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To: justshutupandtakeit
The New England states threatened to secede from the Union during the War of 1812, and well might have, if that war had not ended when it did. Nothing like the consistency of New England slave traders who became abolitionists after the importation of slaves into the US was prohibited.
213 posted on 07/22/2003 10:19:26 AM PDT by labard1
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To: labard1
Attempts at secession would have been just as treasonous in 1814 as in 1860-61.
217 posted on 07/22/2003 10:23:33 AM PDT by Grand Old Partisan (You can read about my history of the GOP at www.republicanbasics.com)
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To: labard1
Secession was just as unconstitutional and illegal in 1812 as in 1830 or 1860.

New England states had agitators advocating this lunacy but were too intelligent to fall for such a disastrous scheme. Hamilton had put an end to this by preventing Burr from becoming governor of NY and leading that state into the plot. A true patriot to the end, he paid for that act with his life. Jefferson had Burr tried three times for treason for attempting to split the nation. So it is easy to see what he thought about Traitors and Treason. Andrew Jackson would have happily hung the proto-Traitors in South Carolina
for their treasonous activities. He would have personally put the nooses around their necks.

While better late than never is acceptable it is doubtful that any Slaver became an abolitionist after the trade was made illegal. Abolitionists existed as early as the 1780s and Hamilton, Jay and Burr founded the New York Society for the Manumission of Slaves then. Quakers always opposed it. Franklin opposed it. Most of the Northern leaders (Federalists) opposed it.

While the Northern states went forward and banned slavery, the Southern states went backward and started to justify and protect it. During the time of the Revolution most of the founders North and South did not defend slavery as a positive good but as an evil which must be removed at some point. That changed in the South and its Rulers started to claim Biblical support and were determined to protect it at all costs, even the cost of destroying the Union and embracing Treason.

That ideological change lead to the destruction and impoverishment of the South from which it is still suffering.
234 posted on 07/22/2003 2:03:51 PM PDT by justshutupandtakeit (RATS will use any means to denigrate George Bush's Victory.)
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