Posted on 07/18/2022 1:02:13 PM PDT by Dr. Franklin
Recording made in 1947 when he was 101 years old as an oral history of the American Civil War, (or the War Between the States, as it is known in South). This man joined the 24th Virginia Calvary in 1862 at the age of 16 and and half. He was eventually taken prisoner in the Spring of 1965 at what must have been the Battle of Hillsman's House since her refers to Gen. Ewell's surrender. He was held at Point Lookout, Maryland until the end of the war.
He is quite emphatic that the South didn't fight for "the preservation or extension of slavery", but for states rights. When he begins by reminiscing about the "early 50's", he was, of course, referring to the 1850's.
Yes, the CSA Constitution included provisions for slavery.
Does the fact the southern states had slaves disqualify them from declaring independence from the Union states?
No, being incapable of making the legal argument to break the agreed upon framework disqualified them. They even refused to debate it with Congress and President Lincoln.
You can leave a marriage the same way as the CSA, but even that one has legal and moral consequences.
The CSA was the bad spouse.
Why then the long slavery philippic in your post 184, and the subsequent reference to the superiority of whites? Why mention those things if they were not disqualifying?
It shows the corrupt motive and heart of the CSA as not being the noble reasons you believe.
Even sick people have a right to be wrong and still be allowed due process, a due process all the states formally agreed upon and had to abide by.
“It (slavery) shows the corrupt motive and heart of the CSA as not being the noble reasons you believe.”
That is an interesting comment.
Do you believe the 13 slave states that rebelled against the authority of the King had corrupt motives?
I ask that question with a reminder - the 13 colonies/states had slaves before the Revolutionary War; during the war; and after the war.
I believe, and history shows, that England forced slavery on all the states. Jefferson even was appalled at its use.
The motives were against England, while only southern states insisted on keeping and growing slavery.
That is why the South required a pro slave state to be admitted with each state that was against it, as the country grew.
While England rid itself from the slave trade in 1807, even as of the 1860s, the Southern states were enshrining it as the ultimate good of humankind.
“The motives were against England, while only southern states insisted on keeping and growing slavery.”
Check me: the original slave states that voted unanimously to included slavery in the United States Constitution were: New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Maryland, Delaware, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts.
Also, Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia were slave states voting to include slavery in the United States Constitution. Don’t ever forget to cast four thirteenths responsibility in that direction.
Going forward in this discussion, is it your intention to defend and justify the states that voted to include slavery in the United States Constitution?
I don't deny that, at all. It was to the South's benefit to breed as many non-voting votes as they could. The Northern states never should have agreed to that.
Who said the Constitution had to be signed by all?
From the beginning, it was agreed that only nine states had to ratify the proposed constitution for it to be established.
Actually, there is no reason why non-slave states couldn't have formed their own nation if they had felt strongly about it. But, they didn't feel strongly about it because it was not in their economic and political best self interest to feel strongly about it.
And so the original 13 slave states voted unanimously to include slavery in the United States Constitution.
Do you believe the original 13 slave states had corrupt motives in forming the new nation?
The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union made up our first “constitution” (Note that the Southern states signed a document stating they were are permanent part of a “perpetual union,” as that again proves the lie to being able to abandon the Union.).
Having the Constitution only formally owned by nine of the 13 colonies would not have been a ringing endorsement of the Union. Sure, it would have been legally bound by all states, but it would be less than optimal for a long term future. Strangely, it’s not unlike Congress and bills that pass by the minimum needed—it may be flipped back the other way by a future vote.
The idea the states could firm a separate nation when they had signed their oath to a Perpetual Union already, is ridiculous, on its face.
The war lasted a little over 4 years. It has been refought here on FR for almost 3 decades now.
Sure. The North kicked the south’s ass. But let them go way too easy.
“The North kicked the south’s ass.”
I thought you were going to say your daddy could whip my daddy.
You surprised me by going full intellectual. Your education is worth every penny spent.
So, I am having a tough time recalling the years of reconstruction where they rebuilt Boston, NYC, and Philly. Richmond, savannah, and Atlanta are still whining about the whooping they got.
It’s easy to structure your reasoning 150 years later. The long and short of it is, the South lost the war.
It’s time to accept your great grandpa’s humiliation and move on.
“Having the Constitution only formally owned by nine of the 13 colonies would not have been a ringing endorsement of the Union. Sure, it would have been legally bound by all states, but it would be less than optimal for a long term future.”
No. Not all states would have been legally bound; only the states ratifying would have been bound by the Constitution.
The problem has been identified: you have never read the Constitution or else you do not remember.
Still, your excursion does distract from the fact you are not prepared to confront the ugly truth that northern states easily incorporated slavery into the United States Constitution because it was in their economic and political best self interest.
“So, I am having a tough time recalling the years of reconstruction where they rebuilt Boston, NYC, and Philly.”
Whiskey talk?
No known connection but this past weekend 73 people were shot down in the streets of Chicago.
And you obviously didn’t realize a “Perpetual Union” meant anything in Law.
The Constitution does not supersede the natural law right of Independence. The framers of the constitution understood natural law, and nothing they wrote in the constitution is contrary to natural law.
In simple terms, the constitution does not attempt to deny the natural right to independence. It's requirements only apply to those who consent to remain under it.
Leave the Union via a lawful, legal way, or expect repercussions.
The people of a state deciding they no longer wish to be part of the Union *IS* a lawful legal way of leaving the Union. It is the manner in which the 13 states left the United Kingdom, and it just as valid to leave the subsequent government.
Those states that unilaterally left immediately after Lincoln was voted in on Election Day left without even a vote around it.
That is incorrect. All states that left, had an election on secession, and the people chose to secede.
There was no authority to do so within the Constitution...
It is a natural law right, given by God, and not subject to man's approval. The constitution has no authority to deny this natural law right. Even Lincoln believed this at one time.
Lincoln's speech to Congress regarding Texas independence from Mexico. (1848)
"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. This is a most valuable,—most sacred right—a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world. 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. More than this, a majority of any portion of such people may revolutionize, putting down a minority, intermingled with, or near about them, who may oppose their movement. Such minority, was precisely the case, of the tories of our own revolution.
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and the Declaration of Independence literally describes the need for “redress” to any issues.
You are misconstruing it. It says "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."
Notice it isn't a requirement it is a suggestion.
Before that it says: "When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them...
Notice the word "Entitle"? That means it is their *RIGHT*.
When you unilaterally leave your agreement without going through the allowed options for redress
They spent 40 years or more trying to redress the issue. The Northern coalition would make laws that favored themselves against the best interests of the Southern states, and after 40 years of it, the South had finally had enough. The South had been paying 72% of all the taxes and all the money was getting spent in the North. The South acquired no benefit whatsoever from being a member of the "Union." It was a money loss every way you looked at it.
The CSA abandoned the US and became Enemies in War, and lost that war.
Since Abraham Lincoln launched an attack against them, they had no choice but to be enemies. When a man wants to make war against you, you will be his enemy no matter how much you want peace. And yes, the 4 times bigger bully nation won, and they won because they were 4 times bigger. This doesn't make their conquest right.
Can you understand the norms of 1860 in context? Your ancestor did not fight in Maryland against slavery. He did not fight in Delaware against slavery. He did not fight in Kentucky against slavery. He did not fight in West Virginia against slavery. He did not fight in Missouri against slavery. He did not fight in any Northern state which still had slavery.
Therefore I argue his fight was not against slavery, but was instead against people who did not wish to be ruled by corrupt greedy Washington DC, and that slavery had nothing to do with where he went to fight and why he was fighting.
Let us say for the sake of argument, that they were the worst people who ever existed.
They still had a right to independence. Just as people speaking horrible things have a right to freedom of speech, so too do people of whom you disapprove, still have a right to self determination.
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