George Pickett was born 200 years ago today (vanity)

IMHO, the southern states (Dim controlled) had the right to seceded if they wanted to. The U.S. didn't have the right to stop them, whether it was about slavery or anything else.

I'm glad that the Dims didn't win the war. Not only was slavery wrong, the Dims had been, shortly before the war, making slavery a federal issue.

Two points.

1. You said it wasn't about slavery, and then you made it about slavery.
2. Slavery was a federal issue since the US Constitution required the return of escaped slaves. (Article IV, Section 2.)

They had been eroding states' rights trying to make abolition illegal everywhere, or at least hard to implement.

Now I find this observation fascinating. I would like you to clarify this point.

Look at the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and how that impacted the free states.

It required of them exactly what Article IV, Section 2 of the US constitution required of them. I think a lot of people don't know that the fugitive slave law was actually written into the constitution. I guess the fugitive slave act was an effort by congress to make the "free" states adhere to the requirements spelled out in the Constitution.

As far as this being an "infringement" upon the rights of states, well they agreed to it when they ratified the constitution, didn't they?

U.S. Marshalls were going into free states to hunt blacks and arrest them and transport them to the south, just on the chance that he looked like the description of the man they were looking for. And even that often had dubious origins: a slaveowner had to just claim that a slave had run away from him, showing no proof of ownership of anything, and like a magic a free black man from a free state was captured and brought to the slave owner like a gift.

I hate to tell you this, but the "free" state of Illinois, you know, the "land of Lincoln" made it legal for any white person to grab free blacks and sell them into slavery if they violated any number of the rules that Illinois put upon them. One of the rules is living in Illinois. Free Blacks were not allowed to settle in Illinois for any longer than a certain period. Free blacks also had to require proof that they were free, and if they didn't have it, they could be grabbed and sold into slavery.

The "Black codes" of Illinois and the other Northern states were very oppressive to blacks. When I learned of them, I began to realize the Northerners *hated* the blacks, and didn't want them living among them.

This was followed by the 1857 Dredd Scott decision by SCOTUS (Dim majority). It declared that blacks could never be citizens, and that all territory west of Missouri was slave territory.

My recollection is that it was a divided decision and what is often cited is "dicta". The ruling is that Dred Scot never had the right to sue, and that his brief foray into a "free" state did not change his legal status at all.

But "woodpusher" can give an excellent summary of the details of the Dred Scot decision.

And the Dims had the audacity to later cry out that the 1860 election was about abolitionist Republicans forcing their ways onto people. Even with Lincoln many times saying that abolition wasn't going to be federally mandated, that he just wanted to get the federal govt out of the way so states could go back to choosing to being abolitionist if they wanted.

The official Liberal(Republican) position was "If you want your slavery, you can keep your slavery!"

Nobody believed them. Liberals always lie about stuff they claim they won't do with the government.

Another reminder that the Dims today are like the Dims of the 1850's: "It's not a person, it's just a clump of cells." Just like: "It's not a person. It's property."

There were free blacks in the south. There were free black slaveowners in the south. They recognized them as people, so it's not quite the same as a "clump of cells." They just thought whites were better than them, but then again, so did the Northern white people.

As for the rest of your commentary, slavery was already on the way out. As soon as mechanical harvesting machines were perfected, it would become unfashionable to use human labor. Slavery would have greatly declined in the subsequent 20 years after 1860, and it would have likely been gone by the early 1900s.

Was the lives of 750,000 men and the subsequent deaths of perhaps millions, worth the shortening of the time slavery would have endured? Was the expansion of the Federal powers into the leviathan it is now worth it, because that is what we are facing today, and the Civil War played no small part in creating this monster.

Respectfully, perhaps you and I have a different interpretation of Article IV, Section 2. Text below:

No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.

Perhaps we disagree on the last phrase "may be due". My version of that doesn't mean a free person can be captured from a free state solely on an affidavit from someone else claiming to be his owner. Or as the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act text says:

...by seizing and arresting such fugitive, where the same can be done without process...

And you're right. A lot of northern states didn't want blacks, thus facilitating the loss of freedoms of free black American citizens (through the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act's removement of due process). Quit seeing it from a perspective of protecting the southern honor by pointing out northern problems.

I see it as a Christian and a free American citizen wanting to learn from history when people who claim "It's not a person, it's..." enlarge the federal govt and take away our rights. An argument could be made that the Jan 6 political prisoners are easy to keep confined because our culture has been conditioned to remove rights when the let applies a dehumanizing label. If they say over and over that the Jan 6'er were "insurrectionists", the Jan 6'ers lose their rights. Just like the left calling babies "just clumps of cells" makes them lose rights. And calling blacks "just property".

By the way, as far as your comment:

You said it wasn't about slavery, and then you made it about slavery.

Keep in mind that we're talking about two things simultaneously and it's easy to conflate the two. One is, Did the states have the right to secede for whatever reason they wanted, or even secede without giving a reason why? The answer is Yes. The other is Why did they secede? It's one thing when I hear people say that the southern states have a right to secede (which I agree with), and another thing when I hear people say that slavery wasn't one of the main reasons they seceded (which I disagree with).

Us southerners owe no explanation to today's God-deny, baby-killing, freedom-sucking left and their persistent cancel culture push on degrading the south over past slavery. They way to win the argument is to tell them it was long ago in the past, before even Joe Biden was born, and the left is the one today using the past slave owner arguments for treating people less than human with no rights.

And you're right. A lot of northern states didn't want blacks, thus facilitating the loss of freedoms of free black American citizens (through the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act's removement of due process).

So if I understand you right, you are quibbling that the Fugitive Slave Act went further than the Constitution in infringing upon the rights of "free states"?

Even if this is so, shouldn't this be addressed by an appeal to congress? And wasn't it a congress that was majority North which created the act in the first place?

This implies the North didn't see them as freemen either, and had no interest in respecting their rights.

Quit seeing it from a perspective of protecting the southern honor by pointing out northern problems.

I don't care about "Southern Honor". I'm not from the South nor is any of my family. I don't have any interest in the South beyond the recognition that they had a right to leave if they wanted to leave. I am simply pointing out the Northern states were just as bad, and in some cases worse than the Southern states, so therefore they have no moral high horse to ride upon, certainly not one sufficient to justify invading and killing people and then pretending they did it for the black man.

No, they did it for their own selfish interests and concern for the black man had nothing to do with it.

An argument could be made that the Jan 6 political prisoners are easy to keep confined because our culture has been conditioned to remove rights when the let applies a dehumanizing label.

That is also an aspect of the civil war, and they keep doing it because it has worked so well since the civil war. We always dehumanize our adversaries in a war. The left just never stopped doing it after the Civil War was over.

If they say over and over that the Jan 6'er were "insurrectionists", the Jan 6'ers lose their rights.

I find this line of argument amusing because that is exactly what they did to the Southern states to justify going to war with them. Lincoln kept calling them "insurrectionists!" even though he deliberately set up the incident that started the war. Kinda like January 6. Scratch that. EXACTLY like January 6.

One is, Did the states have the right to secede for whatever reason they wanted, or even secede without giving a reason why? The answer is Yes. The other is Why did they secede?

Do you see the dichotomy between these three sentences?

You said they had a right to secede for any reason, and then you want to make the discussion about what their alleged reasons were?

If you concede their reasons don't matter, than why is it worthwhile to discuss their reasons, which do not matter?

We know the people calling them "insurrectionists!" assert that slavery is their sole reason for seceding, and I had believed this was correct for most of my life.

And then I found out about the money.

If ever in your life you find yourself trying to understand why people did something, and your choices are GREED or Milk of Human Kindness then it is a safe bet that the real reason they did something is GREED.

The North was raping the South over money. The South produced approximately 72% of the total Federal revenues for the entire nation, even though they had less than 1/4th of the citizenry.

And this doesn't even touch all the gouging they were doing by the manufacturing and shipping industries in the North. Gouging which was only possible as a consequence of Federal laws that allowed the North to do it.

60% of all the slavery produced money was going to the North. The North was making more money from slavery than the slave owners were.

It's one thing when I hear people say that the southern states have a right to secede (which I agree with), and another thing when I hear people say that slavery wasn't one of the main reasons they seceded (which I disagree with).

Well of course that's what we've been taught all our lives. Why shouldn't we believe it? Government schools have been telling us for 160 years that the *ONLY* reason the South seceded from the North was because they somehow saw Abraham Lincoln as threatening their ability to own slaves, even though he went to great lengths to tell people he wasn't going to do that. He actually said

"If you like your slavery, you can keep your slavery!"

(He didn't really. I'm just making fun of the last race obsessed liberal lawyer from Illinois who became president. He said things very much like it, but not those exact words.)

But the money evidence tells a very different story. How would you like to double your income for the same work? I think most people would, and this was exactly the situation the South was facing if they seceded from the North.

All that money they were sending to the North would remain in their own pockets rather than making Northerners rich.

So whether or not they said they were leaving because they saw threats to their institution of slavery, they were certainly eyeballing all the potential money they would get from doing so.

So was the North, and that is the *REAL* reason the North decided they couldn't let the South go in peace.

Everything taught to us afterward was to cover up the fact the real reason was money.

The "Black codes" of Illinois and the other Northern states were very oppressive to blacks. When I learned of them, I began to realize the Northerners *hated* the blacks, and didn't want them living among them.

Also, after becoming free of slavery, Illinois featured 99-year indentured servitude.

Lincoln addressed the concerns of Northerners who feared a huge Black immigration.

CW 5:534-35, President Lincoln, December 1, 1862, Annual Message to Congress

Heretofore colored people, to some extent, have fled north from bondage; and now, perhaps, from both bondage and destitution. But if gradual emancipation and deportation be adopted, they will have neither to flee from. Their old masters will give them wages at least until new laborers can be procured; and the freed men, in turn, will gladly give their labor for the wages, till new homes can be found for them, in congenial climes, and with people of their own blood and race. This proposition can be trusted on the mutual interests involved. And, in any event, cannot the north decide for itself, whether to receive them?

Lincoln evidently saw some way in which Illinois could just refuse to receive free blacks who were born in the United States.

This was followed by the 1857 Dredd Scott decision by SCOTUS (Dim majority). It declared that blacks could never be citizens, and that all territory west of Missouri was slave territory.

It's Dred Scott, one d. The full name was Etheldred.

To be an opinion of the court, the point of law in question must be supported by a majority of the justices. In Scott, all nine justices filed an opinion. Taney's opinion was captioned Opinion of the Court, but the majority of it was not supported by five justices.

To see a modern RKBA opinion distinguishing what lacked majority support, see McDonald.

https://www.loc.gov/item/usrep561742/

McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U.S. 742 (2010)

At 748-749

Justice Alito announced the judgment of the Court and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I, II–A, II–B, II–D, and III, in which The Chief Justice, Justice Scalia, Justice Kennedy, and Justice Thomas join, and an opinion with respect to Parts II–C, IV, and V, in which The Chief Justice, Justice Scalia, and Justice Kennedy join.

Through page 779, it is captioned Opinion of the Court. Starting at page 780, it is captioned Opinion of Alito, J., signifying that the latter portion lacked majority support. The only way to ascertain what is an opinion of the court in Scott is to read all nine opinions and see what five justices agreed upon.

If willing to take an author's word for it:

Don E. Fehrenbacher, The Dred Scott Case, Its Significance in American Law and Politics, 2001, p. 324, provides a box score of results as follows:

1. Four justices held that the plea in abatement was properly before the Court (Taney, Wayne, Daniel, and Curtis).
2. Three justices held that a Negro could not be a citizen of the United States (Taney, Wayne, and Daniel).
3. Six justices held that the Missouri Compromise restriction was invalid (Taney, Wayne, Grier, Daniel, Campbell, and Catron).
4. Seven justices held that the laws of Missouri determined Scott's status as a slave after his return to that state from Illinois (Taney, Wayne, Nelson, Grier, Daniel, Campbell,, and Catron).
5. Seven justices held that Scott was still a slave, though there were differences of what the final judgment of the Court should be (same as in number 4).

Notably in Scott, the actual mandate issued for the decision was a finding that the U.S. Supreme Court lacked jurisdiction for the case, and it remanded the case to the lower court, directing that court to dismiss the case for want of jurisdiction.

The claim to jurisdiction was based on claimed diversity of state citizenship. It failed as Dred Scott was not a citizen of Missouri, as claimed. The Supreme Court of Missouri had so ruled in prior litigation, and that court was the final word on who was, or was not, a citizen of the state pursuant to state law.

The original (short) draft of the Opinion of the Court was assigned to and written by Justice Nelson of New York. After Justice Benjamin Curtis wrote, leaked and published his magnum opus dissent (longer than Taney's opinion), Chief Justice Taney took over writing the Opinion of the Court in response to the already published opinion by Justice Curtis. The youngest justice on the Court, Justice Curtis resigned before the next session of the Court. As trivia, constitutional issues were argued for Scott by George Curtis, elder brother of Justice Curtis.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.