On the eve of the inauguration of Abraham Lincoln and a civil war that would claim upwards of half a million American lives, Czar Alexander II of Russia issued an imperial decree abolishing slavery (serfdom) with a stroke of a pen.
Posted on 03/03/2017 2:26:55 PM PST by NRx
On the eve of the inauguration of Abraham Lincoln and a civil war that would claim upwards of half a million American lives, Czar Alexander II of Russia issued an imperial decree abolishing slavery (serfdom) with a stroke of a pen.
Revisionism doesn’t override the writings of the time. The South was already saber rattling during the 1860 election
No it doesn't. Lincoln's support for the Corwin Amendment totally destroys the false narrative that has been produced about the conflict. Lincoln's letter to Horace Greeley also puts the lie to the claim the war was fought to stop slavery.
Charles Dickens noted at the time that the entire conflict was about money, not "human rights."
"I take the facts of the American quarrel to stand thus. Slavery has in reality nothing on earth to do with it, in any kind of association with any generous or chivalrous sentiment on the part of the North. But the North having gradually got to itself the making of the laws and the settlement of the tariffs, and having taxed South most abominably for its own advantage, began to see, as the country grew, that unless it advocated the laying down of a geographical line beyond which slavery should not extend, the South would necessarily to recover it's old political power, and be able to help itself a little in the adjustment of the commercial affairs.Every reasonable creature may know, if willing, that the North hates the Negro, and until it was convenient to make a pretense that sympathy with him was the cause of the War, it hated the Abolitionists and derided them up hill and down dale. For the rest, there's not a pins difference between the two parties. They will both rant and lie and fight until they come to a compromise; and the slave may be thrown into that compromise or thrown out, just as it happens."
"As to Secession being Rebellion, it is distinctly provable by State papers that Washington, considered it no such thing – that Massachusetts, now loudest against it, has itself asserted its right to secede, again and again – and that years ago, when the two Carolinas began to train their militia expressly for Secession, commissioners sent to treat with them and to represent the disastrous policy of such secession, never hinted it would be rebellion."
Dickens the English author who is such an authority on American history
Dickens the socialist misanthrope.
And what was that British tariff on U.S. cotton? How much was it?
Dickens who was an objective observer of current events. It's history to you, it was the present to him.
But since you are concerned about actual American history, why no comment about Lincoln supporting the Corwin amendment which would have made slavery permanent?
Lincoln would have accepted the Corwin Amendment as a price for preserving the Union because it did not actually change anything. Lincoln was not an abolitionist, as the Confederates charged. Lincoln believed that the Constitution gave the Federal government no power to interfere with slavery in states where it already existed. The Republicans only opposed the expansion of slavery.
The Crittenden Compromise, as opposed to Corwin, was unacceptable to Lincoln because it expanded slavery.
Charles Dickens was a proto-socialist. To him, like Marx, everything was about class and money. If you want a more liberty-minded take on the war from an overseas observer, you ought to put down Dickens and pick up J.S. Mill.
That sounds mainly economic, and it is, but it's also a reflection of the differences in culture with regard to their views of society.
1n the 1850s there was no tariff levied on Southern cotton in England or France.
Thanks, I knew that. But obviously other people around here don't. Nor do they stop and think about the idiocy of slapping a tariff on something that their industry needs as a raw material and which they don't grow themselves.
Roger
Not exactly a ringing endorsement, yet what this demonstrated was that Lincoln attitudes and intentions were peaceful and healing. He believed that the president lacked authority to unilaterally act on the question of slavery; he repeatedly expressed his disapproval toward any effort to interfere with southern states "enjoyment" of their chattel; and his stated desire was simply to oppose and restrict the expansion of slavery into the western territories.
To those who foolishly claim that "Lincoln did nothing to avert war" I say look no further than the Corwin agreement.
This is correct. The New York/Washington cartel had a good thing going, and they were content to keep the money making system just as it was.
Lincoln was not an abolitionist, as the Confederates charged.
And the latest race obsessed Liberal Lawyer President from Illinois wasn't a Muslim either. He told us so. They didn't believe Lincoln, and we didn't believe Obama.
Lincoln believed that the Constitution gave the Federal government no power to interfere with slavery in states where it already existed.
So how did it give them power to interfere with it in territories which were not states?
The Republicans only opposed the expansion of slavery.
Yes they did, but why did they oppose it? Was it because they had great concern for the forced servitude of slavery, or was it because "slave" states would side with the South and the political power of congress would shift away from the North East coalition?
If newly christened states sided with the South, what would happen to all their protectionist legislation that was making them so much money?
You may not want to contemplate this, but the potential loss of Power in Washington was of more concern to them than was sympathy for slaves.
They had become the "establishment" we talk about now. Those people that jigger the laws of the Nation to support policies which help them grow and maintain their wealth. (Such as Immigration policy for cheap labor nowadays.)
If the Southern alliance gained seats in congress, this threatened their carefully contrived system of protectionism and thereby took money out of Wealthy pockets in the North East.
It took a look. (at John Stuart Mill) Right off the bat the man is a dedicated abolitionist, so it's an iffy thing for him to be objective on the matter. Reading through some of his commentary you get the immediate impression that he was an extreme Liberal for his time period. Were he alive today, he would be championing trans-gender-queer rights, and other such stuff.
When I ran across his comment that the slaves should be consulted as to the legality of slavery, I decided right then and there that there was no further point to reading his opinion.
"Have the slaves been consulted? Has their will been counted as any part in the estimate of collective volition? "
Nut. Kook. Whackadoodle.
Absolutely won't be a disinterested party. Will simply cheer for the team that champions his cause, whether they be right or not. He will simply say they are right.
What Dickens being a "proto-socialist" has to do with anything I don't know. From what I have read of his commentary, he says to both the North and the South, "A pox on both of your houses!"
Dickens opposed slavery. He said so repeatedly. He criticized the South horribly for the institution, yet he could still discern that the cause of discontent between the two sides was money. Millions lost to the South and gained by the North.
That is what the financial evidence says as well. Southern independence would have caused the immediate loss of about 230 Million dollars in European trade per year that funneled through New York.
A weak "Yes" is still a "Yes." The point here is that it clearly shows that Lincoln went to war for a reason other than to stop slavery. He went to war to stop independence.
So the question remains, why did he consider the permanent continuation of slavery acceptable, but independence for the Southern states intolerable?
Because of the money. Money. Money. Money. Money. Money.
He believed that the president lacked authority to unilaterally act on the question of slavery;
Till he didn't, and so then he unilaterally acted on the question of slavery. Apparently that lack of authority no longer bothered him, because by that time his army was winning, and so he no longer needed to worry about legal authority, he had something better. He had military power.
and his stated desire was simply to oppose and restrict the expansion of slavery into the western territories.
And what provision of the constitution gives him the power to interfere with it in the Western territories? Wasn't that the business of the people who lived there? If a state could decide to be free, why couldn't a state decide the opposite?
Beyond that, what was the real reason they didn't want slavery to expand into the Western territories? From what i've read, those territories were not good land for plantation style farming, and slavery wouldn't have been very economically beneficial in such states. Legalizing slavery in a territory in which it is impractical will probably keep it a free state faster than any other method.
From what I have read, the real issue was control of congress. "Slave" states would form a coalition with other slave states, and the Federal law would then get changed to favor the economics of the South, rather than the protectionist policies which at the time heavily favored the North.
There was real loss of economic power that would change if votes in congress were added to the Southern Coalition.
I have become cynical enough to believe that many of these people were less concerned with slavery itself than they were with the fact that they would lose seats in congress and the Southern State coalition would gain them.
Money. Money. Money. Money. Money.
Always follow the money.
Over time, all the Midwestern states would have been supplied from businesses in the South through usage of the Mississippi river
Why wasn't that already going on? For one thing, the South didn't have as much skilled free manpower. For another, the Mississippi River wasn't as useful as a developed rail network. But who's to say the Midwest needed to be "supplied"? They were already producing for themselves and industrious enough to increase their output. And wouldn't those imaginary goods sent up from the South have been subject to federal tariffs? Double tariffs if you're talking about products from abroad, but enough of a tariff on Southern goods to make them less competitive than what Midwesterners could produce on their own.
The Union went to war with the South because an independent South was a grave financial threat to the economic interests of the North. Corporate Lawyer Abraham Lincoln and his Wealthy New York backers fully realized this, and that is why a war was absolutely necessary.
Wealthy New Yorkers lived off trade and finance. Unless they had strong Yankee (i.e. New England) backgrounds, they were more than willing to make concessions to the South to keep it in the Union or to do business with an independent Confederacy. If New York had been able to prevail in the cotton trade before and if secession could be accomplished without war, who's to say a largely agrarian Cotton South, which had never shown any desire or much ability to produce industrial goods would all of a sudden start? If the relationship between New York and the cotton states was mutually beneficial, why would that change all of a sudden?
The Civil war was a war for economic control of the South. That is why Lincoln was still willing to let them keep slavery in his letter to Horace Greeley in August of 1862.
That's your own wackadoodle interpretation. More likely, Lincoln said he wouldn't touch slavery in order to avoid war or disunity that could be exploited by foreign powers.
Of course the very first thing Lincoln did was to throw up an economic blockade around the South, because if Low duty trade with Europe had ever gotten started, there would be no way to put that genie back into the bottle.
More wackadoodlism. A blockade was an effective way of coercing without resorting to actual violence.
PS Everybody's getting tired of the same graphic every week.
So how did it give them power to interfere with it in territories which were not states?
Everyone agreed that the Federal government made law for the territories, which were Federal land.
"The Republicans only opposed the expansion of slavery."
Yes they did, but why did they oppose it? Was it because they had great concern for the forced servitude of slavery, or was it because "slave" states would side with the South and the political power of congress would shift away from the North East coalition?
If newly christened states sided with the South, what would happen to all their protectionist legislation that was making them so much money?
There was little chance of territories voting for slavery. Whites had been fleeing the slave states for the free states for years, because they did not want to compete with slave labor. White public opinion was turning against slavery. The economic growth was in the free states.
"Have the slaves been consulted? Has their will been counted as any part in the estimate of collective volition? "
Nut. Kook. Whackadoodle.
______________
That is a most telling -- and damning -- admission. Mill asks the question we'd expect anyone with eyes, ears, and a brain to ask, the question we'd expect Socrates or the real Diogenes to ask, essentially, "What about the slaves? Don't they have a say in this?" and DiogenesLite finds it crazy, nuts, on par with today's transgender talk.
Mill was something of a philosopher, and if we paid philosophers, we'd be paying them to ask difficult questions like that, questions that those who believe that some people are born slaves by nature and have no rights don't want asked.
Speaks volumes about who you are and where you're coming from and how seriously anybody should take you, DL.
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