GOP candidate: Civil war wasn’t about slavery

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

[Mariner]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[DoodleDawg]

If you would bother to read their opinions, you could find the sources for the evidence.

Opinions, as I said. Part of the grand conspiracy on the part of biographers everywhere to make their subjects look as bad as possible if they were Confederates or Confederate supporters. Or so you would have us believe.

[FLT-bird]

WOW! 9 looooooong responses so far today wanting to either argue about insignificant details or simply repeat the same old arguments for the 23rd time because 22 times just wasn’t enough.

Last time I kept getting replies for 2 weeks after I left the thread from a few desperate to drag me back in. Let’s see how long it takes this time. I’m betting it’ll be at least as long. LOL!

[rockrr]

Maybe you should spare yourself the nuisance of it all and just leave now.

[BroJoeK]

OK, let's go over this, one by one:

RedEyejack: "Initial secessions were caused by belief that the Lincoln administration would try to abolish slavery."

Correct, but our Lost Causers insist slavery was not the only issue, indeed was not even the main issue.
The "real reason" they say, was in our words: economic exploitation of the South by the North.
The South, they say, produced all the export revenues, the North, they claim, spent all the profits.
The truth is that's not what secessionists said at the time, but it doesn't matter to Lost Causers.
Secessionist documents are about 90% slavery, maybe 10% something to do with economics.

RedEyejack: "Hot heads in South Carolina ordered the US Army to leave Fort Sumter which they regarded as sovereign SC territory (in Charleston harbor). "

It would be more accurate to say those "hot heads" ordered Jefferson Davis to force Union withdrawal from Fort Sumter, one way or another.

RedEyejack: "When the commander refused they were ejected by force (”firing on fort Sumter”)."

Correct, though there are some interesting sub-plots to this story which our Lost Causers insist make it a very different narrative.

RedEyejack: "That action was the basis for Lincoln raising an army to force the rebellious states to return to the Union (”preserve the Union”) which, in turn, resulted in the raising of a southern army and the secession of most of the rest of the slave holding states."

Sure, except remember at the time of Fort Sumter the US Army totaled about 16,000 troops, more than half scattered in small forts out west.
Confederates had already authorized 100,000 troops in March and soon after Fort Sumter called up another 400,000.
So it was not until several months into the war that the Union side began to equal & surpass Confederate numbers.

RedEyejack: "So the answer is that the penultimate cause was slavery, but the final cause, and the reason for starting the war was states rights (i.e., leaving the union... secession and state versus national sovereignty)"

No, sorry, but the first, last & only major cause for secession was slavery and the immediate cause for war was months of Confederate provocations, their attack on Fort Sumter, their Declaration of War on May 6, 1861, their waging of war in Union states and their refusal to stop fighting on any terms better than Unconditional Surrender.

The rest is just Lost Causer smoke & nonsense.

[traderrob6]

Some facts highly seasoned with your biased speculation and commentary....NO THANKS

[traderrob6]

Some facts highly seasoned with your biased speculation and commentary....NO THANKS

[jeffersondem]

“Of course he did. That was what the Emancipation Proclamation was about. If that’s not enough, Congress repealed the Fugitive Slave Act on June 28, 1864, presumably with Lincoln’s approval and signature.”

You make it sound like Lincoln preserved the pretext until there was no longer a need to preserve the pretext.

By June 28, 1864, most of the 600,000 had already been safely buried.

[jeffersondem]

“When did she make the claim?”

I may have lost track . . . weren’t we talking about General Forrest and his speech to a black audience before we addressed Julia Grant.

Does going ahead with Ms. Grant mean we are done with the General Forrest discussion. And if that is the case, how did you come out searching for the vindication of your previous assertion “there’s a considerable amount of evidence that the Forrest quote if apocryphal(sic)”?

[HandyDandy]

Is this your MO? Drop stupid comments and then disappear? I’ve got a swell idea. Why don’t you disappear for five or six years, then return to see how many long responses you get. You have no credibility here anyway.

[FLT-bird]

I’ve wasted enough time on you. You’re not worthy of any more. Buh bye.

[DoodleDawg]

I may have lost track . . . weren’t we talking about General Forrest and his speech to a black audience before we addressed Julia Grant.

We were, but you're all over the place with your claims. Just trying to keep up.

Does going ahead with Ms. Grant mean we are done with the General Forrest discussion.

I can multi-task. Can't you?

And if that is the case, how did you come out searching for the vindication of your previous assertion “there’s a considerable amount of evidence that the Forrest quote...”

Very well. How did you do on finding biographers who included it in their works?

[BroJoeK]

x: "I haven't been able to find anything out about Benjamin Burton, but many people in the Border States were caught between the two parties and didn't really fit into either of them. "

Right, the issue here is whether Dinesh D'Souza is FOS for saying (if he did say, as is claimed here), no Republican own slaves.
So some of our posters have scoured the internet for examples of slave-holding Republicans and they've come up with now four names, Grant, Wallace, Fisher and Burton.
But on closer look it's not clear which actually owned slaves or if they had yet become Republicans when they did.

jeffersondem quotes Julia Grant as saying she owned slaves until Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, which would be between mid-1862 and early 1863.
But this narrative says Grant was a Democrat, not becoming Republican until mid-1863.

So I've seen nothing yet which reliably represents a full-blown Republican slave-holder.
D'Souza is not the one FOS.

[DiogenesLamp]

“Of course he did. That was what the Emancipation Proclamation was about. If that’s not enough, Congress repealed the Fugitive Slave Act on June 28, 1864, presumably with Lincoln’s approval and signature.”

They were ignoring it anyway. Rule of law didn't really mean much to someone invading other people to force them into subjugation.

[DiogenesLamp]

I’ve wasted enough time on you. You’re not worthy of any more. Buh bye.

BullSnipe and "x" would seem to be the only regulars who put forth reasonable points from time to time. The rest are just noise machines.

[BroJoeK]

traderrob6: "Some facts highly seasoned with your biased speculation and commentary....NO THANKS"

No, just the facts, correcting your speculations & commentary.

[rustbucket]

But I have always respected your scholarship, rustbucket, and would like to ask you a question. I recently read Brian Steel Wills' biography on Forrest and he didn't mention the speech. I'm not aware of any other ones who mention the speech either.

Apparently Jack Hurst's biography of Forrest [Forrest bio] does include the text of the speech according to some commenters on the following thread: [Scroll down to find Anonymous's [Cash] and Sean Dail's posts about Forrest's speech in a couple of books].

Interestingly, in that thread, Cash says that the book you mentioned, "Brian Steel Wills' biography on Forrest" does discuss the speech, but mislabels it and gives the wrong date for it. I don't know whether Cash is correct. You might double check the book you just read. And, apparently you need check the Hurst book as well before claiming no biographer mentions the speech.

rustbucket, doing the research that some others don't do

[rustbucket]

I found a book that contains Forrest's speech to the Pole-Bearers: "Nathan Bedford Forrest: In Search of the Enigma", by Eddy W. Davison and Daniel Foxx (2007). [Link]. This is yet another book that contains the speech if my previous post referencing comments by others that Hurst's book contained Forrest's speech. I don't have Hurst's book so I can't confirm what the posters said.

The speech starts on page 476 of Davison's and Foxx's book. You can view the speech if you click on "Look Inside" in Amazon's page on the book (see my link above). Search on the word "Pole" and then go to the page 475 reference that comes up. Then scroll down to see the speech on page 476.

[BroJoeK]

FLT-bird post #638 on Lincoln's 1854 Peoria speech referencing Fugitive Slave laws: "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."

x post #753: "Of course he did.
That was what the Emancipation Proclamation was about.
If that's not enough, Congress repealed the Fugitive Slave Act on June 28, 1864, presumably with Lincoln's approval and signature."

jeffersondem #767: "You make it sound like Lincoln preserved the pretext until there was no longer a need to preserve the pretext.
By June 28, 1864, most of the 600,000 had already been safely buried."

DiogenesLamp #773: "They were ignoring it anyway.
Rule of law didn't really mean much to someone invading other people to force them into subjugation."

For anyone hoping to keep score, here is it: FLT-bird is confused & confusing, jeffersondem is highly deceptive and DiogenesLamp is simply repeating from rote something random from his Lost Causer textbook.

The exchange began with Lincoln's 1854 Peoria Speech, an anti-slavery speech which addressed specific issues of that day, including fugitive slaves.
Lincoln says (DiogenesLamp would claim: "craftily"):

"When they [slave-holders] remind us of their constitutional rights, I acknowledge them, not grudgingly, but fully, and fairly; and I would give them any legislation for the reclaiming of their fugitives, which should not, in its stringency, be more likely to carry a free man into slavery, than our ordinary criminal laws are to hang an innocent one."

Now, with a moment's thought everyone can realize Lincoln is saying he opposes the 1850 Fugitive Slave law precisely because it does not meet his basic criteria.
It did in fact "carry a free man into slavery" all too often.

But FLT-bird wishes to believe Lincoln is saying in 1854 he endorsed Fugitive Slave laws and combines that with Lincoln's alleged endorsement of the 1861 proposed Corwin Amendment, and concludes, in effect: "see, see, Lincoln supported slavery, so Civil War was "all about" something else."

No, even in 1854 Lincoln acknowledged the Constitution and laws as they existed, but believed slavery should be restricted or abolished wherever possible.

So next jeffersondem jumps in, ignoring the actual discussion, and claims some sort of "pretext" which had something to do with "600,000 safely buried".
And just to further muddy the waters DiogenesLamp piles on with some random verbiage selected from his Lost Causer textbook.

The facts are, the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law was effectively repealed in Confederate states by the 1861 Confiscation Act and officially repealed in Union states, as x reported, on June 28, 1864.
Six months later the 13th Amendment passed Congress.

So, there was no hypocrisy, no pretext and no violations of Constitutional law, regardless of what DiogenesLamp's textbooks say.

[BroJoeK]

FLT-bird to HandyDandy: "I’ve wasted enough time on you. You’re not worthy of any more. Buh bye."

Diogeneslamp: "BullSnipe and "x" would seem to be the only regulars who put forth reasonable points from time to time.
The rest are just noise machines."

So claims one of Free Republic's louder noise machines.

In fact, x and Bull Snipe are FR saints, showing vastly more patience and politeness than you jokers ever deserve.
But does it matter to you? No, not in the least, in fact you've learned nothing from them either, you simply repeat endlessly your own Lost Causer mythological nonsense, regardless of how polite or informed they are.
You never learn and just can't stop repeating yourselves.

So what's the point? The point is the challenge and that's worth something.
If we take you far more seriously than you deserve, can we find good answers?
The answer is: yes, almost always though often only with serious digging.
Of course you won't be satisfied because you're not capable of being satisfied, you're Democrats after all, that's your nature, always lie, never satisfied, Democrats.

[HandyDandy]

Is it ok if I “quote” you on that?