COLLEGE STUDENT REACTS | Facts About Slavery Never Mentioned In School

This is why Lincoln wrote to each of those governors informing them of the passage of the Corwin amendment.

Did any of them change their minds? No. They weren't coming back.

New York controls commercial access for the great lakes states to the sea. I have come to view these states as a sort of cartel, and even their voting patterns show that they simply follow New York's lead most of the time.

Yes, you impose your own notions on the history. And again with the stupid Bush v. Gore map. I could post a dozen maps from US electoral history that show different configurations of states with parties, but don't want to waste time on that.

With New York the primary beneficiary of the Southern states production, it is inconceivable to me that the state would not do what was most in their financial interest.

So when you aren't saying that NYC wanted war with the South, you are saying NYC would do what it took to be the South's bidding.

No consistency. No surprise.

Auntie Dem: "So if the civil war wasn’t about slavery, what was the Emancipation Proclamation about?
If slavery was to last forever why did Lincoln free all the inventory?"

DiogenesLamp: "Self interest....
"...By destroying slavery, they took away the economic power the people of the South would have used to fight back against them economically.
It impoverished the wealthy people and put them into circumstances where they had no choice but to continue trade with the North and the usage of it's goods and services, or they would simply become destitute."

That's total nonsense, for the following reasons:

Economically -- by 1870 US cotton production had returned to 1860 levels and by 1890 was double 1860 levels, so the South was not permanently impoverished.

Politically, in 1860, Republicans were the anti-slavery party -- anti-slavery is the reason there were Republicans replacing the old Whigs who were mostly not anti-slavery.
Morally, Republicans opposed slavery on religious & natural philosophy grounds (as had our Founders) as well as on economic and political grounds.

So, by 1862, emancipation had become a matter of moral, economic, political and military necessity for Lincoln's Republicans.

DiogenesLamp: "And giving former slaves the right to vote, knowing full well and absolutely that every single one of those votes would support the Republican party, it gave them political power to further insure their continued control of the government and thereby access to the riches the government would provide from their manipulation of it."

None of that happened.
Instead,

In 1874 Democrats, including Southern Democrats, won majority in the House of Representatives.
In 1876 Democrats won enough votes to force an election compromise in which the Republican became president at the price of removing Union troops from the South.
In 1878 Democrats won both houses of Congress and Republicans effectively abandoned the South to Democrats.
In 1880 Democrats -- with the South voting solidly --narrowly lost the Presidency.
In 1884 the Solid South elected a Democrat president.

This is the House of Representatives election of 1878, in which the Solid Democrat South elected majorities in both houses of Congress.
Blue = Democrats, Red = Republicans, shades = mixed.

zeugma: "Pretty much all wars are economic."

Says the god of economics: Karl Marx.
Those of us who don't believe in such false gods think there's nearly always much more than just economics involved.

Correctly stated -- every war has an economic dimension, but pure economics is almost never the root cause, or the trigger.
One reason is because economics is all about free markets, where supply and demand set negotiated prices.
If we don't like the price, we don't go to war over it, we simply substitute something else.

zeugma: "By the time of the civil war, slavery was being gradually made uneconomical due to advances in technology.
The cotton gin was pretty much going to destroy the economics of it even further. "

Sorry, but that is the exact opposite of reality.
In fact, by 1860 slavery had never been more productive or profitable in the Deep Cotton South.
Both the numbers of slaves and prices for slaves were growing rapidly in 1860 -- the Deep South had never been more prosperous.

Yes, in some Border Slave States, like Delaware and Maryland, where cotton was not grown and slaves could more easily escape via the Underground Railroad, slavery itself was struggling and more than half of African Americans had already been emancipated.

But in the Deep Cotton South, in 1860 slavery was prospering and growing like never before.

zeugma: "Slavery was a factor, but northern business interests were also a factor.
If you think so much blood and treasure was expended merely to free blacks from a condition that had existed for as long as civilization, you’re delusional.
History is always more complex than a bumper sticker slogan."

When you worship at the feet of Karl Marx, then economics and class warfare become the be-all and end-all of life, the one explanation which answers every question.

When you reject Marx as your god, then you can begin to see that human beings are very often motivated by factors other than economic.
Words that are meaningless and arcane to Karl Marx can become more important again, words like patriotism, love of God and country & Constitution, morality and ethics, commitment to the just cause, legal obligations, honor, the truth as opposed to lies, honesty as opposed to deception, family, friends and community, the list goes on and on.

For good people such words mean a lot more than the price of gas or bread, or tariff percents on French wine.
Short of starvation, we are not going to war over those, but we will go to war if you threaten our highest values.

DiogenesLamp: "Irrelevant. Focusing on their alleged reasons for wanting to leave is dismissing their right to leave.
Their reasons for leaving may have been morally wrong or even stupid, but you cannot gainsay someone's right to do something because you don't like why they want to do it."

Regardless of what DiogenesLamp claims, no Founder believed in an unlimited "right of secession" at pleasure.
Instead, they believed in and practiced "secession" or dis-union under only two very limited circumstances:

From necessity under conditions they had experienced before 1776, "...when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government..."
At pleasure, by mutual consent, as they did in 1788 in "seceding" from the old Articles of Confederation to ratify theire new Constitution.

Secession at pleasure without mutual consent, our Founders considered to be nothing more than treason, rebellion, insurrection and war against the United States.

We should acknowledge that DiognesLamp hates that, more than Indian Jones hates snakes -- DiogenesLamp wants anyone to be allowed to secede at any time, for any reason, or for no reason, it doesn't matter because secession is a "natural right" in DiogenesLamp's mind.

But that was not the belief of our Founders, and it is their Constitution that conservatives are committed to protect, preserve and defend, so help us God.

Regarding something BroJoeK said:

I said "the North". You try to obfuscate by talking about Republicans and Democrats.

I don't even try to answer him anymore when he puts forth that spiel. The Northeastern liberals were Northeastern liberals back then, and they are still Northeastern liberals today.

They are still wealthy, still in control of Washington DC, and still using all the dominant media apparatus in the country to lie about their political enemies, and still making their money primarily due to their control of government.

They changed from calling themselves "Republicans" back in the 19th century to calling themselves "Democrats", mostly with the advent of FDR.

But BroJoeK wants to believe the Republicans were always the conservatives, and that the Democrats were always the liberals because he finds that idea comforting and it lets him ignore who was doing what to whom during the Civil War.

Yet it was the South that seceded, citing the preservation of slavery, not tariffs as the reason for secession.

You are taking 200 million dollars away from the control of wealthy and powerful interests in the North, and would you rather have them paying attention to that, or would you prefer they think you are doing it for some philosophical disagreement?

Paul Craig Roberts argues the assertion that "slavery" was the issue was just an effort to make a legal case for getting out of the contract.

It may have been that, but I think it was more likely intended as a naive effort at misdirection.

"Oh! We can't live together because we are so different on the issue of slavery! Therefore we will separate from you, and you can feel morally fulfilled because you no longer have to concern yourselves with slavery in your country!" (And by the way, we are taking 200 million per year out of your control. Maybe more even, but pay attention to the slavery thing, not the money thing.)

If you think the North cared more about the issue of Slavery than they did that 200 million, you are naive. If the South thought they could misdirect the North over a moral issue and thereby get them to ignore the loss of all that money, they were very naive.

Even when Texas tells you why they did it, you reject it.

Right back at you. FlT-Bird posted further details on Texan's feelings on how the United States short changed them after they joined. Did you read it? They had more gripes than just Slavery, but you appear to be the sort that was only upset about states with slavery that were trying to get out of the US, and not terribly concerned with US slave states that were trying to remain.

You do know that Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware and West Virginia were UNION slave states?

They left BECAUSE THEY LOVED SLAVERY.

And of course you are still missing the point that they could have had all the slavery they wanted just by staying in the USA.

You are just too brainwashed by 160 years of propaganda. You believe things that just don't make any sense, but it makes you feel good to believe them.

Paul Craig Roberts is not a historian. He is just an economist with an opinion but no expertise or recognized knowledge as to the antebellum South.

You are going to have to explain what you mean by "200 million dollars" in the control of wealthy and powerful in the North. Notably, in 1860, the South had disproportionate influence in the Senate, so there was no immediate danger of anyone doing anything injurious to the South about slavery or anything else.

Foolishly, the South chose secession and war. And not for control of tariff revenues but to protect slavery.

Again, the South's articles of secession cited slavery as the reason for secession, not tariff rates.

To be fair, three states cited "slavery". Most didn't say anything at all, and the very most important state (Virginia) said they seceded because the government had turned tyrannical in it's efforts to force it's sister states into submission.

But I see it as a constant assertion from people making your argument that 3 states who said that, speak for 11 states that did not.

In a era of substantial property requirements to vote, slave owners had the upper hand politically. In effect, non-slave holders were mostly disenfranchised.

That is silly. The men who individually owned land in the South greatly outnumbered the wealthy plantation owners. You didn't get more votes for owning more land. It was still one vote per man.

Did any of them change their minds? No. They weren't coming back.

Well Lincoln clearly thought they would, but we know in hindsight that the promise of permanent legal slavery in the US wasn't what they wanted. Apparently what they wanted was to not be part of the US.

I have looked at a lot of election maps over the years. I can't think of any where there was a great deal of separation between New York and the Great Lakes states.

They are commercially connected together. They share financial interests.

So when you aren't saying that NYC wanted war with the South, you are saying NYC would do what it took to be the South's bidding.

You are trying to split hairs to make it look like I am saying something contradictory.

New York wanted what was in the best financial interest of New York. Avoiding war and keeping the status quo where *THEY* continued to handle the 200 million per year in Southern trade with Europe was optimal.

Yes, New York of 1860 would vote to ratify a slavery forever bill if it maintained the status quo.

New York would also urge war if *THAT* is what it took to prevent losses to their industry.

New York would go down either of two different paths to pursue what it perceived as being in its own financial interests, and it would pressure the great lakes states that depended on it to go along with it.

And they would have done.

Paul Craig Roberts is not a historian. He is just an economist ...

I can think of no expertise better qualified to understand the situation accurately.

Perhaps here is the problem. The "Historians" don't know a d@mn thing about economics and won't look at it or focus on it, and perhaps *THIS* is why they constantly bark up the wrong tree?

You are going to have to explain what you mean by "200 million dollars" in the control of wealthy and powerful in the North.

Simple. The South produced 200 million in foreign trade, almost all of which was under the control of Northern companies. You may not be aware of this, but Northern businesses ran the entire foreign trade operation for all Southern products. They shipped the material, sold it in Europe, brought back the imported goods as payment and controlled every aspect of the situation.

Even BroJoeK will admit to that.

With the South separating from the North, the laws that made it possible for the Northern companies to control everything would disappear, and the South could then control their own trade with Europe and finance their own shipping companies.

I keep forgetting that other people don't know as much about the reality of 1860 trade as I do.

Yes, the North controlled it all, and secession meant they would lose control of all that money, and they would lose the protectionist laws that forced the South to buy their products at inflated prices.

Foolishly, the South chose secession and war.

The South chose secession, the North chose war. Lincoln started it you know.

He sent a fleet of warships to Charleston with orders to force them to submit to his resupply of Sumter or his ships would attack them.

Or did you not know about that?

And not for control of tariff revenues but to protect slavery.

You simply want to believe that despite evidence. I have already shown you that the North was offering slavery forever. The South said "no."

You still think the North fought over slavery.

Here's what's wrong with your thought experiment: if there was no slavery, there would be no Republicans, period. Republicans were the anti-slavery party, so, no slavery, no Republicans. Instead, the Old Whigs would have remained the opposition party, and the key fact about Whigs is: they were a national party. In good years for Whigs -- 1840 and 1848 -- they won as many Southern states as Northern. There was no practical difference between Whigs and Republicans except for slavery, and when slavery was not an issue, then at least as many Southerners voted for Whigs as for Democrats. Take away slavery, and the South in 1860 is no longer "solid", but rather is as split politically as other regions. That means there were as many Southerners supporting relatively higher protective tariffs as were opposed, and of course Southern Whigs would always insist their region gets a "fair share" of Federal spending.

The problems here are though the Whigs did tend to favor higher tariffs, they were not nearly as committed to it as the Republicans who were a strictly sectional party were committed to it.

Absent slavery, secession would never be threatened because matters of tariff rates or Federal spending were always subject to negotiation and reasonable compromises. That's where your thought experiment should have taken you.

Well, it did. Being a strictly sectional party, the Republicans were far more committed to high tariffs and lots of government largesse. My point was the economic interests of the regions would not have changed had slaves been sharecroppers or wage laborers instead. It was ultimately the very different economic interests of the regions that drove them to secession and war.

Even when Texas tells you why they did it, you reject it. They left BECAUSE THEY LOVED SLAVERY.

Even when Texas lays out multiple causes to you, you reject it. Texas left because the federal government failed to provide protection against the Comanche, because the federal government refused to secure the border, because the Northern states violated the fugitive slave clause of the Constitution, because the Northern states imposed economic policies which enriched themselves at the Southern states' expense, and because the Northern states refused to prosecute those who committed acts of terrorism against Southerners. They lay it out in their declaration of causes which I went through for you clause by clause last time.

You seem unaware of the details of US tariffs in the antebellum era.

I'm quite well aware of the details of US Tariffs in the antebellum era.

James K. Polk, a Southerner, was elected President in 1844 based in part on his promise to lower tariff rates. In 1846, Polk secured the lowering of the tariff to a rate of 25 per cent, which was further reduced in 1857 to rates of 16 to 24 per cent, making American tariffs some of the lowest in the world. Not until 1861 and the election of Lincoln were tariffs raised.

Yes, the latter was the Walker Tariff.

Again, the South's articles of secession cited slavery as the reason for secession, not tariff rates. ,/p>

Again only 4 states issued declarations of causes and only 1 of those 4 (Mississippi) listed slavery alone. 3 of the 4 went on at length about other causes especially the tariff and the unequal federal outlays which heavily benefitted Northern business interests. They did this despite this not being unconstitutional. Refusal to enforce the fugitive slave clause of the Constitution was actually unconstitutional.

In a era of substantial property requirements to vote, slave owners had the upper hand politically. In effect, non-slave holders were mostly disenfranchised.

False. Of course the most wealthy had outsized influence just as they do today. It would be false however to say non slave holders were mostly disenfranchised. The vast majority of yeoman farmers did not own slaves. The vast majority of townsfolk who were small business owners, skilled craftsmen, etc did not own slaves. These classes of people could vote. There were far more of them than large plantation owners who comprised less than 3% of the White population.

As established, the Confederate central government began with a tariff rate of 12.5 per cent, but trade and revenue soon collapsed due to the Union blockade. The Confederate national and state governments then tried to finance themselves and the war effort through debt and currency printing, which resulted in catastrophic inflation.

As established, the Confederate Constitution allowed a tariff for revenue (maximum 10%) but did not allow a high protective tariff.

Militarily, even in 1861, Republicans understood that civil war would mean emancipating Confederate slaves -- since slavery was the cause of secession & war, abolition was necessary to prevent that happening again. So, by 1862, emancipation had become a matter of moral, economic, political and military necessity for Lincoln's Republicans.

False. Slavery was not the cause of secession and war. The EP was issued to:

1) Hopefully foment slave uprisings in the South which would cause chaos, carnage and economic devastation. and Make it far more politically difficult for European countries which had already abolished slavery (Britain and France) to back the CSA.

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