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 ...
You’re wrong again (but we’re used to that).
“Exactly how did Lincoln use the military to overthrow the Constitution.”
My post 52 included a conditional clause in the form of “if … then …”
“If at any point, before or after the Fort Sumter incident, Lincoln decided to “fight to free the slaves” then he was fighting to do what the Constitution forbids - using the military to violently overthrow the United States Constitution.”
The “if” part was very controversial and continues to be so. It seems most knowledgeable history students are concluding the North was not fighting for some high moral cause like “freeing the slaves.”
I believe you are on record as posting: “Never claimed the war was fought to end slavery.”
Lincoln unilaterally implemented a plan to prevent the union splitting that cost most nearly 2 million (Confederates and) Americans their lives. Which makes him the greatest mass murderer in American history and one of the most prolific of the 19th Century.
So get over it and get on with your Lincoln rehabilitation and idolatry.
Blame for those deaths and all the other misery lies squarely on the cowardly insurrectionists
Before Columbus discovered Puerto Rico, who lived there?
The Caribbean had the Arawak, Taino and Carib Indians.
The fate of losing in war to the Carib was worse than slavery...
I meant to say the South went to war to preserve an economic system based on the use of slave labor.
“Absolute, utter and complete bullshit. It most certainly did.”
I don’t even know why this is a discussion. States rights arguments were directly related to slavery.
No they didn't. Slavery was not threatened within the US.
you miss-read my post. I was being factious about The “Lost Cause” Cult’s view of the those events.
The Northern dominated Congress (at Lincoln’s instigation) passed the Corwin Amendment which would have expressly protected slavery in the constitution effectively forever. In case anybody was in any doubt, the North and Lincoln made it perfectly clear that slavery was safe within the US.
Thanks for the clarification.
“the North and Lincoln made it perfectly clear that slavery was safe within the US.”
Evidently not perfectly clear.
The following quote is from a speech given by Henry L. Benning to the Virginia Secession Convention. Benning had been a representative to the Georgia Secession Convention.
“What was the reason that induced Georgia to take the step of secession? This reason may be summed up in one single proposition. It was a conviction, a deep conviction on the part of Georgia, that a separation from the North-was the only thing that could prevent the abolition of her slavery. This conviction, sir, was the main cause.”
“For 76 years those old, white, rich forefathers, increased the slave population from 694,000 in 1790 to 3,953,000 in 1860. “
Correction: 24% of free blacks held slaves as we. They, too, were guilty of the slave trade.
“To any with any doubt that Lincoln’s election and the Republican position on slavery was the cause of the Civil War”
If someone says it, they shouldn’t. Lincoln’s inaugural address stated clearly that he wasn’t going to interfere with slavery. He didn’t like slavery, but he wasn’t going to stop it.
“Put two tractors in the same room and they will not generate little baby tractors that you can sell at a profit.”
If we’re using tractors, slaves were not profitable, so there would be no profit.
” Emancipation Proclamation declared those slaves in territories under Union control to be free.”
Slight clarification: Only slaves in captured confederate States/territory did he free, NONE in the northern States. That, he knew, took a constitutional amendment.
“Lincoln fought to preserve the Union...” by destroying it.
The USA was no longer a union after the war but a nation.
A union is something you can join and leave at will.
Before the war: “The united States are...”
After the war: “The United States is...”
(notice the united capitalization)
But it is seen as a reason why plantation owners would be slow to adopt tractors if slavery was still an option. Slaves generated revenue. Their overhead was low. They were a reliable source of labor.
Oh quite clear. There was no doubt that the North had no intention of threatening slavery. Lincoln said so himself many times. The Northern dominated Congress passed the Corwin Amendment which Lincoln endorsed in his inaugural address that promised explicit constitutional protections for slavery effectively forever. Even after Lincoln started the war, the Northern dominated Congress passed a resolution clearly stating they were not fighting over slavery.
There’s just no way around it.
The speech of this or that odd delegate at a secession convention does not come close to addressing these facts.
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