GOP candidate: Civil war wasn’t about slavery

Can’t stand the truth.

I am not going to go down this stupid road where we compare what happens when you have F***ing warships stopping all traffic from one side, and forcing all the shipping traffic over to the other, all the while borrowing, spending, inflating, and so forth.

That's fine. If you can't answer it then you can't answer it. Not at all surprising.

In the same way that King George fought the war “forced upon him.”

Pretty much.

The Prince had to kill those people. Had to.

I've heard Jefferson Davis referred to as many things, but "Prince" is a first.

And so, critic answers critic.

And where did I say the moral high ground for the North was opposition to slavery? You keep making things up as you go along.

the District of Corruption

You got that right!

Truly, the Constitution did establish slaves as property, it was left to war to change. We had a raggedy start.

Federal spending was much greater in the North for a variety of things - especially corporate subsidies and infrastructure projects. Meanwhile about 75% of federal revenues were paid by Southerners who were the primary exporters and importers.

Not true and not true. What subsidies? What infrastructure projects?

You can look up Jefferson Davis's responses to the Emancipation Proclamation. In his message to the Confederate Congress he declared that emancipation condemned the slaves to extermination because they were incapable of fending for themselves. In another address Davis declared that he was returning the freed people of the Confederacy back to slavery:

On and after February 22, 1863, all free negroes within the limits of the Southern Confederacy shall be placed on the slave status, and be deemed to be chattels, they and their issue forever.

All negroes who shall be taken in any of the States in which slavery does not now exist, in the progress of our arms, shall be adjudged, immediately after such capture, to occupy the slave status, and in all States which shall be vanquished by our arms, all free negroes shall, ipso facto, be reduced to the condition of helotism, so that the respective normal conditions of the white and black races may be ultimately placed on a permanent basis, so as to prevent the public peace from being thereafter endangered.

If that's true, then it's obvious that Jefferson Davis wasn't planning to free the slaves or replace the slave system. He might consent to emancipation as a very last resort, but it wasn't something he wanted or was working towards.

________

And who's to say that Lincoln's promise not to do anything about slavery didn't work? Of course it had no effect on the seven states where secession resolutions had already been passed. The political leaders of those states had already made their decision. They weren't coming back, anymore than American or Irish or Indian or African revolutionaries were going to give in when Britain gave them the things they were asking for earlier. That doesn't mean that they didn't want those things. They wanted more and wouldn't settle for what they originally wanted. Revolution of rising expectations.

But Lincoln's pledge not to do anything about slavery where it existed did have an effect on the Border States. Most people in those states supported the Union, but Lincoln's oft repeated promise not to do anything about slavery in those states did make secessionism less popular in those states. And Lincoln's promise also worked in the Upper South states that rejected secession before Sumter. That may be why Davis attacked Sumter -- War drove four more slave states into the Confederacy.

But I think the Corwin Amendment's importance has been exaggerated. Would the amendment really have been ratified? How would an "unamendable amendment" work? No, it was a last minute last chance "Hail Mary Pass" -- more an repetition of what the Republicans had already promised than something that would really go through.

Rather it was more that some thoughtful Southern statesmen (and a few not so thoughtful) recognized that there was only so much that Lincoln could do in a four year term. He wasn't likely to do much or even to be reelected. Southerners could stymie his activities if they stayed in the Union.

But the passions of the moment were too strong, and more thoughtful people didn't prevail. It wasn't that slaveowning secessionists didn't care about slavery. It was that they thought slavery (and the economy, culture, and society they loved that rested on slavery) would be more secure outside the union than inside.

doubtful that the navy would make any effort to arm a chartered tug. Arming a ship built for commercial service requires a little more than strapping a 32 pounder to the deck. A 32 pounder weights 3 tons. The deck beams beneath it has to be reinforced as well as the frames where the gun is positioned. This work is done below deck to support the weight. A suitable magazine for the gun powder has to be built.

All you say makes sense. You have moved me towards about 80% in agreeing that the tugboats were probably not armed on April 12, 1861.

I'm not completely sold yet, but you make a very good case for it. I will henceforth regard them as probably not armed unless I find information to the contrary.

Not true and not true. What subsidies? What infrastructure projects?

Very true and very true. What subsidies? Read Georgia’s declaration of causes and there’s a whole list of them though there were plenty of others. What infrastructure projects? Everything from dredging for harbors to canals to railroads.

If that’s true, then it’s obvious that Jefferson Davis wasn’t planning to free the slaves or replace the slave system. He might consent to emancipation as a very last resort, but it wasn’t something he wanted or was working towards.

Davis acknowledged as early as 1861 that slavery was going to end and had been urging the Confederate Congress to empower an ambassador with plenipotentiary power to agree to a treaty which would end slavery for a while before they did so in 1864. That hardly chimes with a guy who felt slavery would be perpetual.

And who’s to say that Lincoln’s promise not to do anything about slavery didn’t work? Of course it had no effect on the seven states where secession resolutions had already been passed. The political leaders of those states had already made their decision. They weren’t coming back, anymore than American or Irish or Indian or African revolutionaries were going to give in when Britain gave them the things they were asking for earlier. That doesn’t mean that they didn’t want those things. They wanted more and wouldn’t settle for what they originally wanted. Revolution of rising expectations.

This is just an attempt to weasel. Lincoln fully endorsed slavery forever by express constitutional amendment. He even offered strengthened fugitive slave laws. The original 7 seceding states turned down his offer because slavery was simply not their primary concern. Having control of their economic destiny via freer trade and lower government expenditures which would not be spent for others’ benefit was in their interest. ie their economic interests were diametrically the opposite of those of much of the North. Had slavery not existed in those states and had they had a system of wages or sharecropping, their economic interest in freer trade and lower government expenditures and for their own rather than others’ benefit would have been no different.

But Lincoln’s pledge not to do anything about slavery where it existed did have an effect on the Border States. Most people in those states supported the Union, but Lincoln’s oft repeated promise not to do anything about slavery in those states did make secessionism less popular in those states. And Lincoln’s promise also worked in the Upper South states that rejected secession before Sumter. That may be why Davis attacked Sumter — War drove four more slave states into the Confederacy.

Sumter was fired upon because Lincoln sent a heavily armed flotilla to invade South Carolina’s territorial waters to maintain a fortress on their territory right in the middle of one of their principal harbors. No country would accept that. Had the British kept a fortress in the middle of New York harbor and sent a heavily armed fleet to reinforce it, Washington would have fired upon it.

But I think the Corwin Amendment’s importance has been exaggerated. Would the amendment really have been ratified? How would an “unamendable amendment” work? No, it was a last minute last chance “Hail Mary Pass” — more an repetition of what the Republicans had already promised than something that would really go through.

Rather it was more that some thoughtful Southern statesmen (and a few not so thoughtful) recognized that there was only so much that Lincoln could do in a four year term. He wasn’t likely to do much or even to be reelected. Southerners could stymie his activities if they stayed in the Union.

But the passions of the moment were too strong, and more thoughtful people didn’t prevail. It wasn’t that slaveowning secessionists didn’t care about slavery. It was that they thought slavery (and the economy, culture, and society they loved that rested on slavery) would be more secure outside the union than inside.

Of course you take that position. You have to. A simple reading of the facts completely torpedoes your position. So you have to come up with fanciful explanations and try to weasel out of what the plain facts show. Would the Corwin Amendment have passed? Almost certainly. Remember that the Congress passed it after the Southern delegation withdrew. It takes a 2/3rds supermajority in each house to do that. There was no widespread support for abolition in the Northern states. Abolitionists routinely received a tiny fraction of the vote. Lincoln got a few states to ratify it already. Had the original Southern states indicated they were willing to accept this, its a foregone conclusion that all 7 would have ratified it as would the Upper South and the border states. Plenty of Northern states would have hopped aboard too.

The irrevocability of the amendment stems from the fact that it takes 3/4s of the states to amend the constitution. There were 15 states at the time that still had slavery. Any future amendment to abolish slavery would have required the ascent of several of those states. That could only have been gained via a compensation scheme that fully compensated owners as had been done in Britain and most other countries that abolished slavery during that period of the 19th century. That was the point which everybody understood. Without the consent of the slaveholding states, they could have effectively blocked any future amendment since it would have taken 45 states to ratify any future amendment. 45+15=60 which is 10 more states than are even in the country today.

Lincolns big campaign promise and what he really wanted was Henry Clay’s “American system” on steroids. He wanted high tariffs and lots of government largesse which would inevitably be lavished on Northern business interests and Northern infrastructure as it had always been. Southerners, having experienced the extremely detrimental effects of high tariffs a generation earlier - the tariff of Abominations sparked the Nullification Crisis after all - knew all too well what the Morrill Tariff would bring them. The Morrill Tariff was certain to pass the Senate. All that would have been needed was a little logrolling to pick off one or two more senators. So throw in a protection for Hemp growing here and maybe include a tariff for Sugar there and voila! The Senate votes would materialize. This is standard fare in politics.

The prospect of a massive tariff hike and more unequal federal expenditures ad infinitum is what drove the Southern states to leave - not slavery which the Northern states were only too willing to compromise on.

gandalftb: "Slavery would have always ended."

If you take even a minute to consider that sentence, you'll realize it's fatuous because slavery comes in many forms, some of which flourish today.
The specific form of "chattel slavery" practiced in 1860 may indeed have ended sometime, but the more likely reason is it would just morph into something slightly different, perhaps slightly less obnoxious.
However, the bottom line is there was no serious abolition movement in the South in 1860 and a Confederacy formed in large part to protect slavery was unlikely to tolerate a vigorous abolition movement.
Further, the Confederate constitution would work to prevent any state-by-state abolition movement and constitutional amendment could only happen over the objections of seven original Deep South states.
Now some posters have tried to imagine how the Union might abolish slavery by amendment in, say, 1902 against Deep South objections, but nobody has yet proposed how the Confederacy itself could do so.
For all practical purposes, that would be impossible.

Finally, it's always taken military power to defeat slavery, even when that was only threatened, as the Brits & French did in their colonies in the 19th century.
Another form of slavery was defeated in Eastern Europe in 1945 and a third more metaphorical form was defeated by the combined economic, military & moral authorities of Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul II.
Still other forms exist today in hiding wherever law enforcement is too weak to prevent them.

Key point: Delaware was the least enslaved of all slave-states and yet refused until 1902 to voluntarily ratify the 13th amendment.
So it's just fatuous to suggest that slavery would somehow magically disappear in other states where slaves were nearly half the population and nearly half of white families "owned" at least one slave.

gandalftb: "In SC, 1/3 owned 2/3."

That number is wrong, but South Carolina & Mississippi were the two highest percentages of slaves & slave-holders.
In both states, the numbers were roughly half of each.
Nearly half were slaves and almost half of families owned slaves.
One practical effect was that Confederate soldiers from those states were highly unlikely to be not closely related to slaveholders -- if not their own family, then their uncles, cousins, in-laws, etc., owned slaves.

gandalftb: "That 2/3, when freed would have become full citizens.
Congress would have seen to that, too many future voters and political power to ignore."

Absolutely not the Confederate congress!
There is no way Deep South representatives would tolerate even emancipation, much less full citizenship for their slaves, especially since they were already counted 3/5 for representation purposes.
Suggestions otherwise are pure anti-historical fantasies.

gandalftb: "As full citizens, the 2/3, former slaves would have the right to buy guns, compete for jobs, earn money, spend at businesses they liked, elect the next sheriff, governor, mayor, representatives, etc.
Those choices certainly would be highly objectionable to the minority white population with guns."

But "whites with guns" were never a minority in any US state, ever.
So Southern whites with guns were only defeated in their Jim Crow, black codes & KKK-type enforces by the 20th century Federal government.

gandalftb: "It is reasonable that the 1/3 white ruling class knew full well what abolition meant at the time.
There would have been war, unavoidable."

And now you fantasize about civil war within the Confederacy???.
Come on FRiend, shut it off -- your brain is working overtime to produce Imagineering even a Disney would blush at.
You have no clue what you're talking about, so please, STFU.

gandalftb: "The Confederacy would never make more than modest and early gains until the economic might of the Federal government destroyed the resistance and won."

The Confederacy could well have won a war against the Union if Lincoln had been satisfied with generals like McClellan, Burnside or Hooker and if Lincoln had not been determined to see it through to Unconditional Surrender.

gandalftb: "None of todays discussion can change those central ideas."

As I read them, your "central ideas" are complete nonsense, from beginning to end, so what exactly do you think you're posting here?

DiogenesLamp #588: "I don't know why those confederates were getting upset.
It was just a bunch of supply ships setting up at the entrance to Charleston harbor."

implied </sarcasm>

Bull Snipe #606: "Davis ordered Beauregard to reduce the fort by force if necessary before the resupply mission arrived."

DiognenesLamp #608: "reasonable man would believe that when the President sends 8 Ships, at least half of them armed warships, it means he is going to use those ships.
One does not ordinarily pull out a gun and threaten someone unless they mean to do something.
What were those warships going to do?
What were the Confederates led to believe they were going to do?

All that is irrelevant, and DiogenesLamp well knows why.
The fact is that Davis had long since ordered Beauregard & Bragg to take Forts Sumter & Pickens, by force if necessary.
Davis' orders were not contingent on Lincoln's resupply mission, but only on the Confederate generals' preparations to use force.
Naturally, Davis preferred the forts surrender without a fight, but he was prepared to fight & win if necessary.
All of which renders who-fired-what-shots-when irrelevant.
The fact is Confederates intended to seize Federal properties wherever possible and outgoing President Buchanan had announced in early February that Sumter & Pickens would be defended & not surrendered under any circumstances.
Lincoln at first had second thoughts, but eventually decided Buchanan was right and so ordered resupply missions.
Davis used Lincoln's mission as his excuse to start war, but the fact is once Buchanan announced in February the forts would be defended and Davis decided they must be taken, war was coming, period.

Sure, Lost Causers like to argue that magically property changed ownership when a new government took over, but there's no law anywhere in the world which says such a thing, it's just another LC fantasy.

Bottom line on the Doubleday/Fox/Lincoln resupply mission: it was intended for Union warships to remain offshore and resupply Fort Sumter in small boats, under cover of darkness and/or fog.
It was a good plan with every chance of success but required Maj. Anderson to hold out another couple of days, until Beauregard's ammunition ran out and conditions at sea were just right.

Had Lincoln's resupply mission proved successful, events may well have played out differently, impossible to say now.

jeffersondem: "There would have been no War of Northern Aggression if President Lincoln had not invaded the South."

The War of Confederate Aggression began with Confederate seizures of dozens of Federal properties -- forts, ships, arsenals, mints, etc. -- threats against Federal officials, firings on Union ships, military assault on Fort Sumter and a formal declaration of war against the United States, May 6, 1861.

Please see this post for a summary.
In the war's first 12 month 52 battles in 13 states or territories were fought, of which 30 battles happened in six Union states or territories -- more than half.
It was not until well into the war that its focus clearly shifted to the Confederacy.

But it is the political DNA of Democrats to accuse Republicans of their own wrong-doings, and that's all we're seeing here from Jeffersondem.

By the way, if we look at the 2nd year battles, we can set a precise date of when the war's focus shifted from the Union to the Confederacy -- it was May 8, 1862 at Stonewall Jackson's Battle of McDowell, in Virginia, that we first see and equal number of battles in the Confederacy as the Union = 30 battles in each.
But there were still enough battles outside the Confederacy that by the beginning of the war's third year (April 1863) 1/3 of all battles were in Union states = 49 Union of 145 total.

Even in the war's third year, from April 1863 to April 1864, there were battles in 10 Union states & territories and 11 Confederate states, so that by April 1864 63 total battles were in Union states, or 26% of the 241 cumulative battles.
If you ask, when was the last battle between Confederate & Union forces in a Union state, well, in October 1864 there were eight such battles in Kansas & Missouri, ending in the Second Battle of Newtonia, October 28, 1864, a Union victory.

According to this source all told, the Confederate War of Aggression was fought 384 major battles over 18 Union states & territories and, oh yes, in 11 Confederate states.
But Jefferson Davis' War focused first in Union regions and did not predominently shift to the Confederacy until after May of 1862.

Davis acknowledged as early as 1861 that slavery was going to end ...

Show where.

... and had been urging the Confederate Congress to empower an ambassador with plenipotentiary power to agree to a treaty which would end slavery for a while before they did so in 1864.

Documentation? Citation? Reference?

[Lincoln] even offered strengthened fugitive slave laws.

Proof?

The original 7 seceding states turned down his offer because slavery was simply not their primary concern.

If you want $20 a bale for your cotton and I come up from $5 to 10$ and you still turn me down, it's not because you didn't care about the money. It's because I didn't offer enough. Or in this case, it's because the leaders in those states had already concluded that their "way of life" was safer outside the union than in, and had already decided on independence.

Had slavery not existed in those states and had they had a system of wages or sharecropping, their economic interest in freer trade and lower government expenditures and for their own rather than others’ benefit would have been no different.

Of course it would. They'd make use of the tariff to develop their own industries - as some parts of the Upper South already did, and as they would do after the war, and as Diogenes says they would if they had their independence. But they had slavery and it was profitable and they didn't want to risk the social dislocations that industrialization would bring.

Had the British kept a fortress in the middle of New York harbor and sent a heavily armed fleet to reinforce it, Washington would have fired upon it.

Not really a sensible argument. Nobody knows what George Washington would have done in such a case. We do know that the British kept forts in Michigan long after the peace treaty. They were waiting for us to compensate the dispossessed Tories, I think. In any case, nobody attacked the forts and the situation was resolved diplomatically.

Would the Corwin Amendment have passed? Almost certainly.

Only four or five states ratified. Even if all the seceding states had ratified that would still have fallen short of the approval of 3/4ths of the state legislatures.

Any future amendment to abolish slavery would have required the ascent of several of those states. That could only have been gained via a compensation scheme that fully compensated owners as had been done in Britain and most other countries that abolished slavery during that period of the 19th century. That was the point which everybody understood. Without the consent of the slaveholding states, they could have effectively blocked any future amendment since it would have taken 45 states to ratify any future amendment. 45+15=60 which is 10 more states than are even in the country today.

Well, the amendment actually and literally said it couldn't be repealed or amended -- the Constitution could not be changed to abolish or interfere with state's "domestic institutions" concerning those "bound to service or labor" -- but an unamendable amendment was constitutionally problematic and wouldn't have worked to bar future amendments.

I doubt Lincoln or the Republicans would have opposed a compensated Emancipation scheme if it would have kept the country together. If Southerners really were considering abolishing slavery as you seem to think, why would they hold out? I don't think they were contemplating emancipation, but I can't help noticing the massive contradiction in your argument.

You claim that the Confederates and arch-supporters of slavery were in favor of eventually abolishing slavery and now you say that they would never support the abolition of slavery and would have kept it permanently. Quite a contradiction.

The prospect of a massive tariff hike and more unequal federal expenditures ad infinitum is what drove the Southern states to leave - not slavery which the Northern states were only too willing to compromise on.

Nonsense. The "massive tariff hike" was a result of secession and war. Tariff increases would have been more moderate had the Southern Senators remained in Washington.

I guess there's also a giant "dog that did not bark" in your argument. If it was really tariffs and expenditures the secessionists were worried about, why didn't they make that clear? Why was it Lincoln offered to compromise on slavery, rather than tariffs? Was it because he was so bound and determined for high tariffs as your cartoonish history suggests? Or was it because he accurately judged what was on the minds of Southerners? In any case, I'd have to say that the secessionist leaders didn't make sufficiently clear what you think was on their minds.

And you only come to your conclusion because you ignore the actual fighting going on over slavery in Kansas and at Harper's Ferry. You still haven't addressed that.

Read Georgia’s declaration of causes and there’s a whole list of them though there were plenty of others. What infrastructure projects? Everything from dredging for harbors to canals to railroads.

B.S. Georgia makes clear that anti-slavery agitation was their main reason for secession. Then there are a few snarky references to fishing boats and mail routes and lighthouses. They really had to scrape the bottom of the barrel to come up with those.

I don't see railroads or canals mentioned. Those were largely private or state-assisted projects, North or South.

Federal railway subsidies were sought by Northerners and Southerners, but so far as I know they only really started with the transcontinental railroad projects approved after 1860.

I've seen conflicting information on lighthouses. By one account, almost half of them were in the secessionist states by 1860.

The federal government also did a lot of dredging in Savannah and Mobile. Additionally, they did a lot to make the Ohio and Mississippi rivers more navigable, which would greatly benefit New Orleans.

Documentation? Citation? Reference?

I already provided this. We’re not going to play this little game of you demanding sources 10 times and me spending vast amounts of time trying to satisfy your endless demands.....which you will claim are not satisfied no matter how ironclad the sources I provide actually are. You want citations, references and sources? Go back and read.

[Lincoln] even offered strengthened fugitive slave laws.

Proof?

“When Southern people tell us that they are no more responsible for the origin of slavery than we are, I acknowledge the fact. When it is said the institution exists, and it is very difficult to get rid of in any satisfactory way, I can understand and appreciate the saying. I surely will not blame them for not doing what I should not know what to do as to the existing institution. A system of gradual emancipation might well be adopted, and I will not undertake to judge our Southern friends for tardiness in this matter. I acknowledge the constitutional rights of the States — not grudgingly, but fairly and fully, and I WILL GIVE THEM ANY LEGISLATION FOR RECLAIMING THEIR FUGITIVE SLAVES.” Abraham Lincoln

https://books.google.com/books?id=simEInO2dqEC&pg=PA146&lpg=PA146&dq=%E2%80%9CWhen+Southern+people+tell+us+that+they+are+no+more+responsible+for+the+origin+of+slavery+than+we+are,+I+acknowledge+the+fact.+When+it+is+said+the+institution+exists,+and+it+is+very+difficult+to+get+rid+of+in+any+satisfactory+way,+I+can+understand+and+appreciate+the+saying.+I+surely+will+not+blame+them+for+not+doing+what+I+should+not+know+what+to+do+as+to+the+existing+institution.+My+first+impulse+would+possibly+be+to+free+all+slaves+and+send+them+to+Liberia+to+their+own+native+land.+But+a+moment%27s+reflection+would+convince+me+that+this+would+not+be+best+for+them.+If+they+were+all+landed+there+in+a+day+they+would+all+perish+in+the+next+ten+days,+and+there+is+not+surplus+money+enough+to+carry+them+there+in+many+times+ten+days.+What+then?+Free+them+all+and+keep+them+among+us+as+underlings.+Is+it+quite+certain+that+this+would+alter+their+conditions?+Free+them+and+make+them+politically+and+socially+our+equals?+My+own+feelings+will+not+admit+of+this,+and+if+mine+would,+we+well+know+that+those+of+the+great+mass+of+whites+will+not.+We+cannot+make+them+our+equals.+A+system+of+gradual+emancipation+might+well+be+adopted,+and+I+will+not+undertake+to+judge+our+Southern+friends+for+tardiness+in+this+matter.++I+acknowledge+the+constitutional+rights+of+the+States+%E2%80%94+not+grudgingly,+but+fairly+and+fully,+and+I+will+give+them+any+legislation+for+reclaiming+their+fugitive+slaves.%E2%80%9D++Abraham+Lincoln&source=bl&ots=RetdZPiYkF&sig=B4W77YtQx64khLih3NS4YWbA1Hc&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiatpqcivzbAhXMslkKHRqKBBsQ6AEIJzAA#v=onepage&q=%E2%80%9CWhen%20Southern%20people%20tell%20us%20that%20they%20are%20no%20more%20responsible%20for%20the%20origin%20of%20slavery%20than%20we%20are%2C%20I%20acknowledge%20the%20fact.%20When%20it%20is%20said%20the%20institution%20exists%2C%20and%20it%20is%20very%20difficult%20to%20get%20rid%20of%20in%20any%20satisfactory%20way%2C%20I%20can%20understand%20and%20appreciate%20the%20saying.%20I%20surely%20will%20not%20blame%20them%20for%20not%20doing%20what%20I%20should%20not%20know%20what%20to%20do%20as%20to%20the%20existing%20institution.%20My%20first%20impulse%20would%20possibly%20be%20to%20free%20all%20slaves%20and%20send%20them%20to%20Liberia%20to%20their%20own%20native%20land.%20But%20a%20moment’s%20reflection%20would%20convince%20me%20that%20this%20would%20not%20be%20best%20for%20them.%20If%20they%20were%20all%20landed%20there%20in%20a%20day%20they%20would%20all%20perish%20in%20the%20next%20ten%20days%2C%20and%20there%20is%20not%20surplus%20money%20enough%20to%20carry%20them%20there%20in%20many%20times%20ten%20days.%20What%20then%3F%20Free%20them%20all%20and%20keep%20them%20among%20us%20as%20underlings.%20Is%20it%20quite%20certain%20that%20this%20would%20alter%20their%20conditions%3F%20Free%20them%20and%20make%20them%20politically%20and%20socially%20our%20equals%3F%20My%20own%20feelings%20will%20not%20admit%20of%20this%2C%20and%20if%20mine%20would%2C%20we%20well%20know%20that%20those%20of%20the%20great%20mass%20of%20whites%20will%20not.%20We%20cannot%20make%20them%20our%20equals.%20A%20system%20of%20gradual%20emancipation%20might%20well%20be%20adopted%2C%20and%20I%20will%20not%20undertake%20to%20judge%20our%20Southern%20friends%20for%20tardiness%20in%20this%20matter.%20%20I%20acknowledge%20the%20constitutional%20rights%20of%20the%20States%20%E2%80%94%20not%20grudgingly%2C%20but%20fairly%20and%20fully%2C%20and%20I%20will%20give%20them%20any%20legislation%20for%20reclaiming%20their%20fugitive%20slaves.%E2%80%9D%20%20Abraham%20Lincoln&f=false

If you want $20 a bale for your cotton and I come up from $5 to 10$ and you still turn me down, it’s not because you didn’t care about the money. It’s because I didn’t offer enough. Or in this case, it’s because the leaders in those states had already concluded that their “way of life” was safer outside the union than in, and had already decided on independence.

Weak argument and not what Lincoln himself said....slavery was much safer IN the Union than outside of it.

“But secession, Lincoln argued, would actually make it harder for the South to preserve slavery. If the Southern states tried to leave the Union, they would lose all their constitutional guarantees, and northerners would no longer be obliged to return fugitive slaves to disloyal owners. In other words, the South was safer inside the Union than without, and to prove his point Lincoln confirmed his willingness to support a recently proposed thirteenth amendment to the Constitution, which would specifically prohibit the federal government from interfering with slavery in states where it already existed.” (Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, pp. 32-33)

Of course it would. They’d make use of the tariff to develop their own industries - as some parts of the Upper South already did, and as they would do after the war, and as Diogenes says they would if they had their independence. But they had slavery and it was profitable and they didn’t want to risk the social dislocations that industrialization would bring.

No their interests would not have been different. Their economy was geared toward producing cash crops for export in exchange for manufactured goods. Low tariffs suited them. They also did not want the central government doling out taxpayer money for special interests. That is why numerous clauses of the Confederate constitution tightly restricted what qualified as being in the “general welfare” and required a balanced budget and no riders for bills and a line item veto for the president - all designed to control spending.

Had their labor been paid wages or had they been sharecroppers, they still would have had an economy geared toward producing cash crops for export.

Not really a sensible argument. Nobody knows what George Washington would have done in such a case. We do know that the British kept forts in Michigan long after the peace treaty. They were waiting for us to compensate the dispossessed Tories, I think. In any case, nobody attacked the forts and the situation was resolved diplomatically.

Of course its a sensible argument. No country is going to tolerate another country holding a fortress in the middle of one of its principle harbors. The Brits holding a few forts in the far off west at the time of Michigan is not remotely analogous to having a fortress in say NY or Boston harbor.

Oh, FYI, the Brits did not evacuate those forts until after the war of 1812. That was part of the peace treaty so no, it was not resolved peacefully. It took another war before it was resolved.

Only four or five states ratified. Even if all the seceding states had ratified that would still have fallen short of the approval of 3/4ths of the state legislatures.

Only a few ratified because....get this.....the Southern states TURNED IT DOWN. It was a moot point after that. There’s no doubt it would have passed had the Southern states agreed to it.

Well, the amendment actually and literally said it couldn’t be repealed or amended — the Constitution could not be changed to abolish or interfere with state’s “domestic institutions” concerning those “bound to service or labor” — but an unamendable amendment was constitutionally problematic and wouldn’t have worked to bar future amendments.

Any amendment could be changed by a future amendment. There’s no such thing as an unamendable amendment. It takes 2/3rds of each house of Congress and 3/4s of the states to pass an amendment. The latter is the stumbling block. Without the consent of the slaveholding states, there simply would not have been enough states to equal a 3/4s majority of all states. The amendment would be 10 states short of that to this day. The then slaveholding states would have had to agree to any future amendment or at least a significant number of them would have. It obviously would have taken some considerable compensation to get them to do that.

I doubt Lincoln or the Republicans would have opposed a compensated Emancipation scheme if it would have kept the country together. If Southerners really were considering abolishing slavery as you seem to think, why would they hold out? I don’t think they were contemplating emancipation, but I can’t help noticing the massive contradiction in your argument.

We know they did not oppose compensated emancipation of sorts since the discussed it as late as 1864 at the hampton roads conference. Southerners were considering abolishing slavery in exchange for foreign recognition and entry into the war on their side. Independence was the goal - not money. There is no contradiction in my argument. My argument is historical fact.

You claim that the Confederates and arch-supporters of slavery were in favor of eventually abolishing slavery and now you say that they would never support the abolition of slavery and would have kept it permanently. Quite a contradiction.

I say that most people at the time understood that slavery was going to die out eventually just as it had in the Northern states and just as it had in other parts of the Western world throughout the 19th century. I never said they would have kept slavery permanently. You have obviously misread me.

Nonsense. The “massive tariff hike” was a result of secession and war. Tariff increases would have been more moderate had the Southern Senators remained in Washington.

Nonsense. The massive tariff hike was coming and everybody knew it. All that was needed was a couple Senators to flip. Yes the rates doubled and then TRIPLED during the war but the war can hardly be used as an excuse when those tariff hikes were the key plank of the Republican party in 1860 and those tariffs were kept in place until well into the 20th century over 50 years after the war ended.

I guess there’s also a giant “dog that did not bark” in your argument. If it was really tariffs and expenditures the secessionists were worried about, why didn’t they make that clear? Why was it Lincoln offered to compromise on slavery, rather than tariffs? Was it because he was so bound and determined for high tariffs as your cartoonish history suggests? Or was it because he accurately judged what was on the minds of Southerners? In any case, I’d have to say that the secessionist leaders didn’t make sufficiently clear what you think was on their minds.

They DID make it clear. They made it clear numerous times. I’ve cited several statements, newspaper columns etc etc. Why did Lincoln offer to compromise over slavery and not tariffs? Because slavery was not the key issue to either side. Tariffs and economic policy were. It is your “history” that is cartoonish. If Lincoln had accurately judged what was on the minds of Southerners, they would have accepted the Corwin Amendment. They did not. OOPS!

And you only come to your conclusion because you ignore the actual fighting going on over slavery in Kansas and at Harper’s Ferry. You still haven’t addressed that.

Harper’s Ferry was a band of lunatics backed by a few financiers in the Northeast. There was fighting in Kansas obviously. Of course you haven’t addressed the arguments over the nullification crisis and the tariff of abominations a generation earlier.

B.S. Georgia makes clear that anti-slavery agitation was their main reason for secession. Then there are a few snarky references to fishing boats and mail routes and lighthouses. They really had to scrape the bottom of the barrel to come up with those.

No, not BS. Its very clear that Georgia had major complaints about the tariff and about grossly unequal federal government expenditures. They didn’t have to scrape the bottom of the barrel as you “cartoonishly” claim. Those were just some examples of the grossly unequal expenditures.

Here’s Georgia’s senior Senator at the time:

On November 19, 1860 Senator Robert Toombs gave a speech to the Georgia convention in which he denounced the “infamous Morrill bill.” The tariff legislation, he argued, was the product of a coalition between abolitionists and protectionists in which “the free-trade abolitionists became protectionists; the non-abolition protectionists became abolitionists.” Toombs described this coalition as “the robber and the incendiary... united in joint raid against the South.”

I don’t see railroads or canals mentioned. Those were largely private or state-assisted projects, North or South.

Federal railway subsidies were sought by Northerners and Southerners, but so far as I know they only really started with the transcontinental railroad projects approved after 1860.

I’ve seen conflicting information on lighthouses. By one account, almost half of them were in the secessionist states by 1860.

The federal government also did a lot of dredging in Savannah and Mobile. Additionally, they did a lot to make the Ohio and Mississippi rivers more navigable, which would greatly benefit New Orleans.

here are but a few sources showing the grossly unequal taxes paid and expenditures given by the federal government. There are many more:

“What were the causes of the Southern independence movement in 1860? . . . Northern commercial and manufacturing interests had forced through Congress taxes that oppressed Southern planters and made Northern manufacturers rich . . . the South paid about three-quarters of all federal taxes, most of which were spent in the North.” - Charles Adams, “For Good and Evil. The impact of taxes on the course of civilization,” 1993, Madison Books, Lanham, USA, pp. 325-327

As Adams notes, the South paid an undue proportion of federal revenues derived from tariffs, and these were expended by the federal government more in the North than the South: in 1840, the South paid 84% of the tariffs, rising to 87% in 1860. They paid 83% of the $13 million federal fishing bounties paid to New England fishermen, and also paid $35 million to Northern shipping interests which had a monopoly on shipping from Southern ports. The South, in effect, was paying tribute to the North. When in the Course of Human Events: Charles Adams

South Carolina Congressman Robert Barnwell Rhett had estimated that of the $927,000,000 collected in duties between 1791 and 1845, the South had paid $711,200,000, and the North $216,000,000. South Carolina Senator James Hammond had declared that the South paid about $50,000,000 and the North perhaps $20,000,000 of the $70,000,000 raised annually by duties. In expenditure of the national revenues, Hammond thought the North got about $50,000,000 a year, and the South only $20,000,000. When in the Course of Human Events: Charles Adams

From the days of the illustrious Henry onwards, the South had generally stood in the way of the Northern goal to make such an unjust system of taxation permanent. According to John Taylor of Virginia, a high protective tariff system, like that which existed in Great Britain, was “undoubtedly the best which has ever appeared for extracting money from the people; and commercial restrictions, both upon foreign and domestick commerce, are its most effectual means for accomplishing this object. No equal mode of enriching the party of government, and impoverishing the party of people, has ever been discovered.” Nevertheless, the North clung tenaciously to its protectionist policy and managed to push through the tariff legislation of 1828 which provoked South Carolina to resistance to the general Government and nearly to secession from the Union during the Administration of Andrew Jackson. It should be noted that, by 1828, the public debt was near to extinction and, at the current rate of taxation on imported goods, a twelve to thirteen million dollar annual surplus would have been created in the Treasury. Thus, the excuse for a high tariff system as a source of Government revenue was a flimsy one at best; the so-called “Tariff of Abomination” really served no other purpose than to “rob and plunder nearly one half of the Union, for the benefit of the residue.” James Spence of London explained the effects of such a high tariff on the Southern economy:

This system of protecting Northern manufactures, has an injurious influence, beyond the effect immediately apparent. It is doubly injurious to the Southern States, in raising what they have to buy, and lowering what they have to sell. They are the exporters of the Union, and require that other countries shall take their productions. But other countries will have difficulty in taking them, unless permitted to pay for them in the commodities which are their only means of payment. They are willing to receive cotton, and to pay for it in iron, earthenware, woollens. But if by extravagant duties, these be prohibited from entering the Union, or greatly restricted, the effect must needs be, to restrict the power to buy the products of the South. Our imports of Southern productions, have nearly reached thirty millions sterling a year. Suppose the North to succeed in the object of its desire, and to exclude our manufactures altogether, with what are we to pay? It is plainly impossible for any country to export largely, unless it be willing also, to import largely. Should the Union be restored, and its commerce be conducted under the present tariff, the balance of trade against us must become so great, as either to derange our monetary system, or compel us to restrict our purchases from those, who practically exclude other payment than gold. With the rate of exchange constantly depressed, the South would receive an actual money payment, much below the current value of its products. We should be driven to other markets for our supplies, and thus the exclusion of our manufactures by the North, would result in a compulsory exclusion, on our part, of the products of the South.

This is a consideration of no importance to the Northern manufacturer, whose only thought is the immediate profit he may obtain, by shutting out competition. It may be, however, of very extreme importance to others — to those who have products they are anxious to sell to us, who are desirous to receive in payment, the very goods we wish to dispose of, and yet are debarred from this. Is there not something of the nature of commercial slavery, in the fetters of a system that prevents it? If we consider the terms of the compact, and the gigantic magnitude of Southern trade, it becomes amazing, that even the attempt should be made, to deal with it in such a manner as this.

George McDuffie of South Carolina stated in the House of Representatives, “If the union of these states shall ever be severed, and their liberties subverted, historians who record these disasters will have to ascribe them to measures of this description. I do sincerely believe that neither this government, nor any free government, can exist for a quarter of a century under such a system of legislation.” While the Northern manufacturer enjoyed free trade with the South, the Southern planter was not allowed to enjoy free trade with those countries to which he could market his goods at the most benefit to himself. Furthermore, while the six cotton States — South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas — had less than one-eighth of the representation in Congress, they furnished two-thirds of the exports of the country, much of which was exchanged for imported necessities. Thus, McDuffie noted that because the import tariff effectively hindered Southern commerce, the relation which the Cotton States bore to the protected manufacturing States of the North was now the same as that which the colonies had once borne to Great Britain; under the current system, they had merely changed masters.

Robert Barnwell Rhett, who served in the House of Representatives and then in the Senate, said in 1850: “The great object of free governments is liberty. The great test of liberty in modern times, is to be free in the imposition of taxes, and the expenditure of taxes.... For a people to be free in the imposition and payment of taxes, they must lay them through their representatives.” Consequently, because they were being taxed without corresponding representation, the Southern States had been reduced to the condition of colonies of the North and thus were no longer free. The solution was determined by John Cunningham to exist only in independence:

The legislation of this Union has impoverished them [the Southern States] by taxation and by a diversion of the proceeds of our labor and trade to enriching Northern Cities and States. These results are not only sufficient reasons why we would prosper better out of the union but are of themselves sufficient causes of our secession. Upon the mere score of commercial prosperity, we should insist upon disunion. Let Charleston be relieved from her present constrained vassalage in trade to the North, and be made a free port and my life on it, she will at once expand into a great and controlling city.

In a letter to the Carolina Times in 1857, Representative Laurence Keitt wrote, “I believe that the safety of the South is only in herself.” James H. Hammond likewise stated in 1858, “I have no hesitation in saying that the Plantation States should discard any government that makes a protective tariff its policy.”

John H. Reagan of Texas, who would later become Postmaster-General of the Confederate Government, expressed similar sentiments when addressing the Republican members of the House of Representatives on 15 January 1861:

You are not content with the vast millions of tribute we pay you annually under the operation of our revenue laws, our navigation laws, your fishing bounties, and by making your people our manufacturers, our merchants, our shippers. You are not satisfied with the vast tribute we pay you to build up your great cities, your railroads, your canals. You are not satisfied with the millions of tribute we have been paying you on account of the balance of exchange which you hold against us. You are not satisfied that we of the South are almost reduced to the condition of overseers of northern capitalists. You are not satisfied with all this; but you must wage a relentless crusade against our rights and institutions....

We do not intend that you shall reduce us to such a condition. But I can tell you what your folly and injustice will compel us to do. It will compel us to be free from your domination, and more self-reliant than we have been. It will compel us to assert and maintain our separate independence. It will compel us to manufacture for ourselves, to build up our own commerce, our own great cities, our own railroads and canals; and to use the tribute money we now pay you for these things for the support of a government which will be friendly to all our interests, hostile to none of them.

I acknowledge the constitutional rights of the States — not grudgingly, but fairly and fully, and I WILL GIVE THEM ANY LEGISLATION FOR RECLAIMING THEIR FUGITIVE SLAVES.” Abraham Lincoln

That is the Peoria Speech of 1854. It was only what your side says the Constitution requires. You made it sound like it was something Lincoln was offering in 1860-1 to keep the slave states in the Union. Deceptive.

Weak argument and not what Lincoln himself said....slavery was much safer IN the Union than outside of it.

Some in the South thought that way as well. But the rabid secessionists thought and said otherwise. They saw a direct threat from Northern abolitionists and believed that slavery would only be secure if they had their own country.

No their interests would not have been different. Their economy was geared toward producing cash crops for export in exchange for manufactured goods. Low tariffs suited them.

That was because slaveowning and cotton growing were regarded as the way to wealth in the Deep South. Without slavery, ambitious Southerners would have sought other ways to wealth. That is sort of what Diogenes Lamp is always saying, though he thinks it would have happened even with slavery. Manufacturers in Virginia and Tennessee sought to industrialize and welcomed tariffs. Without slavery, many further South would have done the same.

No country is going to tolerate another country holding a fortress in the middle of one of its principle harbors.

Enclaves and exclaves are an established part of international law - Gibraltar, Hong Kong, Macao, Goa, West Berlin. How countries deal with them will vary depending on how much they care about peace. A new nation would do well to proceed cautiously.

Oh, FYI, the Brits did not evacuate those forts until after the war of 1812. That was part of the peace treaty so no, it was not resolved peacefully. It took another war before it was resolved.

Oh, FYI, Jay's Treaty. Look it up.

Only a few ratified because....get this.....the Southern states TURNED IT DOWN. It was a moot point after that. There’s no doubt it would have passed had the Southern states agreed to it.

Maybe, maybe not. The Corwin Amendment was a last ditch effort to rally unionists in the South to turn back secession. Whether it would really have gone through is hard to say. I can't see the Northern tier of states ratifying. The ratification process could well have torn the country and the Republican party apart.

Any amendment could be changed by a future amendment. There’s no such thing as an unamendable amendment.

That is what I meant by saying that it was problematic.

I say that most people at the time understood that slavery was going to die out eventually just as it had in the Northern states and just as it had in other parts of the Western world throughout the 19th century.

Wishful thinking. If there was widespread acceptance that slavery was dying out there would have been no secession and no war. Some slaveowners may have had a feeling that in God's Own good time, slavery would do its work and be replaced with something else, but there was little serious contemplation of what would come next.

South Carolina Congressman Robert Barnwell Rhett had estimated that of the $927,000,000 collected in duties between 1791 and 1845, the South had paid $711,200,000, and the North $216,000,000.

More B.S.

Look at our favorite graph:

The North had a larger population and could import more. Therefore the taxes were collected in New York and other Northern ports. Some of that reflects goods eventually destined to Southern buyers, but most of it doesn't.

In a letter to the Carolina Times in 1857, Representative Laurence Keitt wrote, “I believe that the safety of the South is only in herself.”

Good example of what I was saying above. Keitt refers to the "abolitionist flood" at the beginning of the quote. He believed that his state and the basis of its economy and society - slavery - would be safer outside the Union than inside. That he was wrong, doesn't mean that he didn't think that way.

That is the Peoria Speech of 1854. It was only what your side says the Constitution requires. You made it sound like it was something Lincoln was offering in 1860-1 to keep the slave states in the Union. Deceptive.

No not deceptive. Those are HIS WORDS. He made it quite clear he was willing to not only support express protections of slavery via a constitutional amendment, but he was also willing to strengthen fugitive slave laws. He never recanted or changed his position on the fugitive slave laws.

Some in the South thought that way as well. But the rabid secessionists thought and said otherwise. They saw a direct threat from Northern abolitionists and believed that slavery would only be secure if they had their own country.

That’s debatable based on who is or is not considered a “rabid secessionist”. There were some who supported secession based on the economics alone. There were some who did think as you suggest. There were some who thought both. The Southern states were not a monolith.

That was because slaveowning and cotton growing were regarded as the way to wealth in the Deep South. Without slavery, ambitious Southerners would have sought other ways to wealth. That is sort of what Diogenes Lamp is always saying, though he thinks it would have happened even with slavery. Manufacturers in Virginia and Tennessee sought to industrialize and welcomed tariffs. Without slavery, many further South would have done the same.

They were. The point I’ve made though is that cotton could be produced without slavery - as evidenced by the fact that cotton production did not stop when slavery ended. Take that factor out and the economic interests of the Southern states would have been the same. Eventually, yes industrialization would have come even to the Deep South and yes it was already happening in the Upper South. For that time though, the economic interests of the Southern states lay in low tariffs. Being Jeffersonian Democrats they always believed in limited government and balanced budgets. It is no coincidence that that is still the dominant political philosophy in the Southern states today. Southerners have never liked big government.

Enclaves and exclaves are an established part of international law - Gibraltar, Hong Kong, Macao, Goa, West Berlin. How countries deal with them will vary depending on how much they care about peace. A new nation would do well to proceed cautiously.

Nobody would have tolerated another country holding a fortress in the middle of one of their biggest harbors.

Oh, FYI, Jay’s Treaty. Look it up.

Oh I’ve read about it. You realizing the Brits did not relinquish all the forts on US territory they held until after the war of 1812 right? This is a sidetrack anyway.

Maybe, maybe not. The Corwin Amendment was a last ditch effort to rally unionists in the South to turn back secession. Whether it would really have gone through is hard to say. I can’t see the Northern tier of states ratifying. The ratification process could well have torn the country and the Republican party apart.

No it wouldn’t have torn the Republican Party apart and it would have easily passed in enough Northern states. There was pitifully little support for abolition at that time. The politicians who campaigned on it lost with very very little support and most of the major papers were not in favor of abolition at all.

Wishful thinking. If there was widespread acceptance that slavery was dying out there would have been no secession and no war. Some slaveowners may have had a feeling that in God’s Own good time, slavery would do its work and be replaced with something else, but there was little serious contemplation of what would come next.

No. Accurate thinking. What is inaccurate is to claim that but for slavery there would have been no secession and no war. They Southern states could have had slavery effectively forever and turned it down. Neither they nor the Northern states were fighting over slavery. Both made that quite clear. Revisionists came along after the fact and tried to claim that it was “all about slavery” despite both sides saying it was not. The end of slavery was not some pure theoretical idea. That had been happening in the Northern states and happened in the British Empire already by the time of secession. Southerners had seen it gradually going extinct in other European colonial empires and in some independent countries in Latin and South America. They well understood what was happening in the world.

The North had a larger population and could import more. Therefore the taxes were collected in New York and other Northern ports. Some of that reflects goods eventually destined to Southern buyers, but most of it doesn’t.

Now this is truly laughable BS. Where the goods land is IRRELEVANT. The owner of the goods pays the tariff, not the port. Who eventually buys the goods be they in the North or the South is likewise IRRELEVANT. The owner of the goods is going to have to raise prices due to the tariff and that is going to eat into his sales. The importers of the time were the exporters. Cash crops were paid for with manufactured goods. The owners of both the crops and thus the manufactured goods were overwhelmingly, Southerners. If they couldn’t sell as many foreign manufactured goods, then their customers over in Europe would have to either pay cash which they usually didn’t have or they were going to have to buy less cotton. High tariffs are extremely damaging to those engaged in import-export which the South was.

Good example of what I was saying above. Keitt refers to the “abolitionist flood” at the beginning of the quote. He believed that his state and the basis of its economy and society - slavery - would be safer outside the Union than inside. That he was wrong, doesn’t mean that he didn’t think that way.

Keitt said he would support secession on the economic basis alone. He was far from alone in the South in thinking that.

gandalftb: “Slavery would have always ended.”
If you take even a minute to consider that sentence, you'll realize it's fatuous because slavery comes in many forms, some of which flourish today.
The specific form of “chattel slavery” practiced in 1860 may indeed have ended sometime, but the more likely reason is it would just morph into something slightly different, perhaps slightly less obnoxious.
However, the bottom line is there was no serious abolition movement in the South in 1860 and a Confederacy formed in large part to protect slavery was unlikely to tolerate a vigorous abolition movement.
Further, the Confederate constitution would work to prevent any state-by-state abolition movement and constitutional amendment could only happen over the objections of seven original Deep South states.
Now some posters have tried to imagine how the Union might abolish slavery by amendment in, say, 1902 against Deep South objections, but nobody has yet proposed how the Confederacy itself could do so.
For all practical purposes, that would be impossible.
Finally, it's always taken military power to defeat slavery, even when that was only threatened, as the Brits & French did in their colonies in the 19th century.
Another form of slavery was defeated in Eastern Europe in 1945 and a third more metaphorical form was defeated by the combined economic, military & moral authorities of Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul II.
Still other forms exist today in hiding wherever law enforcement is too weak to prevent them.
Key point: Delaware was the least enslaved of all slave-states and yet refused until 1902 to voluntarily ratify the 13th amendment.
So it's just fatuous to suggest that slavery would somehow magically disappear in other states where slaves were nearly half the population and nearly half of white families “owned” at least one slave.
gandalftb: “In SC, 1/3 owned 2/3.”
That number is wrong, but South Carolina & Mississippi were the two highest percentages of slaves & slave-holders.
In both states, the numbers were roughly half of each.
Nearly half were slaves and almost half of families owned slaves.
One practical effect was that Confederate soldiers from those states were highly unlikely to be not closely related to slaveholders — if not their own family, then their uncles, cousins, in-laws, etc., owned slaves.
gandalftb: “That 2/3, when freed would have become full citizens.
Congress would have seen to that, too many future voters and political power to ignore.”
Absolutely not the Confederate congress!
There is no way Deep South representatives would tolerate even emancipation, much less full citizenship for their slaves, especially since they were already counted 3/5 for representation purposes.
Suggestions otherwise are pure anti-historical fantasies.
gandalftb: “As full citizens, the 2/3, former slaves would have the right to buy guns, compete for jobs, earn money, spend at businesses they liked, elect the next sheriff, governor, mayor, representatives, etc.
Those choices certainly would be highly objectionable to the minority white population with guns.”
But “whites with guns” were never a minority in any US state, ever.
So Southern whites with guns were only defeated in their Jim Crow, black codes & KKK-type enforces by the 20th century Federal government.
gandalftb: “It is reasonable that the 1/3 white ruling class knew full well what abolition meant at the time.
There would have been war, unavoidable.”
And now you fantasize about civil war within the Confederacy???.
Come on FRiend, shut it off — your brain is working overtime to produce Imagineering even a Disney would blush at.
You have no clue what you're talking about, so please, STFU.
gandalftb: “The Confederacy would never make more than modest and early gains until the economic might of the Federal government destroyed the resistance and won.”
The Confederacy could well have won a war against the Union if Lincoln had been satisfied with generals like McClellan, Burnside or Hooker and if Lincoln had not been determined to see it through to Unconditional Surrender.
gandalftb: “None of todays discussion can change those central ideas.”
As I read them, your “central ideas” are complete nonsense, from beginning to end, so what exactly do you think you're posting here?
DiogenesLamp #588: “I don't know why those confederates were getting upset.
It was just a bunch of supply ships setting up at the entrance to Charleston harbor.”
implied </sarcasm>
Bull Snipe #606: “Davis ordered Beauregard to reduce the fort by force if necessary before the resupply mission arrived.”
DiognenesLamp #608: “reasonable man would believe that when the President sends 8 Ships, at least half of them armed warships, it means he is going to use those ships.
One does not ordinarily pull out a gun and threaten someone unless they mean to do something.
What were those warships going to do?
What were the Confederates led to believe they were going to do?
All that is irrelevant, and DiogenesLamp well knows why.
The fact is that Davis had long since ordered Beauregard & Bragg to take Forts Sumter & Pickens, by force if necessary.
Davis’ orders were not contingent on Lincoln's resupply mission, but only on the Confederate generals’ preparations to use force.
Naturally, Davis preferred the forts surrender without a fight, but he was prepared to fight & win if necessary.
All of which renders who-fired-what-shots-when irrelevant.
The fact is Confederates intended to seize Federal properties wherever possible and outgoing President Buchanan had announced in early February that Sumter & Pickens would be defended & not surrendered under any circumstances.
Lincoln at first had second thoughts, but eventually decided Buchanan was right and so ordered resupply missions.
Davis used Lincoln's mission as his excuse to start war, but the fact is once Buchanan announced in February the forts would be defended and Davis decided they must be taken, war was coming, period.
Sure, Lost Causers like to argue that magically property changed ownership when a new government took over, but there's no law anywhere in the world which says such a thing, it's just another LC fantasy.
Bottom line on the Doubleday/Fox/Lincoln resupply mission: it was intended for Union warships to remain offshore and resupply Fort Sumter in small boats, under cover of darkness and/or fog.
It was a good plan with every chance of success but required Maj. Anderson to hold out another couple of days, until Beauregard's ammunition ran out and conditions at sea were just right.
Had Lincoln's resupply mission proved successful, events may well have played out differently, impossible to say now.
jeffersondem: “There would have been no War of Northern Aggression if President Lincoln had not invaded the South.”
The War of Confederate Aggression began with Confederate seizures of dozens of Federal properties — forts, ships, arsenals, mints, etc. — threats against Federal officials, firings on Union ships, military assault on Fort Sumter and a formal declaration of war against the United States, May 6, 1861.
Please see this post for a summary.
In the war’s first 12 month 52 battles in 13 states or territories were fought, of which 30 battles happened in six Union states or territories — more than half.
It was not until well into the war that its focus clearly shifted to the Confederacy.
But it is the political DNA of Democrats to accuse Republicans of their own wrong-doings, and that's all we're seeing here from Jeffersondem.
By the way, if we look at the 2nd year battles, we can set a precise date of when the war’s focus shifted from the Union to the Confederacy — it was May 8, 1862 at Stonewall Jackson's Battle of McDowell, in Virginia, that we first see and equal number of battles in the Confederacy as the Union = 30 battles in each.
But there were still enough battles outside the Confederacy that by the beginning of the war’s third year (April 1863) 1/3 of all battles were in Union states = 49 Union of 145 total.
Even in the war’s third year, from April 1863 to April 1864, there were battles in 10 Union states & territories and 11 Confederate states, so that by April 1864 63 total battles were in Union states, or 26% of the 241 cumulative battles.
If you ask, when was the last battle between Confederate & Union forces in a Union state, well, in October 1864 there were eight such battles in Kansas & Missouri, ending in the Second Battle of Newtonia, October 28, 1864, a Union victory.
According to this source all told, the Confederate War of Aggression was fought 384 major battles over 18 Union states & territories and, oh yes, in 11 Confederate states.
But Jefferson Davis’ War focused first in Union regions and did not predominently shift to the Confederacy until after May of 1862.

Those that know of a pending attack have a duty to say something, which did happen in post #534: "Right now Brother Joe is preparing a Castro-strength smoke barrage that will obscure this debate space for days."

“it (slavery) would just morph into something slightly different”

How does owning other people morph? They are either owned property or they are not.

Please offer your ideas on what “slightly less obnoxious” means, gandalftb said, grinning ear to ear.

Agreed, abolition wasn’t going to happen in the South. Abolition was a minority view in most of the North where there was a widespread white supremacy notion.

There were in fact 67 Constitutional amendments offered, only Corwin was passed and ratified by 5 states.

Good analysis of slavery and secession:

The US Constitution and Secession by Dwight T. Pitcaithley:

https://kansaspress.ku.edu/978-0-7006-2626-7.html

Pitcaithley examines the many secession conventions, sermons, editorials and breaks down the various reasons for secession offered in the 67 different amendments.

He poses that the South’s primary concerns were: the expansion of slavery into the western territories and the return of fugitive slaves.

Rather than quibble over rough numbers:

http://www.civil-war.net/pages/1860_census.html

In SC, 43% owned 57% to be precise. My point was that any society changing that 57% to 0% will see war.

“There is no way Deep South representatives would tolerate even emancipation, much less full citizenship for their slaves” Exactly my point, thank you.

“But “whites with guns” were never a minority in any US state, ever.” Read the US census, 1860. SC=43% white, MI=45% white...... OK, less than 50% = minority.

“And now you fantasize about civil war within the Confederacy???.” What do you call the many slave rebellions? Imagineering?

It would have gotten much worse, there were many John Browns getting started, ready to arm the slaves.