Posted on 01/20/2016 5:03:47 AM PST by Kaslin
Last July, Anthony Hervey, an outspoken black advocate for the Confederate flag, was killed in a car crash. Arlene Barnum, a surviving passenger in the vehicle, told authorities and the media that they had been forced off the road by a carload of "angry young black men" after Hervey, while wearing his Confederate kepi, stopped at a convenience store en route to his home in Oxford, Mississippi. His death was in no small part caused by the gross level of ignorance, organized deceit and anger about the War of 1861. Much of the ignorance stems from the fact that most Americans believe the war was initiated to free slaves, when in truth, freeing slaves was little more than an afterthought. I want to lay out a few quotations and ask what you make of them.
During the "Civil War," ex-slave Frederick Douglass observed, "There are at the present moment many colored men in the Confederate army doing duty not only as cooks, servants and laborers, but as real soldiers, having muskets on their shoulders, and bullets in their pockets, ready to shoot down loyal troops, and do all that soldiers may to destroy the Federal Government and build up that of the traitors and rebels" (Douglass' Monthly, September 1861).
"For more than two years, negroes had been extensively employed in belligerent operations by the Confederacy. They had been embodied and drilled as Rebel soldiers, and had paraded with White troops at a time when this would not have been tolerated in the armies of the Union." (Horace Greeley, in his book, "The American Conflict").
"Over 3,000 negroes must be included in this number (of Confederate troops). These were clad in all kinds of uniforms, not only in cast-off or captured United States uniforms, but in coats with Southern buttons, State buttons, etc. These were shabby, but not shabbier or seedier than those worn by white men in rebel ranks. Most of the negroes had arms, rifles, muskets, sabres, bowie-knives, dirks, etc. They were supplied, in many instances, with knapsacks, haversacks, canteens, etc., and were manifestly an integral portion of the Southern Confederacy Army. They were seen riding on horses and mules, driving wagons, riding on caissons, in ambulances, with the staff of Generals, and promiscuously mixed up with all the rebel horde" (report by Dr. Lewis H. Steiner, chief inspector of the U.S. Sanitary Commission).
In April 1861, a Petersburg, Virginia, newspaper proposed "three cheers for the patriotic free Negroes of Lynchburg" after 70 blacks offered "to act in whatever capacity" had been "assigned to them" in defense of Virginia.
Those are but a few examples of the important role that blacks served as soldiers, freemen and slaves on the side of the Confederacy. The flap over the Confederate flag is not quite so simple as the nation's race "experts" make it. They want us to believe the flag is a symbol of racism. Yes, racists have used the Confederate flag as their symbol, but racists have also marched behind the U.S. flag and have used the Bible. Would anyone suggest banning the U.S. flag from state buildings and references to the Bible?
Black civil rights activists, their white liberal supporters and historically ignorant Americans who attack the Confederate flag have committed a deep, despicable dishonor to our patriotic Southern black ancestors who marched, fought and died not to protect slavery but to protect their homeland from Northern aggression. They don't deserve the dishonor. Dr. Leonard Haynes, a black professor at Southern University, stated, "When you eliminate the black Confederate soldier, you've eliminated the history of the South."
You do the bait and switch. Nobody said anything about Congress. What I said was STATES had to respect the constitutional requirement to return slaves to their masters. I said that the wording in that clause of the constitution makes it virtually impossible to ban slavery.
So if you have a constitutional LAW that says "free states" must return slaves to their masters, how "free" can a state be? It can't, unless those states defy the constitution.
Your logic is based solely on the Supreme Court's 1857 Dred Scott decision, not on Founders' original intentions.
My logic is based on the fact that they put those words in the US Constitution, and I can see no way a free state can get around them without violating that requirement.
I say the Dred Scott decision was correct as a matter of law, because that's the consequence I see of states abiding by that requirement. You can't get rid of slavery in your state if your state is required to return fugitive slaves to their masters.
So long as the slave is held by the laws of another state, no free state can legally free him.
But only within the limits allowed by Pennsylvania law.
A courtesy on his part. I think had it gone to a Federal court, the court would have ruled he could do whatever he wanted because the State of Pennsylvania could not lawfully deprive him of his property.
DL "Holier than thou" is emblematic of the mindset of the North Eastern puritans who first burned "witches", and then turned their attentions to other social causes of the day.
And then, while I was looking up something else, I came across this:
Abraham Lincoln's Lyceum Address (1838) During the speech, Lincoln referenced two murders committed by pro-slavery mobs. The first was the burning of Francis McIntosh, a freedman who killed a constable, and was subsequently lynched by a mob in St. Louis in 1836. Lincoln also referenced the death of Elijah Parish Lovejoy, a newspaper editor and abolitionist, who was murdered three months earlier by a pro-slavery mob in nearby Alton, Illinois.
Do yourself a favor and search "the burning of Francis McIntosh". Seems y'all had some mighty peculiar mindset of your own. Makes me really proud that Abe kicked the living s**t out of y'all, from north to south, from east to west, over hills and mountains and lakes....
But if you wish to fantasize such a tariff "war", then you must assume that Congress would quickly adjust Union tariffs to make them more competitive, and the result would not be economic ruin in the North.
DiogenesLamp: "The US Would have been supplied with European goods going through the Southern ports instead of New York, Boston and Philadelphia."
Remember, in 1860 50% of cotton exports already went through New Orleans, and that in no way ruined Northern cities' trade.
So, given its location, at most, Charleston could ship 10% of US cotton exports -- perhaps $20 million a year, as compared to total imports of $362 million in 1860.
Bottom line: there is no reason to suppose that Charleston would ever become a larger port than it is today.
DiogenesLamp: "Bottom line, an Independent South was a financial disaster for the Monied people in New England. Utter disaster."
Bottom line: the "utter disaster" you fantasize did happen during the Civil War, and the result was Northern economies adjusted, expanded and came out more prosperous and dominant than ever.
So your argument here is ludicrous.
No "bait and switch" since the subject of state laws is addressed in my very next paragraph.
Read and comprehend, FRiend.
DiogenesLamp: "...STATES had to respect the constitutional requirement to return slaves to their masters.
I said that the wording in that clause of the constitution makes it virtually impossible to ban slavery."
And I reminded you, for the umpteenth time: that no Founder -- none, zero, nada -- ever made such a ludicrous argument, in either 1787 or any time later.
Instead, your argument was concocted out of thin air, just as more recent Supreme Court rulings have been concocted, and was in no way consistent with Founders' Original Intent.
DiogenesLamp: "My logic is based on the fact that they put those words in the US Constitution, and I can see no way a free state can get around them without violating that requirement."
But you cannot point to a single Founder who read our Constitution the way you read it, and therefore, by definition, your argument is bogus to the max.
DiogenesLamp: "A courtesy on his part.
I think had it gone to a Federal court, the court would have ruled he could do whatever he wanted because the State of Pennsylvania could not lawfully deprive him of his property."
But, of course, he never did that, doubtless because he had no desire or need to, and because no Founder ever expressed the view that states could not constitutionally abolish slavery.
So your argument, like the Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision, is pure fantasy and bogus to the max.
Must have missed it. Yeah, we know they hung them and drowned them and what not, but people generally think of "burning witches" when they think of "witch trials." The main point is that their "Holier than thou" attitude is real, and they used to kill "witches". Your point is trivial.
Do yourself a favor and search "the burning of Francis McIntosh". Seems y'all had some mighty peculiar mindset of your own. Makes me really proud that Abe kicked the living s**t out of y'all, from north to south, from east to west, over hills and mountains and lakes....
Oh. We're going to do the childish "Well your side did it too!" thing.
We're also going to ignore the fact that the entire society and legal system of Massachusetts was behind the systematic persecution of people in "witch trials" and subsequent murders of innocent people, but were going to equate it to the random criminal acts initiated by angry mobs, years apart, and in entirely different regions, and with likely far more reasonable cause.
Makes me really proud that Abe kicked the living s**t out of y'all, from north to south, from east to west, over hills and mountains and lakes....
Not my folk. We didn't get here until after 1900, and we never lived in a Southern State.
I'm objective. I don't have a personal dog in the fight. That's why I can see it for what it really was. A murderous conquest. An oppression. A killing of innocent people who just wanted to be free of control from Washington D.C.
The more I look at it, the more I realize it was about money. The money New England would lose if Southern ports obtained dominance in the trade traffic with Europe.
I think understanding this money business is probably over your head, so i'm not going to waste a lot of time trying to explain it to you.
But the same forces that oppressed them, are oppressing us today. The United States is ran from New York.
The media there steer the elections, and the Donors there give the politician their marching orders.
This is why electing a Republican congress has achieved nothing. The New York Washington corridor is where the real power in this nation lies.
Lower revenue collections? Congress? Be serious.
Even with tariffs of the same percentage, Cotton and Tobacco no longer going through New York would have been a massive impact to the economic system of New York.
Look at this picture again. Imagine 80% of that pile moved over to South Carolina.
Over time, the shipping to Charleston would have simply increased more and more, and the City would have started to rival the economic might of New York. The primary conduit of European goods and services to the interior of the US would have come through Southern ports instead of New England ports.
Very big money, eventually. So big that New England could not allow it to happen.
You aren't explaining how i'm wrong, you just keep asserting that it's "bogus to the max."
Whatever. I know from past experience that you like to get on the merry go round and go round and round in circles till we all feel like puking.
You are arguing that constitutional law must yield to state law, and that is just silly nonsense.
Sadly, I am out of time tonight. (Nope, we didn’t drown them either.) We are talking about 1692. Half of those involved were born in England, where witches were burned and drowned.
I'm not the one trading winks with another dude(?) on a public forum, Sheila. Now why don't you scoot along and make up some more of that fantasy history that you and your posse are so good at. It's quite amusing.
That was disHonest Abe's main agenda: an all powerful centralized government. Anybody that defends and applauds Lincoln cannot call themselves a constitutional conservative.
But you are obviously not "objective".
You've been drinking pro-Confederate koolaid by the gallon, and it's rotting your brain.
The result is you invent ludicrous fantasies that never happened while ignoring actual history which did happen.
DiogenesLamp: "A murderous conquest.
An oppression.
A killing of innocent people who just wanted to be free of control from Washington D.C."
No, a tragic war premeditated, provoked, started, formally declared and prosecuted by Confederates against the United States, long before any significant response from the Union Army.
Perhaps it would help you to remember that Confederate President Jefferson Davis had been not only a United States Senator, but also a former Secretary of War ('53-57 under Pierce).
In the 1847 Mexican War, Davis, a West Point graduate, had served with great distinction as regimental colonel, under command of his father-in-law, future President Zachary Taylor.
At war's end, Davis was offered promotion to general, but turned it down, accepting instead, appointment to fill a vacant US Senate seat.
From his extensive military & political experience, Davis judged Northern leaders frightened, weak-willed and unable to make a serious military response.
He believed that a major show of force should be enough to force weak Northerners to back down and give his new Confederacy whatever they demanded.
So in early March, 1861, Davis called up 100,000 troops (versus 17,000 in the US Army), and ordered preparations for military assault on Fort Sumter.
That would show them!
But Davis had never met, and knew nothing about Abraham Lincoln.
Lawyer Lincoln's only military command experience was as militia captain during the Black Hawk war (1832).
And Lincoln's top concern was not money, as you've so often asserted, but rather his oath of office: "to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution."
He was also determined, and so publically announced, that if war came, it would not be the Union starting war.
So Lincoln hoped to maintain peaceful relations with the new Confederacy, however, he did not agree with President Buchanan abandoning all US forts, ships, arsenals & mints to Confederates.
Lincoln was determined to hold the two major Federal assets which remained: Fort Pickens at Pensacola, Florida and Fort Sumter at Charleston.
Just as President Buchanan had in January, Lincoln in April, 1861, ordered resupply missions to those two forts, and just as Buchanan had in January, Lincoln's missions were met with violence from Confederates.
But in April, Confederate violence was orders of magnitude higher than previous, a military assault on Fort Sumter which was clearly an act of war against the United States.
So Lincoln went to the Federal "play book" which had been developed many years earlier as response to potential rebellion-insurrections.
He called up 75,000 troops to retake the lost forts, and ordered General Winfield Scott's "Anaconda Plan" to blockade Southern ports.
Davis responded by formally declaring war on the United States, calling up another 400,000 troops (500,000 total), sending military aid to pro-Confederates in Union Missouri, and ordering military supplies (ships, guns, ammo) from abroad.
As Lincoln said in his second inaugural:
While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, urgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war--seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation.
Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came."
I think that's as close to the truth of the matter as anyone can get.
Why would Abe put in that sentence? Admitting that the South wanted to negotiate peace and avoid war. Odd seems like a guilty conscious speaking to me.
Seriously, from Day 1 of the Constitutional Republic, tariff rates went up, down and sideways every few years, depending on political winds of the time.
Changing tariff rates was a pretty big deal, but had often been done before.
In 1815 tariffs reached a low of 6% overall, in 1830 a high of 30% and by 1860 were back down to 15%.
The Confederate tariff was set around 15%.
So tariffs went up and down as perceptions changed.
There is no reason to suppose that Congress wouldn't quickly adjust tariffs to match, or beat, those of Confederate competitors.
DiogenesLamp: "Even with tariffs of the same percentage, Cotton and Tobacco no longer going through New York would have been a massive impact to the economic system of New York."
No, as I said: 50% of US cotton exports already went through New Orleans, with no "massive impact" on the economy in New York.
And, while New Orleans shipped only 15% of its cotton to US customers, we can well suppose that cotton grown in the Southeast would ship more to Northeastern customers, perhaps 50%.
That would leave 50% of cotton transshipped from New York to foreign countries like Britain & France.
If that 50% (of 50% or 25% overall) now shipped directly overseas, how much would it effect New York's economy?
Answer: next to none, because the only service New Yorkers performed there was to take cotton off smaller packets from the South and put it on larger freighters to Europe.
So, there would be some New York stevedores looking for work elsewhere.
Hardly a "massive impact."
DiogenesLamp: "Look at this picture again. Imagine 80% of that pile moved over to South Carolina."
Except there's no possibility of 80% moving from New York to South Carolina.
Ten percent is a possibility, corresponding to the maximum conceivable value of cotton which might ship from Charleston.
Here's a key point to keep in mind: even by 1861, the Union population and economy outnumbered Confederate states by over five-to-one, so natural demand for commerce in the North was many times higher than any conceivable needs in the Confederacy.
That means: if Confederacy attempted to juice-up its commercial activities through, in effect, cut-throat pricing of tariffs, then the Union would preserve itself by reducing its own tariffs correspondingly.
Yes, agreed, there could be some marginal increase in commerce through Charleston -- maybe 10% -- but it would have no significant effect on Northern cities.
We know the Northern effects for certain, because that's just what happened during the Civil War.
DiogenesLamp: "Very big money, eventually. So big that New England could not allow it to happen."
But the choice to start war was not New England's, it was Jefferson Davis' choice.
The choice to accept war, once started, fell on Abraham Lincoln.
And historical fact is: the people most opposed to war were those very New York, Philadelphia & Boston stevadores (Democrats!) who you claim were most demanding it.
So all your theory is bunk, nonsense, bovine excrement, fancifully unrelated to actual historical facts & events, FRiend.
Fantasy history? Like the how the South started a war and lost it? That’s fantasy? You stayed away from this website for quite a while and there was some peace and quiet for a while. Quess you were pining for you buddy from va. Why don’t you take a direct suggestion and get lost for good and while you’re at it brush up on the social graces and manners.
You obviously have a reading comprehension and learning disability, since I have explained at great length the "how's" and "why's" your ideas are so "bogus to the max", FRiend.
So my suggestion is, go back and read it again, and again, until something begins to sink in.
DiogenesLamp: "You are arguing that constitutional law must yield to state law, and that is just silly nonsense."
No, that's just your learning disability talking, not the facts.
So how many times do I have to repeat before you begin to grasp even a smidgen of it?
The core of my argument is the phrase, "Founders' Original Intent".
As I have pointed out to you now many times, Founders' Original Intent is the only logically consistent, conservative way to look at the US Constitution.
In all such issues we must first ask: what did our Founders say they meant by their words in their Constitution?
Having first determined what they meant, we can then constitutionally apply such understandings to our modern situations.
Founders' Original Intent tells us, for example, when a new law is appropriate or when a Constitutional Amendment is necessary.
So, as it applies to the Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision, your claim that our Founders intended to make it constitutionally impossible for states to abolish slavery is not supported by any Founders' writings, and therefore, by definition, must be classified as bogus to the max.
So tell us why such a simple concept is so difficult for you to grasp?
When did you first notice your acute learning disability?
Not at all.
Jefferson Davis' emissaries came representing a "foreign government" to negotiate surrender from Lincoln's administration.
Both Buchanan and Lincoln refused to deal directly with such people.
But had such emissaries gone to Congress and secured new laws approving their secession, Lincoln said he would enforce such laws.
But lacking Congressional approval, Lincoln refused to surrender to Davis' emissaries.
No shame in that.
That is funny. Nobody was asking the USA to surrender.
Your operative word here being, of course: "asking".
They asked nothing from Congress, they effectively demanded recognition and surrender (i.e., Fort Sumter) from the Federal administration.
Both Buchanan and Lincoln refused.
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