Posted on 05/03/2019 7:54:25 AM PDT by NKP_Vet
Conventional wisdom of the moment tells us that the great war of 1861—1865 was “about” slavery or was “caused by” slavery. I submit that this is not a historical judgment but a political slogan. What a war is about has many answers according to the varied perspectives of different participants and of those who come after. To limit so vast an event as that war to one cause is to show contempt for the complexities of history as a quest for the understanding of human action.
Two generations ago, most perceptive historians, much more learned than the current crop, said that the war was “about” economics and was “caused by” economic rivalry. The war has not changed one bit since then. The perspective has changed. It can change again as long as people have the freedom to think about the past. History is not a mathematical calculation or scientific experiment but a vast drama of which there is always more to be learned.
I was much struck by Barbara Marthal’s insistence in her Stone Mountain talk on the importance of stories in understanding history. I entirely concur. History is the experience of human beings. History is a story and a story is somebody’s story. It tells us about who people are. History is not a political ideological slogan like “about slavery.” Ideological slogans are accusations and instruments of conflict and domination. Stories are instruments of understanding and peace.
Let’s consider the war and slavery. Again and again I encounter people who say that the South Carolina secession ordinance mentions the defense of slavery and that one fact proves beyond argument that the war was caused by slavery. The first States to secede did mention a threat to slavery as a motive for secession. They also mentioned decades of economic exploitation.
(Excerpt) Read more at abbevilleinstitute.org ...
Scalawag ... Thats the word.
I hope they pay you well to lie.
In 1863, at least, Charleston had 385 guns in their land forts. May be part of why the city was never taken by sea. Sherman eventually took it from the land side.
You did indeed. Want to try that one again?
Did they use eminent domain to do that? Or a rebellion?
The North didn’t go to war to end slavery. True. It went to war to preserve the Union. It won that fight. The South most certainly did. And it lost that fight. Why couldn’t the South have ended slavery on it’s own prior to 1861? And if the South had won the war would it have ended slavery?
Actually, the DEMOCRATS went to war to EXPAND slavery.
The REPUBLICANS were formed to prevent the EXPANSION of slavery.
There were plenty of pro-Slavery democrats in the North.
Just as there were many anti-Slavery Republicans in the south.
Virginia for example. When Virginia seceded.
The anti-slavery Virginians in the west seceded from Virginia.
West Virginia is the only State formed by secession.
Nothing in the Confederate constitution set tariff rates but I'll let that go for the moment.
Henry Benning to the Virginia Secession Commission: "I have no idea that the duties will be as low as 10 per cent. My own opinion is that we shall have as high duty as is now charged by the General Government at Washington. If that matter is regarded as important by this Convention, why the door is open for negotiation with us. We have but a provisional and temporary government so far. If it be found that Virginia requires more protection than this upon any particular article of manufacture let her come in the spirit of a sister, to our Congress and say, we want more protection upon this or that article, and she will, I have no doubt, receive it. She will be met in the most fraternal and complying spirit."
Speech of Henry Benning to the Virginia Secession Commission>
Oh yes it does. Tariff for Revenue. That means a maximum of 10%. Only the exigencies of war caused them to raise tariffs above that rate.
Actually it says " taxes, duties, imposts, and excises for revenue, necessary to pay the debts, provide for the common defense, and carry on the Government of the Confederate States..." Nowhere does it set that at 10% for any of them. And nowhere does it say exigencies of war impacted any of the rates. It's all in your imagination.
No. The whole reason for the Navigation acts was to ensure a large enough merchant marine to have that available in case of war.
What does the Navigation Act have to do with Southern packet lines?
The CSA would have adopted its own navigation acts for the same reason and that industry would have grown up in the South to support the need for shipping.
It didn't do much to promote Southern lined before the rebellion, why would that change?
For the reasons I outlined above and Wigfall was just just one guy. Many people who were far more influential including Rhett had very different views.
LOL! Sure.
I know the truth hurts you.
The truth and your posts don't often collide.
Stephens was not influential and was powerless. Rhett was the Father of Secession and was far more influential. Several others agreed with Rhett. Almost all of the tax experts who have looked at this say the South was furnishing the vast majority of the exports and the Northern Newspapers and the Foreign Newspapers as well as Southern newspapers all said so too.
Stephens was very influential, was considered for the presidency, and was the vice-president. And as a congressman he would have known about federal revenue and expenditures.
Almost all of the tax experts who have looked at this say the South was furnishing the vast majority of the exports and the Northern Newspapers and the Foreign Newspapers as well as Southern newspapers all said so too.
Charles Adams, Clyde Wilson, and the Kennedy brothers are hardly "almost all the tax experts".
Again BS.
When it comes to BS few rise to your level.
Nothing in the Confederate constitution set tariff rates but I'll let that go for the moment.
Henry Benning to the Virginia Secession Commission: "I have no idea that the duties will be as low as 10 per cent. My own opinion is that we shall have as high duty as is now charged by the General Government at Washington. If that matter is regarded as important by this Convention, why the door is open for negotiation with us. We have but a provisional and temporary government so far. If it be found that Virginia requires more protection than this upon any particular article of manufacture let her come in the spirit of a sister, to our Congress and say, we want more protection upon this or that article, and she will, I have no doubt, receive it. She will be met in the most fraternal and complying spirit."
Speech of Henry Benning to the Virginia Secession Commission>
Oh yes it does. Tariff for Revenue. That means a maximum of 10%. Only the exigencies of war caused them to raise tariffs above that rate.
Actually it says " taxes, duties, imposts, and excises for revenue, necessary to pay the debts, provide for the common defense, and carry on the Government of the Confederate States..." Nowhere does it set that at 10% for any of them. And nowhere does it say exigencies of war impacted any of the rates. It's all in your imagination.
No. The whole reason for the Navigation acts was to ensure a large enough merchant marine to have that available in case of war.
What does the Navigation Act have to do with Southern packet lines?
The CSA would have adopted its own navigation acts for the same reason and that industry would have grown up in the South to support the need for shipping.
It didn't do much to promote Southern lined before the rebellion, why would that change?
For the reasons I outlined above and Wigfall was just just one guy. Many people who were far more influential including Rhett had very different views.
LOL! Sure.
I know the truth hurts you.
The truth and your posts don't often collide.
Stephens was not influential and was powerless. Rhett was the Father of Secession and was far more influential. Several others agreed with Rhett. Almost all of the tax experts who have looked at this say the South was furnishing the vast majority of the exports and the Northern Newspapers and the Foreign Newspapers as well as Southern newspapers all said so too.
Stephens was very influential, was considered for the presidency, and was the vice-president. And as a congressman he would have known about federal revenue and expenditures.
Almost all of the tax experts who have looked at this say the South was furnishing the vast majority of the exports and the Northern Newspapers and the Foreign Newspapers as well as Southern newspapers all said so too.
Charles Adams, Clyde Wilson, and the Kennedy brothers are hardly "almost all the tax experts".
Again BS.
When it comes to BS few rise to your level.
Scalawag,
President Lincoln destroyed slavery. He passed the 13th Amendment.
“Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”
Neither was the Civil War.
I don’t believe slavery was even mentioned in the Declaration of Independence.
It was. They objected to the King's men stirring up slave rebellions.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us...
We did not fight the British for our freedom for the purpose of maintaining slavery.
Well that's only because we won. Had we lost they would have said "Those D@mn rebels only sought Independence so they could just continue slavery!" And they would have had every publishing company in England repeating it for 150 years.
People would have been talking about how the "slave powers" tried to break away from the rightful government of England, but because they were nasty evil people, they were soundly beaten! And everyone would be repeating that today.
The mere fact that we had slaves in did not in any way mean that we couldn’t fight for our freedom.
Say again? Did I hear you say those Southern states had a right to freedom even though they had slaves?
By the way, the comment about all the states being slave states, while technically true, is too cute by half. According to the 1790 census, both Vermont and Massachusetts had ZERO slaves, and New Hampshire had 151. Calling them slaves states is a little bit of a stretch.
Massachusetts outlawed slavery by creative Judicial "Penumbra" finding in 1780. In 1776 when the Declaration was signed, all the states were slave states.
The secession of the Southern states, on the other hand was about three things: maintaining slavery in the existing slave states,
They already had that as a member of the Union.
expanding slavery in the territories,
I have discovered that to be a lie spread by those who wanted to keep the Northern majority in Congress. The territories could not support an expansion of slavery. If you read through my commentary, you'll see the proof that spreading slavery to the territories was just bullsh*t.
and enforcing the fugitive slave act.
Required by constitutional law in Article IV, section 2. The Northern states were actually breaking the compact by impeding the enforcement of this constitutionally specified requirement.
If you think it was about any other thing, please point me to the part of the Articles of Secession from the states specifically mentioning those other things.
Can point to you something a lot more pertinent than that. Lincoln's embrace of an amendment guaranteeing slavery in the United States.
Take any claim regarding why the South seceded (The north invaded! We just want to be left alone!, etc., etc, etc) and play 20 questions, and see how many questions it takes to get to slavery.
Ask anyone like you and it only takes one question. It's been drummed into the heads of Americans ever since the Civil War, that slavery is the reason why the South left, and slavery is the reason why the North attacked them.
Here is a question for you. Why did the North invade the South?
Facts do not matter to that scalawag.
He is just here to damage the reputation of Freerepublic for his masters.
And this is exactly why all the British forts in 1776 still remain in British hands today!
The side that started the shooting was Abraham Lincoln's side. You send warships to attack people, and yes, they will shoot at you.
OMG! Was that an admission against interest? I'm shocked! Shocked I tell you! :)
The 1860 Democrat platform called for the acquisition of Cuba so that could well have been one or more slave states.
It was already a slave state. Acquiring it would have simply increased US Territory, and otherwise changed nothing.
Nonsense. Nothing in the U.S. Constitution prevented a state from ending slavery within its borders.
A state could end the creation of slaves by it's own laws, but it could do nothing about slaves created by the laws of other states. The US Constitution is quite specific on this point.
If a state sought to bar citizens of other states from entering their state with their slaves, this was a violation of the privileges and immunities clause, which is in Article IV as well. As you are aware, Washington flouted Pennsylvania anti-slavery laws routinely. I'm sure he didn't make a fuss about it simply because he didn't want it to disrupt the Union, but he clearly did not believe they should keep him from working his own land with his own slaves.
Only by leaving could then ensure the continued expansion of slavery and the political power of slave holders.
Okay, you just finished admitting that slavery wasn't going to "expand" anywhere, and now you are saying that it would? To where would it expand?
Leaving the Union wouldn't expand slavery. It would allow the South to control it's own economics instead of being a milk cow to wealthy Northern Interests.
By acknowledging the US as an independent nation. "Self determination" is what allowed them to keep what used to be the King's land.
What treaty invalidated federal ownership of property in the South?
Not a treaty, a Declaration. The one that justified us keeping all the King's land.
I believe it specified "railroad iron". I don't think it made any claim of what other tariff's might be, but I very much doubt the average was as high as 25%.
Oh go ahead and try. This should be quite amusing.
No, I think a problem child refusing to learn is just annoying.
Which, I assume, included the few lines that did exist between Southern ports?
I believe all of them were ran out of New York.
Oh crap. Goods traveled by boat or train and that's about it. Monitoring tariffs along the Mississippi would be easy enough. So would monitoring the few rail lines that went between the South and the North. Your "series of custom houses" would have been a handful.
There go those newspaper editors not being as smart or knowledgeable as DoodleDawg. Obviously it wasn't so much of an intractable problem as they led their readership to believe. Clearly a war was unnecessary, all they needed were a few more customs agents.
Didn't Clinton seize a bunch of land in Utah to prevent mining of high quality anthracite coal? Didn't he also ban drilling in large swaths of Alaska?
Not eminent domain, but just as good.
We've discussed this before. I have found proof that the Thomas Freeborn was definitely armed in the later half of April because they were on a mission in which they used their canon. We know the Yankee had armament later in the war because it too was used, but we don't know when it was armed.
This is why I said "Possibly armed". It might not have been in early April, but it definitely had cannons by a later date.
Maybe warships were sent along incase the same thing that happened to “Star of the West” (it was fired on) happened to the resupply ships.
According to Admiral David Dixon Porter in his memoirs, if those ships had attempted to carry out their mission, every one of them would have been sunk. The Confederates had prepared for them to make an attack, and had held cannon batteries in reserve specifically to deal with these attacking ships. You can read it in the Confederate war correspondence.
Apparently Admiral David Dixon Porter thought these ships were going to engage in a fire fight, but what does he know? He's only a Union Navy Admiral that was right in the middle of the whole thing.
How about a photo of the Baltic, is was a commercial ship, not a ship of the United States Navy.
I wish I had one, but all i've found are drawings. Even so, you put several hundred riflemen on a ship with munitions, it is no longer a commercial ship, it is a military transport ship. It's a "war" ship. A belligerent.
The Queen Mary was a war ship during the war.
You don't seem to know the meaning of the pejorative "scalawag," since your usage is really not applicable to the individual to whom you replied.
Also, Abraham Lincoln was no longer with us when the 13th Amendment was ratified. Furthermore, a President has no authority over passage of Constitutional Amendments. States possess that authority, solely. So, Abraham Lincoln had nothing to do with the passage of that Amendment regardless.
Nevermind that this Amendment was passed by states under military occupation, with the vast majority of the eligible voting citizenry disenfranchised. That's a discussion for another day.
History, learn it. Really, it's not so hard.
So, why did the Southern states secede? If not about slavery, it must have been about something else, unless we assume that everyone woke up one morning and said, “I’m bored, let’s secede!” Specifically, why did Mississippi chose to secede - please provide support from their Articles of Secession. Please provide the same for South Carolina, Texas, and Georgia. I am sure that I am misreading those documents and look forward to your correcting my reading..
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