Posted on 04/12/2022 2:53:26 AM PDT by Kaslin
It was in this month, one hundred and fifty-seven years ago, that the Civil War ended. I have seen afficionados of both sides lament what happened, while they might argue over who was right, and what was lost.
I am not an aficionado of the Lost Cause Theory. While some defenders of Dixie claim the issue was states’ rights, the chief underlying cause of the war was slavery. In his "Cornerstone Speech" of March 21, 1861, Confederate VP Alexander H. Stephens' stated bluntly that slavery was the very foundation of Southern society. Four states: Mississippi, Texas, Georgia, and South Carolina, even listed slavery among their reasons for leaving.
Four states went further. Texas, Mississippi, Georgia and South Carolina all issued additional documents, usually referred to as the “Declarations of Causes"…
Two major themes emerge in these documents: slavery and states' rights. All four states strongly defend slavery while making varying claims related to states' rights. -- Battlefields.org
The usual reply is that the South rejected the proposed Corwin Amendment which would have protected slavery in the south, hence the issue was states’ rights.
The problem with that argument is that the South did not want slavery to be “protected.” Rather, the South wanted slavery to expand to the Pacific. They wanted New Mexico, Arizona, and even Southern California to allow slavery. In their minds, the Corwin Amendment wasn’t enough.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
He fooled a lot in the South. He fooled my dad. When I was a kid, Mom couldn’t drive. Dad refused to take her to vote if she wouldn’t promise to vote for Republicans only. Carter still fooled him.
To a lot of the older generation, any Southerner was a better choice than any Northerner.
That wasn’t necessarily true. LOL
Excellent comment, speaking as a pro-life northern Catholic, embarrassed by the pro-aborts in the northern states.
And yet I demonstrate that I have and it is you who hasn't.
One major difference between the two documents - one mentions it ten times and one doesn't mention it at all.
One was coy about mentioning it directly while the other was not. That's about it. The allowance of it and the protections of it are the same.
As it happens the first was applicable only to slavery but the Fugitive Slave Clause also covered indentured servants and apprentices.
Great.
But unlike the U.S. Constitution specifically protected slave imports. One major difference.
Nope! The US Constitution protected slave imports for 20 years. The Confederate Constitution allowed for exactly that which was the case before secession (trading in slaves between states) and nothing more.
Article 2, Clause 1: "The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States; and shall have the right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with their slaves and other property; and the right of property in said slaves shall not be thereby impaired." Where a state in the U.S. could prohibit slaves within its borders entirely no state in the Confederacy could be slave-free. Any slave owner could enter the state and remain as long as they wished with their property and there was nothing the state could do about it.
the same was true in the US. Read the Dred Scott decision.
Except that the Confederate Constitution specifically protected slavery in the territories while the Dred Scott decision comments on slavery were made in dicta and were not binding. They certainly would have been challenged.
LOL! It most definitely WAS binding. They must've failed to teach you that in law school.
The amendment process for the Confederate Constitution required Congress to act. Either to submit the amendment itself or, if it initiated in the states, "Congress shall summon a convention of all the States, to take into consideration such amendments to the Constitution as the said States shall concur in suggesting at the time when the said demand is made..." Yet Article I, Section 9, Clause 4 says "No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed." Such a call or such an amendment would certainly "impair the right of property in negro slaves" and would be, on the face of it, unconstitutional. It would have made an interesting question for the Confederate Supreme Court...had such an institution been allowed to exist.
Firstly that could have been overturned by any amendment to the Confederate Constitution - just as an amendment to the US Constitution can change it. Secondly, any state within the CSA was free to amend its state constitution and abolish slavery. Indeed states that did not allow slavery were free to join.
And we are fortunate to have you here as an example to demonstrate it.
""We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
Slavery - the institution completely at odds with this very same declaration - was the reason for the war. All else is just secondary issues or smokescreens.
And this is a perfect example of how you are self deluded. Every single representative of every state that signed that document was a slave state. All 13 states were at that time slave states.
So you are faced with the dichotomy of 13 slave states signing a document that is against their interest, or that phrase was not intended to mean what you think it was intended to mean when it was written.
The Declaration of Independence and those words about "all men are created equal" was *NOT* intended to mean slaves. That was a later day fabrication of the intent of that document.
The Founders were referring to the British Subjects who had been oppressed under British control, and they absolutely did not mean those words to apply to slaves.
And what was the purpose of the Declaration of Independence? It was to assert a *RIGHT* to become Independent. What it was *NOT* was a commentary on the issue of slavery. Again, people added that interpretation later.
And no, Slavery was not the reason for the war, and how do we know this?
We know this because the entire Northern state congress voted to pass the Corwin Amendment which would have made slavery permanent in the United States of America.
Five Northern states ratified this amendment.
*THAT* is how we know that claiming the war was about "slavery" is just a lie.
The war was about wealth and power which would be lost to the corrupt northern "elite" who are the same evil bastards still running the government now, while lying about everything they are doing, just as they spread the lie that they were invading the South because of slavery.
And by the way, there were five Northern states that had slavery all throughout the war, and so therefore the North did not fight a war to end slavery. They fought a war to end self rule, and to put the very lucrative Southern trade with Europe back under the control of corrupt Washington DC.
The war was about *money*, and the lie is that it was about slavery.
Firstly, the original grant of land to the Federal government by the legislature of South Carolina specified that a fort would be built for the protection of Charleston.
The Federal government did not uphold their end of the bargain until many decades later. (There was a later second grant of the same land without conditions, but clearly the understanding was that a fort would be built for the purpose of defending Charleston.)
Secondly, as the Southern states produced 72% of the total trade with Europe, they were responsible for producing 72% of all tariff revenue from which the government operated.
They paid for their forts many many times over.
Millennial "POST-post moderns" will probably be surprised to learn that $500,000 once represented some real value. When I see numbers like this, I have to wonder if they refer to US dollars before or after being unhinged from the Spanish dollar (not quite an ounce of silver) in 1857. Prior to that change, inflationary creating-money-by-lending-it could potentially bite creditors in the ass by shorting the money supply enough to make repayment impossible. While that may seem, at first, to be a built-in feature of an effective predatory practice, early lenders could be called on the carpet to account for their own declared worth at a time when claiming debt was like claiming vacuum. Once the trade value of the USD was reduced to mutually agreed upon fiction, the power of the ledger equaled the power of the mint. It was at just this moment in US history that different sections of the country begin to complain about the effect of Federal spending.
More like preserving the money flow into Northern pockets. The South was producing 72% of the total trade with Europe and that meant 72% of the revenues raised to fund Washington DC came from the Southern states.
The threat to the Northeastern elite's pockets was more than just the loss of that trade revenue from Southern trade with Europe. Without the protectionist tariffs, the Southern states would be importing massive quantities of European manufactured goods, and they would be reselling those products all along the Mississippi river watershed and all along the porous border with the Northern states.
The Wealthy powerful elites of that era (who controlled Washington DC just as they control it today) would have been devastated by the loss of their captive markets and they would have been financially ruined.
Additionally, other states would join the Confederacy due to it's economic prosperity and this would further erode the power of the Liberal elites in the Northeast.
The war was about massive amounts of money which would have been lost to the "robber baron" class in the Northeast.
Great article. Thank you.
Yet the South rejected that because it did not go far enough for them.
And slavery WAS enshrined in most of the new constitutions. [Without having to tediously get the exact number] Its not a matter be “being told” its a matter of acknowleging a fact. Slavery was contentious and a pervasive issue. That can’t or shouldn’t be denied.
And it WAS A cause of the war and A reason for secession.
The South also fired first. I do not know if the war could have been avoided but after that assault on Ft. Sumter, it was pretty much a done deal.
Maintain their control over the money flowing into the country through European trade from Southern products.
72% of all trade was produced by the South, and therefore 72% of all Washington DC's tariff revenue came from Southern export products.
Additionally, the powerful Northeastern elite "robber barons" had rigged the government laws to provide them favorable protectionist laws, and this forced the Southern states to buy their products and utilize their shipping, banking, warehousing, insurance and other services.
Articles I have read assert that 60% of all the revenue produced by the South ended up in the pockets of New York and Washington DC elites.
They started the fight to protect their own money, not because they gave a sh*t about slavery.
We know they didn't really care about slavery because they passed the Corwin amendment through a Northern controlled congress and this amendment would have made slavery permanent.
Nor did the enslaved in the North give their consent, but the Northern states kept them in slavery anyways.
And do not forget, at one time, *ALL* the Northern states were slave states too, and the slaves in the North didn't give their consent at that time.
Both Jefferson and Madison in their writings said that secession should be done with the agreement of both sides, those leaving and those staying.
Both Jefferson (in his Kentucky Resolutions and his Declaration of 1825) and Madison (in his Virginia Resolutions and Report on those same resolutions) explicitly recognized the right of each State, as a party to the constitutional compact, "to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress" (Jefferson quoted). That clearly suggests unilateral action, and does not obviously exclude secession. If the same gentlemen suggested elsewhere that States might find it advisable to obtain concurrence from other parties to the compact, I suppose one might argue that their comments regarding unilateral secession might be debatable, but certainly not "easily refutable" as suggested by the author.
Even Rawle, while claiming secession at will was allowed, admitted that the individual states did not have the power to do so arbitrarily.
That may depend on what one considers to be arbitrary. Rawle observed in his View of the Constitution:
"[I]t is not to be understood, that... [the intervention of the power of the Union] would be justifiable, if the people of a state should determine to retire from the union, whether they adopted another or retained the same form of government, or if they should, with the express intention of seceding, expunge the representative system from their code... It depends on the state itself to retain or abolish the principle of representation, because it depends on itself whether it will continue a member of the Union... To deny this right would be inconsistent with the principle on which all of our political systems are founded, which is, that the people have in all cases a right to determine how they will be governed... The states, then, may wholly withdraw from the Union..." [Chap. XXXI, emphasis mine]
Again, the right of secession (as it was understood prior to the war) was most definitely not "easily refutable"...
;>)
They certainly do in this case. The winners are still trying to cover up the fact they passed the Corwin amendment.
Sounds like you are starting to grasp the truth.
The third is really just a continuation of the second, with the same corrupt arrogant Liberal bastards in the Northeast still controlling the corrupt government, and still sowing hate against anyone who calls for less government power and less government spending.
Anyone who wants to reduce government spending and power is an enemy of the arrogant corrupt elite who thrive from government spending and power.
Same in 1861 as it is now.
There are many authoritative references supporting the right of State secession. I have tried to provide links to many of my personal favorites on my FR homepage (although it’s been some time since I verified the links, and I know that some need to be updated ;>)...
“Excellent comment, speaking as a pro-life northern Catholic, embarrassed by the pro-aborts in the northern states.”
Same here. I always looked to the Catholic church, over all the rest, to protect the unborn. It’s sad that so many aren’t. IMO, any organized religions that allow or support abortion, are not doing their jobs. They are more afraid of triggering the wrath of the left than they are doing the right thing.
Sheer nonsense.
The entire first half was a treatise on Enlightenment thinking of that time. John Locke, Hobbes, Francis Bacon, couldn’t have written it better.
This document was a social and political informative text as much as it was a legal document, and a host of contemporaries wrote to just that point.
This first section comprises a series of universal rights, stating that when this humanity’s rights are broken, and the trust in the established authority is lost, then it is not the right, but the duty of the people to dispose of that government and create a new one that protects the rights of its citizens. The ideas presented here echoes the well-known “Second Treatise of Government” written by Locke, especially those in which the Declaration emphasizes the patience of the American people in withstanding British abuses.
You need to get your mind out of the 21st Century jurisprudence and consider it from the Enlightenment mindset of the 18th Century to really appreciate what Jefferson put together.
But further than the Declaration, Jefferson himself was against slavery. As was Washington and most of the Founding fathers.
It was a process. The country was not ready for it in 1776, if they wanted to include the Southern colonies in the new Republic.
Our Republic has always been a process toward freedom. That is why it is so hard to see what the Socialist Left is doing to it. They, not us, are rolling it backwards.
The critical point here is not that the South rejected it, it's that the North offered it.
In one act, they proved that their motivations for invading the South had nothing at all to do with slavery.
Slavery was contentious and a pervasive issue. That can’t or shouldn’t be denied.
We are told this over and over. But when one looks at the money, the money tells a very different story.
Personally I believe what the money says more than what self interested people with a motive to lie says.
The South also fired first.
Because people say so. I didn't learn the truth until relatively recently.
The first act of violence was perpetrated by Major Robert Anderson when he kidnapped a ship's captain at gunpoint and made him ferry his men from Fort Moultrie, where Anderson had ordered the spiking and burning of all the cannons, to Fort Sumter, which was unoccupied and still under construction.
He seized that fort by force, and then his men threatened to turn the guns against Charleston.
And all of this occurred after the Secretary of war had been promising the Governor and the people of South Carolina that all the forts guarding the entrance to their harbor would be turned over to them shortly.
Next thing they know, the people of Charleston wake up to burning gun carriages in Fort Moultrie, and a now clearly hostile force in a threatening position with cannons overlooking their city.
So who started it?
I do not know if the war could have been avoided but after that assault on Ft. Sumter, it was pretty much a done deal.
Were you aware that the "assault" on Ft. Sumter was the result of Abraham Lincoln ordering warships to attack the Confederates surrounding Ft. Sumter if they did not comply with his efforts to put men and munitions into the fort?
General Beauregard was presented with the threat of warships in the harbor firing upon him and being joined by the guns of Fort Sumter being fired upon him at the same time.
We know this because Beauregard had sent a courier to Major Anderson telling him that if he would remain neutral in any ensuing battle with the warships, Beauregard would *NOT* fire on him.
Anderson refused, and this left Beauregard with no choice but to face cannon fire from two sources.
When the first ship arrived in the channel (Harriet Lane, armed revenue cutter which immediately fired upon the Nashville) Beauregard knew that the threat by Lincoln to send warships was no feint.
At that point he had to neutralize the fort to prevent it from combining fire with the warships and thereby killing his men.
Abraham Lincoln started that war when he sent warships with orders to attack them.
His propaganda system presented it to the public as *them* starting the war, but the reality was that he decided to send those warships which is what triggered the war.
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