Posted on 08/30/2012 2:40:56 PM PDT by PeaRidge
On 6 November 1860, the six-year-old Republican Party elected its first president. During the tense crisis months that followed – the “secession winter” of 1860–61 – practically all observers believed that Lincoln and the Republicans would begin attacking slavery as soon as they took power.
Democrats in the North blamed the Republican Party for the entire sectional crisis. They accused Republicans of plotting to circumvent the Constitutional prohibition against direct federal attacks on slavery. Republicans would instead allegedly try to squeeze slavery to death indirectly, by abolishing it in the territories and in Washington DC, suppressing it in the high seas, and refusing federal enforcement of the Slave Laws. The first to succumb to the Republican program of “ultimate extinction,” Democrats charged, would be the border states where slavery was most vulnerable. For Northern Democrats, this is what caused the crisis; the Republicans were to blame for trying to get around the Constitution.
Southern secessionists said almost exactly the same thing. The Republicans supposedly intended to bypass the Constitution’s protections for slavery by surrounding the South with free states, free territories, and free waters. What Republicans called a “cordon of freedom,” secessionists denounced as an inflammatory circle of fire.
Continued...............
I think you are reading his post wrong IMHO!!!
My first post was trying to explain the eternal arguments to someone not familiar with our debates.
My more direct take on the thread question is that I lean towards the view that it didn’t start out about slavery, but after so much horror and bloodshed, that it came to be more and more about the largest question of all, and came to be about slavery.
Yea, looks like a case of “friendly fire” to me.
I would hope that they sort it all out but I have my suspicions that years from now they’ll still be pissed at one another and neither one will admit that it started with slavery... ;-)
Lincoln supported his home state’s law, passed in 1853, forbidding blacks to move to Illinois. The Illinois state constitution, adopted in 1848, called for laws to “effectually prohibit free persons of color from immigrating to and settling in this state.”
To be exact
It was a very well done film, although it wasn’t all historically true. It did probably give some great insights, though. The Union English instructor character (commander who ordered the bayonet charge) was based on a real man, who wrote a book from his own notes about his own experiences at Gettysburg, IIRC. He might have admired General Lee much more in some ways than the producers/writers of the movie did, IIRC, although he found Lee’s court-like bows and hat to be a little comical, Renaissance-like and old fashioned, maybe (going on dim memory of reading the book here).
It’s very true that most southerners by far were not in favor of slavery. The War was started and administered by big shots on both sides, who also controlled the media then (including voices in speeches). Slavery—anti and pro—was very important to some in leadership and not the main reason for others. There were also a few who, along with European big shots (including Brits), had their eyes on countries south of the border for plantations. Most of the people of the South were at the whims of the political/regulator class back then, just as people of the North were.
The Civil War should also be understood in the context of the resurgence of the time in romanticism, BTW. People on both sides played that out, having ingested quite a bit of it while studying in their younger years. That resurgence of interest in romanticism of the 1800s might not have been good for us (see Anthony, Beecher, Hawthorne and many other suspects), but then it’s easy to be moralizing and philosophical as a grumpy, old man. ;-)
But the question on this thread was whether slavery was the cause of the Civil War. We have it from the Vice President of the Confederacy himself that the answer is yes.
Lincoln agreed with this:
"One eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union, even by war; while the government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it."
A Confederate POW was asked why he was fighting. He replied, "because you all are down here."
grumpy old men LOL.
Had an argument with a elementary school teacher about this.
She said it was all about freeing blacks but when I pointed out to her that the border states had slavery and he did not stop slavery in those states or even stop it in areas he had power in then she became a little rattled.
I asked her if she read the documents and his speeches and she said she read “killing Lincoln” by big mouth O.R [sigh]
Seems she had no clue about the border states nor the areas Lincoln had power in and I told her to read the order second to the last paragraph and she said she would.Weeks later she admitted she never did and still stuck by her own public school views of when she was 10
I said the current popular meme was that southerners are pro-slavery (see Joe Biden chains comment).
I didn't say that southerners were pro-slavery. I said that's what the popular media spreads.
If you don't want a very short tenure here, pay attention to the "NO profanity, NO personal attacks, NO racism or violence in posts. line when you post.
/johnny
does one person speak for a country? No course not, many people had different views n why they shoudl fight or leave the north .
Funny how America fought for indepedance but the north woudl not give the south independance .
You stated about Stephens but even old honest Abe admitted it was not about slavery.
To Brown it was, tom some slave owners it was but the vast amount of folks in te south and the north it was not.
Most in the north denied the south to have independance and most in the south wanted their freedom from the north and DC
Hey Johnny reb why you fighting
er because you are here on my land in my state
just said the same thing and saw your post LOL
It sums up the view from back then.
Over 800,000 acres were taken after the war by the feds but have you noticed how reconstruction is hardly ever mentioned?
/johnny
always wanted to research my ancestors but having grown up in foster homes then its hard ot get the records especially as those records seem to have dsappeared for the most part and I have only a few pages of reports from social services
interesting read and thank you
Just hope that once you get past the first hurdle, that you can plug into work that is already in process by your relatives.
The good news is that this is getting a lot easier today than it used to be, when you had to drive to every courthouse and cemetery.
Oh, yeah, the border states. There was horrible fighting between Missourians in some places—awful feuding in parts of the Ozarks during Reconstruction.
And yes—Lincoln. At least early on, his opinion was that African slaves all be transported back to Africa. But again, the context of Lincoln’s situation and perspectives were different from what most people would see now. He thought it was cruel to forcibly bring them to such a strange land (here, in America), as it was. He was also very anti-Slavery, of course.
At least some of the more prominent early feminists/romanticists who spoke in the Northeast for abolition also started riots with their spoken desire for secession. What a mess. Most common people, though, lived very hard lives of nearly nothing but hard labor and lack of comforts. Being very political was for the wealthy and famous.
“the south should have freed the slaves and THEN fired on Ft. Sumter.”
The same with Brown v Board of Education. Integrate and watch the North remain segregated. Wait that’s what happened except in the minds of those in Boston to Buffalo. It wouldn’t have mattered. They still like to make fun of Southern accents, even when they’re from Boston or Brooklyn.
From what little I’ve read from and about him, Frederick Douglass was a very admirable and moral man. His break with some of the early feminist/romanticist and self-described abolitionist folks was well-founded and interesting, too. Oh, yes, he wanted slavery abolished, but he also knew that some who tried to cozy up to him were very dishonest and had their other agendas.
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