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The Great Civil War Lie
NY Times Disunion ^ | June 5, 2013 | MARC-WILLIAM PALEN

Posted on 06/11/2013 4:48:08 AM PDT by iowamark

Civil War buffs have long speculated about how different the war might have been if only the Confederacy had won formal recognition from Britain. But few recognize how close that came to happening — and how much pro-Southern sympathy in Britain was built on a lie...

Early British support for the South was further buttressed by something as mundane as a protective tariff — the Morrill Tariff — approved by Congress on March 2, 1861. This new tariff, passed to protect American infant industries, also unwittingly gave rise to a troublesome myth of mounting trans-Atlantic proportions.

The tariff had been opposed by many Southern legislators, which is why it passed so easily once their states seceded. But this coincidence of timing fed a mistaken inversion of causation among the sympathetic British public – secession allowed the tariff to pass, but many in Britain thought that the tariff had come first, and so incensed the Southern states that they left the union.

Nor was this a simple misunderstanding. Pro-Southern business interests and journalists fed the myth that the war was over trade, not slavery – the better to win over people who might be appalled at siding with slave owners against the forces of abolition...

Why was England so susceptible to this fiction? For one thing, the Union did not immediately declare itself on a crusade for abolition at the war’s outset. Instead, Northern politicians cited vague notions of “union” – which could easily sound like an effort to put a noble gloss on a crass commercial dispute.

(Excerpt) Read more at opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: History; Military/Veterans
KEYWORDS: abrahamlincoln; civilwar; dixie; godsgravesglyphs; greatestpresident; morrilltariff; proslaverycsa; thecivilwar; unitedkingdom
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To: MamaTexan

I recommend you read Daniel Webster’s quote more carefully. He does not, in what you quoted, assert that the northern states have violated the compact.

Further, various SCOTUS decisions ruled that state officials are not required to help southern kidnappers recover their slaves. That is a federal government responsibility only.

Why? Because with northern help would come northern state procedure, which would require giving the kidnapped and alleged slave due process, and the forged documents routinely used by the kidnappers would have been challenged per the personal liberty laws. To avoid that, Taney removed the state role in recovering the fugitive slaves.

That resolved the controversy, per Article 3 section 2 for honest people.


101 posted on 06/11/2013 7:28:47 PM PDT by donmeaker (Blunderbuss: A short weapon, ... now superceded in civilized countries by more advanced weaponry.)
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To: Bubba Ho-Tep

To be fair, the Maryland and Delaware militia were among the most well trained at Boston.

The southern soldiers were indeed critical before Boston, and in the sad defeats at New York they were used as a fire brigade to hold off the british to permit others to escape.

Whereas at Boston they had the tea party, in Charleson SC, the tea was unloaded, and no one would buy it. It sat in a corner of the warehouse and moldered. In Richmond, it wouldn’t even be unloaded.


102 posted on 06/11/2013 7:32:59 PM PDT by donmeaker (Blunderbuss: A short weapon, ... now superceded in civilized countries by more advanced weaponry.)
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To: Drawsing

The word comes from the Latin...


103 posted on 06/11/2013 7:34:53 PM PDT by donmeaker (Blunderbuss: A short weapon, ... now superceded in civilized countries by more advanced weaponry.)
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To: Sam Gamgee
Yet, FDR was a vocal anti-semite.

I think you're thinking of Wilson.

104 posted on 06/11/2013 7:37:49 PM PDT by rockrr (Everything is different now...)
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To: rockrr
I knew you were mercurial so it comes as no surprise.

LOL! Well Bless your heart. It has nothing to do with my being 'mercurial', but everything to do with our conversation the other day where you said;
I know that you don’t hold me in much regard but believe me when I say that I am open to new/different ideas.

Obviously untrue, or you would not have so suddenly reverted to your previous behavior. I see no reason I'm obligated to 'play nice' since you've shown yourself to be so deceptive.

-----

The south had no legitimate complaint.

The US Supreme Court of Appeals said otherwise.

105 posted on 06/11/2013 7:51:27 PM PDT by MamaTexan (The government was not instituted to define the Rights of the People)
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To: donmeaker
I recommend you read Daniel Webster’s quote more carefully

Frankly, I don't care what you 'recommend' since you can't read the plain launguage in Article 4 Section 4.

106 posted on 06/11/2013 7:53:14 PM PDT by MamaTexan (The government was not instituted to define the Rights of the People)
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To: donmeaker

Where did you get that information about Lee and Whipping post from?


107 posted on 06/11/2013 7:59:30 PM PDT by TinCan
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To: MamaTexan

Well, what do we do now? Fight the thing all over again?


108 posted on 06/11/2013 8:01:50 PM PDT by Ramius (Personally, I give us one chance in three. More tea anyone?)
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To: MamaTexan
... or an abuse of the compact absolving the seceding party from the obligation imposed by it...

So what was the abuse of the 'compact' that justified secession?

109 posted on 06/11/2013 8:04:27 PM PDT by Ditto
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To: Ditto

Someone probably called her mercurial... ;-)


110 posted on 06/11/2013 8:14:11 PM PDT by rockrr (Everything is different now...)
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To: MamaTexan
I see no reason I'm obligated to 'play nice' since you've shown yourself to be so deceptive.

Well bless your little heart. ;-)

111 posted on 06/11/2013 8:19:14 PM PDT by rockrr (Everything is different now...)
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To: Ramius
Well, what do we do now? Fight the thing all over again?

No, but it would be nice if folks would TRY to understand the concept of Original Intent and the Constitutionally mechanics behind it, but to do so, one has to be able to separate the morality of slavery from the legality of it.

Until we do, there is absolutely no hope of the States reasserting their sovereignty.

And to be totally blunt, trying to drag people from the ignorance instilled by our the public education system gets tiresome.

112 posted on 06/11/2013 8:35:53 PM PDT by MamaTexan (The government was not instituted to define the Rights of the People)
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To: Ditto
So what was the abuse of the 'compact' that justified secession?

Their continued passage of laws concerning the return of escaped slaves, which were contrary to both what they agreed to when they signed the Constitution as well as the legal precedent set by the USSC Court of Appeals.

113 posted on 06/11/2013 8:43:32 PM PDT by MamaTexan (The government was not instituted to define the Rights of the People)
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To: TinCan

It was from the testimony of the slaves at Arlington.

http://civilwartalk.com/threads/r-e-lee-and-beaten-slaves.14363/

News paper articles posted before the rebellion.

http://joeryancivilwar.com/Civil-War-Subjects/General-Lee-Slaves/General-Lee-Family-Slaves.html

http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/lees%20slave.htm

http://civilwartalk.com/threads/r-e-lee-and-beaten-slaves.14363/page-27

http://leepapers.blogspot.com/

An analysis of pro-Lee writing based on access to his slave legers.


114 posted on 06/11/2013 8:49:32 PM PDT by donmeaker (Blunderbuss: A short weapon, ... now superceded in civilized countries by more advanced weaponry.)
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To: MamaTexan
Their continued passage of laws concerning the return of escaped slaves...

The Fugitive Slave Act ended all of that and that was passed by congress 6 years before the Civil War. The US military could and did drag those poor people looking for freedom back to the Dixie Hell Hole you so admire.

What's your next lame excuse?

115 posted on 06/11/2013 8:56:43 PM PDT by Ditto
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To: MamaTexan
No, but it would be nice if folks would TRY to understand the concept of Original Intent and the Constitutionally mechanics behind it, but to do so, one has to be able to separate the morality of slavery from the legality of it.

Well bless your heart again!

It's interesting how some folks think that they understand the concept of original intent (and the Constitutionally mechanics behind it).....and others who understand original intent and the limitations inherent therein.

116 posted on 06/11/2013 9:07:36 PM PDT by rockrr (Everything is different now...)
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To: Sam Gamgee

You mean WWI right?


117 posted on 06/12/2013 4:23:54 AM PDT by SampleMan (Feral Humans are the refuse of socialism.)
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To: central_va

Bastards were spinning the war 150 years ago while it was going on

Check out the American Civil War Gazette


118 posted on 06/12/2013 4:28:09 AM PDT by Rome2000 (THE WASHINGTONIANS AND UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE ARE THE ENEMY -ROTATE THE CAPITAL AMONGST THE STATES)
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To: MamaTexan
Okay, so the US Supreme Court of Appeals, who sets LEGAL precedent , and states the law is Constitutional and is binding on EVERYONE...... is totally meaningless.

Except that judging from the citation, 14 Wend. 507 N.Y., it appears to be a state appeals case and not a federal one. Specifically New York.

And as for Webster, he was speaking in the abstract and not making accusations. Earlier in the speech he said, "For it would be absurd to suppose that, by the whole states and large portions of the country, either the North or the South has the power or the right to violate any part of that Constitution directly, and of purpose, and still claim from the other observance of its provisions. If the South were to violate any part of the Constitution intentionally and systematically persist in so doing year after year, and no remedy could be had, would the North be bound by the rest of it? And if the North were deliberately, habitually, and of fixed purpose, to disregard one part of it, would the South be bound any longer to observe its other obligations? "

So did the South have the right to decide on their own that the compact was broken? Webster answered that, too. "No state can decide for itself what is constitutional and what is not. When any part of the Constitution is supposed to be violated by a state law, the true mode of proceeding is to bring the case before the judicial tribunals; and, if the constitutionality of the state law be made out, it is to be set aside."

Finally, what did Webster think of the South's remedy? The action you claim were constitutional? "...after all, secession, disruption of the Union, or successful nullification, are but other names for revolution." So violations that you claim justified the Southern rebellion are not supported by one of your sources, and are marginally supported by the other, which was not a federal court case. Madison's provisions still stand, and were not met by the South in 1860.

119 posted on 06/12/2013 4:30:56 AM PDT by 0.E.O
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To: MamaTexan
Big whoop.

No, big collection of private papers. How many have you actually read?

Um...What part of "the only letter I've seen" did you not understand?

LOL. That's like me saying, "The only bird I saw today was a robin, therefore robins are the only birds around." You claim that the request for confidentiality is unique in Madion's writings yet you've read a tiny sampling of his whole works.

I can, just fine. Dealing with someone who acts as if only certain words in the letter have any viability while totally disregarding the rest is what I have trouble with.

Accusing others of cherry-picking quotes is a bit hypocritical on your part. IMHO.

120 posted on 06/12/2013 4:34:34 AM PDT by 0.E.O
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