Why The War Was Not About Slavery

https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org ^ | March 9, 2016 | Clyde Wilson

[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.

[FLT-bird]

yawn. Revenue Tariff means 10% by definition.

As we've gone over at least half a dozen times.

As I said, you have nothing to contribute.

[FLT-bird]

We know it was not about slavery because Lincoln and the Northern dominated Congress TOLD us it was not about slavery.

[BroJoeK]

FLT-bird: "Treaties carry the force of constitutional law.
No, not merely the force of law - constitutional law."

Bull snipe: "Only if 2/3s of the Confederate Senate approve the treaty."

FLT-bird: "I don't know why y'all are so desperate to argue this.
Its been posted with quotes and sources numerous times.
This is not exactly a controversial fact."

DoodleDawg: "Making crap up as you go along like I said."

FLT-bird: "Tell ya what.
I'll put my legal education up against yours any day."

Not everyone agrees with FLT-bird's legal opinions, this site for example:

"The following qualifies as one of the greatest lies the globalists continue to push upon the American people.
That lie is:
"Treaties supersede the US Constitution."
The second follow-up lie is this one:
"A treaty, once passed, cannot be set aside."
Here are the clear irrefutable facts that have cleared up all the confusion that existed in many people's minds.

The US Supreme Court has made it very clear that

• Treaties do not override the US Constitution.
• Treaties cannot amend the Constitution.
• A treaty can be nullified by a statute passed by the US Congress, or by a sovereign State or States if the Congress refuses to do so, when the State deems a treaty the performance of a treaty is self-destructive.
  The law of self-preservation overrules the law of obligation in others.
When you have read this thoroughly, hopefully, you will never again sit quietly by when someone -- anyone -- claims that treaties supersede the Constitution."

The article goes on to list its cases & references.

Note that it refers to FLT-bird's claim as "one of the greatest lies the globalists continue to push upon the American people".
That might tell us something about where, exactly, FLT-bird got his legal education.

[FLT-bird]

Oh look. The same pathetically obsessed troll is back to responding to me again.

If I started a count of his attempts to engage me in his nonsense in this thread what does everybody think we’d get up to? 80? He’s come close to that before. More?

[rockrr]

The projection posted in #602 and #603 is hilarious...

[FLT-bird]

what’s even funnier is rocksinhishead thinks that’s projection.

[Bull Snipe]

Read the Constitution of the Confederacy. Where does it grant the President unilaterally authority enter into a treaty without the approval of the Confederate Congress. .

Some posters on this forum are glad to point out Abe Lincoln’s foot prints on the United States Constitution, well here is Jefferson Davis’s foot prints all over the Constitution of the Confederacy.

[DiogenesLamp]

The South had a choice. Lincoln did NOT launch a “war fleet”. It was a resupply mission, whose timing, goals & nature were discussed in a letter Lincoln sent to South Carolina.

They knew Lincoln was going to send a war fleet back in mid march. Washington DC was full of Southern spies and sympathizers. The Southern government was sent a telegram from Washington DC telling them that a war fleet was coming. I might be able to find that again because I think I saved a link for it on my other computer.

You are looking at this stuff from the perspective that everything Lincoln or the Union government said was true. You do not even consider the possibility that Lincoln or his government would lie to anyone, or deliberately mislead people, so you just accept what you are told at face value.

Lincoln meant to provoke a confrontation. Lincoln needed a war, and the South did not. Their actions have been attributed to them just being a bunch of hot heads who were spoiling for a war. People see what they want to see, and a little propaganda makes it easy for people to see what they want to see.

Lincoln started that war. He had both the motive and the means, and the evidence points to him.

[NKP_Vet]

When the South was a democrat stronghold the democrat party had not turned into the communist party. When the party started selling its soul to the devil and became the party of abortion, in the late 60s and early 70s most WHITE Southerners started voting republican and continue to do so. Jerry Falwell and his Moral Majority was responsibile for Ronald Reagan turning the South red. He ran the table.

[Mr Rogers]

“They knew Lincoln was going to send a war fleet back in mid march.”

1 - It was NOT a war fleet. We KNOW what the orders were, and their orders were to function ONLY in a defensive mode.

2 - Lincoln sent a letter to South Carolina. They didn’t need spies because Lincoln didn’t HIDE anything.

3 - The South CHOSE to attack. They didn’t have to. They decided to start the war. It isn’t open to discussion. THEY FIRED THE FIRST SHOTS!

[NKP_Vet]

In the 60s and 70s many Southern democrat politicians, from Strom Thurmond to Jesse Helms, switched parties and became republican. You didn’t get anymore conservative than Sam Ervin, and he remained a democrat. No doubt if he had lived abortion and the democrats becoming uber liberal would have made him a republican. Jimmy Carter won most Southern states because he ran as a moderate and because Ford pardoned Nixon. But he still almost lost the election. He was nothing in the world but a far-left liberal and that’s exactly how he governed. He was a disaster as president.

[Team Cuda]

So, I asked Why did the South secede? You answered by saying “If a man has Freedom of Speech, what opinions are so bad that he can be denied the right to speak them”. How, in any reasonable universe is this poor excuse for a Zen koan an answer? I would like you to respond, in clear English, Why did the South secede. It’s a simple question, and deserves a simple answer.

Also, when I asked that your answer reference the Articles of Secession of Mississippi, South Carolina, Georgia, and Texas, your too cute answer was “I don’t see why I should pay attention to those four states instead of the other 7 states. Since when do four states represent a majority in a coalition of 11?” So, I will turn it back on you. Why can you ignore these four states? They had over a third of the population of the entire coalition. Do we go by majority rule for everything and ignore the minority (I will remind you that these 11 states less than a third of the national population)?

Later you say, and I quote “ Yes, Texas, Mississippi, South Carolina, and maybe Georgia (I don’t remember about Georgia) claimed in their secession statements that slavery was the reason they were leaving, but I’ve seen it argued that even that was just a bunch of propaganda and not the real reason.”. They claimed that slavery was the reason? They claimed it? They did more than claimed it. They flat out stated it. Mississippi even said “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery— the greatest material interest of the world”. This is more than a claim - this is a proud ownership of the fact that secession was for slavery. They proudly declared it to the world. Who are you to say that this wasn’t their reason? Riddle me this – if slavery wasn’t the real reason why would they state it in their official documents? Were they so ashamed of their “real” reasons that they had to hide it? Please show me the super-secret document that shows what the real reason is. The level of arrogance to claim that you know better than the individuals who did the actual seceding is astounding. BTW, I’ve seen it argued that the Earth is flat – doesn’t make it true, though.

I’m still waiting for the answer to the question “Why did the South secede. You still have not answered it (I don’t consider your version of “what is the sound of one hand clapping” to be an answer)

[jmacusa]

You get your head handed to you constantly over this issue and you never shut up.

[jmacusa]

Well researched and stated as always Joe. I learn a lot from your pots. Pity the “Johnny Reb wanna be’s’’ here don't. I have chastised them time and again as you did that ostensibly they identify and consider themselves as conservatives but they come here and venerate Democrats, i.e, The Confederacy.

[DoodleDawg]

Tell ya what. I'll put my legal education up against yours any day.

You're on.

[BroJoeK]

dfwgator: "The biggest mistake was not picking our own damned cotton in the first place."

Maybe, but in all fairness to Southern whites, slavery was a business model which worked, spectacularly in some cases like cotton, and the social ideal of slaveholding in time was seen by many other Southerners as praiseworthy.
Indeed, it's been argued, slave work-gangs in, say, cotton were the original basic industrial process, later adapted for Northern factories & immigrants.
Cotton & slavery made Deep South whites, on average, the most prosperous people on earth, at the time.
By 1860, with now generations of success, most could not even imagine a different "way of life".

And slavery was global in those days, so where in the world could slaveholders look to see business & social models which worked better than theirs?
But one problem was, like a powerful medicine, slavery came with major side-effects, effects noticed and written about already by Thomas Jefferson.
In so many words, Jefferson said in effect: slavery rots the slaveholders' souls.

The bottom line was, even in such minimal slave states as Delaware, with very few slaves or slaveholders, they never seriously considered abolition before 1860 and after 1865 only because forced to by the 13th Amendment.

Why remains a mystery, so far as I know.

[DoodleDawg]

Read the Constitution of the Confederacy. Where does it grant the President unilaterally authority enter into a treaty without the approval of the Confederate Congress. .

Careful. He'll match his legal know-how against yours any time. He said so.

[Bull Snipe]

will keep that in mind.

[BroJoeK]

Wuli: "The Democrats speak of “defending ‘democracy’ “ but that which they specifically are trying to defend in each case is the permanent government of the administrative state."

Today Democrats are still called the "Democratic Party", but in the 19th century they were known as "The Democracy".
So when Democrats tell us, for example, that "Trump threatens our Democracy", what they're really talking about is "The Democracy", meaning their own party.

Which of course is true -- with luck we'll continue to see ever rising unemployment among The Democracy politicians.

;-)

[rockrr]

I don’t know which is funnier - him claiming that he has legal training or him hitching his wagon upon it.