Posted on 06/25/2018 3:28:41 PM PDT by 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
This has been explained to you on other threads but you seem to thick headed to get it. The south seceded because they believed slavery was threatened. The United States, following the precedent set by President Andrew Jackson, viewed secession as rebellion. They attempted to continue to carry out the duties of the federal government throughout the states. When they attempted to resupply a federal fort they were fired on by the rebels. The United States then called up troops to suppress the rebellion.
During the course of suppressing the rebellion the US used the well established contraband of war theory to free all slaves in areas of the country that had taken up arms against the duly elected government of the US. The US government later adopted the policy to end slavery completely throughout the US in the only constitutional authorized manner that it could, by passing a constitutional amendment.
So the south rebelled to protect slavery, the US went to war to suppress a rebellion and later adopted the end of slavery as a goal. This gave the US the moral high ground.
I think that if the southern states hadn’t rebelled slavery might have lasted well into the 20th century. The slave states could have blocked any amendments to end slavery up to that point. The south had already started using slaves in the few factories that they had. I could see that expanding.
As horrible as the war was I find the idea of slavery existing in the United States into the 20th century much much worse. Slavery always made a mockery of our Declaration of Independence. And if you read the notes and letters of many of the founding fathers you can see that they knew this also and hoped that slavery would eventually end at some point.
It didn’t matter what other countries thought. They didn’t get a veto if the newly independent country could survive on its own. Early recognition is useful if it means support, like the French and Dutch in the Revolution.
France was eager to recognize the nascent US in 1778 because it suited their long term rivalry with Great Britain. They had been plotting revenge since their loss in 1763.
But it wasn’t necessarily that great for the US once the war ended. France didn’t want a powerful United States. And by 1793 the friendship was fraying.
There’s a noticeable blind spot when it comes to seeing the American Revolution as a secession. The Brits see it easily enough. Our usual talking heads think that the events of 1861 were unique in American experience and had no precedent.
We ended up with the Constitution because George Washington and some friends wanted to build a canal along the Potomac. They convened a meeting at Mount Vernon in 1785 so that Virginia and Maryland could hammer out navigation rights.
This meeting impressed James Madison and he pushed for another conference that would include more states. He wanted all of them but could only interest five. They met at Mann’s Tavern in Annapolis in 1786 and discussed commerce and standardizing rules between the states.
The state commissioners who met in Annapolis decided to hold yet one more meeting the next year for the expressed purpose of amending the Articles of Confederation. So in 1787 they convened in the Old State House in Philadelphia and instead of amending they junked the Articles and replaced them with the Constitution. No one quite gave them the authority to do that but they did it anyway.
Some of them may have been.
If one ran away he made little or no effort to get them back. Since they were better treated and more well off than almost all others slave and non-slave, they rarely ran away.
I had not heard that. Jefferson freed Sally Hemmings's children when he died and even allowed some of them to leave when he was still alive, but I don't know that he was as lenient with his other slaves.
“I think that if the southern states hadn’t rebelled slavery might have lasted well into the 20th century. “
Its economic rationale was already ending. Slavery ended in all of the Americas by the 1880s. In a lot of South America it had ended by the 1850s.
Karl Marx wrote a lot of that stuff for the New York Daily Tribune when he was closely following the American Civil War. But he never set foot in America and was full of his Class Warfare nonsense so he believed it. Bizarre to see it still echoing today.
“So the south rebelled to protect slavery, the US went to war to suppress a rebellion and later adopted the end of slavery as a goal. This gave the US the moral high ground.”
Before the War, the northern states treated black people badly.
During the War, the northern states treated black people badly.
After the War, the northern states treated black people badly.
Tell us more about that magic moment when the northern states were given the moral high ground.
Think about it a minute. Plenty of secessionists, like Louis Wigfall, wanted an agrarian society that would concentrate on producing agricultural produce and not industrialize. Even those who did look forward to developing a different kind of economy wouldn’t have spoken of a “balanced economy that was proving so successful in the North.” If they did talk in that 20th century way, they might not have been secessionists.
Yeah I’m just not buying your argument here. You dredged this up from another thread by the way. I cited my sources.
Davis never mentioned slavery in his inaugural address and said multiple times that that’s not what they were fighting about. He pushed for and eventually got the agreement of the Confederate Congress to empower the Confederate ambassador to Britain/France with plenipotentiary power to enter into a treaty that would abolish slavery in the CSA.
Oh but it does matter. Lincoln made it perfectly clear he was no threat to slavery. Many in the South understood that slavery was doomed in the long run anyway. It had already been dying out in several western countries as well as several Northern states, and was already extinguished in several more by the mid 19th century.
Of course not. They already decided that they wanted their own country. They’d already given up on Britain and Britain’s promises. So it was with the secessionists of 1861. Whatever Lincoln or Congress offered it was too late. Is there really any argument about that?
Firstly this is a weak attempt to weasel out of the fact that the North offered slavery effectively forever by express constitutional amendment and the original 7 seceding states turned the offer down. Fact. Irrefutable.
Now as to 1776, the Brits did offer seats in Parliament. It just would not have been enough seats for the colonies to protect themselves from partisan legislation designed to drain money out of their pockets for the benefit of others. The South found itself in exactly the same situation in 1860. Slavery was not the real issue. Many of the most influential people in the South knew that as evidenced by the statements of numerous politicians and the editorials in the newspapers of the two largest ports in the CSA at the time. They could always go to some other labor system be it sharecropping or wages and still be quite profitable so long as they could set the terms of their foreign trade for themselves and so long as any tax revenue raised from their trade was spent for their own benefit. This war like most others was about money.
I highly doubt you have read more than I have on the subject.
You seem to be completely ignorant *obviously willfully* of the Corwin amendment. It was well on the way having gotten the necessary 2/3rds supermajority in both houses of the now Northern dominated Congress and been signed by the President and ratified by a few states when Lincoln endorsed it in his inaugural address.
Which....say...there’s another good source! Lincoln’s inaugural address. Its not that long. You should try reading it sometime.
And yes I know what a revisionist is. You are one.
“A census is a requirement of a government.”
Well, in the U.S. constitution it is a requirement of Article I. Except it is not called a “census.”
Instead the constitution uses another word, which means census: Enumeration. Everyone knows that.
The U.S. constitution includes slavery. But it does not use the word slaves. Everyone knows that.
When the constitution refers to “three fifths of all other Persons” what do you think the lawgivers were referencing?
I find it hard to believe that you can’t see the moral distance between treating a group of people badly and treating a group of people like property. Hell I know it’s an axiom of arguments that you lose as soon as you mentioned the Nazis but I will say that the fact the confederates didn’t want to exterminate blacks put them morally above the Nazis who wanted to exterminate groups of people.
The fact you are unwilling to accept is that believing all men should be free, as Abraham Lincoln did from an early age, put him morally head and shoulders above any leader of the southern rebellion. Here is an excerpt from a letter he wrote to his good friend Joshua Speed (who was a slave owner) in 1855 where he talks about the trip they took down the mississipi river in their younger days. Read it and tell me that isn’t a man who is deeply upset by the injustice of slavery.
“you know I dislike slavery; and you fully admit the abstract wrong of it... I also acknowledge your rights and my obligations, under the constitution, in regard to your slaves. I confess I hate to see the poor creatures hunted down, and caught, and carried back to their stripes, and unrewarded toils; but I bite my lip and keep quiet. In 1841 you and I had together a tedious low-water trip, on a Steam Boat from Louisville to St. Louis. You may remember, as I well do, that from Louisville to the mouth of the Ohio, there were, on board, ten or a dozen slaves, shackled together with irons. That sight was a continued torment to me; and I see something like it every time I touch the Ohio, or any other slave-border. It is hardly fair for you to assume, that I have no interest in a thing which has, and continually exercises, the power of making me miserable. You ought rather to appreciate how much the great body of the Northern people do crucify their feelings, in order to maintain their loyalty to the Constitution and the Union. … How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes, be in favor of degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that “all men are created equal.” We now practically read it “all men are created equal, except negroes.” When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read “all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and catholics.” When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty—to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.”
Long before Lincoln's War the states of New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Delaware, and Maryland voted to include slavery into the U.S. constitution. These states voted for slavery along with the states of Virginia, North and South Carolina and Georgia.
And prior to the war not one Congressman or Senator from the northern states - to my knowledge - ever introduced a constitutional amendment to end slavery. Not even Congressman Lincoln.
But there was, of course, a very good reason such an amendment was not introduced: it was not in the economic or political best self-interest of the northern states.
Long before Lincoln's War the states of New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Delaware, and Maryland voted to include slavery into the U.S. constitution. These states voted for slavery along with the states of Virginia, North and South Carolina and Georgia.
And prior to the war not one Congressman or Senator from the northern states - to my knowledge - ever introduced a constitutional amendment to end slavery. Not even Congressman Lincoln.
But there was, of course, a very good reason such an amendment was not introduced: it was not in the economic or political best self-interest of the northern states.
No offense. My brain is focusing on major pain issues so it tends to get lazy in other areas. I wish you a fine night.
Very very weird on Rush’s views on the South and the cause especially since Walter E. Williams has been known to be a guest host on his show.
I agree with you about this. He should have known better than to say such a thing.
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