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 ...
No reasonable person can believe that a nation founded on the principle that people have a right to independence must thereafter prevent people from gaining independence.
It is contradictory to believe such a thing.
But one by one, those states did indeed remove slavery.
You could as easily argue for Jim Crow because in 1880, most Northern states had anti-Negro (and others) laws as well. We didn’t even allow women to vote until 1920.
As I said before, the Enlightenment, whose pinnacle of thought is represented in the Declaration of Independence, started these changes that took a long time—and we’re still at it—to achieve.
But even so, it all comes down to the Creator. God.
That is who wants us all Free.
It was a war between democrats and Republicans.
Yes, there were democrats living in the North.
Your point is completely without merit.
The enslaved in the non-rebelling states were freed by the 13th amendment to the United States Constitution promoted and pushed by President Lincoln.
You are taking their effort to prevent the war (Corwin amendment) completely out of context.
I’ve always thought it important, that our current constitutional union was established by the secession of nine States from the supposedly “perpetual union” formed under the Articles of Confederation. The Articles required unanimous consent for any amendment - and yet the Constitution was initially adopted by only nine ratifying States (with the remaining four free to join, or not, as they saw fit). The so-called “perpetual union” had lasted only eight years, and was replaced by a union that excluded any explicit claim to “perpetual union” from its governing compact...
Rhe Sorh’s slave systemwas Anri-Free Marketand Socalistic. Read Fritxroy.
Bruce Catton said it best, in far fewer words. The war was ABOUT slavery, not OVER slavery.
As far as the statement in the Declaration goes - it states the ideal principle. The fact that it was ignored for convenience sake does not negate it’s meaning - it only shows the hypocrisy of it’s writer(s).
The defense and active expansion of slavery into new territories was the primary reason that slave states seceded - this is very clear from all the southern leadership at the time. They were willing to destroy the United States in order to defend this institution - they weren’t ‘leaving’ the United States. They were destroying “The United States” by the act of secession.
All that for the right to have humans hold other humans in chattel slavery.
There is nothing defensible in this - to argue that anything done to continue and extend slavery was ‘right’ shows a terribly damaged moral character. The sins of our fathers are not ours - why defend those sins?
As far as the Corwin amendment goes - it was a desperate last-ditch give up everything to try to keep dissolution of the nation from occurring. Even that was rejected by southern interests, as it would have still meant limitation of expansion. Six southern states had already seceded and it was clear that there was no turning back to preserve the nation.
What is sheer nonsense is the belief that representatives of 13 slave holding states would sign a document asserting a right to freedom for their slaves.
That is clearly incorrect, but that is what people are trying to make us belief.
And how do we know this is true? Because Jefferson attempted to put in a lot more anti-slavery language, and the other members of the committee overrode him and made him remove that verbiage.
The entire first half was a treatise on Enlightenment thinking of that time. John Locke, Hobbes, Francis Bacon, couldn’t have written it better.
Vattel, for he is the only one of which I am aware that actually suggested the colonies form a Republic and declare independence from England. The others danced around the point without actually saying it, and no wonder, because they would have been in serious monarchical trouble had they said such a thing. Samuel Rutherford found out.
"Finally, several sovereign and independent states may unite themselves together by a perpetual confederacy, without ceasing to be, each individually, a perfect state. They will together constitute a federal republic: their joint deliberations will not impair the sovereignty of each member, though they may, in certain respects, put some restraint on the exercise of it, in virtue of voluntary engagements. A person does not cease to be free and independent, when he is obliged to fulfil engagements which he has voluntarily contracted."
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But further than the Declaration, Jefferson himself was against slavery. As was Washington and most of the Founding fathers.
Washington did not become against slavery until much later in his life, well after the slave owning general from Virginia led the armies of the slave owning confederacy against the British Union while the Union was offering freedom to the Confederate slaves. (Lord Dunmore's proclamation et al.)
The founders did take Jefferson's words to introspect their positions on slavery and decided that they wanted to get rid of it, but again, this was not their intent at the time it was written, but a later day epiphany.
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.
Without accepting slavery, there never would have been a Union and there never would have been a war of Independence.
The Southern states weren't all that much passionate about it until after Francis Marion led the British armies through the South and pissed off the Southern people because of the British abuses of them.
Never won a battle, but created the conditions necessary to win the war.
Not “ our own”, mine , not yours. As you hate the US just like the left does.
Seek help.
Of course they were.
I would have wrote in Reagan in 76.
It was really about the West.
So then you can't show me where slavery is mentioned in the U.S. Constitution?
Miss Dawg, you say slavery is never mentioned in the United States Constitution. What then, was Abraham Lincoln talking about?
Slavery may be implied in several clauses of the Constitution but the original claim on the part of FLT_bird was that the U.S. Constition and the Confederate Constitution were virtual carbon copies. I pointed out that one of the many differences was the fact that slavery was not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution even once while it is specifically mentioned 10 times in the Confederate Constitution. So unless you have evidence to the contrary then what are you trying to prove with all this?
I don’t know why he did what he did. I know he regretted it. Knowing my dad, he probably thought Reagan was just another CA lunatic. I’m sure that before Carter’s term was over, he wished he had.
So they said, but not really. There were still slaves in Pennsylvania in 1840.
First state to get rid of slavery was Massachusetts. And how did they do it? Judicial activism and creative "interpretation" of the newly created state constitution of 1780.
Basically they stole all the slaves through a deceitful court ruling. I have read that a lot of Massachusetts slave owners scrambled to sell their slaves over the border before they could be taken from them.
You could as easily argue for Jim Crow because in 1880, most Northern states had anti-Negro (and others) laws as well.
The laws in the state of Illinois (and other Northern states) were far worse than anything Jim Crow laws ever did. In Illinois they had a right to sell you into slavery for simply being in the state past a specified time, or not having papers, or pretty much for any d@mned reason they pleased.
What I have learned in researching this is that the vast majority of Northern opposition to slavery was based on hatred of black people and hatred of the idea that some slave might undermine their ability to earn wages in exchange for their labor.
They viewed slaves as "scabs" that would take bread out of their mouths, and they hated slaves and they hated black people and did not want them in their society.
This is of course contradictory to what we have been led to believe, which is that Northern opposition to slavery was based on the immorality of forcing people to work against their will, but this motivation was only true of a very tiny minority of people that were regarded as "kooks" of that era, not unlike the liberal activists of today.
The vast majority hated slavery as a threat to their livelihood and because they absolutely did not want black people living among them. Some of the hatred was engendered from the envy of the wealthy plantation owners and the belief that it was wrong to gain wealth through the work of others rather than yourself.
But even so, it all comes down to the Creator. God. That is who wants us all Free.
No argument. I agree.
It was a war between big government Hamiltonian Liberals, and small government Jeffersonian conservatives.
The enslaved in the non-rebelling states were freed by the 13th amendment to the United States Constitution promoted and pushed by President Lincoln.
And passed by puppet governments in the South in a manner completely inconsistent with a legitimate constitutional process for amendment.
Many a runaway slave turned up in that area and they were just always part of the community. The Native Americans were also accepted although some of my ancestors died at their hands. Others became my ancestors. History is so complicated but as you said, slavery was a rich person's game - everyone else got pulled into it for one reason or another. If I could have a wish, I'd wish for the opportunity to hear the real truth from those that lived it.
There's an amusing tale I was told while visiting. One winter, there was a really bad snowstorm that piled the snow up to the point that everyone living in the mountains was snowed in for quite a while. The government decided they needed to go up into those mountains and bring provisions to all those poor mountain folk trapped in their homes. Helicopters flew in and the government people went door to door offering help. Most wouldn't answer the door and the few that did, shooed them away. Up there, there's a healthy distrust of government and an equally healthy sense of personal responsibility in those mountains.
One specifically protects slave imports, specifically prevents non-slave states, specifically guarantees slavery in the territories, specifically prevents laws impairing slave ownership and the other doesn't. That seems to be a pretty significant difference in allowances and protections to me.
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.
Then we can say that one protected slave imports for 20 years and the other protected it in perpetuity. Seems like a pretty significant difference to me.
the same was true in the US. Read the Dred Scott decision.
Except that the parts about slavery in the territory in the Dred Scott decision were made in dicta and was not binding. It would have been challenged by the Lincoln administration.
Firstly that could have been overturned by any amendment to the Confederate Constitution - just as an amendment to the US Constitution can change it.
Except that the U.S. Constitution did not have the prohibition on any law denying or impairing the right to own slaves while the Confederate Constitution did. That would appear to mean the Confederate Congress was prohibited from doing anything, anything at all, that might have any negative impact on slave ownership. Including authorizing a constitutional amendment ending or limiting it.
Secondly, any state within the CSA was free to amend its state constitution and abolish slavery.
But could not completely abolish slavery within its borders since any Confederate citizen who owned slaves was free to bring them into the state for as long as they wished to stay.
Indeed states that did not allow slavery were free to join.
In theory perhaps. But since territories were prohibited from being slave-free then what is the chance that any state created from them would be non-slave?
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