Posted on 05/23/2021 6:52:45 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
SPECIAL DISPATCHES FROM WASHINGTON.
WASHINGTON, Wednesday, May 22.
The article in to-day's TIMES is correct in its assertion that our Government never rejected the proposition for the abolition of privateering, but merely suspended the negotiation pending a proposition for amendment.
Secretary SEWARD, finding the correspondence in this condition, on the 24th of April sent instructions to our Ministers in Europe to do just what the TIMES suggests -- that is, to notify the parties to the Treaty of Paris that the United States Government accepts the first point of said treaty, and agrees to the abolition of privateering.
This must prove a crushing blow to the Southern Confederacy, for it not only debars Great Britain, France, Russia, Prussia, Sardinia and Turkey from countenancing JEFF. DAVIS' privateers in any way, but it obliges them, through active operations, by their fleets, to suppress such privateers as pirates. This ends that dream, and leaves the Southern conspirators no means of doing us serious harm except by invading the Free States.
Another point is gained by the Secretary's master stroke of last month. The United States now becomes entitled to all the benefits of all the points in the Paris treaty. The fourth point, providing that blockades, to be respected, must be effectual, carries with it the corollary that, if effectual, it must be respected; consequently, so long as our blockade is made effectual against the public enemy, all the European powers above named are bound to respect it, and certainly cannot interfere by force. This conclusion dispels that other Southern dream, that England and France will raise the blockade in order to get cotton. They are clearly bound by treaty stipulation not to do so, to say nothing of the general obligations of morality and international law.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
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Bkmk
Our FRiend DiogenesLamp frequently argues that expansion of slavery into western territories & states is a myth concocted by Northern Unionists to cover their own political power-grabs.
In fact, he claims, slavery was impossible out-west because cotton could not be grown there, and with no cotton, no slavery.
This editorial begs to differ:
The latest advices from the Pacific coast, however, show that California has been as much misunderstood as was New York city.
Both were overwhelmingly Democratic, both had their subterranean traitors plotting for their ruin, the affinities of both were supposed to be with the South -- but both also have shown themselves to be devoted to the Union with enthusiasm as deep as it is demonstrative.
The miners of California -- those most splendid illustrations of the elastic energy and unconquerable caring of the American character, are for Union forever and to a man; the Douglas Democracy, with true California pluck, go for the Union, the laws and the Fourth of July, and for 'as much coercion and civil war as is necessary to put down secession'..."
By 1850 California had tens of thousands of slaves, including Indians.
They worked in every job imaginable, including as domestic servants, and among African slaves thousands worked in gold mines.
In 1850 it was a close call as to whether California would enter the Union as a slave or free state.
Californians chose freedom, but only barely, and many continued to own slaves well into the Civil War.
California shows that cotton was not necessary for slavery, or for the political ambitions of those supporting their "peculiar institution".
The papers of the day call it a Secession Rebellion not a Slaver Rebellion, WHY IS THAT????
More important, in 1861 Congress went out of its way to declare Civil War was about the Union, not slavery.
Congress then was perfectly happy to tolerate slavery in loyal Union states.
So the Union's war against slavery began as a very small thing, in May 1861, with Union Gen. Benjamin Butler (Democrat, Massachusetts) declaring a few Confederate run-away slaves as "contraband of war" and not to be returned to their Confederate masters.
It grew from Butler to acts of Congress, to Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation and, finally, to the 13th, 14th & 15th Amendments.
All of which you well know, right?
So it was “all about slavery” is BS. Which you well know, right?
Well... secessionists themselves said it was "all about slavery" -- are you calling them liars?
That we do not overstate the dangers to our institution, a reference to a few facts will sufficiently prove...."
And then there's this, as quoted by Homer here:
By shying from emancipation in these early months of the war, Lincoln aligned himself with the majority of the Northern people, the Republican Congress. and the who9le of his cabinet.
Two weeks into its session, the House passed a resolution declaring that the purpose of the war was 'to preserve the Union,' not to eliminate slavery.
Even Chase, the most fervent antislavery man in the cabinet, agreed that at this time the 'sword' of total abolition should be left 'in the sheath.'
If the conflict were drawn out, however, he told the historian John Motley, if 'we find it much more difficult and expensive in blood and treasure to put it down than we anticipated,' then the sword would be drawn.
'We do not wish this, we deplore it, because of the vast confiscation of property, and of the servile insurrections, too horrible to contemplate, which would follow.
We wish the Constitution and Union as it is, with slavery, as a municipal institution, existing till such time as each State in its wisdom thinks fit to mitigate or abolish it... but if the issue be distinctly presented -- death to the American Republic or death to slavery, slavery must die' "
Do you disagree?
For every slave that might be doing something else, there would be a 100 working cotton.
Because you can't back date propaganda. You can only spew propaganda going forward.
We've been over this. Their reasons for leaving have nothing to do with why the northern states decided to invade and kill them.
The reason the Northern states decided to invade and kill them is because Lincoln deliberately triggered a war and launched a massive propaganda campaign. His stated reason was to "preserve the Union", as if he had any right to do that against the will of the people who wanted out.
"Slavery" didn't get appended as a reason till nearly two years after Lincoln had already started the war.
Why did Lincoln need this war? Because the Southern states were going to cause massive financial damage to his northern wealthy elite buddies of which he was their pawn.
How were the Southern states going to destroy the fortunes of those wealthy northern men?
Firstly, they would cut off the 200-230 million dollars per year that were flowing through their pockets because of their control of the cotton/tobacco trade.
Secondly, they were going to flood the midwest and border states with European products of better quality and cheaper cost than those produced by all those northern men of wealth.
Eventually the border states would have gone over to the Confederacy, as well as the midwestern states, leaving the Union as more of a rump nation.
That's total nonsense.
Here is a map of cotton growing in 1860.
Notice that five states have no cotton production (Missouri, Kentucky, Virginia, Maryland & Delaware) but combined populations of nearly one million slaves.
Or, to put that another way: nearly one in four US slaves lived in states which produced no cotton:
They tried growing cotton commercially in southern Trivia:
Illinois in 1863 but a severe frost got it. Up until then individual farmers grew some small quantities for family use.
Tobacco was a big slave-produced crop in areas where cotton wasn’t grown.
I successfully grew some huge cotton plants near St. Louis just for fun, had a nice harvest of both white and tan cotton bolls.
Much more recently an Illinois farmer grew 400 acres of cotton just to prove to a buddy it could be done: https://www.kfvs12.com/2018/10/12/heartland-farmer-grows-only-cotton-crop-illinois/
The second most common slave-tended crop after cotton was corn. That’s the cash crop in those states where cotton was mostly absent. In the north it was usually yellow corn, in the south, white corn.
But slavery did have everything to do with why Confederates declared secession and war against the United States -- at least that's what they themselves repeatedly said.
DiogenesLamp: "The reason the Northern states decided to invade and kill them is because Lincoln deliberately triggered a war and launched a massive propaganda campaign.
His stated reason was to "preserve the Union", as if he had any right to do that against the will of the people who wanted out."
But Lincoln "triggered" nothing, Jefferson Davis provoked war, started war, formally declared war and waged war refusing to stop fighting for any peace terms better than "unconditional surrender" -- those are the facts.
DiogenesLamp: ""Slavery" didn't get appended as a reason till nearly two years after Lincoln had already started the war."
If you would ever pay attention in Homer's classes, you'd soon learn that destruction of slavery was on the minds of Unionists from Day One.
Many Northerners understood that Confederates could not be permanently defeated without first destroying their slavery.
DiogenesLamp: "Why did Lincoln need this war?
Because the Southern states were going to cause massive financial damage to his northern wealthy elite buddies of which he was their pawn."
Then as now those "northern wealthy elites" were Democrats, in those days political allies of Southern Democrats, who opposed Lincoln's election and wanted themselves to secede with New York!
DiogenesLamp: "How were the Southern states going to destroy the fortunes of those wealthy northern men?
Firstly, they would cut off the 200-230 million dollars per year that were flowing through their pockets because of their control of the cotton/tobacco trade."
No doubt, losing the cotton trade during the Civil War hurt many Northern Democrat businesses.
But 1860 cotton was only $200 million in the US economy's $4.4 billion Gross Domestic Product.
So the Union economy soon recovered & prospered without cotton.
As for tobacco, it was largely grown in Union states or Unionist regions of Confederate states.
DiogenesLamp: "Secondly, they were going to flood the midwest and border states with European products of better quality and cheaper cost than those produced by all those northern men of wealth."
That's pure fantasy because merchants importing European products through the Confederacy would have to pay tariffs on them twice -- first in, for example, New Orleans and then again in St. Louis.
So there's no way that such goods would be cheaper than similar US produced merchandise.
DiogenesLamp: "Eventually the border states would have gone over to the Confederacy, as well as the midwestern states, leaving the Union as more of a rump nation."
Only in DiogenesLamp's own pure fantasy world.
Here is a map of the Confederate "Golden Circle" which shows the grandiose fantasies of many Confederates:
Right.
Our FRiend DiogenesLamp is fixated on cotton, claiming if there were no cotton, there could be no slaves.
The facts prove otherwise.
DiogenesLamp is also fixated on African slaves when in many regions -- New Mexico, Arizona & California -- there were thousands of non-African slaves working in every industry those states supported.
He makes these claims in support of his argument that slavery was not trying to expand in 1860 into either US Western Territories or US non-slave states.
In fact, slavery's supporters were working hard to do both.
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