Lee, Virginia, and the Union

https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org ^ | March 27, 2019 | Fred H. Cox

[NKP_Vet]

The Hall of Fame recently dedicated at New York Uni­versity was conceived from the Ruhmes Halle in Bavaria. This structure on University Heights, on the Harlem river, in the borough of the Bronx, New York City, has, or is in­tended to have, a panel of bronze with other mementos for each of one hundred and fifty native-born Americans who have been deceased at least ten years, and who are of great character and fame in authorship, education, science, art, soldiery, statesmanship, philanthropy, or in any worthy un­dertaking. Fifty names were to have been chosen at once; but, on account of a slight change of plans, only twenty-nine have been chosen, and twenty-one more will be in 1902. The remaining one hundred names are to be chosen during the century, five at the end of each five years. The present judges of names to be honored are one hundred representa­tive American scholars in different callings. They are most­ly Northern men, although at least one judge represents each State.

[DiogenesLamp]

Washington was being nice. If it had gone to the Supreme court of that era, they probably would have told Pennsylvania that they can't bar Washington from bringing in slaves to their state.

If it wasn't specified in the Constitution that you could ban people from bringing their slaves into a "Free" state, then the "free" state can't stop them.

The default condition of "privileges and Immunities " is what was normal for 1787. Telling them they couldn't bring their domestic servants would be like telling them they couldn't bring their wife. It would have been a clear violation of a state reciprocity against another state's citizens.

Liberals pulled that "living constitution" crap to claim that banning slaves was legal. They could ban any creation of new slaves in their state, they could free any that were being held by the laws of their state, but there is nothing they could have done about banning slaves held by the laws of other states.

[HandyDandy]

You are still missing the point. If the intent was to “enshrine” Slavery in the US Constitution, why did they choose to frame it with a euphemism? Why emblazon with the soft-term “....person held to service or labor...”?
Not to mention that the Clause was only included to appease 2 of the 13 States. The 11 States had more lofty ambitions. Namely, to create a more perfect union. The ambition of the 2 was to perpetuate the peculiar institution.

[DiogenesLamp]

You are still missing the point. If the intent was to “enshrine” Slavery in the US Constitution, why did they choose to frame it with a euphemism?

Probably because they considered the word "slave" to be too vulgar and common. They liked a lot of uppittyness in their verbiage.

But make no mistake, when they say "persons held to service or labor", they meant "slave."

Not to mention that the Clause was only included to appease 2 of the 13 States.

My recollection is that the bulk of them were still slave states at the time. I think Massachusetts was the only one that had gone full abolition, and they used a bullsh*t liberal legal trick to even manage that.

[HandyDandy]

I give you historical facts and you rebut with drivel? Your own opinions, speculation and conjecture..........? Something about “liberals”? You say Washington was “being nice” by complying with the Laws of the Sovereign State of Pennsylvania? Good God man! Weren’t you earlier in this thread saying that Washington was a Traitor?

[BroJoeK]

DrewsMum: "You say zero slaves in the northern states then proceed to list all the ones who had hundreds of thousands of slaves.
Thank you for rebutting yourself and saving me the work."

Well, of course, if you live in South Florida, then anything north of I-10 is "the Nawth".
But, believe it or not, there are people north of I-10 -- indeed some north of I-40 -- who think of themselves as Southern, you know, Kentucky Derby, mint juleps, Jim Beam, that kind of Southern.

A lot of those people were Unionists and so the US Government officially protected their "peculiar institution" until the 13th Amendment was ratified.

The real North begins at the Mason Dixon line & Ohio River (though some might say I-70) and all those states had abolished slavery decades before 1860.
In 1860 there were about 250,000 freed-blacks living in Northern states, which puts the lie to your claim that

"Lincoln didn’t free the northern slaves because he didn’t want to live amongst blacks and neither did most northerners."

Anyway, thanks for playing, I've enjoyed this.

[BroJoeK]

Quoting BJK: "Abolition had nothing to do with 'living amongst blacks'."

DrewsMum: "That was the main reason that the union was by and large NOT pushing for slavery to end in the south in the beginning."

Well, first of all -- in the 1790 census there were about 60,000 freed blacks in the United States, 45% in the North.
By 1860 there were nearly 500,000 with 47% living in the North.
The Northern freed-black population was growing at 15% per decade, the South's at 10% per decade, suggesting that freed-blacks found Northern "hostility" at least no worse than what they experienced in the South.

As for "in the beginning", as jeffersondem is so, so fond of pointing out, "in the beginning", in 1776 every state was a slave-state.
Northern states began almost immediately abolishing slavery in their own states, but by the time of the US Constitution Convention in 1787, still two had not yet begun -- New York (1800) and New Jersey (1804).

At the Constitution Convention in 1787 South Carolina's Pinckney & Rutledge threatened there would be no Union unless protections for slavery were added.
As it turned out, Northerners wanted Union more than abolition and some Southerners wanted slavery more than Union, so the deal was struck.

That's the deal Deep South Fire Eaters believed was breached in 1860 by the election of Black Republican "Ape" Lincoln.

DrewsMum: "The flip that to that is that it was a motivation to end it in their states previously.
They didn’t want anymore blacks coming in.
That’s very well documented."

What's well documented is the population of freed-blacks in Northern states grew steadily from 27,000 in 1790 to nearly 250,000 in 1860.
Does not sound to me like they were being kept out.

DrewsMum: "And the main reason several banned blacks from even coming into their states."

Well... we could cite Illinois as an example of a state which by law tried to exclude freed-blacks.
From 1820 to 1860 Illinois had the highest percentage growth in it's freed-black population of any state in the Union.
So it sounds to me like their exclusion laws were not so strictly enforced.

DrewsMum: "Sorry if i’ve tainted your view of the union/ north with the cold hard facts of their white supremacy also."

But you've "tainted" nothing, you've simply distorted the facts to better fit your Lost Cause mythology.

The real facts are that Northerners hated slavery and abolished it, voluntarily, in their own states & territories and that freed-black populations were growing faster in the North than in the South, suggesting Northerners were at least as tolerant of freed-blacks as Southerners.

[BroJoeK]

jeffersondem: "Sure, the CSA had slavery in their Constitution.
They had slaves.
And the USA had slavery in their Constitution.
They had slaves. "

At the time of the 1787 Constitution Convention all but two Northern states (NY & NJ) had already begun to abolish slavery and their representatives opposed special privileges in the Constitution for slaveholders.
But SC's Pinckney & Rutledge threatened disunion unless their "peculiar institution" was Constitutionally protected.

So the bottom line in 1787 was that most Northerners wanted Union more than slavery and some Southerners wanted slavery more than Union.
A deal was struck which held until the election of "Ape" Lincoln's Black Republicans in 1860.

jeffersondem: "But of the original 13 states in the USA, only 13 of them had slaves."

By the time of the 1787 Constitution Convention five Northerner states had already begun abolition and two more would by 1804.

One Southern state, Virginia, seriously debated abolition in 1832 but rejected it and began to flip their views from slavery as "necessary evil" to slavery as "positive good".

And thus began the lead-up to Civil War.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "They have a mental block against hearing the truth, because it forces them to confront an idea they vehemently reject."

Your problem is there's no truth whatever in your Lost Cause myths -- they're all lies, concoctions & cockamamie nonsense that you guys invent to make yourselves feel good.
And keep posting regardless of how often debunked.

What's up with that?

[BroJoeK]

BJK: "So the bottom line in 1787 was that most Northerners wanted Union more than slavery abolition and some Southerners wanted slavery more than Union."

Corrected.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "I'm wondering where in the US Constitution does it require the president to "save" the Union?
I *KNOW* it requires slaves to be returned to their masters, because it is quite specific about that, but I recall no clause that requires a President to "save" or "preserve" a Union that was voluntarily joined."

And so the cockamamie nonsense continues...

The US Constitution does not contemplate unilateral secession at pleasure, but it does acknowledge "rebellion", "insurrection", "domestic violence", "invasion" and "treason" -- all of which Confederates committed in 1861 against the United States.
So you have to be blinded by Lost Cause mythology to ignore the obvious in what happened.

DiogenesLamp: "Since this absolutely contradicts the Declaration of Independence... "

And DL's lies just keep on keeping on.
The fact is that neither the Declaration nor any Founder in 1776, or ever, proposed or supported unilateral unapproved declaration of secession, at pleasure, which is exactly what 1860 Fire Eaters did.

Our Founders practiced & approved of disunion under two but only two conditions:

1. From necessity under conditions they spelled out in their 1776 Declaration of Independence.
   No remotely similar conditions existed in 1860.

2. By mutual consent as they did in 1788, ratifying the new Constitution to replace the old Articles of Confederation.
   There was no mutual consent in 1860.

DiogenesLamp: "I can only believe that failure to include a constitutional clause prohibiting anyone from leaving, means that the Declaration of Independence was never intended to be contradicted."

You can only believe what you've brainwashed yourself to believe, regardless of facts.
In fact the Declaration is not contradicted in the Constitution, but neither document advocates unilateral unapproved secession at pleasure.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLmap: "Enshrined slavery clause.
Almost had this one.
Lincoln supported it."

100% of Democrats supported it, most Republicans opposed.
Lincoln acknowledged & transmitted it.
It died for lack of interest.

Neither of those quotes used the word "slavery" and each can be read to include other than slaves.
I take that as saying they were ashamed of the word, which is far from "enshrining".

DiogenesLmap: "Almost made slavery nearly permanent.
And to think people believe the war was fought over this topic when Lincoln and the Northern states were willing to give it up before the war even began."

Slavery was constitutional in 1860 and in 1864.
Confederates could have kept their slaves in 1861.
Even in early 1865, after the 13th Amendment passed Congress, Confederates could have been compensated for abolition.

Confederates refused so our Lost Causers tell us that proves it wasn't "all about slavery".
But slavery was the biggest reason given in their 1861 "Reasons for Secession" documents and nothing during the war would have made slaveholders more comfortable in the Union than they were in November 1860.
Jefferson Davis' words to the contrary, many Confederates believed slavery was, indeed, important:

"CS Brigadier General Clement Stevens:
"If slavery is to be abolished then I take no more interest in our fight.
The justification of slavery in the South is the inferiority of the negro.
If we make him a soldier, we concede the whole question."
[Cited in James C. Nisbet, Four Years on the Firing Line, pp. 172--173]"

Catherine Ann Devereux Edmonston, December 30, 1864:
"We have hitherto contended that Slavery was Cuffee's normal condition, the very best position he could occupy, the one of all others in which he was happiest...
No! Freedom for whites, slavery for negroes.
God has so ordained it."
From: The Journal of a Secesh Lady: The Diary of Catherine Ann Devereux Edmonston, 1860-1866.

"...any man who pretends to believe that this is not a war for the emancipation of the blacks, and that the whole course of the Yankee government has not only been directed to the abolition of slavery, but even to a stirring up of servile insurrections, is either a fool or a liar."
The Vidette, CSA Gen. John Hunt Morgan's camp newspaper, November 1862

Bottom line: people on both sides were passionate about slavery, not so much about tariffs of "money flows from Europe," regardless of how often DiogenesLamp repeats it.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "George Washington was a traitor to England.
He fought for the right of independence which all 13 colonies declared was a right given by God.
He founded a nation based on the right to independence, and so no one coming afterward should have had to fight for independence.
A nation founded on the premise that states had a right to become independent cannot call people "traitors" when they avail themselves of the right to independence which Washington fought for."

But, neither Washington nor any other Founder ever claimed an unlimited "right of secession" at pleasure.
All were consistent in justifying 1776 as a matter of necessity driven by "a long train of abuses & usurpations", which they spelled out in their Declaration.

Most Founders supported "secession" in 1788 from the old Articles of Confederation -- at pleasure and with mutual consent.

Neither necessity nor mutual consent existed in 1860 when Deep South Fire Eaters began declaring unapproved secession at pleasure.

All of which DiogenesLamp well knows but has brainwashed himself to ignore.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "This is funny.
Let me introduce you to the Amendment Lincoln urged to be passed when he gave his first inaugural address."

Yet more self-brainwashing by DiogenesLamp.
Some points on Corwin:

1. Lincoln said it was mere eye-wash, didn't really change anything and that's why he didn't oppose it.
   "didn't oppose" DiogenesLamp rewrites to mean Lincoln endorsed it.

2. Corwin was the end result of a process which began in December 1860 with Mississippi Democrat Senator Jefferson Davis' proposal to strengthen slavery in the Union and so prevent his own state of Mississippi from seceding.

3. Corwin was supported by all Democrats and opposed by most Republicans in Congress.

4. There were significant differences between proposals Southern Democrats wanted -- i.e., those of Davis or Crittenden -- versus the most some Lincoln-Republicans could avoid opposing, namely Corwin.
   So Corwin could have no appeal in the Deep South, but could help Unionists in Border States like Kentucky & Maryland.

5. Finally, on the point of "perpetual slavery" that's just ridiculous -- the 18th & 21st Amendments demonstrate that no Amendment can prevent future generations from changing or repealing it.
   So Lincoln did not oppose Corwin in 1861 because it, in reality, changed nothing.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "How did they get around that constitutional requirement to return them to their masters?
Did they just declare that portion of the Constitution null and void? "

Contraband of War, recognized by all sides at the time.

But I have asked jeffersondem about this several times, and he flatly refuses to acknowledge the question, much less answer it.
So let's try it out on DiogenesLamp, what do you say -- (will DiogenesLamp rush in where wiser men refuse to tred?

Question: should Union troops have returned Confederate fugitive slaves to their "masters".
We can even stipulate here two different time periods:

1. Before May 6, 1861

2. After May 6, 1861

I'm assuming everyone knows the significance of May 6, 1861 and my guess is that, like jeffersondem, DiogenesLamp won't touch this one with a ten foot pole.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "The difference is, United Kingdom did not recognize the right to independence.
The United States not only recognized it, but claimed it as their justification for the treason they committed against England.

Our nation is founded on the belief that it is moral and legal to separate from the mother country and form one of your own.
Britain was not founded on that belief."

Complete hogwash.
No Founder ever claimed an unlimited "right of secession" at pleasure.
The Declaration of Independence strictly ties that "right" to necessity caused by "a long chain of abuses and usurpations" or when "Government becomes destructive of these ends".

What do they mean by "abuses", "usurpations" and "destructive"?
They tell us, by listing them in detail, for example:

"He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people."

These are not trivial items, and nothing remotely resembling such conditions existed in November 1860 when Deep South Fire Eaters began organizing for secession.

[BroJoeK]

rockrr: "That 'overreaching central government' was dominated by southerners for most of it’s history, don’t you know."

DiogenesLamp: "And when it wasn't, the Northern states decided to make the Southern states pay for the bulk of government, and to make sure money went through New York pockets."

Just more ridiculous nonsense from DiogenesLamp.
The fact is that from Day One, Thomas Jefferson's Southern Democrats dominated the national Democrat party and from 1801 until secession in 1861 Democrats ruled over Washington almost continuously.
At the same time they ruled New York City -- so those so-called "Northeastern power brokers" were Democrats -- political allies, economic partners and social family with Southern Democrats who ruled Washington, DC.

Any doubts that Southern Democrats ruled their national Democrat party should be set aside when we consider Doughfaced Northern Democrat President Buchanan working behind the scenes on Crazy Roger Taney's Dred Scott ruling.

So Washington DC has always been "all about" Democrats, with only occasional Republican interference, i.e., 1860, 1980, 2016...

DiogenesLamp is so, so confused on this point it defies all attempts at comprehension.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "How did the Southern states vote?
Aren't you guys claiming they fought a war to stop this from happening?"

DiogenesLamp knows perfectly well how they voted -- former slaves were enfranchised, former Confederates temporarily disenfranchised.

DiogenesLamp thinks this was a great crime, so he must be very happy that soon-enough (1876) Confederates regained their franchise and ended the ridiculous practice of African American voting, right?

Or not?

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "What does that platform say about the Corwin Amendment?
The Republican party and especially their leader supported the Corwin Amendment which would have made slavery permanent."

My guess is DiogenesLamp has some serious training at the Joseph Goebbels Propaganda University where their First Rule is: Repeat, repeat and I say repeat again your lie until it becomes true.

How else can we explain it?

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "Pretending you are motivated by morality when you are in fact motivated by self interest is easily recognizable hypocrisy.
That's why they pointed out that the principle involved is that loyalty to the Union allows people to keep their slaves. "

No, loyalty to the Union simply maintained the compromise deal first reached in 1787 -- the Union accepts slavery in slave states, slavers accept the Union.

Rebellion against the Union broke the deal and subjected rebels to standard laws of warfare, including Contraband of War.
You know the rest...

[BroJoeK]

HandyDandy to DiogenesLamp: "My concern is that some hapless and unwitting FReeper will read and believe your lies."

Right, bears repeating:

"My concern is that some hapless and unwitting FReeper will read and believe your lies."

"My concern is that some hapless and unwitting FReeper will read and believe your lies."

"My concern is that some hapless and unwitting FReeper will read and believe your lies."

"My concern is that some hapless and unwitting FReeper will read and believe your lies."