Posted on 12/22/2019 4:23:47 AM PST by Bull Snipe
"I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the City of Savannah, with one hundred and fifty heavy guns and plenty of ammunition and about twenty-five thousand bales of cotton." General William T. Sherman's "March to the Sea" was over. During the campaign General Sherman had made good on his promise d “to make Georgia howl”. Atlanta was a smoldering ruin, Savannah was in Union hands, closing one of the last large ports to Confederate blockade runners. Sherman’s Army wrecked 300 miles of railroad and numerous bridges and miles of telegraph lines. It seized 5,000 horses, 4,000 mules, and 13,000 head of cattle. It confiscated 9.5 million pounds of corn and 10.5 million pounds of fodder, and destroyed uncounted cotton gins and mills. In all, about 100 million dollars of damage was done to Georgia and the Confederate war effort.
That may even have been true, just a century ago. IIRC, the Klan reached something of a membership peak in the 1920s or there abouts, and membership was definitely not limited to residents of Southern States...
It was true. The Klan did not exist in 1861-65. It was a post war creation of a defeated nation.
Removing the third branch of government would reduce the checks and balances and not add to them. Especially in cases where both houses of Congress as well as the White House are in the hands of one party.
In some places the Klan was more directed at Catholics and Jews. Of course people didn’t have to be in the Klan to be racist or anti-Black, but the 1920s Klan wasn’t just about White racism.
I encourage you not to be offended by my good friend Brother Rockrr giving you guidance on what to think and what to write. It wasn't really a rebuke of your earlier post - just his wisdom based on bitter experience.
After early reversals in the eastern theater and the first couple of hundred thousand casualties, President Lincoln's first inaugural address explanation for war (collecting taxes) no longer satisfied.
Then magic happened. The war took on a high moral purpose: as He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free.
President Lincoln announced slavery in the Confederate States had become ungodly, but that slavery in the United States would remain godly.
Therefore, troops from the Union slave state of Delaware fought in the Confederate slave state of North Carolina “to free the slaves.”
Troops from the Union slave state of West Virginia fought in the Confederate slave state of Virginia “to free the slaves.”
Troops from the Union slave state of Maryland fought in the Confederate slave state of South Carolina “to free the slaves.”
Troops from the Union slave state of Kentucky fought in the Confederate slave state of Tennessee “to free the slaves.”
And so forth and so on.
You see what I mean? He’s nuttier than a squirrel turd...
You forgot about 100,000 black men in the Union Army and 20,000 in the U.S. Navy, mostly ex-slaves, that fought to “free the slaves”. Against almost no black men in the Confederate Army or Navy fighting to “save slavery”.
You failed to mention that slave states of Kentucky, Maryland, and West Virginia provided troops to fight to “save slavery”.
You failed to mention that Slave states of North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Louisiana provided troops to fight to “free the slaves”
I recommend the adoption of the following resolution and articles amendatory to the Constitution of the United States:
``Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, (two thirds of both houses concurring,) That the following articles be proposed to the legislatures (or conventions) of the several States as amendments to the Constitution of the United States, all or any of which articles when ratified by three-fourths of the said legislatures (or conventions) to be valid as part or parts of the said Constitution, viz:
``Article ---.
``Every State, wherein slavery now exists, which shall abolish the same therein, at any time, or times, before the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand and nine hundred, shall receive compensation from the United States as follows, to wit:
``The President of the United States shall deliver to every such State, bonds of the United States, bearing interest at the rate of --- per cent, per annum, to an amount equal to the aggregate sum of for each slave shown to have been therein, by the eig[h]th census of the United States, said bonds to be delivered to such State by instalments, or in one parcel, at the completion of the abolishment, accordingly as the same shall have been gradual, or at one time, within such State; and interest shall begin to run upon any such bond, only from the proper time of its delivery as aforesaid. Any State having received bonds as aforesaid, and afterwards reintroducing or tolerating slavery therein, shall refund to the United States the bonds so received, or the value thereof, and all interest paid thereon.
``Article ---.
``All slaves who shall have enjoyed actual freedom by the chances of the war, at any time before the end of the rebellion, shall be forever free; but all owners of such, who shall not have been disloyal, shall be compensated for them, at the same rates as is provided for States adopting abolishment of slavery, but in such way, that no slave shall be twice accounted for.
``Article ---.
``Congress may appropriate money, and otherwise provide, for colonizing free colored persons, with their own consent, at any place or places without the United States.''
It's a lengthy address (happy to email a link to anyone who can't find a copy ), and contains more than just the proposed constitutional amendment. But Mr. Lincoln seems to have emphasized the benefits or necessity of union, notably in the portion of the address just prior to his proposal (which might have delayed complete emancipation until the year 1900). In the section following that proposal, he observed:
And if, with less money, or money more easily paid, we can preserve the benefits of the Union by this means [i.e., amending the constution as proposed], than we can by the war alone, is it not also economical to do it? Let us consider it then.
He apparently considered slavery to be an obstacle to his primary objective, which at the end of 1862 appeared to be restoring & preserving the union...
I'll have to remember that one.
Where?
“How you interpret the following proposal from Mr. Lincoln’s annual address to Congress, is obviously entirely up to you . . .”
I am not familiar with the proposal you cite. If I ever heard of it, I had forgotten it.
Please post the link. I’d like to read more.
I leap to the conclusion that you believe Lincoln and his troops fought the war to “free the slaves.”
For the purpose of this post, let's stipulate that the purpose of Lincoln's war was, indeed, to free the slaves.
That's a problem for anyone that claims to support the original United States Constitution.
Although some will occasionally deny it, the original U.S. Constitution included slavery. The founders provided an amendment process to peacefully change the Constitution but did not provide a mechanism for the President to use troops to violently overthrow the Constitution and its slavery provisions.
After the House Divided speech many southerners believed Lincoln, if elected, would use the U.S. military to attack the South and to violently overthrow the United States Constitution.
Maybe he did.
The proposed constitutional amendment is interesting, for several reasons. It would have provided funding to States where slavery remained lawful, apparently for compensating slave owners, if emancipation occurred before January 1, 1900; and it authorized possible resettlement of former slaves, somewhere outside the United State.
Those who see the conflict as some sort of 'anti-slavery crusade' might be disturbed by Mr. Lincoln's proposal, but he obviously was extremely pragmatic, when it came to human bondage. His focus on preserving the union was equally obvious, although I would find that obsession easier to understand, if the Constitution either explicitly prohibited, or necessarily implied a prohibition of, State seccession. But no clear restriction on secession existed, prior to ratification of the 14th Amendment...
Ain't that the truth! This is a long excerpt from "The Divided Union," by Randall and Donald, presenting some 1863 observations of the legendary act of "emancipation" (note: most opposition Union newspapers had already been shut down by Lincoln's thugs):
"The stereotyped picture of the emancipator suddenly striking the shackles from millions of slaves by a stroke of the presidential pen is altogether inaccurate. On this point one should carefully note the exceptions in the proclamation itself. The whole state of Tennessee was omitted; none of the Union slave states was included; and there were important exceptions as to portions of Virginia and Louisiana, those being the portions within Union military lines. In fact freedom was decreed only in regions then under Confederate control.
"The President has purposely made the proclamation inoperative [declared the N. Y. World, Jan. 7, 1863] in all places where we have gained a military footing which makes the slaves accessible. He has proclaimed emancipation only where he has notoriously no power to execute it. The exemption of the accessible parts of Louisiana, Tennessee, and Virginia renders the proclamation not merely futile, but ridiculous." As to the effect of the proclamation The World declared:
"Immediate practical effect it has none; the slaves remaining in precisely the same condition as before. They still live on the plantations, tenant their accustomed hovels, obey the command of their master... , eating the food he furnishes and doing the work he requires precisely as though Mr. Lincoln had not declared them free.... [The state courts] do not recognize the validity of the decree on which he [the slave] rests his claim. So long... as the present... status continues, the freedom declared by this proclamation is a dormant, not an actual, freedom."
"The proclamation is issued as a war measure, as an instrument for the subjugation of the rebels. But that cannot be a means of military success which presupposes this same... success as the condition of its own existence.... A war measure it clearly is not, inasmuch as the previous success of the war is the thing that can give it validity."
"We show our sympathy with slavery," Seward is reported to have said, "by emancipating slaves where we cannot reach them and holding them in bondage where we can set them free."
"The London Spectator declared (October 11, 1862): "The government liberates the enemy 's slaves as it would the enemy 's cattle, simply to weaken them in the... conflict.... The principle is not that a human being cannot justly own another, but that he cannot own him unless he is loyal to the United States."
"On the same date the Saturday Review, in a caustic article, denounced the proclamation as a crime, and declared that Lincoln's "desperate efforts to procure military support will probably precipitate the ruin of his cause."
"Earl Russell in England declared: "The Proclamation... appears to be of a very strange nature. It professes to emancipate all slaves in places where the United States authorities cannot exercise any jurisdiction... but it does not decree emancipation... in any States, or parts of States, occupied by federal troops... and where, therefore, emancipation... might have been carried into effect.... There seems to be no declaration of a principle adverse to slavery in this proclamation."
"It will be noted that Lincoln justified his act as a measure of war. To uphold his view would be to maintain that the freeing of enemy slaves was a legitimate weapon of war to be wielded by the President, and that a proclamation for the purpose would be somewhat analogous to a presidential proclamation blockading an enemy's coast, the legal principle being that a state of war puts the whole enginery of belligerent measures within the control of the President. In the new attitude toward slavery which the war produced it was natural to find considerable support for the view that slavery was a legitimate target of the war power; but it is a matter of plain history that prior to the Civil War the United States had emphatically denied the "belligerent right" of emancipation. Indeed John Quincy Adams, who has been credited by his grandson with having originated the idea of the emancipation proclamation, declared officially while secretary of state in 1820 that 'No such right [emancipation of slaves] is acknowledged as a Law of War by writers who admit any limitation. '"
[Lincoln and Emancipation, in Randall & Donald, "The Divided Union." Little, Brown & Company, 1961, pp.380-382]
Mr. Kalamata
“. . . it authorized possible resettlement of former slaves, somewhere outside the United State.”
This may explain why it was not talked about too much in my school’s history classes. Mention of this provision might have raised questions about President Lincoln’s commitment to the notion that “all men are created equal.”
Ingroup members influencing each other to arrive at a common outgroup stereotype.
See also: “smelly Walmart shoppers”
Please ping me if you mention me in your posts.
And yes, it would be the dumbest move imaginable for the founding fathers to fight a long war against an oppressive, cronyistic monarchy; and then spend countless hours drafting a Constitution designed to protect the liberties of the states and the people, only to turn over the interpretation of the Constitution to five politically-appointed lawyers. Frankly, that would be insanity.
The Constitution Convention specifically rejected giving the federal government veto power over state courts. Nowhere in the Constitution can judicial review be found, nor in the debates leading up to the ratification, nor in any of the rulings of the first court under John Jay. It was created out of thin air by the Adam's appointed Chief Justice John Marshall in Marbury vs. Madison, 1805. John Taylor explained the convention process, and the later tyranny, in this manner:
"Now this very case is that under consideration. The proposals for a national government and its negative over the state acts, were really made. They were opposed by the state deputies, who had a knowledge of them. They were rejected. A different form of government was promulgated. It contained no such negative. The states expounded its meaning to be federal, by a positive reservation of rights not delegated. And now they are told that the devil, thus repeatedly exorcised, still remains in the church." [John Taylor, "New Views of the Constitution of the United States." Way and Gideon, 1823, pp.35-36]
The founding father of substance outspokenly in favor of that kind of treachery was the merchantilist Alexander Hamilton, who, ironically, just happened to be a hero of future cronyists such as John Marshall, Joseph Story, Henry Clay, and Abraham Lincoln, as well as the cronyists of today, including every political Marxist, of course. In the Federalists Papers Hamilton expressed his desire for an all-powerful federal government, controlled by a judicial dictatorship; and he eventually got his wish -- but not without a bloody civil war. Woodrow Wilson explained the timing of the change of the guard:
"The old theory of the sovereignty of the States, which used so to engage our passions, has lost its vitality. The war between the States established at least this principle, that the federal government is, through its courts, the final judge of its own powers. Since that stern arbitrament it would be idle, in any practical argument, to ask by what law of abstract principle the federal government is bound and restrained." [Woodrow Wilson, "Constitutional Government in the United States." Columbia University Press, 1908, p.178]
Mr. Kalamata
>>”Amazing how no matter what the subject of the thread there are always a new Southron fanatic showing up spouting the same moronic opinions on tariffs and Lincoln and what have you claiming they are fact.”
It is good to have the oddball ideology of the Lincoln Sheeple challenged from time to time.
Mr. Kalamata
Won’t agree to your stipulation. Lincoln’s objective was to restore the Union. Freeing the slaves in the States in rebellion was a very shrewd political move.
The original Constitution acknowledged the existence of slavery in the country. It did not mandate slavery. It did not require slavery. There was nothing in the Constitution that prevented the outlawing of slavery by any state in the Union.
Once war began, the enemy was not afforded any protection of the Constitution because they were the ones that repudiated the Constitution. They were the ones that voluntarily withdrew from the Republic that was established by that Constitution. Lincoln as CinC was allowed the leeway to destroy slavery in the States in rebellion. The Constitution no longer applied to any state in the Confederacy. Outlawing slavery in the States of Rebellion is not un Constitutional because the Confederacy was no longer subject to the Constitution by their own actions. He did not outlaw slavery in any state that remained loyal to the Constitution and the Republic.
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