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...............
But in answer: anyone who does not wish to live near me has always been free to move. Of course they are not free to force me to move, or steal my stuff or declare war on me. And if they have signed a contract agreeing to certain terms and conditions, they are not free to break the contract, in Madison's words, "at pleasure".
When they do such things, there will be serious consequences.
As to whether I'd support “the south having her independence,” that would depend 100% on precisely how “the south” went about the process of seeking “independence”.
a question is never wrong especially when asking for ones view.
Actually not in your life time but there coudl be a time when the south east especially CA wants to leave the union so it’s not meaningless for today or the future and countries throughoutt he world break away from their mother country.
Latvia, Balkans etc I wondered if you supported them breaking away just as if the north east today or the south said B/S to this we want out or even CA voting to get away and join Mexico wiht of course Mexico behind the scenes pushing this and make no mistake that is teir ultimate goal.
Immigration an issue where ones own country can be invaded and not a shot fired
If you reread my comment I think we are making the same statement. Maybe mine wasn’t clear.
It's the wrong question when it does not address the real issue.
There is no debate about a "right to secede", it was acknowledged by our Founders and by everyone since, including on these threads.
So your claim of some disagreement here is simply a tool for distracting from the real historical and potential future debates.
As I said before: our Founders acknowledged a "right to secede" (though not in those exact words, of course), but if and only if certain conditions were met.
Those conditions included "mutual consent" or "usurpations" and "oppression" having the same effect.
So the question in 1860 (or today) is: do those conditions for authorized secession exist?
The answer for 1860 was: certainly not.
The answer for today is: that's debatable, but no state today will vote to secede, so the question is irrelevant.
manc: "Actually not in your life time but there coudl be a time when the south east especially CA wants to leave the union so it’s not meaningless for today or the future and countries throughoutt he world break away from their mother country."
You mean, of course, the south west.
Again, the question is not their "right" to secede, the issue is the process they use to accomplish that end.
If a state legitimately votes and then applies to Congress and/or the Supreme Court to secede, agrees to accept it's share of such items as the National Debt (now $16 trillion), agrees to reasonable settlements of Federal property issues, etc., etc., and if during all this time (years?, decades?) remains friendly, peaceful and lawful, and does not change its mind along the way... then you could have a Constitutionally authorized secession, imho.
manc: "Immigration an issue where ones own country can be invaded and not a shot fired"
Democrats have always played "dirty pool", long before even 1860, but on this issue they may be playing with fire.
Still, it's very hard to imagine illegal immigrants voting to exchange the United States welfare system for that of Mexico... ;-)
south west, indeed you’re correect.
As for a question, I just wanted to know what you thought, LOL, WOW
Civil War aka the Great Rebellion...
There were no tariffs on southern products (at least none enacted by the US). Southern products were exported, and tariffs are enacted only on imports.
The north had plenty of cash crops. No cash crops needed slaves, as was shown by southern agricultural productivity after the war, when slavey was no more.
One issue loomed larger than any other in that year as in the previous three decades: the Northern tariff. It was imposed to benefit Northern industrial interests by subsidizing their production through public works.
But it had the effect of forcing the South to pay more for manufactured goods and disproportionately taxing it to support the central government. It also injured the South’s trading relations with other parts of the world.
In effect, the South was being looted to pay for the North’s early version of industrial policy. The battle over the tariff began in 1828, with the “tariff of abomination.”
Thirty year later, with the South paying 87 percent of federal tariff revenue while having their livelihoods threatened by protectionist legislation, it became impossible for the two regions to be governed under the same regime.
The South as a region was being reduced to a slave status, with the federal government as its master.
Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.
First, the victors didn’t write the books. Everyone did. Jeff Davis, a loser in every sense of the word, wrote two.
Second, the federal government didn’t tell states what to do, outside where they had clear authority in the constitution. The southern states rebelled even before Lincoln took office. Nothing Lincoln did can possibly justify the previous event of secession. The tariffs were low when the southern states pretended secession, and so they can not assert that the tariff was a cause of seccession.
For the south it was about slavery. Shameful, but true.
Of course the war was about slavery. That Lincoln didn’t start the war makes his views on how slave policy during the war immaterial. So then we look to those who started the insurrection and war.
The southern fire eaters claimed that the Republican administration would interfere with slavery. That the Republican administration did not interfere with slavery in the border states proved that they were at best incorrect, at worst, dirty liars.
The south had independence within the federal union.
The colonies that became the various states declared independence after the English began conducting war against them, as stated in the Declaration of Independence.
Breaking political bounds may have good reasons, and may have bad reasons. In 1776 the reasons were good. In 1860 the reasons were bad, so bad that southern partisans today have to lie about them.
There was no “Northern Tariff”. Rather there was a US tariff. It was low at the time of secession. In part due to secession, tariff rates were raised, by national legislation, and signed into law by President Buchanan. the higher tariff could not have been passed without southern cooperation, which was accomplished by the southern senators refusing to vote against it.
The south did not pay anything like 87% of the tariff. Tariffs were paid at ports. Most of the imports came to northern cities. The tariff records are available, and have been reviewed.
Most tariffs were for raw materials, which were the basis for industry, and northerners paid them so they could get the stuff they needed for their industries. The other category of tariff was on luxury goods. Rich southerners did indeed pay tariff on their luxuries, but poor southerners, both free and slave, did not.
Where was the money spent? Most of the forts (e.g. Ft Sumter) were built at smaller ports in the south, paying slave owners rent for their ‘property’. Ft. Sumter was perhaps distinguished by being built not on South Carolina soil, but rather on a shoal, with that shoal being built up using stone from NY and MA.
to some yes, to some no, thouands of union troops did not put their boots on and leave their farms ot free the slaves, nor did thousands of southerners put teir boots on and keep slavery.
Lincoln himself said he was not starting this war but I guess you’ll ingore that because you’ve been taught that in 5th grade
LOL YES HE only said slaves in those areas he had no control over could be freed but notice how he never freed any slaves in his control on the border states.
His wifes family once owned slaves
My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could do it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that..”
or how about when a certain offcier I;m sure you know who thatwas did free the slaves in a certain state and I;m sur eyou know that right and he Lincoln went bat crazzy and demanded that those slaves be sent back to their master
funny how he ever went by parish, I wonder why, o yes that was becasue those areas he had control over,\
Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana (except the parishes of St. Bernard, Palquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James, Ascension, Assumption, Terrebone, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the city of New Orleans), Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkeley, Accomac, Morthhampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Anne, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth), and which excepted parts are for the present left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.
In 1776 the reasons were good.
because it does it it fits your own narrative
Point out the lie, or you are the liar.
take it you did not read my post otherwise if you had you would have understood what Lincoln said and his actions.
You have a nerve to say I should point out a lie when I corrected you plus you was the one harping crap about southern partisans have to lie about.
You’re the one who jumped on a thread which died away and you’re the one who came on here saying what you said if it were the fact.
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I understand Lincoln. He wouldn’t let the slave power destroy the country through their insurrection.
Slavery was the reason the slave power began their insurrection. That is not sufficient reason. You agree with that because you deny that it was the reason.
Lincoln's primary intention was to hold the country together. To his discredit he was willing to "kick the can" on slavery in order to effectuate this primary motivation.
You attempt to color the water by bringing up snippets of Lincoln quotations that by today's sensibilities appear racist. By those standards there wasn't a person living in the 1850's who wasn't a racist. In other words, it is immaterial and not worthy of merit.
BTW: Both of you are a bit to casual about tossing off the "lie and "liar" appellation ;-). Manc, you didn't correct anyone, you merely offered a differing opinion.
Carry on.
Good catch. Like “Where’s Waldo?” there’s usually one quote of the old saw “victors write the history” foolishness in these threads.
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