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 ...
“Of course not (prior to the war not one Congressman or Senator from the northern states . . .ever introduced a constitutional amendment to end slavery). They knew the political math and understood how devoted the slave states were to their “peculiar institution”
This indicates the northern states were not equally devoted to abolishing slavery by using the constitution. Decade after decade after decade after decade went by and the North would not even try to pass an amendment.
This is why so many question the North’s claim to “moral high ground.”
The South launched a bloody and protracted rebellion to protect their institution of slavery. Just about any position is a moral high ground compared to that.
It sounds like you are saying the North didn't have the votes to pass a constitutional amendment.
But later they did - after 600,000 men had been safely buried. And after surviving opponents had been stripped of the right to vote.
If what you say is true, what the North needed to get their way was a war. War cloaks a lot, including extra-constitutional methods.
But first the North would need a pretext for open-ended war. That, and hot blood, they found with their Navy at the Gulf of Tonkin incident.
I mean, the Fort Sumter incident.
“The South launched a bloody and protracted rebellion to protect their institution of slavery. Just about any position is a moral high ground compared to that. “
If, as you say, the South was fighting for slavery, who was fighting against slavery?
The British newspapers that are now available on line to us often remark that our Revolution was a secession. You’re right about that.
You are correct that while a Congressman Lincoln proposed a law eliminating slavery in Washington. In his proposed law, Lincoln included a fugitive slave provision allowing slave owners to recover their slaves who had escaped into Washington. Lincoln's attempt to placate both sides of the slavery issue was not successful and the bill died.
As I also remember, Lincoln believed that the Constitution demanded a fugitive slave law. Lincoln's speech notes for an 1859 speech said [Link]:
"We must not disturb slavery in the states where it exists, because the Constitution, and the peace of the country both forbid us — We must not withhold an efficient fugitive slave law, because the Constitution demands it."
Shortly after Lincoln was inaugurated in 1861, the Fugitive Slave Commissioner (I don't remember the exact title of the job) in Springfield, a friend of Lincoln whom Lincoln had endorsed for the Commissioner position, allowed a slave owner from Missouri to go into Chicago to retrieve some fugitive slaves. Chicago at that time was a sanctuary city for escaped slaves, and a large population of fugitive slaves was living in the city. My speculation is that when he was in Springfield before his inauguration, Lincoln had suggested to the Commissioner that he permit a slave owner to go into Chicago to recover his slaves, something apparently not done in Chicago back then. Here was the result (which I posted to you back in 2007, Link):
New York Times, April 9, 1861. Departure of Fugitive Slaves for Canada
Chicago, Monday, April 8. One hundred and six fugitive slaves left this city last night for Canada via the Michigan Southern Railroad. It is estimated that over one thousand fugitives have arrived in this city since last Fall, most of whom have left since the recent arrest of five by the United States Marshal.
Detroit, Monday, April 8. About three hundred fugitive slaves, principally from Illinois, have passed into Canada at this point since Saturday, and large numbers more are reportedly on the way. Many are entirely destitute, and much suffering is anticipated, notwithstanding the efforts made for their relief.
The message got through to the fugitive slaves that the Fugitive Slave Law was going to be enforced in Chicago by the new administration. Hence the fugitive slaves got the heck out of Chicago as fast as they could. But it was too late for that adherence to the law to make any difference to Southerners, what with Lincoln's battle fleet already approaching Charleston and Fort Sumter at that point in April 1861.
“I always like to find a common ground in a debate. Can we all agree that if South Carolina had not seceded there would have been no civil war?”
There would have been no War of Northern Aggression if President Lincoln had not invaded the South.
On that we can all agree.
Check your timeline and states that ratified the 13th Amendment.
But first the North would need a pretext for open-ended war. That, and hot blood, they found with their Navy at the Gulf of Tonkin incident.
I mean, the Fort Sumter incident.
Since you aren't familiar with the 13th Amendment ratification is it any wonder you keep returning to this ridiculous comparison?
Nobody specifically. The South was foolish enough to launch their rebellion to protect an institution that really wasn't in danger of being done away with. Dumb, huh?
Think about what you just posted. Use logic and reason. The Southerners of the mid 19th century were neither suicidal or stupid. So you are right in what you said. So logic dictates the primary motivation for the South to secede must have been something else, right?
"It is said slavery is all we are fighting for, and if we give it up we give up all. Even if this were true, which we deny, slavery is not all our enemies are fighting for. It is merely the pretense to establish sectional superiority and a more centralized form of government, and to deprive us of our rights and liberties.
" I am with the South in life or death, in victory or defeat. I believe the North is about to wage a brutal and unholy war on a people who have done them no wrong, in violation of the Constitution and the fundamental principles of government. They no longer acknowledge that all government derives its validity from the consent of the governed. They are about to invade our peaceful homes, destroy our property, and murder our men and dishonor our women. We propose no invasion of the North, no attack on them, and only ask to be left alone. "
Maj. Gen. Patrick Cleburne CSA
No, no we do not agree on that. In fact only a small, laughable wrong, narrow minded group of peoplein this country believe that.
How about this, do you believe slavery is morally wrong? Simple yes or no answer will suffice. I think everyone can agree on that.
Did you get a chance to look up the Arkansas secession convention declaration and see if my my count on the number of times salve, slavery, etc was used was correct? Thanks!
Here’s the post I made to you about it.
“I just read that and your right, not one mention of slavery. However, I decided to look up the causes of complaint it mentions. In that I counted slavery, slaveholders, etc., being used 24 times. Now my eyes aren’t as good as they used to be but could you be a dear and google “resolutions passed by the convention of the peoples of Arkansas 20 March 1861” and check my count? I would put a link here but I don’t know how to link in html. Thanks!”
If what you say is true, then we can forever dismiss the popular notion that the Lincoln-side was fighting for the high moral cause of “freeing the slaves.”
Which has been dismissed by most people here and just about every reputable biographer that I know. The only more persistent myths are that the South was not fighting for slavery and they did not start the rebellion.
Open to opinion.
So logic dictates the primary motivation for the South to secede must have been something else, right?
Except that defending slavery was the reason they gave.
"African slavery is the cornerstone of the industrial, social, and political fabric of the South; and whatever wars against it, wars against her very existence. Strike down the institution of African slavery and you reduce the South to depoulation and barbarism." - South Carolina Congressman Lawrence Keitt, 1860
"Our people have come to this on the question of slavery. I am willing, in that address to rest it upon that question. I think it is the great central point from which we are now proceeding, and I am not willing to divert the public attention from it." - Lawrence Keitt
"The triumphs of Christianity rest this very hour upon slavery; and slavery depends on the triumphs of the South... This war is the servant of slavery." - Rev John Wrightman, South Carolina, 1861.
"[Recruiting slaves into the army] is abolition doctrine ... the very doctrine which the war was commenced to put down." - Editorial, Jan 1865, North Carolina Standard
"What did we go to war for, if not to protect our [slave] property?" - CSA senator from Virgina, Robert Hunter, 1865
"I am not ashamed of having fought on the side of slavery—a soldier fights for his country—right or wrong—he is not responsible for the political merits of the course he fights in ... The South was my country." - John Singleton Mosby
"The South had always been solid for slavery and when the quarrel about it resulted in a conflict of arms, those who had approved the policy of disunion took the pro-slavery side. It was perfectly logical to fight for slavery, if it was right to own slaves." - John S. Mosby
"We have dissolved the Union chiefly because of the negro quarrel. Now, is there any man who wished to reproduce that strife among ourselves? And yet does not he, who wished the slave trade left for the action of Congress, see that he proposed to open a Pandora's box among us and to cause our political arena again to resound with this discussion. Had we left the question unsettled, we should, in my opinion, have sown broadcast the seeds of discord and death in our Constitution. I congratulate the country that the strife has been put to rest forever, and that American slavery is to stand before the world as it is, and on its own merits. We have now placed our domestic institution, and secured its rights unmistakably, in the Constitution; we have sought by no euphony to hide its name - we have called our negroes "slaves," and we have recognized and protected them as persons and our rights to them as property." - Alabama Congressman Robert H. Smith
"As the last and crowning act of insult and outrage upon the people of the South, the citizens of the Northern States, by overwhelming majorities, on the 6th day of November last, elected Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin, President and Vice President of the United States. Whilst it may be admitted that the mere election of any man to the Presidency, is not, per se, a sufficient cause for a dissolution of the Union; yet, when the issues upon, and circumstances under which he was elected, are properly appreciated and understood, the question arises whether a due regard to the interest, honor, and safety of their citizens, in view of this and all the other antecedent wrongs and outrages, do not render it the imperative duty of the Southern States to resume the powers they have delegated to the Federal Government, and interpose their sovereignty for the protection of their citizens.
What, then are the circumstances under which, and the issues upon which he was elected? His own declarations, and the current history of the times, but too plainly indicate he was elected by a Northern sectional vote, against the most solemn warnings and protestations of the whole South. He stands forth as the representative of the fanaticism of the North, which, for the last quarter of a century, has been making war upon the South, her property, her civilization, her institutions, and her interests; as the representative of that party which overrides all Constitutional barriers, ignores the obligations of official oaths, and acknowledges allegiance to a higher law than the Constitution, striking down the sovereignty and equality of the States, and resting its claims to popular favor upon the one dogma, the Equality of the Races, white and black." -- Letter of S.F. Hale, Commissioner of Alabama to the State of Kentucky, to Gov. Magoffin of Kentucky
"In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.
Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery, the greatest material interest of the world." --Mississppi Declaration of the Causes of Secession
"SIR: In obedience to your instructions I repaired to the seat of government of the State of Louisiana to confer with the Governor of that State and with the legislative department on the grave and important state of our political relations with the Federal Government, and the duty of the slave-holding States in the matter of their rights and honor, so menacingly involved in matters connected with the institution of African slavery." --Report from John Winston, Alabama's Secession Commissioner to Louisiana
"This was the ground taken, gentlemen, not only by Mississippi, but by other slaveholding States, in view of the then threatened purpose, of a party founded upon the idea of unrelenting and eternal hostility to the institution of slavery, to take possession of the power of the Government and use it to our destruction. It cannot, therefore, be pretended that the Northern people did not have ample warning of the disastrous and fatal consequences that would follow the success of that party in the election, and impartial history will emblazon it to future generations, that it was their folly, their recklessness and their ambition, not ours, which shattered into pieces this great confederated Government, and destroyed this great temple of constitutional liberty which their ancestors and ours erected, in the hope that their descendants might together worship beneath its roof as long as time should last." -- Speech of Fulton Anderson to the Virginia Convention
"Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one of the Confederated Union to promote her welfare, insure domestic tranquility and secure more substantially the blessings of peace and liberty to her people. She was received into the confederacy with her own constitution, under the guarantee of the federal constitution and the compact of annexation, that she should enjoy these blessings. She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery-- the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits-- a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time." -- Texas Declaration of the causes of secession
"What was the reason that induced Georgia to take the step of secession? This reason may be summed up in one single proposition. It was a conviction, a deep conviction on the part of Georgia, that a separation from the North-was the only thing that could prevent the abolition of her slavery." -- Speech of Henry Benning to the Virginia Convention
"Gentlemen, I see before me men who have observed all the records of human life, and many, perhaps, who have been chief actors in many of its gravest scenes, and I ask such men if in all their lore of human society they can offer an example like this? South Carolina has 300,000 whites, and 400,000 slaves. These 300,000 whites depend for their whole system of civilization on these 400,000 slaves. Twenty millions of people, with one of the strongest Governments on the face of the earth, decree the extermination of these 400,000 slaves, and then ask, is honor, is interest, is liberty, is right, is justice, is life, worth the struggle?
Gentlemen, I have thus very rapidly endeavored to group before you the causes which have produced the action of the people of South Carolina." -- Speech of John Preston to the Virginia Convention
"This new union with Lincoln Black Republicans and free negroes, without slavery, or, slavery under our old constitutional bond of union, without Lincoln Black Republicans, or free negroes either, to molest us.
If we take the former, then submission to negro equality is our fate. if the latter, then secession is inevitable" -- Address of William L. Harris of Mississippi
"But I trust I may not be intrusive if I refer for a moment to the circumstances which prompted South Carolina in the act of her own immediate secession, in which some have charged a want of courtesy and respect for her Southern sister States. She had not been disturbed by discord or conflict in the recent canvass for president or vice-president of the United States. She had waited for the result in the calm apprehension that the Black Republican party would succeed. She had, within a year, invited her sister Southern States to a conference with her on our mutual impending danger. Her legislature was called in extra session to cast her vote for president and vice-president, through electors, of the United States and before they adjourned the telegraphic wires conveyed the intelligence that Lincoln was elected by a sectional vote, whose platform was that of the Black Republican party and whose policy was to be the abolition of slavery upon this continent and the elevation of our own slaves to equality with ourselves and our children, and coupled with all this was the act that, from our friends in our sister Southern States, we were urged in the most earnest terms to secede at once, and prepared as we were, with not a dissenting voice in the State, South Carolina struck the blow and we are now satisfied that none have struck too soon, for when we are now threatened with the sword and the bayonet by a Democratic administration for the exercise of this high and inalienable right, what might we meet under the dominion of such a party and such a president as Lincoln and his minions." -- Speech of John McQueen, the Secession Commissioner from South Carolina to Texas
"History affords no example of a people who changed their government for more just or substantial reasons. Louisiana looks to the formation of a Southern confederacy to preserve the blessings of African slavery, and of the free institutions of the founders of the Federal Union, bequeathed to their posterity." -- Address of George Williamson, Commissioner from Louisiana to the Texas Secession Convention
“How about this, do you believe slavery is morally wrong?”
By which of the most-popular belief systems are you asking me to evaluate slavery: Christianity, Judaism, Muhammadanism, Atheism, or Darwinism?
How about plain old common sense, but looking at your posts you appear to be very deficient in that area.
But fight the North did, killing over 600,000. And for what the North believed to be a very important reason: it was in their own economic and political best self-interest.
He fought the war forced upon him.
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