Fly boy Slavery was legal in 1861. Yes, slavery was the excuse, not the cause. Besides secession needs no excuse. It could have been about tulip bulb futures, any reason to get away from Yankees is good enough. Why do you want us to stay anyway?, we’re like Palistinians in your opinion...
[LITTLE ROCK] ARKANSAS TRUE DEMOCRAT, March 7, 1860, p. 2, c. 2
The Exiled Free Negroes Returning into Slavery.
The northern papers have been busily assailing the inhumanity of the act which exiled this unfortunate class from our State.
We have now tested practically the law which relieved us from their presence, and the free negroes have tested the life of freedom among the freedom shriekers at the North.
Our experience is of the most agreeable character, and the law has proven itself to be one of the very best on our statute book. Since Arkansas has been made by that act strictly a slave State, since all hope is cut off by statutory enactment of slaves here being liberated by will, or deed, unless the slave is carried beyond our limits in the lifetime of his owner and set free, there has been a marked change for the better in the character of the slave population. There is no discontent and no disposition to shirk service due even to indulgent masters. We can safely recommend to our sister States the law as salutary and wise under existing circumstances. The conduct of the northern abolitionists brought about the necessity of this law, forced us in self-defence to pass it, and the result is they have forced into voluntary slavery a large number of free negroes.
Several of “the exiles” have returned and selected masters in this city. Others have returned to other counties to our certain knowledge, and those here report a state of facts which any one could have foreseen.
All left here with plenty of money. A few month’s residence reduced them to penury and want. They say the abolitionists swindled them out of all their money and gave them in exchange only lip professions, that the free negro of the North has poorer fare and a harder time than the slave of the South.
From the beginning my beef has been about the misuse/ignorance of the principles of the Declaration of Independence. The original article uses the Declaration of Independence to justify Southern Secession in the 1860's. I object to the use of the DOI for that purpose.
The DOI explicitly states that Separation REQUIRES and excuse.
a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation.
Governments long established SHOULD NOT be changed for light and transient Causes
Personally, It doesn't much matter to me why the South left or whether Lincoln was a hero or a villain. America stands or falls on whether Americans today understand and uphold the principles in the DOI. It's critical to our survival. Why should abortion be illegal? Because the right to life is unalienable. That principle was UNANIMOUSLY approved in 1776. Why is health care not a right? Because one cannot have a right to something that has to be produced by others. The right to own property is a natural unalienable right. Gay marriage? A child has a natural right to a mother and a father. William Blackstone: you can look it up. Civil marriage is about protecting the unalienable rights of children. Gay marriage is nonsense. Was Lincoln a hypocrite? I don't care, he wrote many things about the Declaration of Independence that we could use a weapons to defeat liberals, and that is what I care about.