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.

[jeffersondem]

“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”) . . .”

There is nothing wrong with the description “craftily.”

“Insincere charlatan” works better.

[jeffersondem]

“How did you do on finding biographers who included it in their works?”

Was I suppose to look for some? I must have missed the revelation of duty.

If I could find several biographers that have used the original source, would that strengthen the original source?

And if it is determined that many biographers are ignorant of Forrest’s speech - then what?

Where are you going with this?

[rockrr]

Pot=kettle

“It’s better to keep ones silence and be thought a fool than open it and remove all doubt.”

I’m not so enamored of my own voice that I feeeeeeeeeeeeel compelled to chatter on endlessly and mindlessly - like you do. Here’s a hint: no one gives a shiite what you say.

[DoodleDawg]

Was I suppose to look for some? I must have missed the revelation of duty

I thought you were looking for Confederate leaders whose views towards blacks were more enlightened than Lincoln's. A mission impossible I know.

[jeffersondem]

“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.”

At that time Section 2, Article IV was still part of the United States Constitution - the Constitution Abraham Lincoln twice took an oath to “preserve, protect and defend . . .” The Constitution the northern states had ignored and violated since they determined it was in their best self-interest to ignore and violate.

[HandyDandy]

Here’s a hint: no one gives a shiite what you say.

I think there was that one time when some misguided old lady took a fleeting fancy to “dear Lampy”.

[DiogenesLamp]

I’m flattered. :)

[BroJoeK]

jeffersondem: "There is nothing wrong with the description “craftily.”
“Insincere charlatan” works better."

Insincere in his support for the Constitution, or in his opposition to slavery, in your opinion?

[BroJoeK]

I've noticed before that rockrr's posts are usually short & pointed, and DiogenesLamp complains they're too short.

My posts, by contrast, aim to be thorough & detailed which necessarily makes them longer & more general.
So naturally, DiogenesLamp & others complains they're too long.

{sigh}

[BroJoeK]

jeffersondem: "At that time Section 2, Article IV was still part of the United States Constitution - the Constitution Abraham Lincoln twice took an oath to 'preserve, protect and defend . . .' "

Oh, "preserve, protect and defend" -- sort of sounds like, if they go to war against us, we fight & defeat them, doesn't it?

But does it also mean the Compromise of 1850 must remain law forever, that Congress can never abolish a law Congress made?
Funny, I missed that section.
Was that the missing Article 8, section 1 which said: "whatever slavers want, slavers get"?

[BroJoeK]

jeffersondem: "The Constitution the northern states had ignored and violated since they determined it was in their best self-interest to ignore and violate."

No, that was taken care of by the very same Compromise of 1850, making slave-catching a Federal responsibility.
In a nation with about 4 million slaves, how many actually escaped?

"More than 30,000 people were said to have escaped there via the [Underground Railroad] network during its 20-year peak period,[7] although U.S. Census figures account for only 6,000.[8]"

If we use the larger number, that's 1,500 per year or .04% (4 one hundredths of one percent).
The smaller number works out to 300 per year or 25 per month escaping through, what, five Northern states (New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois) = 5 per month per state.

And from 1850 on, those were the responsibility of Federal officials to chase down & capture, not the states.
We also know that most, if not all, of those fugitive slaves escaped from Border States like Maryland or Kentucky, very few if any from the Deep South.

But you wish to convince us those were enough to drive Southern Democrats berserk, hair on fire, declarations of secession, Confederacy and war on the United States?
Seems a little, ah, overreacting to me.

[DoodleDawg]

At that time Section 2, Article IV was still part of the United States Constitution - the Constitution Abraham Lincoln twice took an oath to “preserve, protect and defend . . .”

What's the relevance of that?

The Constitution the northern states had ignored and violated since they determined it was in their best self-interest to ignore and violate.

LOL! The Confederates refuse to establish their third branch of government and treat their Constitution as an irrelevance and you claim Lincoln ignored and violated the U.S. Constitution? With a straight face, too?

[DiogenesLamp]

Rockrr's messages are short and usually nothing more than some criticism. They seldom contain any deeper meaning than "You suck."

While I applaud the brevity, I would like some content with more calories in it.

Your messages are often too long, but that is not the only thing wrong with them. The more problematic issue is that everything you write starts of with a biased premise with little interest in trying to be objective.

They leave me with the impression that they are the work of an unapproachable mind. There is no upside to engaging.

[x]

Slave owners had the opportunity and the right to take the case to the courts and say that the legislature and the executive weren't supporting their right to the return of their slaves with the appropriate legislation or action. If that failed they could take their case to the people in the elections.

But by 1864 everybody knew that slavery was on its way out. Nobody had much sympathy with the slaveowners' cause when the slavemasters were at war with the US. That wouldn't have been the case if 11 slave states weren't fighting the rest of the country, but they were. In any case, individual slaveowners still had the option of taking their case to the courts, right up until the time when slavery was abolished by the 13th Amendment.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "Rockrr's messages are short and usually nothing more than some criticism.
They seldom contain any deeper meaning than 'You suck.' "

Sometimes that's the only appropriate response.
For example, if you were to post, in effect: "Lincoln sucks" there's really no response to that except: "No, you suck," or potentially, "Davis sucked", etc.
At that point there's no debate over data or ideas, just name-calling -- so to such a challenge, such a response is all that's needed.

Now, despite that, suppose I were to respond to your claim that "Lincoln sucked" with a serious medical explanation that, no, "sucking chest wound" is not at all what Lincoln suffered on April 14, 1865, but rather a gaping head-wound which after nine hours took his life and as Secretary of War Stanton said, saluting: "Now he belongs to the ages".
But the problem with such a response is, it doesn't address the urgent need generated by your baseless accusation that "Lincoln sucks", and that need is to turn your accusation against Lincoln back on yourself, which is what rockrr is doing with his response of: "No, you suck."

DiogenesLamp: "While I applaud the brevity, I would like some content with more calories in it. "

And yet you invariably respond to such "calories" by ignoring them.

DiogenesLamp: "Your messages are often too long, but that is not the only thing wrong with them.
The more problematic issue is that everything you write starts of with a biased premise with little interest in trying to be objective."

As compared to unbiased, objective DiogenesLamp??
You're joking, right?

Here's your problem: you never studied real history.
Sure in school you read some textbook summaries, but ever since you've been swilling down Lost Causer lies & nonsense, unfiltered by any strainer of truth.
And any real facts you may have stumbled-on you simply toss out as irrelevant to your pro-Confederate narrative.

And yet, somehow you consider yourself and your bag-of-nonsense ideas equally valid "history" which deserves "unbiased" & "objective" consideration!
It's not and they don't and posters like x and Bull Snipe who may treat you more respectfully than you deserve are not in any way yielding on that point.

DiogenesLamp: "They leave me with the impression that they are the work of an unapproachable mind.
There is no upside to engaging."

Thus speaketh the unapproachable mind of DiogenesLamp.
And if you doubt me on this, then simply cite some "examples against interest", where you have accepted some argument or data from, say, x or Bull Snipe that contradicts your previous Lost Causer narrative.
I've never seen it happen.

Let me give two examples of my own from several years ago:

• 1) Did FDR "know" about Pearl Harbor ahead of time?
  I had been taught "yes" but was eventually persuaded "no".
• 2) Was "Hitler's Pope" pro-Nazi?
  I had read "yes" but eventually learned "no, just the opposite".

In both cases I was persuaded by facts & reason, not by any ad-hominem or other emotional appeal.

So here's the bottom line: DiogenesLamp posts on Free Republic to convince us the Union was evil and Confederates good, nothing "objective", nothing "unbiased", nothing "approachable" in your mind about that.
You're a salesman selling your product, regardless of how defective, you have no self-interest in any others, regardless of how attractive they may be.

The rest of us are only here to correct the false data, false narrative and false accusations from our Lost Causer mythologizers.
Our posts are not "unbiased" regarding facts & truth, those are what we support, wherever they lead.

[BroJoeK]

x: "Slave owners had the opportunity and the right to take the case to the courts and say that the legislature and the executive weren't supporting their right to the return of their slaves with the appropriate legislation or action."

Right, and history gives us the example of 1842, Prigg vs. Pennsylvania where that did happen, but few others.
And I question if this problem wasn't overblown for political purposes, consider my post #791 above:

"More than 30,000 people were said to have escaped there via the [Underground Railroad] network during its 20-year peak period,[7] although U.S. Census figures account for only 6,000.[8]"

I'd first suggest the difference between one estimate of 30,000 fugitives over 20 years and the census figures of just 6,000 may represent the number of fugitives returned = 14,000 over 20 years = 700 per year ~60/month from five northern states =~maybe a dozen per month per state.
Which hardly seems like an economic, social or political tsunami.
And as I noted there:

"...from 1850 on, those were the responsibility of Federal officials to chase down & capture, not the states.
We also know that most, if not all, of those fugitive slaves escaped from Border States like Maryland or Kentucky, very few if any from the Deep South."

Of course, any Lost Causer worth his salt can tell you those Fugitive Slaves were the essential Constitutional reason for secession -- they allegedly represented Northerners' material breech of compact which dissolved Southern obligations to the Union.
But the reality of a few dozen runaway slaves per month from a population of 4 million, and virtually none of those escaped from the Deep South, seems to me under-whelming.

[x]

For the last few weekends, CSpan 3 has been showing a talk by Dwight Pitcaithley of the National Park Service talking about his book The US Constitution and Secession. Pitcaithley collected all of the various constitutional amendments designed to save the union that were proposed in Congress and in state conventions in the years leading up the the Civil War.

He shows that the vast majority of proposed amendments concerned slavery. A few were designed to provide a constitutional route to secession or to restructure the presidency as a multi-person executive. Only two proposed amendments had anything to do with tariffs.

If you want to understand what was on the country's mind a century and a half ago, those proposed amendments might be a good place to start. If you want to understand what Jefferson Davis thought, rather than speculate about his secret abolitionism, you might consider that the amendment that he wanted in order to save the union would have made slavery legal and protected in all the states.

[central_va]

A few were designed to provide a constitutional route to secession

That totally unnecessary because state secession is not unconstitutional, even now.

[rockrr]

It is (unconstitutional) the way the south tried it.