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To: smug
Are you saying that the counting of slaves as 3/5th's of a person gave slaves states too many Representatives?

Look back at the Dred Scott decision. If blacks were not and could never be citizens, then free or slave they did not deserve representation in Congress. So the South shouldn't have even had the 3/5ths total.

The population of the north had risen to the point that south had lost it's power to control and even be equal with the northern states.

And what in the Constitution guaranteed the South the right to control the Northern states, much less be equal to them?

Before there had been an unwritten power sharing arrangement in the executive branch: southern president, northern vice president or vice versa.

And what prominent Southern Republican was available to run with Lincoln in 1860?

If all they really cared about was protecting slavery they could have stayed in the union and helped pass the Corwin Amendment, or some other deviation of it.

The Corwin Amendment had a fatal flaw that the South would not have stood for - it protected slavery only where it existed and did not protect the expansion of slavery into the territories. Nor would any amendment protecting the expansion of slavery ever pass out of the House. So the South did leave, and the did leave to protect their institution of slavery, and in the process adopted a constitution that protected slavery in ways never imagined in the real Constitution. The confederate constitution specifically guaranteed slave ownership, slavery in the territories, slave imports, and most likely guaranteed that an amendment ending slavery was impossible to pass.

148 posted on 03/13/2008 6:16:58 AM PDT by Non-Sequitur (Save Fredericksburg. Support CVBT.)
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To: Non-Sequitur
Look back at the Dred Scott decision. If blacks were not and could never be citizens, then free or slave they did not deserve representation in Congress. So the South shouldn't have even had the 3/5ths total.

Like I said we agree on this.

And what in the Constitution guaranteed the South the right to control the Northern states, much less be equal to them?

Nothing what so ever, but they had enjoyed the upper hand for a while in compromises, i.e. the 3/5ths of a count clause.

And what prominent Southern Republican was available to run with Lincoln in 1860?

None, or none that I ever heard of prominent or not. But! nothing ever said they had to pick a Republican, they certainly didn't the second time around. National Union, Republican what ever. However we do know that they didn't try, and why? cause they didn't need to. It was all in the math, you could ignore the southern states and still win the Presidency. They no longer mattered.

The Corwin Amendment had a fatal flaw that the South would not have stood for - it protected slavery only where it existed and did not protect the expansion of slavery into the territories. Nor would any amendment protecting the expansion of slavery ever pass out of the House.

We don't know that. As Shelby Foote said, the American Genius was the art of compromise, and this is where both sides failed at this point in history.

So the South did leave,... The confederate constitution....most likely guaranteed that an amendment ending slavery was impossible to pass.

Just like the Corwin Amendentment most likely would have.
168 posted on 03/13/2008 8:44:52 PM PDT by smug (smug for President; Your only real hope)
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To: Non-Sequitur
And what prominent Southern Republican was available to run with Lincoln in 1860?

Cassius M. Clay of Kentucky; he was a candidate for the republican Vice Presidential nominee in 1860. Also I discovered that Kentucky, Missouri, Delaware, Maryland, Texas, and Virginia sent delegates to the 1860 Republican Convention. I recently discovered this while reading, and while verifying it on The Political Graveyard web site I remembered your post so I thought I would pass it along
235 posted on 03/27/2008 5:45:02 AM PDT by smug (smug for President; Your only real hope)
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