What did the Confederates agree on with Lincoln? That the Founders opposed slavery of course.

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[ProgressingAmerica]

In his 1861 "Cornerstone Speech", Vice President of the Confederacy Alexander H. Stephens said the following:

But not to be tedious in enumerating the numerous changes for the better, allow me to allude to one other — though last, not least. The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution — African slavery as it exists amongst us — the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split." He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time. The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the "storm came and the wind blew."

Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery — subordination to the superior race — is his natural and normal condition.

Now you know that if the VICE PRESIDENT of the Confederacy was saying this about the Founding Fathers rejection of slavery, he had plenty of agreement on it. In other more detailed(line by line) words, Abraham Lincoln agreed that the Founders rejected slavery. In his Peoria Speech, Lincoln said the following:

AT the framing and adoption of the constitution, they forbore to so much as mention the word "slave" or "slavery" in the whole instrument. In the provision for the recovery of fugitives, the slave is spoken of as a "PERSON HELD TO SERVICE OR LABOR." In that prohibiting the abolition of the African slave trade for twenty years, that trade is spoken of as "The migration or importation of such persons as any of the States NOW EXISTING, shall think proper to admit," &c. These are the only provisions alluding to slavery. Thus, the thing is hid away, in the constitution, just as an afflicted man hides away a wen or a cancer, which he dares not cut out at once, lest he bleed to death; with the promise, nevertheless, that the cutting may begin at the end of a given time. Less than this our fathers COULD not do; and NOW [MORE?] they WOULD not do. Necessity drove them so far, and farther, they would not go. But this is not all. The earliest Congress, under the constitution, took the same view of slavery. They hedged and hemmed it in to the narrowest limits of necessity.

In 1794, they prohibited an out-going slave-trade---that is, the taking of slaves FROM the United States to sell.

In 1798, they prohibited the bringing of slaves from Africa, INTO the Mississippi Territory---this territory then comprising what are now the States of Mississippi and Alabama. This was TEN YEARS before they had the authority to do the same thing as to the States existing at the adoption of the constitution.

In 1800 they prohibited AMERICAN CITIZENS from trading in slaves between foreign countries---as, for instance, from Africa to Brazil.

In 1803 they passed a law in aid of one or two State laws, in restraint of the internal slave trade.

In 1807, in apparent hot haste, they passed the law, nearly a year in advance to take effect the first day of 1808---the very first day the constitution would permit---prohibiting the African slave trade by heavy pecuniary and corporal penalties.

In 1820, finding these provisions ineffectual, they declared the trade piracy, and annexed to it, the extreme penalty of death. While all this was passing in the general government, five or six of the original slave States had adopted systems of gradual emancipation; and by which the institution was rapidly becoming extinct within these limits.

Thus we see, the plain unmistakable spirit of that age, towards slavery, was hostility to the PRINCIPLE, and toleration, ONLY BY NECESSITY.

Now isn't it interesting that the New York Times in its 1619 project disagrees with both the Confederates and Lincoln? What must it be like to have such a low quantity of shame?

This "Cornerstone Speech" does many things, but most importantly, it shows quite distinctly that there is a lineage break from the Constitution to the Confederacy. Not that the New York Times cares for facts, anyways. But I know that you do.

[Cannoneer]

I should have been more specific. Slavery was the glue that held the Civil War together with respect to the South. Without it, they would have had a better case for secession. It would have also not given the North as great a reason; although not generally shared, to prosecute a war with the South upon secession.

[jmacusa]

Jeez, every time I post to you I forget I'm talking to the crazy old guy on the porch. First off asshole, as I've told you before , I'M NOT A LIBERAL!. If anyone here is a Leftist and a liberal, it's you! Constantly sticking up for a bunch of treasonous Southern Democrats. By extension, that makes you one. And only here in the Northeast are politicians bought? Really? Good Lord.

[detective]

The Republican Party was founded in 1854 in Wisconsin. At the time the U.S. had a one party system. The Democrat Party controlled the government. The priority of the Democrat Party was the expansion of a slave based economy.

The Republican Party had its main support from the tradesmen and small farmers in the Midwest. The Democrats had recently passed the Kansas Nebraska act for the sole purpose of expanding the slave economy into the Midwest and the west. Most Americans did not want have to earn their livelihood and support their families in a slave based system with a few wealthy slave holders and the rest of the people struggling in extreme poverty.

That is why the Republican Party grew so quickly.

The South at the time had a few wealthy plantation owners. The majority of the people lived a poor and backward life with little or no opportunity. The innovation and advancement came in the north.

Read about the south in the winter and spring of 1865. Desertion from the army was common. There were riots against the government. There was little support for the Confederacy.

Secession was pushed through very quickly by a small group. It was not debated. It did not have wide support. Those who pushed secession falsely claimed that no one would fight to preserve the union and that an independent Confederacy could be easily acheived without any struggle. Those Democrat politicians who pushed secession did enormous harm to the average southerner. People lost their lives, their wealth and their land.

[jeffersondem]

“Secession was pushed through very quickly by a small group. It was not debated. It did not have wide support.”

That’s probably why generals McClellan, Pope, Hooker, Burnside, and Grant were able to quickly walk into Richmond unopposed with little loss of life in the Union armies.

[DiogenesLamp]

Jeez, every time I post to you I forget I'm talking to the crazy old guy on the porch.

And every time I post to you, I forget that you have no intention of understanding what it was I actually said so that you can portray it as something else.

First off asshole, as I've told you before , I'M NOT A LIBERAL!.

Didn't say you were. Didn't imply that you are. I said that Liberals today call anyone who disagrees with them a "Racist" because this tactic has worked well since they first started doing it in the Civil War.

Constantly sticking up for a bunch of treasonous Southern Democrats.

They were not factually treasonous. Lincoln *DECLARED* that they were, and he would have anyone arrested who would disagree with his claim that they were, but in point of fact there is nothing treasonous about holding a vote to leave a Union that was founded on the principle that states had a right to leave Unions.

What was treasonous is someone deliberately launching a war to force and subjugate states to remain under his rule against their will. King George did it, and King Lincoln did it too.

By extension, that makes you one. And only here in the Northeast are politicians bought? Really?

And see here? This is exactly what I mean when I say you have no interest in understanding what I said. Of course I did not say or even imply that "Northeastern Politicians" are the only ones bought. No. To clarify my point, the New York/ Washington DC money spending cartel buys everyone they can buy, across all the states.

Every liberal elected to Federal office nationwide owes their positions to that astonishingly powerful behind the scenes "deep state" North East cartel that owns the media and also owns multi billion dollar corporations which handle all the money that comes through the New York and Washington DC' money spending cartel.

You may not recall, but back in 1995, when Newt Gingrich succeeded in electing a new crop of conservative congressmen through his "Contract with America", the media liars did everything they could to stop his efforts to balance the federal budget.

They constantly harangued the idea as ridiculous, reckless and foolish, and every talking head one of them was against balancing the Federal budget.

Since most Americans have long favored a balanced budget, these media people were greatly out of step with the will of the country. I realized at the time, that something was very wrong here. Rational people want a balanced budget. Why didn't these people? Why were they trying to convince the public this idea was wrong and foolish?

Then I realized, somehow they were owned by people who made money from excessive federal spending. They wanted to keep deficits growing because they worked for people who profited from growing Federal deficits.

It was then I began to realize that the main reason the media is liberal and helps to elect Liberal congresspeople is because liberal congresspeople will keep the spending going.

[DiogenesLamp]

At the time the U.S. had a one party system.

The whigs self destructed, and much of the new Republican party was made from former whigs.

The Democrat Party controlled the government. The priority of the Democrat Party was the expansion of a slave based economy.

This gets repeated a lot, but it isn't really accurate. The Democrats did want slavery expanded to all the territories, but not so much because there was any profit to be made from slavery in the territories, but because when territories turned into states, those states would side with the Slave states in congress, and thereby keep the North Eastern coalition from enacting any more laws damaging to the interests of the existing slave states.

It was about controlling congress, and not so much about expanding slavery as people have been claiming since the 1840s. Here is why slavery wasn't going to expand to any significant degree. It simply wasn't feasible.

Here is a modern map of cotton growing in the US. Everything in west Texas and further west was not possible in the later half of the 1800s, because it requires modern irrigation systems to get cotton to grow in those states. It couldn't have been done in the 1870s.

So once you toss out West Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and Southern California, what you are left with is the areas in which it might have been possible to grow cotton.

So do you see any place you could have put a slave plantation in the territories? There isn't any. So how are you going to get "expansion" into the territories?

You weren't. Oh yes, you might have the occasional entrepreneur with a few slaves trying to do something in those territory states, but it would never be anything of any major significance. Slavery was only profitable growing cotton or tobacco, and not much else. Without the ability to grow those cash crops, you could not have had any significant slave presence in any of the territories.

According to the Wikipedia entry under "New Mexico Territory", it says that there was something like 12 slaves in the entire territory.

Most Americans did not want have to earn their livelihood and support their families in a slave based system with a few wealthy slave holders and the rest of the people struggling in extreme poverty.

And this is an important point. We have been taught during our lives that northern Americans opposed slavery because it was morally wrong, and unfair to black people, but the real truth is that the vast majority of northern Americans opposed slavery because they didn't want slaves working at jobs they needed for income. They didn't actually care about the slaves at all. They cared about the threat slaves posed to their livelihood.

There objections weren't moral, they were economic. Except for the nutty Puritans and other abolitionists, the vast majority of Americans didn't like it because they didn't want to have to compete against free labor for jobs.

Read about the south in the winter and spring of 1865. Desertion from the army was common. There were riots against the government. There was little support for the Confederacy.

Having about 20% of your young male population killed by invaders would tend to make you unhappy with the existing state of affairs.

Secession was pushed through very quickly by a small group. It was not debated. It did not have wide support.

Sounds exactly like what the founders did in the Revolutionary war. Was it okay when they did it back in 1776?

Those Democrat politicians who pushed secession did enormous harm to the average southerner.

You need to put the blame on the people who are actually to blame for that loss of life and property. It was the *INVADERS* that killed those people. Wanting to be left alone is not sufficient cause for people to send armies into your state to murder you.

[DiogenesLamp]

That’s probably why generals McClellan, Pope, Hooker, Burnside, and Grant were able to quickly walk into Richmond unopposed with little loss of life in the Union armies.

:)

[FLT-bird]

You are correct, nobody will ever know. But I bet those 2 million slaves tied to cotton production produced the vast majority of the cotton that was grown in the South.

We'll never know and there's no way to prove that. I tend to suspect it was less than a "vast majority". Cotton was a valuable cash crop. High margins tend to attract more producers into the market.

[FLT-bird]

I should have been more specific. Slavery was the glue that held the Civil War together with respect to the South. Without it, they would have had a better case for secession. It would have also not given the North as great a reason; although not generally shared, to prosecute a war with the South upon secession.

The North didn't "discover" that they were actually fighting against slavery until 2 years into the conflict after John Stuart Mill suggested it. Prior to the that the Northern dominated Congress had passed a resolution explicitly stating that they were not fighting against slavery...and of course they passed the Corwin Amendment. The North was fighting for money. So was the South. No, not money indirectly through slavery. Money. Directly. Through tariffs and unequal federal government expenditures. Slavery was not threatened.

[FLT-bird]

The Republican Party was founded in 1854 in Wisconsin. At the time the U.S. had a one party system. The Democrat Party controlled the government. The priority of the Democrat Party was the expansion of a slave based economy.

False. There was a 2 party system. The Republican party displaced the Whig Party.

The South at the time had a few wealthy plantation owners. The majority of the people lived a poor and backward life with little or no opportunity. The innovation and advancement came in the north.

You grossly overstate the economic divide in the Southern states. There were plenty of people between dirt poor and mint julep sipping plantation owners. There was a thriving middle class of tradesmen, professionals and middling farmers.

Read about the south in the winter and spring of 1865. Desertion from the army was common. There were riots against the government. There was little support for the Confederacy.

By 1865 desertions were high. There was widespread hunger and the overstretched logistics system supporting the Confederate Army was breaking down. I emphasize that lots and lots of Yankees were mowed down in the last year of the war though - so obviously plenty of men remained in the Confederate ranks. The Union army had a major desertion problem too by the way.

Secession was pushed through very quickly by a small group. It was not debated. It did not have wide support.

False. It had been discussed and debated for years. It had widespread support. Again several states held referendums. Several others elected representatives to secession conventions. Everybody knew what plank various representatives to those conventions were running on. They knew they were voting for pro secession candidates.

Those who pushed secession falsely claimed that no one would fight to preserve the union and that an independent Confederacy could be easily acheived without any struggle. Those Democrat politicians who pushed secession did enormous harm to the average southerner. People lost their lives, their wealth and their land.

and conversely, Northerners thought few would fight to defend an independent South and that war would be quick and cheap. That proved disastrously wrong. Venal Republican Party politicians and their fatcat corporate supporters did a lot of harm to average Northerners by pushing too hard for other people's (ie Southerners') money setting terms most Southerners were not willing to live with. A helluva lot of Northern men got killed and mangled as a result of the war of aggression they waged to keep their cash cow from leaving.

[FLT-bird]

That’s probably why generals McClellan, Pope, Hooker, Burnside, and Grant were able to quickly walk into Richmond unopposed with little loss of life in the Union armies.

Boom. :^)

[Bull Snipe]

I tend to suspect the plantation owners with thousands of acres of land and slaves in the millions, produced the majority of cotton produced in the South.

[FLT-bird]

I tend to suspect the plantation owners with thousands of acres of land and slaves in the millions, produced the majority of cotton produced in the South.

I tend to suspect that the bulk of the land in the South which was not owned by large plantation owners but instead by lower through upper middle class farmers produced a hell of a lot of the cotton produced in the South.

[fortheDeclaration]

No, the Declaration was always seen as having universal application. The lie that you are defending was the one spread by the Dred Scott decision, that the Declaration was only for White men. The Founder’s linked to this to the Biblical view that all men have souls and are equal before God.

[DiogenesLamp]

No, the Declaration was always seen as having universal application.

I don't give a sh*t how it was "seen as having universal application." It's purpose was to justify secession from England, and it had no other *INTENDED* purpose than that. What people chose to read into it later does not speak to what the Delegates voted to do, or what represented the will of the 13 states.

The lie that you are defending was the one spread by the Dred Scott decision, that the Declaration was only for White men.

Stop. Just stop it. The Declaration was for the states of the 13 colonies. There were free black men in those states, and it encompassed them too.

What is the lie is to claim the Declaration of Independence was meant to say anything at all on the issue of slavery. It's one, sole, and solitary purpose was to justify the colonies rights to leave the control of the English government, and hopefully win support from other European powers to help them accomplish it. (France)

Yes, later people started saying, "Hey! Shouldn't this principle apply to slaves too?"

That is a "purpose" that was tacked onto it after the fact, and mostly by people that were not instrumental in it's creation.

In fact, many of the people making this point were British partisans trying to undermine the moral authority of the document because they wanted colonial independence to fail.

[DiogenesLamp]

I tend to suspect the plantation owners with thousands of acres of land and slaves in the millions, produced the majority of cotton produced in the South.

I suspect that is likely true.

[jeffersondem]

“No, the Declaration was always seen as having universal application.”

That is an interesting comment.

In your view, did the signers of the Declaration of Independence intend for the principles to apply to merciless Indian savages?

[Pikachu_Dad]

Dude. President Lincoln was responsible for the passage of the 13th amendment through Congress. He signed the amendment upon passage. He was assassinated by agents of the South before it was enacted,

but President Lincoln clearly ended all Slavery in the US.

[Deaf Smith]

I wrote only of the Emancipation Proclamation.

[Cannoneer]

"The North didn't "discover" that they were actually fighting against slavery until 2 years into the conflict after John Stuart Mill suggested it."

We seem to be discussing two different ideas. I see nothing wrong in your argument for the civil war with the facts of slavery at the time; however, Without slavery in the first place, Lincoln would never have been elected, there would have been no abolitionists to catalyze the forming of the Republican party. Ergo a whole set of questions about whether there would even be a civil war or secession in the first place.

The historical cause of the Civil war is a well discussed and argued subject. If we posit the idea that if there had been no slavery in America from the beginning, I argue that the foundation for the Civil War (and for that matter secession) would have been greatly different.