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...............
No fantasy required. Texas v. White decided that the pretended secession was of no legal effect.
The notion of the states in insurrection losing sovereignty was first (to my knowledge) proposed by Senator Sumner, and administration of the conquered states was based on laws passed on that basis.
So, unlike much neo-reb blather, it is based on law, fact, and history.
How about we keep the whole country, and educate people on facts, law and history, leading back to a government of limited powers.
Can someone educate me as to which States rights the south felt we’re being nullified by the North.
And, I will grant that the north was not abiding by the fugitive slave clauses.
Are there others?
The declarations by the south were all about slavery.
http://www.civil-war.net/pages/ordinances_secession.asp
It seems to me that the South was pissed that the north did not want to return their property without compensation. And if the north did not want to play by the rules, then they wanted out. And the north felt that the union was a permanent, unbreakable bond.
So, it seems to me that the reason for the war in the south was about being pissed about the rules not being followed..but the rules not being followed we’re mostly about slavery.
Can someone educate me as to which States rights the south felt we’re being nullified by the North.
And, I will grant that the north was not abiding by the fugitive slave clauses.
Are there others?
The declarations by the south were all about slavery.
http://www.civil-war.net/pages/ordinances_secession.asp
It seems to me that the South was pissed that the north did not want to return their property without compensation. And if the north did not want to play by the rules, then they wanted out. And the north felt that the union was a permanent, unbreakable bond.
So, it seems to me that the reason for the war in the south was about being pissed about the rules not being followed..but the rules not being followed we’re mostly about slavery.
No where in the Madison Letter, or in the transcripts of congressional debate on te declaration, is there any stated war aim abut annexing all or part of Canada. Private citizens in various roles stated desires along those lines, but the idea that the U.S. went to war to seize Canada has more to do with the anglophile bias of historians and professors that with reality.
the slave power had no interest in States’ rights which is usually the case when there is one=party rule.
Suddenly in the 50’s, the tide turned almost overnite and the slave power went from total rule, all branches of the FED govt ... to losing their power ... thus when out of power, the plea is for state’s rights.
Same with the Free Soilers. As soon as they became the majority: totalitarian dreams. Goes on forever ... the 21st century libs will some day be screaming states’ rights.
I don’t wanna see the country become like the Balkans. We would all have freedom. And wars and more wars. Lawyers and liberal poliicians are the curse of our culture and the only cure is serious poverty.
I'd call it simple common sense, since:
By my count, that's eleven different invasions of Canada between 1775 and 1813, plus Franklin's 1783 attempt to negotiate acquisition.
So I'd say some dreams of conquest take a long time to die.
That's not the truth, it's just neo-Confederate propaganda.
The great Southern Slave Power did not, repeat not lose power in the 1850s.
Indeed, it's power over the Republic was never greater.
This is demonstrated in any number of events, including:
Yes, from the beginning the whole thrust of Confederate and neo-Confederate propaganda has been to turn the actual situation upside down -- making it look as if the Slave Power was a victim of Federal over-reaching "usurpations" and "oppression".
The truth is just the opposite -- the Slave Power ran the Federal Government, from the Founding of the Republic all the way until its secession beginning in December 1860.
However, the currency I own is different than yours, so I suppose that your conclusions would simply be personal rather than factual.
You said: “The roots of the war at the corporate/political level was a fight to preserve slavery.”
In January of 1861, the states of the deep South had completed their secession. Within 30 days they had established their Constitution, laws, and court systems.
Offshore and interior trade was progressing uninterrupted. Ships from New York and Boston were docking in Charleston and New Orleans. Banks were open, goods were being harvested, and investments were being conducted.
There was no war.
Two sections were prospering.
April, and with Lincoln now in office, Federal ships appear off Pensacola and Charleston to forcibly dock.
They did not appear without orders from the very top.
They were stopped. Lincoln then called up state militias and ordered a blockade.
The evidence all points to the “root” of the war as being in Lincoln's office.
donmaeker only posts when the section nurse lets him use the communal computer in the day room. He needs to stop spitting out his meds when she isn’t looking....
You have attempted to engage me in the past with posts ranging from simply the opinionated, like this one, to outright lies.
You never exchange information in a rational or reasonable way. I think you are just a tired old person, amusing himself with bombastic secretions that do not move the conversation. Please do not bother me with your selected canards.
By the logic in that post, evidently we fought World War II because we wanted to annex North Africa and Normandy.
The U.S. invaded those areas to get at the enemy that had attacked us.
In 1812, perhaps the U.S. should have attacked the 300 Ships of the line and 300 frgates and 100 sloops of the Royal Navy with our 300 ships of the line and 300 frigates and 100 sloops - but all we had was six frigates. We did what we could; and it was barely enough to save the country within it's 1812 borders.
It was arguably the most glorious time in our history, and left-leaning America-bashing history professors delight in denigrating it.
This is the real lesson of the Civil War era that seems to be lost. The Federal Govt. is a construct that can be disposed of and reconstructed at will by the states - very quickly I might add.
Moreover in early 1861 Virginia, North Carolina, Arkansas and Tennessee were willing to stay in the Union and let the deep south go peacefully. That was until the Illinois Butcher™ Started sharpening his meat cleaver....
It seems that most of these posters and most historians seem to always join the ideas of secession to slavery, and war to secession as if they are all cemeted together in one simple construct and series of events.
It makes their narratives to protect Lincoln from the murderous war much easier to swallow.
Let’s see them rationalize that one.
Let the Lincoln Fairy tales begin.....
In fact, the US maintained a major airforce base (Wheeler) in Libya for 28 years after the 1942 invasion, and still today maintains "forward-operating bases" in Morocco and Tunisia, among other countries world-wide.
In Europe we still have dozens of bases in places like Ramstein, Germany and Rota, Spain.
All are the result of treaties and alliances, some of which put our militaries under single command.
Of course, none of these will ever lead to annexation, but Canada in 1812 is a different subject.
Again, by my count there were nine invasions in less than two years, nearly all defeated.
But had they succeeded, why would permanent military bases, treaties and eventual annexation not have followed?
Finally, let me appeal to an authority on this subject, former President Thomas Jefferson:
So, with British forces expelled, why would Americans ever want to "give Canada back" -- back to whom?
Canada would become just another territory, like the Northwest Territories and Louisiana Purchase.
Oooops. “Wheeler” = Wheelus Air Force Base, near Tripoli, Libya closed in 1970.
Sorry you don't like the truth, but the fact is that Southern "Fire Eaters" are the bad guys, the real villains of Civil War history.
They are responsible for both Southern declarations of secession, and starting a War of Secessionists Aggression against the United States.
PeaRidge: "Please do not bother me with your selected canards."
Let not your heart be troubled, I well understand how your own mind works.
In your own words, you "never exchange information in a rational or reasonable way," -- so I would not normally engage you, except as a formal courtesy in a case like this one, to further inform poster GarthVader on the subject of Southern "Fire Eaters".
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