Posted on 03/31/2010 3:04:35 PM PDT by TitansAFC
Ron Paul: Why didn’t the north just buy the south’s slaves and free them that way?
Getting down to the last two questions here…. Most people consider Abe Lincoln to be one of our greatest presidents, if not the greatest president we’ve ever had. Would you agree with that sentiment and why or why not?
No, I don’t think he was one of our greatest presidents. I mean, he was determined to fight a bloody civil war, which many have argued could have been avoided. For 1/100 the cost of the war, plus 600 thousand lives, enough money would have been available to buy up all the slaves and free them. So, I don’t see that is a good part of our history.....
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Can’t say I blame them for hanging him.
The reason Paul is a kook, is that paying the south for their slaves gives undeserved legitimacy to the institition of slavery. Just paying them off and freeing the existing slaves, only helps those slaves that are freed but doesn’t guarantee that the institution itself is destroyed. Also, some slaveholders may not have wanted to sell. The whole system had to be ended, once and for all.
Still a state’s rights issue the way I see.
Even then, it was the federal government telling the states what to do, with force, which is what our current government is doing.
“Americans love to fight.”
George C Scott as General George S. Patton in “Patton” (I hope I got that right BTW).....
The American Civil War was about as an unavoidable war as there ever was in history.
No. Whatever Lincoln thought of slavery, the Emancipation Proclamation came when it did because making the war about slavery would prevent the Confederates from getting recognition and assistance from Britain or France. Lincoln even omitted language from the Proclamation that could have been construed as supporting slave uprisings.
“Interesting to see so many conservatives supporting such a leftie so strongly.”
Yup. These sorts of threads are instuctive if for no other reason than they tend to bring out the closet authoritarians.
The tyrant lincoln was the quintessential big government leftist.
Um, because it would have created a lucrative market that would have only encouraged people to buy slaves to sell them for a profit?
It would have done NOTHING to end the slave trade.
Idiot......
Cause they could’ve gotten a cheap illegal immigrant to do the work for peanuts? You know, those jobs Americans won’t do?
:-P
Ron Paul is a loon.
“I don’t agree with Rep Paul on several issues. But his understanding of this part of history is actually pretty good.”
His understanding is crazy. The South would not even consider selling their slaves.
It’s literally an asinine proposition.
Like most of RonPaul’s ideas, they are not based in reality.
“The deep South seceded before Lincoln was inaugurated, and the rebels fired on Fort Sumter three weeks after.”
Yes, and that was in direct response to the election of the tyrant. The south didn’t wait for him to take office; the writing was already on the wall.
Ultimately, the rallying cry of the north was to force those who no longer wanted anything to do with the union to stay a part of it.
I would sincerely be interested in knowing your source for the information that the Lincoln government offered to buy the south’s slaves in 1864. I have never, in any research I have pursued, come across this statement. Additionally, I would add that Great Britain, when they banned slavery, also appropriated money for the purchase of slaves from their owners and it proved to be a very workable program. There is much truth to the assertion that the war was a struggle between those who wanted a strong central government and those who did not. Certainly, anyone who has read beyond the textbooks provided by the U.S. Department of Education knows that the war was not about slavery. The men who fought for the south were the grandsons of Revolutionary soldiers who had been brought up to believe in state’s rights and most owned no slaves. The struggle continues today, and only because those who believed in the strict interpretation of the U. S. Constitution, were defeated. I never thought I would have to make this argument on Free Republic
I think we need a Gen. Sherman to deal with our Islamic terrorists today.
Larry, the situation you bring up is not at all the same. Lincoln said repeatedly until 1863 that his goal in fighting the Civil War was not to end slavery but to “preserve the union,” i.e. he fought a war that killed 600,000 people so that the federal government could have control over people and states that desperately did not want to be under Washington D.C.’s thumb. His own speeches make it clear that this was the one and only reason that he initially pursued the war. Your comparison would only be correct if Jefferson wanted to take over North Africa and impose American federal control over the area, ending slavery there in that manner.
By the way, if, let’s say, Texas wanted to secede today, would you support the death of 2% of the population in order to force Texas to stay in the Union against its will? 2% of the national population in the 1860s was a mere 600,000 people; today that number would be 6 million. Would you think it would be worth 6 million lives to keep any state in the Union? If so, why? (And remember, as I mentioned, it is Lincoln’s own words that show the war was fought to keep states from seceding, not to end slavery.)
Not analogous situations. There were far fewer slaves in Britain, and they still maintained slavery in their colonies for some time, tapering it off.
“The North could entice Europeans to immigrate and work in the factories, but does Congressman Paul really believe that anyone else would work the fields for subsistence wages?”
Ultimately people did. Once slavery went out in the south, those who remained had to do something or starve.
And what would the south have done with all that money? Buy more slaves to do work that the freed ones couldn't do anymore.
Is there any GOP’er in his district that can retire this loon. Surely somewhere in that district there is a libertarian oriented GOP’er that can defeat him.
Havent’ read the thread so don’t know if anyone has replied to your question. Paul usually wins by large margins in his district. In the Mar 2, 2010 primary he had 3 opponents and he won the primary with over 80% of the vote.
The only way I see to get rid of him may come with the next redistricting. Texas will gain 3 maybe 4 seats and this will require a major revamping of the districts. It maybe feasible to realign his such that he doesn’t have the support from new voters yet keep it such that it remains GOP. We’ll see.
I would have no interest in Mr. Paul being elected as the President of the United States but let me assure you he is one of the purest interpreters of what our Constitution promises and demands than anyone on this site. Too many of us pick and choose which parts of the Constitution we want to believe in and support. Anyone who believes Abe Lincoln was a Constitutionalist is a product of our public school history classes and has read no further. He was the inspiration for politicians like Barack Obama, who also pick and choose which parts of the Constitution suit their purpose and ignore the rest.
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