do nothing about slavery, but suddenly he decided he needed to do something about slavery, even though he also repeatedly said he had no legal authority to do anything about it.

Flip Flopping is a sign someone doesn't really hold strong principles about something. This tends to make you believe that what they say is an artifice to help their political career.

All of this was debated at length a century and a half ago.

I must have missed that. Last I checked, someone raised a massive army and went down and killed other people who objected. Perhaps you and I have different understanding of the word "debate."

One cannot seriously believe the break from the thousand year old government of the United Kingdom was reasonable, but a break from a four score and seven year old coalition of states is not.

The idea is silly.

doesn't change the fact that there was no consensus and no obvious answer, other than perhaps cooperation of North and South to achieve a solution to the impasse.

Ah, but there was a consensus. The Consensus of the Northern states was to let the "errant sisters" go in peace.

Lincoln deliberately tossed a monkey wrench into the peace by sending a war flee to force the Union member into the Mouth of Charleston Harbor.

So you are suggesting he was traumatized by all the wicked slavery going on in Indiana at the time? (Been years since I've read a Lincoln biography.)

Lincoln went south on a trip to New Orleans and it's said that he was revolted by slavery. More to the point perhaps, he'd worked his way up from poverty in a free society and economy and the idea of slavery just didn't appeal to him.

When it's part of your culture, it doesn't occur to most people to regard it as wrong. This sort of Oikophobia is normally a characteristic of Liberals.

You have to be radically polarized to believe that things you would otherwise think wrong are right because they are part of your culture. Such an view reflects the relativism that is also said to be characteristic of liberals.

But it should be clear by now that slave states and free states were evolving very different cultures. Lincoln was being true to the best side of his free state culture by opposing the expansion of slavery.

Lincoln repeatedly said he would do nothing to interfere with Slavery.

Lincoln repeatedly said he thought slavery was wrong, but wasn't going to do anything about it where it existed. He recognized that support for slavery was too strong there, and support for abolition would lead to disunion. It didn't do any good, as even his position was unacceptable to the slave states.

Flip Flopping is a sign someone doesn't really hold strong principles about something. This tends to make you believe that what they say is an artifice to help their political career.

"Flip-flopping" would be saying "Slavery is great!" one day and "Slavery is awful!" the next. Recognizing that something is not good and that little can be done about it doesn't count as "flip-flopping." What's possible in politics changes over time. What's desirable can also change.

Think of Nixon and China. Nixon wasn't saying Mao was bad yesterday and good today. He was saying, we can now achieve our long-term goals better with China inside the world political system than with China outside it.

I realize that Richard Nixon isn't the best example to cite when talking about political principle. Maybe Churchill is better. He recognized that Stalin was evil, but that he would have to cooperate with Stalin to ensure Britain's survival and Hitler's defeat.

It's easy to be smug about "principles" when you don't have responsibility for anything. It's easy to be inflexible when what you say and do won't have any possible effect on what happens in the world.

And more importantly, opposing the expansion of the representation vote for the people who were paying 80% of the bills.

You see, this is the sort of thing that makes me cynical. Three years ago I didn't know the South was paying the vast majority of the bills. I didn't know that New York was collecting the money and sending a good chunk to Washington DC.

I didn't know about the money side of this part of history. When I found out about it, I started looking more deeply at it.

What would happen if slavery "expanded" into Kansas, and Nebraska, and other western territories? (where it couldn't really expand because you couldn't make plantation farming work in any of these territories) Well those areas would vote with the Southern coalition against the Chicago/NewYork/WashingtonDC coalition.

They would lower tariffs, and they would probably modify the shipping laws to make it easier for competitors to carry their shipping traffic.

This would deprive New York of a lot of money. It was therefore in New York's best interest to hype the horrors of slavery so as to manipulate people into siding with their coalition.

Of course they wanted people to focus on the horrible horrible possibility that slave masters might be whipping poor people in Kansas and Nebraska, and they didn't want people to pay any attention to the fact that the status quo kept 200 million funneling through New York.

Lincoln repeatedly said he thought slavery was wrong, but wasn't going to do anything about it where it existed.

Because where it existed was a minority voting block in terms of congressional power. The one thing he absolutely would not tolerate is the possibility of it becoming the majority power, and able to stop the money stream going into New York.

The fact that slavery in any of the territories was implausible was irrelevant. The point was the power of Congressional representation, and the South must under no circumstances gain ally states which would interfere with the lucrative money stream they had set up to enrich the wealthy men of power in New York and Washington DC.

Realizing that control of the money stream oddly coincides with every activity pursued by Lincoln and the New York power block was eye opening.

Perhaps i'm cynical, but every path I see always leads back to the money. Not morals, Money. The morals are always camouflage for the money. Same as today in the modern Democrat (Urban Liberal) Party.

The one thing he absolutely would not tolerate is the possibility of it becoming the majority power, and able to stop the money stream going into New York.

You are apparently laboring under the misconception that Abraham Lincoln was a New Yorker, rather than an Illinoian (or an Illinoisian or an Illinoisan). Why would he care about the particular interests of New York City businessmen?

If Lincoln were as cynical a politician as you think and if it were all about the money, why didn't he throw in with the slave states? His friend and fellow Whig Alexander Stephens did so with a vengeance. If they would have all the money and the power it would seem like a logical move for an opportunist.

It was therefore in New York's best interest to hype the horrors of slavery so as to manipulate people into siding with their coalition.

More fantasy. Why would it be in the best interests of New York businessmen to antagonize the South if they were making so much money off it? Why would New York businessmen who lived or died from trade favor high tariffs? Then, as now, New York businessmen were flexible and capable of working with whatever party was in power.

The one thing he absolutely would not tolerate is the possibility of it becoming the majority power, and able to stop the money stream going into New York.

That is also foolish. Southern or Southern-oriented Democrats controlled the government for most of the period 1800-1860. They didn't do anything to keep New York from being the nation's largest port and financial center. Nor were they likely to do so since New York's well-being did not disadvantage them.

Overheated rhetoric aside, there were sound geographic and economic reasons why New York predominated. Your constant demands of moving trade away from New York look like the "crony capitalism" that you claim to oppose.

And seriously, it's hard to know just what you are talking about. What was going on in the 1840s and 1850s was very different from what people wanted or expected or feared in 1860, yet you talk as if attitudes and interests and realities were the same throughout.

All the overheated rhetoric about evil New York was a result of the animosities aroused by slavery. New York and the Cotton states had gotten along well enough before that.

P.S. What gets lost in all the talk about the tariff is that the country was running a deficit after 1857. Not a large deficit by today's standards (or even by Civil War standards), but large enough to cause concern. There was going to be an upwards revision of the tariff in order to reduce the deficit, and there was less argument about that than some people today realize.

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