GOP candidate: Civil war wasn’t about slavery

The Hill ^ | June 25th, 2018 | Lisa Hagen

[Mariner]

Republican Senate nominee Corey Stewart said that he doesn’t believe that the Civil War was fought over the issue of slavery, arguing that it was mostly about states’ rights.

In a Monday interview with Hill.TV’s “Rising,” Stewart, who recently won the GOP nomination in the Virginia Senate race, said that not all parts of Virginia’s history are “pretty.”

But he said he doesn’t associate slavery with the war.

“I don’t at all. If you look at the history, that’s not what it meant at all, and I don’t believe that the Civil War was ultimately fought over the issue of slavery,” Stewart said.

When “Rising” co-host Krystal Ball pressed him again if the Civil War was “significantly” fought over slavery, Stewart said some of them talked about slavery, but added that most soldiers never owned slaves and “they didn’t fight to preserve the institution of slavery.”

“We have to put ourselves in the shoes of the people who were fighting at that time and from their perspective, they saw it as a federal intrusion of the state,” he said.

Stewart also said he doesn’t support a Richmond elementary school named after a Confederate general deciding to rename it after former President Obama.

[elteemike]

I am no Civil War historian; just a reader...

And in no way defending either the states rights or slavery as cause premise, but there is ample evidence the history of our Civil War was/is a piece of Northern propaganda...

Suggested reading: The South Was Right! by James Ronald Kennedy and Walter Donald Kennedy

I’m a Yankee by birth, but this book changed much of my thinking on the causes of the Civil War...

[Mr Ramsbotham]

If the South was fighting for slavery, who was fighting against slavery?

That's a pretty piece of rhetoric, but while the South went to war to preserve slavery, the North went to war to preserve the Union. Yet slavery was the issue that drove the entire thing forward.

[BillyBoy]

>> he was a “GOPE RINO” so most of FR didn’t want to hear that. <<

Heh. The guy had an impeccable record in the House of Delegates, described as a "conservative voting record and libertarian streak.", he's a card carrying member of the member of the Heritage Foundation and the NRA, he's best known for a "fiery speech on the floor of the House of Delegates where Freitas voiced opposition to further gun control proposals following the Parkland, Florida school shooting" and he was endorsed in the primary by Senators Rand Paul and Mike Lee.

Sounds like Freitas is a "GOPE RINO" the same way Mike Enzi supposedly was.

Corey Stewart is apparently this election cycle's version of Katherine Harris.

[traderrob6]

Agrred, they were “intertwined”

Slavery was simply one of many powers that the South felt they had been guaranteed by the Constitution. But they were many more and many on this forum choose to belittle or ignore the “others”.

[FLT-bird]

“And slavery, you say, is no longer an element in the contest.” Union Colonel James Jaquess

“No, it is not, it never was an essential element. It was only a means of bringing other conflicting elements to an earlier culmination. It fired the musket which was already capped and loaded. There are essential differences between the North and the South that will, however this war may end, make them two nations.” Jefferson Davis

Davis rejects peace with reunion

https://cwcrossroads.wordpress.com/2013/03/03/jefferson-davis-rejects-peace-with-reunion-1864/

Beginning in late 1862, James Phelan, Joseph Bradford, and Reuben Davis wrote to Jefferson Davis to express concern that some opponents were claiming the war “was for the defense of the institution of slavery” (Cooper, Jefferson Davis, American, pp. 479-480, 765). They called those who were making this claim “demagogues.” Cooper notes that when two Northerners visited Jefferson Davis during the war, Davis insisted “the Confederates were not battling for slavery” and that “slavery had never been the key issue” (Jefferson Davis, American, p. 524).

Neither “love for the African” [witness the Northern laws against him], nor revulsion from “property in persons” [“No, you imported Africans and sold them as chattels in the slave markets”] motivated the present day agitators,”…... “No sir….the mask is off, the purpose is avowed…It is a struggle for political power.” Jefferson Davis 1848

“What do you propose, gentlemen of the free soil party? Do you propose to better the condition of the slave? Not at all. What then do you propose? You say you are opposed to the expansion of slavery. Is the slave to be benefited by it? Not at all. What then do you propose? It is not humanity that influences you in the position which you now occupy before the country. It is that you may have an opportunity of cheating us that you want to limit slave territory within circumscribed bounds. It is that you may have a majority in the Congress of the United States and convert the government into an engine of Northern aggrandizement. It is that your section may grow in power and prosperity upon treasures unjustly taken from the South, like the vampire bloated and gorged with the blood which it has secretly sucked from its victim. You desire to weaken the political power of the Southern states, - and why? Because you want, by an unjust system of legislation, to promote the industry of the New England States, at the expense of the people of the South and their industry.” Jefferson Davis 1860 speech in the US Senate

“The people of the Southern States, whose almost exclusive occupation was agriculture, early perceived a tendency in the Northern States to render the common government subservient to their own purposes by imposing burdens on commerce as a protection to their manufacturing and shipping interests. Long and angry controversies grew out of these attempts, often successful, to benefit one section of the country at the expense of the other. And the danger of disruption arising from this cause was enhanced by the fact that the Northern population was increasing, by immigration and other causes, in a greater ratio than the population of the South. By degrees, as the Northern States gained preponderance in the National Congress, self-interest taught their people to yield ready assent to any plausible advocacy of their right as a majority to govern the minority without control.” Jefferson Davis Address to the Confederate Congress April 29, 1861

“Secession, southerners argued, would ‘liberate’ the South and produce the kind of balanced economy that was proving so successful in the North and so unachievable in the South.” (John A. Garraty and Robert McCaughey, The American Nation: A History of the United States to 1877, Volume One, Sixth Edition, New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1987, pp. 418-419, emphasis in original)

Davis made it quite clear that it was not about slavery.

[rockrr]

And you would pretend that they were equal offenders when in truth the slave ownership of northern states would be measured as a tiny fraction of a percent while the lowest percentage of any would-be confederate state was Virginia at 26%.

Every northern state had either outlawed the practice or had a defined timeline to emancipation. ZERO southern states could say the same.

Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address: "I have no purpose directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so."

Lincoln spoke those words to assure the southern states that they didn't need to do anything stupid. They did it anyway.

[Blue House Sue]

The Declarations of Secession also mention slavey as the primary cause.

[jjotto]

Strictly speaking, it was about the EXPANSION of slavery into Western territories. It seems likely that the existence of slavery in states where it had been traditional would not have been challenged had the slave states not insisted on its expansion.

[arrogantsob]

Please even the slavers among the Founders believe it to be an evil and it became even more so after the Cotton Gin made cotton growing extremely profit. Ironic that the wealth of the South was due to that Yankee, Eli Whitney.

BTW the word “slavery” is not in the Constitution much less “enshrined” in it.

The tolerance of slavery was the compromise which allowed the formation of the Union. The Northern states basically ignored it, not affecting by it much.

Lincoln fought the war because of outrages to federal property and to preserve the Union. When the situation was ripe he made slavery the next issue.

[BillyBoy]

>> The President of the CSA....the one who had actual power....said it was not about slavery. <<

He also said Lincoln was a great man and honorable leader who wanted to make peace with the south, but his neoconfederate fan club conveniently ignores those comments while foaming at the mouth about how evil Lincoln was.

[DoughtyOne]

I think folks tend to see it differently.

That’s okay. Good cases can be made about it being all about slavery as well. I’m just not “all in” with that version of things.

It’s good to air things out from time to time. We should keep it somewhat fresh in our minds, and if two opposing sides dig in, we’ll get a better understanding no matter if anyone fully prevails or not.

[pfflier]

I believe you answered your own question.

"...why did the various Declarations of Secession obsess on their right..."

[Reno89519]

Hopefully Stewart drops out by the weekend so the party can come up with a viable, respectable, intelligent, and politically savvy candidate, else this seat goes to a Dem.

[RainMan]

I am probably a bit older than you, but when I was in school, we were taught that the Civil War was about states rights first, and slavery second … and I grew up in Washington. If you want to read an interesting article about Federalism, and how the Civil War changed it, including why the South thought they did indeed have the right to secede, see here. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jala/2629860.0010.103/--abraham-lincoln-and-federalism?rgn=main;view=fulltext

If you don't want to read the entire article, the short version is the Articles of Confederation (passed March 1, 1781) were signed as independent sovereignties, and the Constitution (passed in 1788) refers to "We the people of the United STATES … with the State being the operative entity. Each state ratified the Constitution, not in a national election by individuals, but as States. Rights were built into the Constitution for States, as well as individuals. Included in these is the 10th Amendment and the interpretation that the Federal Government only had specific delegated powers.

Now, overlay on that the fact that the North had a greater population, smaller land mass, and was more industrialized, and the South was agrarian. Because of the way representation is divided in Congress, this gave the North an advantage when passing laws, and taxation was designed so that the underrepresented South payed a significantly higher share towards Federal Revenue than the North because of the types of products and services they needed versus the North (there were no income taxes back then). In short, the Federal Government began issuing tariffs, even though that was a power not delegated to it by the States, and the tariffs were hurting the South.

Madison conceded to Jefferson in his writings that the Marshall Supreme Court abused its power in by expanding national authority and restricting that of states. The question of whether the law of the Union or the law of the State was subordinate was actually very much play, and can be read about in Charles Goodrich's "Science of Government" published in 1853.

Slavery became an issue because of Federalism, and whether the Federal government had any legal authority to do anything about it. There were those trying to use both the Commerce Clause (but it failed because the right to regulate Commerce did not include the right to ban it, specifically to ban slaves), and Article 4, Section 2 of the Constitution to provide Federal protection to those from one state entering another state to try to change the opinions of the people or that States laws. In short, the use and expansion of Federalism was being applied in such a way to punish the South economically, as well as through supporting insurrections by non-Citizens of the State.

Finally, the pre-Civil War Democrat Party (specifically the Jacksonian line of Presidents) was a party that opposed Nationalism (see Jackson's fights against a Central Bank, etc), whereas the Republicans were a Nationalist wing of the Whig Party. To get elected however, Lincoln pledged "No Interference" with State Power over Slavery … again, pointing that the argument was with Federalism, not Slavery.

[arrogantsob]

Had the South not purchased so much from other countries there would have been no tax to lose. This was a major reason it lost the war; it had little industrial base to supply the armies.

[arrogantsob]

Probably because Ole’ Abe blockaded their port and captured two of the major ones right away.

[FLT-bird]

Only 4 states issued declarations and only one did not also discuss economics - namely high tariffs to benefit Northern manufacturers and grossly unequal federal government expenditures even though these were NOT unconstitutional while refusal to enforce the fugitive slave clause of the US constitution WAS unconstitutional.

[Mollypitcher1]

Stevens’ speech is of little or no consequence as it is purely a politician’s speech.

[musicman]

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[rockrr]

Thanks - reading it now...