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 ...
“Without Woodrow Wilson, LBJ, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and the Bush’s. Gee, let me think...”
Woodrow Wilson-Southern Democrat-born in the South to become Governor of New Jersey (North)
Clinton-Southern Democrat
LBJ-Southern Democrat
Jimmy Carter-Southern Democrat-Fooled a lot of people with his Southern peanut farmer, Southern Baptist charm. Worse President ever until Obama and Biden.
GW Bush-Republican-born in Connecticut. (North) Didn’t have much choice with this one. The alternatives were worse.
“Slavery is not mentioned at all in the U. S. Constitution.”
Is this really a true statement?
The reason I ask: it sounds misleading.
I know of few who say slavery wasn't AN issue or even that it wasn't an IMPORTANT issue - just that it was not THE issue. It was not the sine qua non for secession or the war.
It was not at all surprising that propagandists would use tariff conflicts that had been peacefully resolved over the years in an attempt to hide the fundamental conflict over slavery and its expansion, which could not be so easily dismissed.
Actually it is the propagandists who try to claim that the tariff conflicts had been resolved. They had not. The Morrill Tariff which had already passed the House and which was sure to pass the Senate by flipping a Senator or two with good old fashioned log rolling was THE central plank of the Republican party platform in 1860. Everyone knew it was going to pass. The Morrill Tariff would go on to triple tariff rates. Here is a quote from Georgia Senator Robert Toombs who wrote much of Georgia's Declaration of Causes:
On November 19, 1860 Senator Robert Toombs gave a speech to the Georgia convention in which he denounced the "infamous Morrill bill." The tariff legislation, he argued, was the product of a coalition between abolitionists and protectionists in which "the free-trade abolitionists became protectionists; the non-abolition protectionists became abolitionists." Toombs described this coalition as "the robber and the incendiary... united in joint raid against the South." Anti-tariff sentiments also appeared in Georgia's Secession Declaration of January 29, 1861:
I could post editorials about the centrality of the Tariff issue from newspapers North, South and Foreign as well as a slew of quotes from other leading political figures on the importance of the Tariff but suffice it to say, that any claim that this issue had been resolved are entirely fictitious. This was THE central issue.
Missing too in some of the arguments is that when some state group decides to leave the country there are often dissenters on their territory, people who don’t want to go. There is also the possibility of fraud, corruption, and coercion. The secessionists aren’t some libertarian, anti-government movement. They are aspiring to create a government of their own. They will want to secure for their new country as much territory and resources as they can, even if this means oppressing dissenters and minorities and subverting or invading neighboring states and regions.
For this reason, unilateral secession is always a fraught situation. Countries confronted with it have a legitimate interest in protecting loyal citizens and their national resources. No president and no country worthy of its name would simply give the secessionists everything they wanted, and the new Confederate government was certainly not above taking what it wanted by force.
The Southern states seceded under either democratic plebiscites in those states or via democratic election of representatives to conventions - the very means by which they had joined the US in the first place. I know if no infringements on the rights of citizens in those states who did not wish to secede prior to the outbreak of war.
As to taking things...the only things the Southern states took were federal installations on their own sovereign territory - forts, post offices, etc. Any sovereign country is obviously not going to allow a foreign country to hold forts on its territory - and at any rate can claim such installations under its eminent domain power. The only thing left to negotiate are the terms of secession, the settlement of debts and assets, etc. The Southern states sent representatives to Washington DC to negotiate those terms in good faith.
Also, the seceding states did not claim any of the western territories of the US. They were perfectly willing to give up any notion of spreading slavery westward - which they could have made claim to some of having provided the troops and the money to acquire those territories in the first place. They simply wished to leave.
What happened in the 1860s was a tragedy, but it was not a tragedy that can be laid wholly at the door of Abraham Lincoln or the North.
I would agree that it cannot be laid entirely at the door of Lincoln and the North, but it can be laid mostly at their door. Had they been less economically exploitative, had they been willing to offer a reasonable compensated emancipation scheme (as other Western countries had done and indeed as Northern states had done for their citizens when they abolished slavery), had they not been so determined to impose their will on others instead of negotiating with them in good faith, it probably could have been avoided.
But let's remember who was driving that train - New England. These are the same bossy, judgmental, intolerant, know-it-all authoritarians who think they have some kind of divine mission to impose wokeness on the whole country today and who think it their place to go around the world spreading "democracy" by force. Is it really so surprising when you look at these Neo Puritans and their spawn? They've long been like that.
read what most historians were saying in the last century up til the 1980s. Its obvious who is trying to revise history.
Had the South won their rebellion then Wilson would almost certainly remained in the South. Your problem not ours
GW Bush-Republican-born in Connecticut.
Both ran as Texans. Would an independent Confederacy have changed that? Hard to tell but, as you pointed out, they were far from the worst presidents the South has inflicted on us.
It's more than obvious from the article that the author is "not a fan of the Confederacy" - the statement was likely included to establish his Political Correctness bona fides with readers who value such things.
More importantly, anyone who suggests that the right of secession is "easily refutable" has never actually debated the matter. Several States explicitly reserved the right to secede when they ratified the then-new Constitution; Americans including Thomas Jefferson and James Madison recognized the right (explicitly or implicitly) in their public writings; early American legal references (including Tucker's Blackstones and Rawle's A View of the Constitution) clearly recognized the right of secession; and the Constitution as it existed in 1860 nowhere prohibited secession (and the 10th Amendment may indeed have reserved that right to the States and their people, as suggested by Senator Toombs of Georgia and likely others).
One may not agree with Jefferson and the others, but it is patently ridiculous to claim that the right of State secession is "easily refutable"; numerous respected sources from the period actually suggest the exact opposite. It is disappointing to see such "click-bait" on American Thinker - it used to be a good web site...
;>)
Could you not confirm it by reading the Constitution yourself?
The reason I ask: it sounds misleading.
In what way?
While Wilson was born in Virginia and lived there as a small child, he spent his formative years in and lived most of his life in New Jersey, was the president of Princeton and was governor of New Jersey.
As for the Bushes, Prescott was a product of the Northeast as was GHWB. He only moved to Texas well into adulthood. W did grow up in Texas though he was obviously the scion of the Bush family and went to Yale just like daddy.
Its fair to lay LBJ and Carter and Clinton on the South, but not Wilson or the Bushes. The latter were products of the Northeast.
It has always been obvious who is trying to rewrite the history of the southern rebellion.
See my reply 45.
I've read it. Its evident you haven't. It hardly differed from the US Constitution on the issue of slavery.
Hardly the case but let's stick with how the two documents dealt with slavery. Slavery is not mentioned at all in the U. S. Constitution. It's mentioned ten times in the Confederate Constitution. The Confederate Constitution specifically protected slave imports, prohibited any laws impairing the right of slave ownership, prevented the possibility of any non-slave state, required all territories acquired permit slavery, and basically made it impossible to amend the Constitution to end slavery. All clauses the U.S. Constitution didn't have, and most of which it still wouldn't have had even if the Corwin Amendment had been ratified.
The US Constitution did not mention slavery directly, but it had the 3/5ths compromise as well as a Fugitive Slave Clause. It also allowed for the African Slave trade to continue for 20 years. The Confederate Constitution kept the ban on the African slave trade. The only imports it allowed were from the US. In other words, it kept the status quo ante and nothing more.
It did not prevent any non slave state. In fact that was voted down.
". . . delegates from the Deep South met in Montgomery, Alabama, on February 4 [1861] to establish the Confederate States of America. The convention acted as a provisional government while at the same time drafting a permanent constitution. . . . Voted down were proposals to reopen the Atlantic slave trade . . . and to prohibit the admission of free states to the new Confederacy. . . .
"The resulting constitution was surprisingly similar to that of the United States. Most of the differences merely spelled out traditional southern interpretations of the federal charter. . . .
". . . it was clear from the actions of the Montgomery convention that the goal of the new converts to secessionism was not to establish a slaveholders' reactionary utopia. What they really wanted was to recreate the Union as it had been before the rise of the new Republican Party, and they opted for secession only when it seemed clear that separation was the only way to achieve their aim. The decision to allow free states to join the Confederacy reflected a hope that much of the old Union could be reconstituted under southern direction." (Robert A. Divine, T. H. Bren, George Fredrickson, and R. Hal Williams, America Past and Present, Fifth Edition, New York: Longman, 1998, pp. 444-445, emphasis added)
As for the claim that it "required any territories acquired to permit slavery" that was the same as the US post Dred Scot.
You say it made it impossible to amend the constitution to end slavery. No it did not. That was up to each state. They were willing to admit states that did not have slavery after all....
If you've read it then you failed to understand it. Texas makes it clear that the federal government mostly in the hands of her "sectional enemies" failed to protect the border and failed to protect against Indian raids AND that they did so out of malice.
People didn't realize then.
But when you write these words, “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.” others are inspired by them.
Eventually those words are true or they are lies.
All humanity is created by God. He gives us all the same rights. The Founding Fathers understood this. Except, given the realities of the times, did not include slaves in this declaration. Privately though, they argued for even that.
From a Believer's standpoint, enslavement based on skin color and birth was wrong.
What does a truly Saved Christian say to a Black Christian who wants his Freedom?
You cannot justify to the Savior for keeping someone like that in bondage. You just can't.
Even Blacks deserved to be asked their consent when you all are spouting off about "consent of the governed". What about their consent?
Correct. Those trying to rewrite the history of the War of Northern Aggression were overwhelmingly Leftists and usually Yankees.
The question on whether a state may leave the Union or not is not really the question. If we agree that secession is not prohibited then it becomes a question on how secession should be accomplished. Walking out without discussion guarantees acrimony and conflict, something I can’t see the Founding Fathers agreeing to, Both Jefferson and Madison in their writings said that secession should be done with the agreement of both sides, those leaving and those staying. Even Rawle, while claiming secession at will was allowed, admitted that the individual states did not have the power to do so arbitrarily.
Its absurd to claim Wilson would have had the same views had he remained in Virginia rather than spending his formative years in New Jersey.
“Could you not confirm it by reading the Constitution yourself?”
I did. You are wrong.
Now, do you want to get out of your gaffe gracefully, or are you going to go full Brother Joe?
Nowhere did Jefferson or more importantly the states themselves when they ratified the Constitution ever agree that a sovereign state should require a permission slip from others in order to secede. That's absurd on its face. Obviously the central government is NEVER going to agree to terms of secession because the secession of a state would diminish its power and authority - not to mention money. Would the British Parliament have ever agreed to let the Colonies go had the Colonies told them they wished to leave and were here to negotiate reasonable terms of separation? Of course not. That's a completely disingenuous argument.
To pay for the war. The original increase was much less.
The Southern states seceded under either democratic plebiscites in those states or via democratic election of representatives to conventions - the very means by which they had joined the US in the first place.
There was corruption and coercion. The secret ballot was not introduced until years, or decades, later. It's hard to say whether a majority in Georgia actually wanted secession. At least one state pledged to have a referendum but didn't hold it. Other states had no referendums. Several state convention rejected secession and then in a heated atmosphere of conflict accepted it. Why should one vote count and the other not?
Any sovereign country is obviously not going to allow a foreign country to hold forts on its territory - and at any rate can claim such installations under its eminent domain power.
That would be theft of bought and paid for federal property. Guantanamo didn't become Castro's just because he wanted it.
Had they been less economically exploitative, had they been willing to offer a reasonable compensated emancipation scheme (as other Western countries had done and indeed as Northern states had done for their citizens when they abolished slavery), had they not been so determined to impose their will on others instead of negotiating with them in good faith, it probably could have been avoided.
Lincoln did propose compensate emancipation. It was rejected. Everybody knew it wasn't what the political class of the South wanted or would accept. They wanted to impose slavery on the territories (and some wanted to impose it on the free states).
But let's remember who was driving that train - New England.
Culturally or intellectually maybe, but the South dominated the antebellum federal governments. 1860 marked the moment when the growing industrial and agricultural strength of the Midatlantic and Midwestern states came to be felt in spite of the established power of the Southern Democrats. It was not about New England however much propagandists want to make it out to be.
I have no desire to pursue this further with you. I remember getting your long, pointless cut and paste screeds at all hours and have no desire to go through that again.
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