Posted on 05/06/2009 10:35:26 AM PDT by cowboyway
One of the greatest misconceptions of American history is that the Civil War was fought over slavery. Those who subscribe to this belief see President Abraham Lincoln as the benevolent leader who made unimaginable sacrifices in human blood to wipe out America’s greatest sin. While the human sacrifice is indisputable and the sin was monumental, the war’s purpose was not to free blacks from the shackles of bondage. Rather, the Civil War was fought with one purpose in mind: To preserve the Union at all costs. And, to put it in Lincoln’s terms, with no ifs, ands, or buts. You’d better agree with the president, or else.
(Excerpt) Read more at tenthamendmentcenter.com ...
You're talking about a long period of time. Slavery ran from the early 1600's to the mid-1800's. During most of that period, slave ships flew the flags of European countries. After the U.S. gained its independence then a lot of U.S. ships participated in the slave trade, even after it was outlawed in 1809. And for a brief period between 1861 and 1865 the confederate flag flew over ships that ran a small number of slaves into the confederacy.
Now as to whether they landed in Northern ports, I'm sure that they did when slavery was legal and slave importing was legal. Just as they also landed in Southern ones.
Happy?
So you want more quotes from Hunter on the subject of slavery? Okay.
"There is not a respectable system of civilization known to history whose foundations were not laid in the institution of domestic slavery."
I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them.
And I don't think you would find a single member of the Northern contingent who would disagree with that. For the North it was never about ending slavery.
Didn't Northern States or State threaten Secession? Before the Southern States did it?
Your only mad at people who had the BALLS to DO IT?
Slavery or not- People have the Right to live under a Government of their choice
If all the Liberals moved to California would you fight to keep them in? Even if they didn't ask permission? That would be better than a lottery win
“Lincoln didn’t like or care about Blacks”
More nonsense!
Actually what Lincoln said in the famous 1858 debate was:
“I agree with Judge Douglas he(the negro) is not my equal in many respects-certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral or intellectual endowment. But in the right to eat the bread, without the leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living man.”
And Lincoln also said,
“This declared indifference, but, as I must think, covert real zeal for the spread of slavery, I cannot but hate. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world-enables the enemies of free institutions, with plausibility, to taunt us as hypocrites-causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity, and especially because it forces so many really good men amongst ourselves into an open war with the very fundamental principles of civil liberty-criticizing the Declaration of Independence, and insisting that there is no right principle of action but self-interest.”
Is that clear enough for you?
I don't know if threaten is the right word. Certainly there were people advocating it from time to time. But the Hartford Convention is held up as the primary example of New England secessionist movements and what talk there had been of secession had been voted down very early on during the convention, and the declaration that came out of it didn't threaten secession at all. It's interesting to note what the rest of the country thought of that secessionist talk. One newspaper editorial caught the mood:
"The Union is in danger. Turn to the convention in Hartford, and learn to tremble at the madness of its authors. How far will those madmen advance? Though they may conceal from you the project of disunion, though a few of them may have even concealed if from themselves, yet who will pretend to set the bounds to the rage of disaffection? Once false step after another may lead them to resistance to the laws, to a treasonable neutrality, to a war against the Government of the United States. In truth, the first act of resistance to the law is treason to the United States. Are you ready for this state of things? Will you support the men who would plunge you into this ruin?
br> No man, no association of men, no state or set of states has a right to withdraw itself from this Union, of its own accord. The same power which knit us together, can only unknit. The same formality, which forged the links of the Union, is necessary to dissolve it. The majority of States which form the Union must consent to the withdrawal of any one branch of it. Until that consent has been obtained, any attempt to dissolve the Union, or obstruct the efficacy of its constitutional laws, is Treason--Treason to all intents and purposes.
Any other doctrine, such as that which has been lately held forth by the ‘Federal Republican’ that any one State may withdraw itself from the Union, is abominable heresy – which strips its author of every possible pretension to the name or character of Federalist. We call, therefore, upon the government of the Union to exert its energies, when the season shall demand it – and seize the first traitor who shall spring out of the hotbed of the convention of Harford. This illustrious Union, which has been cemented by the blood of our forefathers, the pride of America and the wonder of the world must not be tamely sacrificed to the heated brains or the aspiring hearts of a few malcontents. The Union must be saved, when any one shall dare to assail it.
Countrymen of the East! We call upon you to keep a vigilant eye upon those wretched men who would plunge us into civil war and irretrievable disgrace. Whatever be the temporary calamities which may assail us, let us swear, upon the altar of our country, to SAVE THE UNION."
That was from a Virginia paper, the Richmond Enquirer. November 1814
Slavery or not- People have the Right to live under a Government of their choice.
Slavery or not, you have the God given right to try rebellion. Nothing guarantees you success.
If all the Liberals moved to California would you fight to keep them in?
Nope, it that's what they want then God bless 'em. I'd negotiate a fair and equitable settlement on all areas of disagreement and vote to bid them a fond adeu. Just as I would you and whatever state you decide to take with you.
“On the contrary, when the central government takes control of some private authority—be it the Church, the steel industry, or whatever—it’s all about the government...”
This is about financiers and banks.
“Top Senate Democrat: bankers “own” the U.S. Congress
Sen. Dick Durbin, on a local Chicago radio station this week, blurted out an obvious truth about Congress that, despite being blindingly obvious, is rarely spoken: “And the banks — hard to believe in a time when we’re facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created — are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place.” The blunt acknowledgment that the same banks that caused the financial crisis “own” the U.S. Congress — according to one of that institution’s most powerful members — demonstrates just how extreme this institutional corruption is.”
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/04/30/ownership/
In any event..the issue bears more than passing semblance to those who will insist the War of Nawthern Aggression was merely about slavery.
OH. I’m happy all the time. Knowing that I’m right always makes me happy.
LOL!
I nominate that as the lamest post ever.
“The blunt acknowledgment that the same banks that caused the financial crisis ‘own’ the U.S. Congress”
His admission is meaningless. Surely, bankers have lobbyists and Wall Street donations favor Democrats. but that’s not evidence that they “own” anything. It’s just that they happen to want what the Democrats want, that their interests match up.
I don’t think bankers are writing policy, or that their contributions are responsible for the Democrats being in power. What’s certian is that once you bring the state in to solve problems for you, it is no longer you that’s in charge. The state is. They’re the ones with the power, and their interests—which have little or nothing to do with short-term economic interests of the people who expect to benefit—will be the ones that prevail.
If I.G. Farben thought it was getting a deal when it got Hitler into office, it was sorely mistaken. Hitler had bigger plans.
In essence I agree with your observations about the state. I disagree with your observation that his assertions are meaningless.
If it were just about partisan power grabs...there’d be an apparent divergence of words, ideas, and behavior from the “different” sides of the aisle. The absence of such divergence...and the pathological conduct of the Washington establishment to an extraordinary popular “outsider” -Sarah Palin- is confirmation of Senator Durbins assertions.
I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the White and Black races—that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with White people, and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the White and Black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the White race.
. . . I give. . . the most solemn pledge that I will to the very last, stand by the law of the State, which forbids the marrying of white people with negroes.
From his fourth debate with Stephen Douglas at Charleston, Illinois on September 18, 1858
“Negro equality, Fudge!! How long in the Government of a God great enough to
make and maintain this Universe, shall there continue to be knaves to vend and
fools to gulp, so low a piece of demagoguism as this?”
From “An American Iliad: The Story of the Civil War,” Second Edition, by Charles P. Roland (Chapter 1, page 9): “Many antislavery advocates opposed the institution not out of principle or compassion for the slaves, but out of concern over its perceived ill effects on the white population. Congressman David Wilmot of Pennsylvania, a leading advocate of halting the spread of slavery, explained that he felt “no squeamishness upon the subject of slavery, no morbid sympathy for the slave.” “I plead the cause of free white men,” he said. “I would preserve to white labor a fair country, a rich inheritance, where the sons of toil, of my own race and my own color can live without the disgrace which association with Negro slavery brings upon free labor.”
“Finally and paradoxically, a racial factor contributed to the northern attitude. Antipathy against slavery often went hand in hand with a racism that was similar in essence, if not in pervasiveness or intensity, to the southern racial feeling. Many northerners objected to the presence of slavery in their midst, in part, because they objected to the presence of blacks there.”
Is that clear enough for you?
“But there are two sides to the issue and you’re looking at only one side.”
That’s true, but I feel I need only to look at one side to answer the rather limited issue to which I adressed myself. The issue is whether the war was All about slavery or not, not what the cause of the South’s rebellion was. I find it reductive to say that because the South cared about slavery more than anything else, the war was about slavery, and leave it at that. It was about slavery and union. It was about slavery, union, and other things.
I have to take into consideration the North’s position in order to understand why the war started, especially since they were the invaders (yes, after Fort Sumpter, which was an act of war, but wasn’t by itself the reason the North invaded, as we all know). By inquiring into whether or not it was all about slavery for the North, I find it was not. No need to go on from there. If it wasn’t all about slavery for the North, then it wasn’t all about slavery period. The South’s side is interesting but irrelevant to the issue, which as I’ve said is a narrow one.
“On the one side there’s Lincoln and the Union, and for him it never was about slavery and he said so on many occasions. On the other hand you have the confederacy, and there is an overwhelming amount of evidence supporting the fact that for them the single most important reason for going to war was to defend slavery.
In short Napolitano is wrong. The war was about slavery, he’s just looking at it from the wrong side.”
How can his side be wrong, when you admit yourself he’s right about Lincoln? Unless you think the North had no choice but to wage war, and everything that happened happened because the South started it. Back in reality, the federal government was not robotically reacting to the South. It had its own motivations and invaded for its own reasons. Lincoln stated them over and over: union, union, union. Then two years later, it was free the slaves, free the slaves, free the slaves.
Alton, Ill., in 1858, “in favor of our new territories being in such a condition that white men may find a home ... as an outlet for free white people everywhere, the world over.”
“But for your race among us there could not be a war, although many men engaged on either side do not care for you one way or another.
Lincoln claimed that “the people of Mexico are most decidedly a race of mongrels. I understand that there is not more than one person there out of eight who is pure white.”
” In 1860, Lincoln called for the “emancipation and deportation” of slaves.
Mr. Bennett adds.
“People in the North don't know how deeply involved the North was in slavery,” he says, adding that Illinois “had one of the worst black codes in America. People don't know that. . . . Black people were hunted like beasts of the field on the streets of Chicago, with Lincoln's support.”
“’That has nothing to do with the point at hand.’
‘Well, yes it does. Napolitano takes Lincoln to task for opposing the Southern acts of secession, and compares them to the colonists. He claims that ‘the right of secession followed from the American Revolution as the colonists separated from the British Empire and declared their independence...’ and forgets to mention that the colonists had to fight for that independence.” ‘”
When I said “That has nothing to do with the point at hand” I was referring specifically to your point about the British not supporting the Confederacy. That was really out of left field.
Anyway, if you ask me whether the federal government had the right to use force, I’d say yes. So did the British. You see, I honestly believe that everyone has the right to revolt and every government has the right to defend itself. Those concepts can stand side by side, so long as we admit that, as beings of limited knowledge, we never know for sure who’s “in the right”.
Anyway, whether the colonists had a right to revolt has nothing to do with the British reaction. If you believe the revolutionary cause was just, then you believe the colonies were sovereign. Not sure why you bring up the Brits’ opinion on the matter, except to say, “Hey, if King George could do it, so can Lincoln.” Just because the federal government could countermand the South’s claims with force does not make them wrong.
The states had the right to secede whether or not the federal government opposed them. That much is clear. Whether they should have asserted their rights and whether or not the feds should have fought back is another matter. Just as you cannot say the colonists had no right to secede because the British met them with force, you cannot say the South had no right because the war happened. It doesn’t follow. The North could have opted not to fight. Same with the British. If Tom Paine had his way, they would have let the colonies go.
That's something that can be googled pretty easily. General William Mahone became a Republican Senator from Virginia. James L. Alcorn, Republican Senator from Mississippi, had also been a Confederate General. Charles Pelham and Charles Hays were Confederate officers who became Republican Congressmen from Alabama.
General John S. Mosby also became a Republican. He also believed slavery was behind the war, and said: “We went to war on account of the thing we quarreled with the North about. I never heard of any other cause of quarrel than slavery.”
Fun fact (or factoid, I don't know how true it is): as a boy in California, George S. Patton knew Mosby, who reminisced about the war with him and staged little mock battles. Another fun fact: Longstreet also became a Catholic. Father Abraham Ryan, known as the “Poet Priest of the Confederacy,” played a role in his conversion.
“”“Is that clear enough for you?”
I said that Lincoln cared about negroes, and proved my point. I never said he was in favor of racial equality, which would in any case have been political suicide in his era.
“Lincoln was a 1860’s version of Hitler”
It wasn’t Lincoln who issued an order that certain enemy soldiers would be shot when captured, due to their race. That was Jefferson Davis. Perhaps the hatred that certain people feel towards Lincoln is a mirror onto their own hearts.
I’m inclined to say that slavery, being a historical accident with centuries of precedent, was not the fault of the South. However a century of Jim Crow racism was inflicted on this nation primarily by Southern racists. One of the dreadful results of this century of manifest injustice is the election of Barack Obama as POTUS.
Robert Werlich, “Beast” Buller: The Incredible Career of Union Major General Benjamin F. Butler (Washington, D.C.: The Quaker Press, 1962), p. 39
“As the officers and soldiers of the United States have been subject to repeated insults from the women calling themselves “ladies” of New Orleans in return for the most scrupulous non-interference and courtesy on our part it is ordered that hereafter when any female shall by word, gesture or movement insult or show contempt for any officer or soldier of the United States she shall be regarded and held liable to be treated as a woman of the town plying her avocation.”
Do you agree with Rape?
Palmerston, the British Prime Minister, wrote to Charles Francis Adams, the U.S. Minister in London the following concerning Butler’s order
“I will venture to say that no exanple can be found in the history of civilized nations till the publication of this order of a General guilty in cold blood of so infamous an act as deliberately to hand over the female inhabitants of a conquered city to the unbridled license of an unrestrained soldiery”
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