Posted on 09/09/2019 9:42:11 AM PDT by NKP_Vet
Nearly all modern historians agree with Professor James McPherson’s conclusion that the Civil War was caused by Southern objections to the 1860 Republican Party’s resolve to prohibit slavery’s extension into any of the federal territories that had not yet been organized as states. The resolution originated with the Wilmot Proviso fourteen years earlier before the infant GOP had even been formed. In 1846 Pennsylvania Congressman David Wilmot introduced a rider to a $2 million appropriation intended for use in a negotiated settlement to end the Mexican War. The rider stipulated that the money could not be used to purchase land that might be acquired in the treaty if slavery was allowed in such territories. After considerable wrangling, the bill passed without the rider.
Contrary to first impressions, the Proviso had little to do with sympathy for black slaves. Its purpose was to keep blacks out of the new territories so that the lands might be reserved for free whites. As Wilmot put it, “The negro race already occupy enough of this fair continent . . . I would preserve for free white labor a fair country . . . where the sons of toil, of my own race and color, can live without the disgrace which association with negro slavery brings upon free labor.”
The same attitude prevailed during the Civil War. Abraham Lincoln readily admitted that his September 1862 Emancipation Proclamation was a necessity of war. Major General George McClellan, who then commanded the North’s biggest army and would become Lincoln’s opponent in the 1864 presidential elections, believed it was a deliberate attempt to incite Southern slave rebellions. Lincoln was himself aware that such uprisings might result.
(Excerpt) Read more at civilwarchat.wordpress.com ...
“Never claimed the war was fought to end slavery.”
It sounded like you did when you wrote: “It took a bloody 4 year war . . . to end the practice of slavery in this country.”
How about just about all the reputable ones agree is was about slavery?
The article itself is spot on - though Leftists and Lincoln cultists influenced by PC Revisionism will no doubt hate it.
During the war, the Union Army freed about 3.1 million slaves because of the Emancipation Proclamation. While freeing slaves was not the motivation for war, or even it’s main objective, without it, those slaves would have remained slaves.
Take this line... "by Southern objections to the 1860 Republican Party’s resolve to prohibit slavery’s extension into any of the federal territories that had not yet been organized as states. The resolution originated with the Wilmot Proviso fourteen years earlier before the infant GOP had even been formed."
That claim is patently false.
The author ignores the Kansas-Nebraska act of 1854 by Douglas which resulted in the very formation of the Republican party. The decades if opposition to the expansion of slavery by the people who would go on to found the Republican party.
The Republican party platform of 1860...
“Resolved, That we, the delegated representatives of the Republican electors of the United States, in convention assembled, in discharge of the duty we owe to our constituent and our country, unite in the following declarations:
1. That the history of the nation during the last four years has fully established the propriety and necessity of the organization and perpetuation of the republican party, and that the causes which called it into existence are permanent in their nature, and now more than ever before demand its peaceful and constitutional triumph.
2. That the maintenance of the principles promulgated in the Declaration of Independence and embodied in the Federal Constitution, “That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,” is essential to the preservation of our Republican institutions; and that the Federal Constitution, the rights of the states, and the Union of the states, must and shall be preserved.
3. That to the Union of the States this nation owes its unprecedented increase in population; its surprising development of material resources; its rapid augmentation of wealth; its happiness at home and its honor abroad; and we hold in abhorrence all schemes for disunion, come from whatever source they may; and we congratulate the country that no republican member of congress has uttered or countenanced the threats of disunion so often made by democratic members, without rebuke and with applause from their political associates; and we denounce those threats of disunion, in case of a popular overthrow of their ascendancy, as denying the vital principles of a free government, and as an avowal of contemplated treason, which it is the imperative duty of an indignant people sternly to rebuke and forever silence.
4. That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the states, and especially the right of each state, to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of power on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depends, and we denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of any state or territory, no matter under what pretext, as among the gravest of crimes.
5. That the present Democratic Administration has far exceeded our worst apprehension in its measureless subserviency to the exactions of a sectional interest, as is especially evident in its desperate exertions to force the infamous Lecompton constitution upon the protesting people of Kansas - in construing the personal relation between master and servant to involve an unqualified property in persons - in its attempted enforcement everywhere, on land and sea, through the intervention of congress and of the federal courts, of the extreme pretensions of a purely local interest, and in its general and unvarying abuse of the power entrusted to it by a confiding people.
6. That the people justly view with alarm the reckless extravagance which pervades every department of the Federal Government; that a return to rigid economy and accountability is indispensable to arrest the systematic plunder of the public treasury by favored partisans; while the recent startling developments of frauds and corruptions at the federal metropolis, show that an entire change of Administration is imperatively demanded.
7. That the new dogma that the Constitution of its own force carries slavery into any or all of the territories of the United States, is a dangerous political heresy, at variance with the explicit provisions of that instrument itself, with cotemporaneous exposition, and with legislative and judicial precedent, is revolutionary in its tendency and subversive of the peace and harmony of the country.
8. That the normal condition of all the territory of the United States is that of freedom; that as our republican fathers, when they had abolished slavery in all our national territory, ordained that no “person should be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law,” it becomes our duty, by legislation, whenever such legislation is necessary, to maintain this provision of the constitution against all attempts to violate it; and we deny the authority of congress, of a territorial legislature, or of any individuals, to give legal existence to slavery in any territory of the United States.
9. That we brand the recent re-opening of the African Slave Trade, under the cover of our national flag, aided by perversions of judicial power, as a crime against humanity, and a burning shame to our country and age, and we call upon congress to take prompt and efficient measures for the total and final suppression of that execrable traffic.
10. That in the recent vetoes by the federal governors of the acts of the Legislatures of Kansas and Nebraska, prohibiting slavery in those territories, we find a practical illustration of the boasted democratic principle of non- intervention and popular sovereignty, embodied in the Kansas-Nebraska bill, and a demonstration of the deception and fraud involved therein.
11. That Kansas should of right be immediately admitted as a state, under the constitution recently formed and adopted by her people, and accepted by the House of Representatives.
12. That while providing revenue for the support of the general government by duties upon imports, sound policy requires such an adjustment of these imposts as to encourage the development of the industrial interests of the whole country, and we commend that policy of national exchanges which secures to the workingmen liberal wages, to agriculture remunerating prices, to mechanics and manufacturers an adequate reward for their skill, labor and enterprise, and to the nation commercial prosperity and independence.
13. That we protest against any sale or alienation to others of the public lands held by actual settlers, and against any view of the free homestead policy which regards the settlers as paupers or suppliants for public bounty, and we demand the passage by congress of the complete and satisfactory homestead measure which has already passed the house.
14. That the Republican Party is opposed to any change in our naturalization laws, or any state legislation by which the rights of citizenship hitherto accorded by emigrants from foreign lands shall be abridged or impaired; and in favor of giving a full and efficient protection to the rights of all classes of citizens, whether native or naturalized, both at home and abroad.
15. That appropriation by Congress for river and Harbor improvements of a National character, required for the accommodation and security of an existing commerce, are authorized by the constitution and justified by the obligation of Government to protect the lives and property of its citizens.
16. That a railroad to the Pacific ocean is imperatively demanded by the interests of the whole country; that the Federal Government ought to render immediate and efficient aid in its construction; and that, as preliminary thereto, a daily overland mail should be promptly established.
17. Finally, having thus set forth our distinctive principles and views, we invite the coöperation of all citizens, however differing on other questions who substantially agree with us in their affirmance and support.
Supplementary Resolution. Resolved, That we deeply sympathize with those men who have been driven, some from their native States and others from the States of their adoption, and are now exiled from their homes on account of their opinions; and we hold the Democratic Party responsible for this gross violation of that clause of the Constitution which declares that the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States.”
Courtesy Anonymous Donor. “
http://cprr.org/Museum/Ephemera/Republican_Platform_1860.html
... and then Lincoln pushed very hard for and secured the passage of the thirteenth amendment to the U.S. Constitution because he knew that future legal challenges to his Emancipation proclamation could very well undo the proclamation.
The Republicans tried their best to appease the democrats; to preserve the Union; to prevent a bloody civil war.
However, Breckenridge’s democrats, the ‘fire eaters’ were set in their ways and were determined to initiate a conflict.
How about that’s pure BS?
“It took a bloody 4 year war and an amendment to the Constitution to end the practice of slavery in this country.”
While what you posted is true it need not have happened. Several articles analyzing the 1850s thru the 1900s imply that slavery would most likely have died out by the early 1900s. The cotton gin had already been developed and other farming mechanical inventions (tractors, etc) were coming online. As the plantation owners and other farmers mechanized, there would be no need for slave labor. After all it is far cheaper to feed a tractor than a human being.
He is also known as the author of the so-called Blaine Amendment.
To any with any doubt that Lincoln's election and the Republican position on slavery was the cause of the Civil War, read Robert Toombs' speech to the Georgia Legislature on November 13, 1860. http://civilwarcauses.org/toombs.htm Toombs would later serve as Secretary of State of the CSA and would take a command in the Confederate Army.
This article? Not pure BS but about 90% BS would be my grade. The fact of the matter is that the Southern states seceded to protect slavery and launched their rebellion to further those aims. The writings of the times and the works of serious historians all support that.
Imply, but can't say for sure. Even so, slavery would have had another 40 or 50 years to go. Why would the Southern leaders not defend slavery when it still had such a long lifespan?
The cotton gin had already been developed...
The cotton gin made slavery far more profitable, not the other way around.
... and other farming mechanical inventions (tractors, etc) were coming online.
The first successful mechanical cotton harvester wasn't developed until the 1930's.
As the plantation owners and other farmers mechanized, there would be no need for slave labor. After all it is far cheaper to feed a tractor than a human being.
Put two tractors in the same room and they will not generate little baby tractors that you can sell at a profit.
No, the BS is your claims. The fact of the matter is that slavery simply was not threatened in the US. Nobody fought against slavery - ergo nobody fought for it. Secession is not rebellion.
Everything you wrote is wrong.
“...Lincoln expanded his goals to ENDING SLAVERY....”
That was a wartime expediency...a weapon of war as it were...against the South and not a moral imperative.
The first mechanical cotton harvester was not invented until the 1920s. In 1920 the United States produced 13,900,000 bales of cotton. Every ounce of cotton in those bales was picked by had. The need for vast amounts of labor existed into the 20s to produce cotton.
Yes slavery would have probable died out eventually. But why wait until the turn of the century (another 40 or so years) for it’s demise.
Which the North had done until the South chose to initiate a war by bombarding Sumter.
First, it could not hope to maintain a favorable balance of payments. The South accounted for about 70% of America’s exports on the eve of the Civil War. Thus, without the South’s export economy, America could become a perpetual debtor nation forever at the mercy of its stronger trading partners that would deplete her gold supply in order to settle the persistent trade imbalances.
If this were true then the loss of the Southern states during the rebellion, and the destruction of the agricultural export industry that resulted from the rebellion should have destroyed the Northern economy during the war and during the years following it. Yet that didn't happen. Tariff revenue rose steadily and the U.S. economy did not collapse. Why?
Second, since the Confederate constitution outlawed protective tariffs, her lower tariffs would confront the remaining states of the Union with two consequences. One would be a shrinkage in tariff revenues. Articles imported into the Confederacy would divert the applicable import duties from the North to the South. Since tariffs represented ninety percent of all Federal taxes such a drop was significant.
Upwards of 95% of all tariff revenue collected in the year prior to the rebellion were collected at Northern Ports. In 1864 tariff revenue was over $100 million dollars, considerably higher than in 1861. If this claim was true then neither of those should have happened. Yet they did. Why?
Even more importantly, a low Confederate tariff would induce Southerners to buy manufactured goods from Europe as opposed to the Northern states where prices were inflated by protective tariffs.
Tariffs are placed on imports, not exports. Northern exporters would have shipped their goods duty free from New York and they would not have been taxed until they landed in Charleston. At that point they would have had the same tariff applied as European goods would have had so there is no reason why Northern goods would have suddenly become uneconomical.
Expansion of slavery was.
Nobody fought against slavery - ergo nobody fought for it.
Nobody except the Southern states that is.
Secession is not rebellion.
No it isn't. Rebellion is rebellion, and the Southern states waged a bloody rebellion for four years. And paid the price for it. One would think you all would have stopped whining by now.
Everything you wrote is wrong.
LOL! In your revisionist would perhaps.
If fear for expansion of slavery had been the cause they would hardly have chosen a solution which precluded any chance of expanding slavery.
Nobody fought for slavery because nobody fought against slavery. It was not threatened in the US.
Secession is not rebellion. Secession is the right of every sovereign state.
You probably don’t even realize that yours is the Revisionist school of thought.
Say what? The Confederate Constitution guaranteed the expansion of slavery into any territories the Confederacy acquired, basically made slave-free states impossible, and protected slave imports from the U.S. The U.S. Constitution did none of those.
Nobody fought for slavery because nobody fought against slavery. It was not threatened in the US.
The South fought for slavery. The North fought because the Southern states rebelled.
Secession is not rebellion. Secession is the right of every sovereign state.
But rebellion is not. And rebellion is what the Southern states resorted to.
You probably don’t even realize that yours is the Revisionist school of thought.
LOL! No I didn't. Neither does any reputable historian.
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