Posted on 04/14/2003 8:52:11 PM PDT by Aurelius
I'm not "gloating". And like I said, the war had consequences I don't really care for.
As for the founders, I don't know many of them, North or South, who were defenders of slavery in anything but the "we're stuck with it and we don't know how to get out of it" sense.
Have you read Lincoln's Coopers Union speech? It was his introduction to national politics. In it he tracks the writing, and the voting records, of those who ratified the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
There was a solid majority who had voted to restrict the expansion of slavery.
But by the 1820s, perhaps as a part of Jackson's extension of the franchise, the politicians of the South no longer saw slavery as an unfortunate inheritence, but as a positive good, and a fundamental right that justified violence in response to any attempt to restrict it.
Read the secession declarations. They weren't angry about industrial policy, or immigration, or tariffs. They were angry about slavery - they were outraged that the North had made it clear that it would not stand for the extension of slavery beyond those states where it already existed.
And for that, they began a war.
Geez, just read the articles of secession -- they positively rant over their right to slavery and how the north is trying to interfere with its spread. The Republican Party grew out of anti-slavery groups forming around the country. There is so much evidence leading up to the civil war with the battle over slavery as its core.
Lincoln wasn't even sworn into office yet and the southern states were already revolting and attacking federal fortifications in their aggression against the north.
If some hippie freaks attacked federal fortifications today you'd rightly call them treasonous. Same thing with those slave holding southreners who sought to violate the US Constitution (which prohibits the formation of confederations).
The seceeding states violated the US Constitution and Lincoln rightly put them down for it. Good on him.
I'm not sure there is such a thing as free labor. I know I don't work for free. Slaves didn't get wages, but the owners surley had to provide for them if they were to live very long. Not free labor from the owners point of view either. The immigrant labor force in the North wasn't free labor either. Low wages, abysmal working conditions were more akin to indentured servitude.
The fight was ultimately over control of the branches of our government, which tied to the voting population in each state (Compromise of 1850/Kansas Nebraska Act). Political control was the real issue at hand, slavery was just the vehicle (much like Pro-Life/Choice is the political litmus test today). Of course slavery was A central cause of the WBTS, but it isn't an issue that I'm convinced the little man was willing to die for. The WTBS was a "rich man's war, poor man's fight", as most wars are. The WBTS was not, and never has been a black and white, neatly packaged part of our history. It is gray through and through. I believe that is why the likes of us are attracted to it. God Bless America!
Article I. Section. 10. Clause 3: No State shall, without the Consent of Congress ... enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State ... or engage in War
Article III. Section. 3. Clause 1: Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.
Article VI. Clause 3: The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution;
All of this became irrelevant once the respective states SECEEDED. The fight settled it, and forcibly brought the rebellious states back into the Union, but the South DID leave. REadmission into the Union being contingent upon the ratification of the Reconstruction Ammendments proves that the South DID leave. If she was out, then the Constitution couldn't apply anymore than it did for England or any other nation. The fight DID preserve the Union, and centralized governmental control over the country.
But none of the southern leaders of the period agreed with that, nor did virtually any of the white southern population as a whole.
Neither can I. Of course, there are a lot of FR's that will want to dispute that. If the South had won, at least we would still have the Constitution, as left us by our Founders. Not the twisted pro big government version we have today.
Article XVIII: Every State shall abide by the determination of the United States in Congress assembled, on all questions which by this confederation are submitted to them. And the Articles of this Confederation shall be be inviobly observed by every State, and the Union shall be perpetual; nor shall any alteration at any time hereafter be made in any of them; unless such alteration be agreed to in a Congress of the United States, and be afterwards confirmed by the legislatures of every State.
Yes, we later changed our form of government, when we adopted the Constitution. But the Union we formed persisted, and the individual States had no more authority to unilaterally secede under the latter than they did under the former.
Be that as it may, the South would have been allowed to secede, had it not decided to begin open warfare against the Union.
But be that as it may, the war began because the South insisted on being allowed to extend slavery as they saw fit.
There were no other first-order causes.
And when would that have been? There was no motivation by the aristocracy to do it, and for white tradesmen, the thought of freed slaves competing against them would have been anathema. Hell, it took concerted Federal action 100 years after the war in order to compel the extension of full voting and civil rights to blacks in the states that comprised the old Confederacy - and they didn't have any plans whatsoever for doing that Christian thing voluntarily.
Quit pining for a society that never was - praise their forces for volor on the battlefield, praise the political leaders for gambling and taking a chance in the face of pretty formidable odds. Never, ever, however, praise the enterprise as a noble one - because it was not.
Just as Patton could admire Rommel, and ID White could later befriend Manteuffel, we can admire skill and courage. That doesn't mean that the cause the latter served was any less reprehensible.
I'm a Yankee born and raised, Palpatine. My Civil War heroes mostly wore blue.
I just prefer not to view a complex event through Nickelodeon eyeglasses. ;-)
Did you remember to get your taxes in on time today? ;-)
Now you're describing the situation up north as described by many northern papers of the day and one of the many causes of the New York Riots. But keep trying Chancey
Like the Constitution, the Articles did not forbid a state from leaving the Union. Once a state left, it was no longer under any obligation to abide by the conditions of that document. As far as the "perpetual" Union was concerned, if the South had been allowed to secede, the Union would have continued to be perpetual. It just would have perpetuated with a few less states.
Show me where secession is expressly forbidden and we might be able to debate Lincoln's war honestly. Until then, all arguments against the Confederacy are moot.
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