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To: PeaRidge

You are quite correct that northern and southern attitudes towards the morality of slavery were similar among the Founders from both north and south. They viewed it an evil that would hopefully disappear gradually for economic reasons as it became less profitable. This consensus continued into the early decades of the 19th century.

Thereafter, as slavery became less and less profitable in northern states, it was gradually abolished. Its profitability in southern states grew, and attitudes towards the institution diverged. More and more northerners began to think of the institution as a great moral wrong, while many southerners began to search for ways (or rationalizations, depending on your point of view) to defend it, first as an unavoidable necessity and then as a moral good.

By 1860 attitudes were polarizing, as can be seen by the stark contrast between the ideologies in the famous "Cornerstone Speech" and in Lincoln's speeches on the subject.

The consensus in much or most of the South was that slavery was a positive good. In most of the North, people disagreed on what lengths should be gone to to get rid of the institution, but very few defended it as being a good thing. Increasing numbers were dedicated to its destruction "by whatever means necessary."

No wonder we had a war!


96 posted on 03/17/2006 1:51:35 PM PST by Restorer
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To: Restorer
The "famous" Cornerstone Speech as you refer to it may or may not be accurate on whatever website you choose, since no copy of it exists, or apparently ever did. What is called 'the speech' was nothing but a hearsay newspaper article from a speech of a politician that did not represent the Confederacy.

If you think quoting Stephen's comments is useful, then it would be more accurate to examine what is actually recorded, officially..:

From the Confederate Convention records as listed in Vol. 1 The Civil History Of The Confederate States :

"With regard to slavery and the slave trade the provisions of the Constitution furnished an effective answer to the assertion so often made that the Confederacy was founded on slavery and intended to perpetuate and extend it.

"Property in slaves already existing was recognized and guaranteed just as it was by the Constitution of the United States, and the rights of such property in the common territories were protected against any such hostile discrimination as had been attempted in the Union.

"But the extension of slavery, in' the only practical sense of that phrase, was more distinctly and effectually precluded by the Confederate than by the Federal Constitution. The further importation of Negroes from any country other than the slave holding States and territories of the United States was peremptorily prohibited, and Congress was further endowed with the power to prohibit the introduction of slaves from any State or territory not belonging to the Confederacy.

"Mr. Stephens, next in official rank, said concerning this constitution,

"The whole document negatives the idea which so many have been active in endeavoring to put in the enduring form of history, that the Convention at Montgomery was nothing but a set of conspirators, whose object was the overthrow of the principles of the Constitution of the United States and the creation of a great slave oligarchy instead of the free institutions thereby secured and guaranteed."

He authored that and that is documented.
99 posted on 03/17/2006 2:46:25 PM PST by PeaRidge
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