Posted on 12/16/2023 9:27:14 AM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
But,……. That’s not the whole quote. That is merely the expression of his “official duty”.
...the Federal Constitution, the Rights of the States, and the Union of the States must and shall be preserved.
Obviously, the dichotomy in this passage was addressed by civil war.
I’ve read more books on this than you can imagine.
The Corwin amendment would have expressly protected slavery until such time as the states that still allowed it consented to its abolition. For their consent they could have demanded a generous compensated emancipation scheme in return as the price. Everybody well understood this. The basic math of what it would take to get a constitutional amendment passed had not escaped people's notice at the time.
Yet despite this good faith offer of slavery effectively as long as they wish, the Southern states turned down the offer and chose to be independent instead. Obviously the preservation of or abolition of slavery was not the primary motivation of either side.
Of course I am sure that by now you know that West Virginia, a Slave State was accepted into the union under the condition of putting abolition in their State Constitution. Which they did.
ps As we learned during the Revolutionary War, a Colony might begin the process of abolition and not see it realized until much later when it has become a State. Abolition is a lengthy process.
DING!
You've finally asked THE key question.
Why did they? What had they been fighting about since at least the 1820s? What was the nullification crises a generation earlier about? Senator Jefferson Davis and others had long been quite clear about what they thought the whole power struggle was about. This from a speech in the US Senate in the Spring of 1860:
“What do you propose, gentlemen of the free soil party? Do you propose to better the condition of the slave? Not at all. What then do you propose? You say you are opposed to the expansion of slavery. Is the slave to be benefited by it? Not at all. What then do you propose? It is not humanity that influences you in the position which you now occupy before the country. It is that you may have an opportunity of cheating us that you want to limit slave territory within circumscribed bounds. It is that you may have a majority in the Congress of the United States and convert the government into an engine of Northern aggrandizement. It is that your section may grow in power and prosperity upon treasures unjustly taken from the South, like the vampire bloated and gorged with the blood which it has secretly sucked from its victim. You desire to weaken the political power of the Southern states, - and why? Because you want, by an unjust system of legislation, to promote the industry of the New England States, at the expense of the people of the South and their industry.” Jefferson Davis
He said the same thing after secession.
"The people of the Southern States, whose almost exclusive occupation was agriculture, early perceived a tendency in the Northern States to render the common government subservient to their own purposes by imposing burdens on commerce as a protection to their manufacturing and shipping interests. Long and angry controversies grew out of these attempts, often successful, to benefit one section of the country at the expense of the other. And the danger of disruption arising from this cause was enhanced by the fact that the Northern population was increasing, by immigration and other causes, in a greater ratio than the population of the South. By degrees, as the Northern States gained preponderance in the National Congress, self-interest taught their people to yield ready assent to any plausible advocacy of their right as a majority to govern the minority without control." Jefferson Davis Address to the Confederate Congress April 29, 1861
I don’t understand this. Are you talking about a State’s Constitutional Amendment? The States did not have to decide, as a block, on emancipation, had Corwin become law.
”Obviously the preservation of or abolition of slavery was not the primary motivation of either side.”
According to you. Then why was the Corwin Amendment even proposed?
One of the last things Jefferson Davis ever said was, “If the union is ever again to be broken, let it not be done by us”.
You won’t read the ones I recom3nd. Your mind is made up, the facts are on my side.
The only way to get rid of the Corwin Amendment had it been ratified would have been with a future amendment. Given 15 states still allowed slavery, it would have taken 45 states ratifying a future amendment to overturn it. Meaning there would have to be 60 states in the country. That's 10 more than we have even now. Ergo, the Corwin Amendment could not have been overturned without the consent of the 15 states that still allowed slavery.
According to you. Then why was the Corwin Amendment even proposed?
According to anybody who bothers to look. Lincoln hoped that by offering to expressly protect slavery effectively forever, the Southern States' grievances would be addressed. They were not.
I could recommend many to you. You won't read them. Your mind is made up. The facts are on my side, not yours.
I have seen that. Good people.
I've also seen politicians pivot, spin-on-a dime, reverse course, and flip-flop.
It doesn't hurt to pay attention when you hear a politician running an unpopular war say something that sounds a little different than what he said yesterday, especially if seeking reelection.
I see. “Geometric logic” then, is it? Sounds like a whole lot of speculation and conjecture. Had it passed, had someone proposed a future amendment to overturn it, had those 15 States remained Slave States ……….. sounds like we’re way down the yellow brick road. You two shouldn’t be allowed to play together. One of you is picking up bad info from the other.
In any event that’s all from me tonight. Goodnight all.
I have long said that I believe slavery would have lasted between 20 and 80 years longer, but very unlikely more.
The same social forces that caused the Northern states to let it go would have eventually worked to do the same in the Southern states, but it was going to take longer because the profit from slavery was so much greater than anything the North ever faced.
But slavery is a red herring. Lincoln and his Republicans in congress voted to keep slavery indefinitely. (The Corwin Amendment.) Slavery wasn't the actual cause of the war, States attempting to get out from Washington DC's economic control was the cause of the war.
The Southern states produced 200 million per year in trade with Europe, and 500 million per year in trade with the North. (In an approximately 4 billion GDP economy.) Because of various rigged laws favoring the North, the bulk of this money ended up in the pockets wealthy powerful men in the North, as well as making up 72% of the Federal budget.
Lincoln even said early on in the war that his intent was to collect the taxes at the ports. These taxes served both to finance the Federal government, and artificially prop up Northern industry through protectionism.
The South leaving the Union would have made themselves a ton of money, and it would have also stopped the Northern industrialists, shippers, insurance, warehousing, banking, etc. from getting their hands on most of that money.
From various books on the subject I have read, the North was taking 60% of the total revenue produced by the South. The North was making more off of slavery than the actual slave owners were.
So "slavery" is a convenient assertion to rally the citizenry of the North, but it wasn't the real reason why the government decided to invade the South. Money was the real reason they invaded. They wanted to keep their system of rigged favoritism that enriched all the powerful connected people in the North.
But slavery was going away regardless. When the Economic value dropped to the point where it was equaled by the Societal condemnation of the practice, it would have stopped. Machines to do the work of slaves were not that far away.
The most clever thing Lincoln ever did was to misdirect everyone into thinking the war was some moral cause when it was in fact fought over economics, just like every other war in history.
And so his "You can't fool all the people all the time" is in fact not true. He has fooled all the people all of the time on this particular point. Everyone thinks it was about slavery.
Very clever, but very disastrous for the nation.
“I have long said that I believe slavery would have lasted between 20 and 80 years longer, but very unlikely more.”
My son in high school had to write a paper “contrary” paper (it had a better name than that but I forget it now). Anyway, he figured “What could be more contrary than saying slavery in the USA wasn’t that bad?” (He figured if he chose a difficult topic he could get a better grade).
It was actually a very interesting paper. IIRC he DID qualify things a bit. But I recall one of his arguments being that if slavery had died out on its own accord, rather than being done quickly due to the war, the slaves (or at least their ancestors) would have had a better go at it. I forget the arguments that he made.
Oh - he got an “A”.
And I remembered the proper name - an argumentative paper.
I have a friend who says slavery is how God placed Africans in America, and that without it, there never would have been any significant African presence in America.
He says it was part of God's plan and that we mere mortals just can't see the scope of it.
I recall what Mohamed Ali said after returning from a trip to Africa and was asked what did he think of Africa?
He replied "Thank God my granddaddy got on that boat!"
huh? How is that speculation or conjecture? Its basic math. We can all read the constitution and see what is required to get a constitutional amendment. People could do it in 1860 just as easily as we can. The states that still allowed slavery knew the Corwin Amendment would have been essentially irrevocable without their consent to revoke it. It was a guarantee of protection for slavery effectively forever.
So....why did the Southern states turn that offer down? If it was really "all about" slavery, why not just accept slavery forever without having to fight? They could have had what they supposedly wanted for nothing. OOPS! The PC Revisionist narrative falls apart.
"But what am I to do in the meantime with those men at Montgomery [meaning the Confederate constitutional convention]? Am I to let them go on... [a]nd open Charleston, etc., as ports of entry, with their ten-percent tariff. What, then, would become of my tariff?" ~ Lincoln to Colonel John B. Baldwin, deputized by the Virginian Commissioners to determine whether Lincoln would use force, April 4, 1861.
"If I do that, what would become of my revenue? I might as well shut up housekeeping at once!" ~ Lincoln, in response to the suggestion by the Virginian Commissioners to abandon the custom house of Fort Sumter. (Housekeeping is a euphemism for the federal budget.)
The businesses of several prominent Northern lobbyists backing the Republican party as well as the budget of the federal government were dependent on all that money squeezed out of Southerners pockets every year by the Federal Government. Many Many people in the North, South, and Abroad all saw it and said so at the time.
“But,……. That’s not the whole quote. That is merely the expression of his “official duty”.”
True. Lincoln’s scorched-earth war that killed so many was partly official duty and partly, maybe mostly, his own personal wish.
But I didn’t think you wanted to bring up the latter.
How many times have people tried to dismiss it as irrelevant even though it lays bare the central core of their claims?
Too many times to remember, but of course people must persist because so long as the Corwin Amendment disproves their claims, they can gain no traction in making them.
The Corwin Amendment represents the fact that the Northern Congress and President did *NOT* go to war over slavery. They went to war over money, and nothing else.
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