Posted on 08/05/2008 12:11:25 PM PDT by cowboyway
Many slaves were loyal to their owners, including the slaves of my ancestors. Our slaves buried the family silver to protect it when Sherman's men came by. So my grandmother told me. Her mother, who was there when it happened, told her.
There was fear in the South that slaves would revolt. But with the white men gone fighting the war, most slaves just continued toiling in the fields and gardens for themselves and the families that owned them. They could have revolted en masse, but they didn't. However, when Northern troops arrived, many slaves would often leave the farm. Who wouldn't want to be free? That's not to say that all Northern troops were kind to slaves. Northern troops did plunder slave cabins and abuse the slaves too just as they had done with the whites.
In Texas in the summer of 1860, many towns and farm buildings were burned, purportedly set by slaves and abolitionists. This was known as the "Texas Troubles." Slaves from hundreds of miles apart testified to the same basic plot of white guys (abolitionists) encouraging them to set the fires. These incidents sound much like the abolitionist circular described in Congress that I posted above.
The anti-Breckenridge party dismissed the fires as paranoia resulting from matches self igniting in an exceptionally hot Texas summer. They argued that the newspapers were stirring up the paranoia to induce people to vote for Breckenridge. The Breckenridge folks felt that the fires were incited by and lit in some cases by abolitionists and cited tests where thermometer heat was not able to ignite the matches.
Here is an old post that lists some of the fires. [fires]
I started the discussion!?! and it was about the 10th!
This thread is about the right to fly a certain flag that is repulsive to certain people but the right to fly that flag is constitutionally protected.
In 1860 there was a certain type of property that was being kept by some people and the keeping of that type of property was repulsive to certain other people, but, the possessing and keeping of that property was constitutionally protected.
Constitutional rights should never be subject to the whimsical emotions of the hypersensitive and/or the uninformed historically illiterate masses, aka The Politically Correct.
However, if the people of one region of the country can violate the constitutional rights of the people of another region of the country with impunity, then it is a moral imperative for those people to declare themselves independent from the offending region.
But was he a 'traitor'? That's up to the observer and dependent upon one's perspective.
There surely were many such situations of fraternal feelings, but there had to be a general southern recognition that the slaves' overall situation was terrible or revolution would not have been such a broad southern fear. After all, if the Confederate mindset was willing to risk a Civil War over the election of Lincoln, why wouldn't other men be expected to revolt against bondage? I guess that's one reason the rebs wished to separate secession and revolution
Well if I recall your deleted post correctly, you termed him a traitor. So I assume that you would also consider Gorgas and Thomas and Pemberton and all the rest traitors as well. Right?
Quit being so obtuse.
I called Thomas a traitor because he left my side and joined the enemy.
What do you call Thomas? Apply that to Gorgas from my perspective.
One man’s traitor is another man’s hero.
I reckon so.
It is you that is incorrect. The Amendment read: "No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State." It would not have guaranteed slavery in the territories, even those where it currently existed, nor would it guarantee slavery in any territories acquired in the future. It would limit slavery to the 13 states where it existed and no further. It was in keeping with the Republican platform calling for an end to the spread of slavery.
The secession occurred because of a variety of reasons, federal expansion due to reapportionment being a large reason. This added to the Northern nullification of the Constitution as being evidence that the Republicans would not observe equal protection for the Southern states. Remedy? SECESSION!.
By far the single most important reason for the Southern rebellion was defense of their institution of slavery. Take away all other reasons, but leave slavery, and the South still rebels. Take away slavery, but leave every other reason you care to name, and the South does not. It's as simple as that.
None of the formal declarations of secession mention that slavery caused their actions, despite what you may want to insinuate.
None of them mention any reason at all. But if you read the four declarations of the causes of secession then it's clear that the threat to slavery was above any and all other reasons given. They identified themselves by slavery, they depended on slavery, they identified their foes by their position on slavery.
For example, here's a statement from the second paragraph of A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union:
"Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery - the greatest material interest of the world."
It was all about slavery, an unworthy cause. The unworthiness of that cause and the lack of sustained endurance it inspired in the Confederate public was just one of the fatal illnesses that doomed the rebellion to failure.
I looked up some of the proceedings in Congress where the amendment was passed and found that the following additional amendment was proposed in the Senate on March 2, 1861, but defeated 28 nays to 18 yeas [Source]:
Under this Constitution, as originally adopted and as it now exists, no State has power to withdraw from the jurisdiction of the United States; and this Constitution, and all laws passed in pursuance of its delegated powers, are the supreme late of the land, anything contained in any constitution, ordinance, or act of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.
I’m not sure I would have agreed with that amendment. I don’t see the problem with a state withdrawing if done properly and within the bounds of the Constitution. Unilateral secession as practiced by the Southern states did not fall in that category.
I suggest that you are the last person around here to accuse anyone of ignorance or mistake. The Corwin amendment would not have prevented the outlawing of slavery in the territories. The Constitution gives Congress the power to pass laws regulating the territories. And the Dred Scott decision was so badly flawed that it would certainly have been challenged by a Republican president and congress, and quite possibly modified if not overturned completely. So it is you who are most certainly incorrect when you claim that the expansion of slavery was safe. It would certainly have been limited by Lincoln and the congress. A threat to slavery that the Southern states would not tolerate. If slavery was contained then it was most assuredly in peril of dying out.
That is absolutely incorrect. However, you are certainly steeped in that belief system, which of course rationalizes all of the Lincoln Constitutional abuses as well as the devastating war.
Quite the contrary. The speeches and writings of the Southern leaders of the time all support my claim, as you would know if you would bother to read them. And I would point out that nobody will forgive constitutional infractions faster than a Southerner when confronted with the actions of Jefferson Davis.
Had the Southern states believed that the Constitution would have protected them, they would have stayed in. But they did not, and they left. It is as simple as that.
But you said that slavery WAS protected. By the Constititon, by Scott v. Sanford, by the Bill of Rights as well as the Corwin amendment. What you have just said is that the South believed that you are wrong, and therefore felt the need to rebel and adopt a constititution that protected slavery to an extent never imagined by the real Constitution.
The Constitution says nothing of the sort, as I'm sure the senators knew. You seem to be saying that states could secede but only with the permission of states that might be: (1) taking advantage of them, and/or (2) not living up to their side of the constitutional bargain. What state would have agreed to that kind of restriction?
And you say that the remaining states had no rights or any say in the matter. That the leaving states could take action regardless of how much it harmed the remaining states and could repudiate any obligation and leave it entirely the responsibility of the remaining states. In short, you say that the Constitution protected only the leaving states and allowed anything to be done to the remaining states. What state would agree to that kind of deal?
Correct.
That the leaving states could take action regardless of how much it harmed the remaining states ...
Cry me a river. Did the remaining states repeal or amend their personal liberty laws until after Southern states started seceding? No. Did they offer to return Southern wealth extracted by protectionist tariffs that benefited the North? No. Did they offer to fully pay for expenses that Texas expended fighting invading Indians and Mexicans, a Federal obligation under the Constitution? No.
... and could repudiate any obligation and leave it entirely the responsibility of the remaining states.
Um, which side offered to negotiate over obligations including a division of the national debt and the value of forts, etc.? Which side refused to do so?
In short, you say that the Constitution protected only the leaving states and allowed anything to be done to the remaining states.
The Constitution and the Founders did not create a prison from which states could not escape. Southern states left with the rights that they had when they joined the Union. By default they also had things (forts, etc.) that the remaining states (or more exactly, Lincoln) wouldn't negotiate a fair exchange for. Southern states left behind their share of Northern forts and Northern territories. Were they compensated for those?
What state would agree to that kind of deal?
All of them did. Your victimhood is obscuring your logic.
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