Posted on 01/11/2019 5:16:40 AM PST by TexasGunLover
AUSTIN, Texas — A historically inaccurate brass plaque honoring confederate veterans will come down after a vote this morning, WFAA has learned.
The State Preservation Board, which is in charge of the capitol building and grounds, meets this morning at 10:30 a.m. to officially decide the fate of the metal plate.
(Excerpt) Read more at wfaa.com ...
A U.S. President that did not like the pro-slavery U.S. Constitution could actively seek to overthrow the U.S. Constitution. He could encourage many John Brown-type murder raids in the South.
He could encourage northern states to provide sanctuaries to financiers of the murder raids.
He could encourage Congress to pass confiscatory import taxes aimed at destroying the economies of the southern states.
He could use U.S. Navy warships to create a pretext for war such as the Gulf of Tonkin incident, errrr . . . I mean the Fort Sumter incident.
This.
Just as liberals today are offended by memorials to southerners Lee, Jackson, Davis and others, northerners in the mid-1800s were offended by the limited constitutional government created by Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Mason - all southerners.
Southerners had an agrarian culture that competed with northern love-of-money culture. Then, as now, northerners looked down on southerners. And northerners were jealous of southern successes.
Initially in the young united States of America, all 13 states were slave states. Time passed and northern accountants discovered slavery was not a good economic business model for industry but that it seemed to work for their economic and political rivals in the South. Ten seconds later Puritans in the North announced slavery was morally wrong.
So, northerners decided to destroy their political and economic rivals in the South and overthrow the pro-slavery U.S. Constitution. And war came.
That's a pointless and historically illiterate parallel. Parties oppose each other and aren't crazy about the icons of the other side, but no Northerner was "offended" by anything about George Washington. Their fathers and grandfathers had fought in Washington's army for heaven's sake. He was the father of the country.
Some Northerners didn't love Jefferson. Some Southerners couldn't stand Hamilton or the Adamses, but I don't see that there was anything resembling today's conflicts over monuments. And the conflict over the size of the federal government was piddling by today's standards.
I don't even think you're right about the present day. Some Northerners (and some Southerners) may be "offended" by Confederate flags, but I don't think many Northerners are actually "offended" by monuments to Lee or Jackson. They aren't our thing. You have to figure out if they are yours or not.
Southerners had an agrarian culture that competed with northern love-of-money culture. Then, as now, northerners looked down on southerners. And northerners were jealous of southern successes.
I could just as well say that Northerners had a freedom culture that competed with Southern slaveowning culture, and that Southerners looked down on Northerners and feared Northern successes.
Time passed and northern accountants discovered slavery was not a good economic business model for industry but that it seemed to work for their economic and political rivals in the South. Ten seconds later Puritans in the North announced slavery was morally wrong.
We had a revolution in the name of freedom. Some people drew the obvious lesson about slavery from that. And some people didn't.
So, northerners decided to destroy their political and economic rivals in the South and overthrow the pro-slavery U.S. Constitution. And war came.
Nice fairy tale. Crawl back under your rock.
Somewhat like presidents who didn’t like freedom used their power to strengthen the pro-slavery side? Like what Democrat presidents had been doing for decades before the Civil War?
After the revolution, the North loved freedom, but the South did not. You say.
After the revolution, the North was against slavery. You say.
After the revolution, the North refused to make profits from buying and selling slaves, refused to make profits from the transportation of slaves, refused to make profits from transporting slave-grown cotton, and refused to make profits from processing slave-grown cotton. This you did not say.
After the revolution, 13 of the 13 original states were slave states and voted to enshrine slavery into the U.S. Constitution. This you did not say.
Let's do a quick roll call of the states that voted for the U.S. Constitution to be pro-slavery, and voted to include a constitutional amendment process which would make abolition of slavery difficult: New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Delaware, and Maryland.
Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia also voted the same way.
But after the revolution the North loved freedom. You say.
Yes, President George Washington owned slaves. Is this what you are referencing?
The transatlantic slave trade was prohibited after the passage of 20 years, as soon as the slave states would allow.
By that time, two more states had begun the abolition process.
And if you really think the only reason it is difficult to amend the constitution was to protect slavery, then you are bad off indeed.
Washington was no fan of slavery. Jackson, Polk, Pierce, and Buchanan were and did what they could to advantage the slave states over the free.
“Six states put slavery on the path to abolition before the Constitution was adopted. The transatlantic slave trade was prohibited after the passage of 20 years, as soon as the slave states would allow. By that time, two more states had begun the abolition process. And if you really think the only reason it is difficult to amend the constitution was to protect slavery, then you are bad off indeed.”
Why do you defend and excuse the northern states voting to adopt a pro-slavery constitution for the U.S.?
Did the North love the idea of potential peace, security, and wealth that a new, united nation could provide so much that they would embrace slavery?
One could draw an analogy to what’s going on now. The few Southerners passionate about industrialization were a little like the Flake-Romney Republicans passionate about globalization or the Ocasio Democrats passionate about socialism. Most people lived in the world as it was and were concerned about what was immediately around them. I don’t think Jefferson Davis had any ambitious hopes for industrialization.
You would be wrong about that. Jefferson Davis commented several times about how the sectional partisan legislation in Washington was draining money out of the South and hampering the South’s industrialization. Most people by the 1850s realized industrialization was the way to go. The largest and most successful economies like Britain and France were some of the first to industrialize.
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You do realize that saying “I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists” was not going to satisfy Southern slaveowners.
They believed slavery was a good thing that ought to be spread. They wanted what they thought was their share of the new territories. They wanted to be able to take their slaves with them when they went west. Or even when they went North.
A President who wanted to exclude slavery from the territories was a slap in the face of slaveholders and their pride. They thought it made them second class citizens (as strange as that sounds to sane people now).
Southerners did feel as though they were not being treated equally (once again) with respect to the territories. That said, THE big concern was votes in the Senate - not some holy crusade to spread slavery. They knew that due to immigration they could not match the North’s population and thus were always going to be outvoted in the House and in most cases for the presidency so the Senate was the Southern States’ last chance to prevent really harmful tariffs and really unequal expenditures from being passed by the federal govt. It was a power struggle plain and simple. Once they seceded, suddenly the territories became unimportant. They no longer needed votes in the Senate.
Lincoln was the head of the American Colonization Society and twice got Congress to appropriate funds for the purpose of settling Blacks elsewhere. The point was that Lincoln himself was not opposed to slavery where it existed. He was perfectly willing to provide additional fugitive slave laws. There was no widespread popular sentiment in the North to abolish slavery. So even if Lincoln had been hostile to it he wouldn’t have had the power to do anything about it anyway. And in any event the 15 slaveholding states could have blocked any constitutional amendment to abolish slavery. In case anybody was in any doubt, the Republicans put forward the Corwin Amendment which Lincoln endorsed.
Slavery simply was not threatened.
Plenty of things would threaten the self-image of slave owners and make them feel like it wasn’t their country any more. You didn’t need a constitutional amendment to make the slave power feel the heat. If you owned slaves, you were used to getting your own way. When you didn’t, it would peeve you something terrible.
If anything the Southern states were used to being outvoted. They had been for quite some time. Tariffs far higher than a revenue tariff (ie max 10%) had been the norm for decades. Massive corporate welfare and infrastructure spending benefitting the Northern states had been the rule for decades.
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Some Northerners brought slaves to the South. But Britons brought more, I believe. So did the French, Dutch, and Spaniards. They were all satisfying the demand.
You’re completely wrong about this. New England was the epicenter of the slave trade industry for the entire western hemisphere - not just North America. The US refused to allow the Royal Navy to search its vessels when the Royal Navy was trying to stamp out the slave trade. The US was almost alone among nations which refused to allow it at that time. Ostensibly it was for “patriotic” reasons but the real reason was of course, Yankee slave traders were making huge profits. This was laid out by 3 New England Journalists a few years ago in their NY times best seller “Complicity: how the North Promoted, Prolonged and Profited From Slavery”. You should read it some time.
“Washington was no fan of slavery.”
Just to be clear: You do know that President Washington owned and worked slaves don’t you?
And before you ask: No, I don’t think the Washington Monument should be toppled or moved to a museum.
There was a small elite in Charleston or New Orleans that dreamed of the South as an industrial power. They were the Hamiltonians of what was a very Jeffersonian (agrarian) region, and more intellectual than effective. There were also actual industrialists in Virginia and Tennessee, but they weren't for secession in the beginning. Before Sumter, they were willing to take their chances in the US.
Further South, people wanted to rely on cotton. Think about it for a minute: all those books and pamphlets about King Cotton and how valuable it was and how the world couldn't live without it. And all those books and articles about how horrible and cold and miserable Northern urban life and factory work were. People who write and think that way usually aren't thinking first and foremost about industrializing their region.
Slavery simply was not threatened.
Lincoln was the head of the American Colonization Society and twice got Congress to appropriate funds for the purpose of settling Blacks elsewhere. The point was that Lincoln himself was not opposed to slavery where it existed.
Hint: Compensated emancipation and colonization were perceived as a threat by militant slave owners. Anything that undercut the power of the slave owners was seen as a threat. By 1860, anything that suggested that slavery was a temporary and passing phase provoked hostility.
So even if Lincoln had been hostile to it he wouldn’t have had the power to do anything about it anyway. And in any event the 15 slaveholding states could have blocked any constitutional amendment to abolish slavery. In case anybody was in any doubt, the Republicans put forward the Corwin Amendment which Lincoln endorsed.
You've said that loss of the Senate was seen as a threat. One of the things that it threatened was the power and peace of mind of the slaveowning elite. As I said, there were many things a president could do - and many things a Congress could do - short of a constitutional amendment that would make slaveowners uneasy, and make them feel that they could do better on their own in a new nation dedicated to the preservation of slavery.
By contrast, Southerners could usually count on the support of Northern Democrats to keep the tariff from rising too high. If it were all about tariffs and economics, the new Western agricultural states would be seen as allies by the South, rather than as a threat. Western farmers didn't want to pay high import taxes either.
If anything the Southern states were used to being outvoted. They had been for quite some time. Tariffs far higher than a revenue tariff (ie max 10%) had been the norm for decades. Massive corporate welfare and infrastructure spending benefitting the Northern states had been the rule for decades.
The US tariff rate in the 1840s was about 20%. That's not "far higher" than 10%. The rate reflected a country where agricultural interests had to be balanced against the interests of infant industries. The tariff had to pay for the costs of collecting the tax as well as the revenue it generated and 10% wouldn't go very far in paying for customs houses, warehouses, and clerks. The 1846 tariff was written by Democrats with considerable Southern input. And what "massive corporate welfare and infrastructure spending" before the Civil War? Just what are you talking about that fits that description?
New England was the epicenter of the slave trade industry for the entire western hemisphere - not just North America. The US refused to allow the Royal Navy to search its vessels when the Royal Navy was trying to stamp out the slave trade. The US was almost alone among nations which refused to allow it at that time. Ostensibly it was for “patriotic” reasons but the real reason was of course, Yankee slave traders were making huge profits.
If there was an epicenter it was more likely to be Liverpool or Bristol or Glasgow than Boston or Salem or New Haven. But if you consider the transatlantic slave trade as a whole there was no center. Spanish, Portuguese, French, Dutch, Danish, British and US slave traders competed with each other in a network that extended across four continents.
The US and Britain abolished the slave trade at about the same time, 1807-1808. Most of the slaves sent to the US did not arrive in American ships or under the US flag. Most likely their ancestors arrived in colonial times or shortly afterwards.
After the ban, the US fleet was active in trying to stop slave ships. There were always illegal traders after the ban from a variety of countries - some were Southerners - but the notion that the trade was turning in massive profits for New Englanders or that foreign traders weren't doing the same thing looks shaky.
The US did refuse to make a treaty granting the British the right to board and search US ships. That had as much to do with national pride and the wishes of the Southern states as anything to do with the Northern states. I also notice that things didn't always go smoothly between Britain and other countries. It was as much British strong-arm tactics as any humanitarian concerns that made other countries give in to British demands, and the other countries pushed back when they thought they could.
New England was the epicenter of the slave trade industry for the entire western hemisphere - not just North America
Not really:
The following information is from the “Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database”. This database can be found at www.slavevoyages.org
The country listed below is the flag of the ship transporting slaves.
Country total voyages % of slave voyages
Portugal 35,994 61.6 %
Britain 12,010 20.5 %
France 4,199 7.2 %
USA 2,268 3.9 %
Spain 1,893 3.2 %
Holland 1704 2.9 %
Denmark 411 .7 %
Total 58,449 100 %
The website estimates that the database represents about 80 % of the total slave trade voyages from 1514 to 1866.
Looking at the country’s ships transporting slaves and the destination of the voyage shows the most of the slave voyages were ships of a specific country bound for the colonies of that country in the Western Hemisphere. As an example, most, but no all, Portugal’s slave voyages ended in Portuguese Brazil. Most, but not all, Britain’s slave voyages went to British colonies in the Caribbean. American slave ships transported mostly to the United States, and after 1808, to Cuba.
Right, Seward was on a tear, doing his typical moderate-Republican thing, wheeling & dealing trying to craft a "compromise" with Democrats to save the Union.
In the mean time, president-elect Lincoln, before his inauguration, held back, kept silent on most issues and merely insisted that the Republican position on slavery in the territories would not be compromised.
Evidence that Lincoln interfered with, or even, ahem, "colluded" with Seward is minimal to non-existent.
In the mean time Lincoln-Republicans in Congress stood fast in opposition.
So we can say that Ohio Republican Corwin's amendment grew out of efforts by Mississippi Democrat Senator Jefferson Davis to mollify Southern fears of Lincoln's Black Republicans, before his own state seceded, the amendment was supported by Democrats in Congress, steered by Republican Senator Seward, passed over Republican opposition and signed by Democrat President Buchanan.
Evidence of Lincoln's role, if any, is lacking.
Seward's freelance wheeler-dealing did not end with Lincoln's inauguration on March 4, 1861, but continued throughout the Fort Sumter crisis.
One of my Great Grandfathers, fresh off the boat from Europe, speaking little to no English, served in an Illinois regiment, marched thousands of miles through Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri & Alabama.
Wounded at Fort Blakely near Mobile, he nearly died but walked home from New Orleans to Illinois after the war.
So far as I know those soldiers served honorably and behaved themselves as good as any in that era, meaning very good compared to other wars & times.
But any suggestions Confederates did not invade the Union are pure poppycock.
In fact, Confederates invaded Union Maryland, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma & New Mexico, along with Confederate guerillas in California, Colorado & Vermont among others.
Further, in the Civil War's first 12 months more battles were fought in the Union than Confederacy and more Confederates died in Union states than in Confederate states.
So it was never a matter of "just leave us alone", but rather of constant Confederate aggressions & declared war on the United States.
Please see my post #375 above.
rowbowombat: "But the puritan/yankee habit of combining self righteous moralizing with financial greed would not tolerate having many persons escape their grasp.
Thus the charter of the US to be the universal hall monitor of the planet and moralizer of the universe came to be and led us to so many interesting places and peoples, not the least our recent visit to the putative land of the Garden of Eden."
The Bible suggests the Garden of Eden was on land now under water at the western end of the Persian Gulf, a region today dotted with oil derricks and patrolled by the US Navy.
As for "universal hall monitor", our own peace and prosperity depends on keeping the peace and enforcing basic international laws abroad.
So we do patrol hot spots, especially watery ones and occasionally fight bad guys to maintain the world order -- our world order.
In this day & age there's no serious alternative -- you want to empower the UN to do that?
What about letting the Europeans of Chi-coms take care of it?
Or have Vlad the Pute take over?
I don't think so.
You may find Yankee "moralizing" irksome, but it does form a firm foundation for International Law.
The fact is there's no serious alternative and without a powerful USA the world would be a much worse and poorer place.
The real problem is Americans have become so involved abroad we've sometimes forgotten to, ahem, "put America first", a problem we trust our President is moving to correct.
I'd say to you: one man's "pretext" is another man's "real reason" and you don't know who considered slavery the "reason" and who just a "pretext".
The fact is that few Southerners had direct contact with tariffs or "Northeastern power brokers" or "money flows from Europe", and so would not respond to calls for secession over such matters.
But every Southerner knew about slavery directly & personally, even if they "owned" no slaves.
A threat to slavery was a threat to all and so that was the appeal by Deep South Fire Eaters to convince their fellow Southerners secession was necessary.
That the threat from "Ape" Lincoln's Black Republicans was exaggerated & distorted didn't matter, it did its job in winning Deep South secession.
By the way, the Corwin amendment was passed after the last Deep South state declared secession, so was a useless exercise in closing the barn door after the horse was gone.
It did seem to have some effect in Border States so was not entirely wasted.
Flt-bird: "...pretext for the Southern states to get out from under the partisan sectional legislation of the federal government that was draining their pockets."
This is one of the weaker arguments in the Lost Cause quiver, and it was surprisingly made by none other that Robert Rhett himself, in December 1860, when Democrats had ruled Washington, DC, for nearly 60 years, with Southern Democrats the majority of Democrats and making 1860 Washington, DC, just what those Southerners wanted.
So all their complaints about Washington are simply complaints about what they themselves did there for 60 years, which makes no sense.
What does make absolute sense is Southern fears, horrors, terror, fright & panic at the thought that "Ape" Lincoln's Black Republicans were soon to take over the "consolidated" Washington they themselves created!
Flt-bird: "I am accusing Southern Political leaders of being just as duplicitious as all politicians are and have always been.
Of course they were only too happy to lie if it would get them what they really wanted."
Then we agree more than I had suspected.
But I also think that "cynical" reasons for some were seen as sincere and "real" reasons by many others.
We're talking about human nature here, often a mixture of noble and not-so-noble motives.
Flt-bird: "The Northern political leaders for their part were equally cynical.
They didn’t really give a damn about slavery.
What they really cared about was the huge amounts of tax revenue for corporate subsidies and infrastructure projects in the North that the South provided as well as the huge captive market that would fuel the growth of their manufacturing industry."
So our Lost Causers keep telling us, but the evidence on Lincoln's motives suggests far less his financial interests and far more his constitutional & legal obligations.
That's because rebellion has been recognized since time immemorial as a casus belli, for example the Whiskey Rebellion against President Washington in 1793.
Washington raised up an army of 13,000 to defeat it and the rebels quickly retreated.
But in the American tradition secession alone was not defined as "rebellion", so neither Presidents Buchanan nor Lincoln could move militarily against Confederates.
Lincoln needed an actual military attack against the Union before he could respond and that Jefferson Davis was only too happy to give him.
Why did Jefferson Davis seize Fort Sumter by military force?
Because he wanted to, reason one, and because it would bring the Upper South states into the Confederacy, reason two.
Notice that none of this makes reference to "other reasons" which seem to play such a big role in our Lost Causers' imaginations.
All of it is just straight history, no revisionism required.
Sure and supported by Senator Seward, soon to be Lincoln's Secretary of State.
This was your typical "moderate" Republicans doing their moderate thing, trying to "compromise" with Democrats to keep Democrats from going insane.
As usual, it didn't work.
But evidence of Lincoln's involvement or approval is slim to none and hard-core Lincoln Republicans opposed it.
So blaming Corwin on Lincoln, regardless of how necessary to the Lost Cause mythology, is misguided & misdirected.
FLT-bird: "As he said many times, he was only to happy to protect slavery."
Until Confederates rejected his peace offers, after that, not so much.
FLT-bird: "His real interest was in high tariffs and massive corporate subsidies overwhelmingly going to Northern business interests."
A basic tenet of Lost Cause mythology unsupported by any factual evidence.
Lincoln's "real interest" was to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States" according to his oath of office.
FLT-bird: "Nah, the real desperation is among you PC Revisionists who have consistently sought to deny that Lincoln’s main concern was in reviving Henry Clay’s “American system” of high tariffs and corporate welfare and that he was only too happy to protect slavery."
Clay was a Southern Whig, Virginia born, a slave-holding plantation owner with no interest -- none, zero, nada interest -- in aggrandizing the North at the South's expense.
What Clay wanted was to, ahem, "put Americans first" by protecting US producers, North, South and West, against foreign competitions.
That was indeed Lincoln's aim too, and was in no way antithetical to all Southerners.
Instead it was just "politics as usual" in which tariff rates rose & fell over time depending on various coalitions & alliances in Congress.
Sure, the "tariff of abominations" did drive South Carolina to threaten nullification or secession in 1832 under President Jackson (Southern slaveholder), but nothing in effect or proposed in 1860 remotely approached such levels.
In 1860 moderate tariffs were "politics as usual" not cause for secession.
That's why Deep South Fire Eaters focused on the Black Republican threat to slavery.
FLT-bird: "Jefferson Davis was quite clear in saying multiple times that the Northerners’ real interests were totally in getting legislation passed that would line their pockets at the South’s expense AND that any concerns they expressed about slavery were a mere pretense to further the partisan sectional legislation that would benefit them."
I think Davis was actually saying something a bit different, but if you do indeed have genuine quotes to that effect, then feel free to post them here.
However -- the bottom line with Davis is that he was a Unionist up until the moment Mississippi declared secession.
So none of his pre-secession statements can be read as justifying secession, but only as expressing his partisan political views within the United States Senate.
;-) !!
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