Posted on 04/25/2011 9:31:58 AM PDT by Iron Munro
I am responding to a column by Leonard Pitts Jr., a noted black columnist for The Miami Herald, entitled, "The Civil War was about slavery, nothing more" (Other Views, April 15).
I found this article to be very misleading and grossly riddled with distortions of the real causes of the War Between the States. I find it so amusing that such an educated person would not know the facts.
I am a proud native of South Carolina. I have spent my entire life in what was once the Confederate States of America. I am currently associated with Southern Heritage causes, including the Sons of Confederate Veterans in Tampa.
It's been 150 years since brave, patriotic Southerners drove the imperialist Yankee army from Fort Sumter, S.C. It also marked the beginning of the Confederates' fight to expel this foreign army from the entire Southern homeland.
After all these years, there still exists national historical ignorance and lies about this war. The War Between the States was about states' rights — not about slavery.
Remember, the original colonies voluntarily joined the union and never gave up their individual sovereignty. These independent states always retained their right to manage their domestic affairs and to leave this voluntary association at any time.
This voluntary union was for limited reasons such as national defense from the foreign powers, one language, interstate commerce, disputes between the sovereign states and matters of foreign affairs.
When the Southern states tried to leave this union, the Northerners had to put a stop to this. The slavery issue was masterly inserted into the movement of Yankee aggression.
We are a union of independent and sovereign states free to determine our own destiny. This sovereignty is meant to be free of Yankee federal domination and control. This should still be in principle and practice today as it was before the first cannon shots at Fort Sumter.
Slavery of any people is wicked and morally wrong. Domination of one people over another is just as evil and morally wrong.
The facts are that throughout history, just about every race of people has been slaves to another people. Slavery has always been a failed institution and a dark mark in history. One-hundred years before the first slave made it to the auction blocks in Virginia, African kings were running a booming enterprise of selling their own people into slavery. It was also customary that defeated people became slaves.
Slavery as an institution worldwide was coming to an end before the War Between the States. Slavery in America would probably have come to an end within 50 years.
The great eternal lie — that the war was to "free the slaves" — is still being propagandized today by modern spin-makers, schools and even scholars. But the facts are plain and quite evident if you were to take off your Yankee sunglasses.
The Army of the Potomac invaded the South to capture, control and plunder the prosperity of Southern economic resources and its industries. This army also wanted to put a final nail in the coffin of states' rights.
If, and I say this with a big if , the War Between the States was to free the slaves, please answer these simple questions:
Why didn't President Lincoln issue a proclamation on day one of his presidency to free the slaves? Why did he wait so many years later to issue his proclamation? Why was slavery still legal in the Northern states? Before 1864, how many elected members of the imperialist Yankee Congress introduced legislation to outlaw slavery anywhere in America?
The slaves were freed — and only in territories in rebellion against the North — because the Army of the Potomac was not winning the war and Lincoln was fearful of foreign nations recognizing the Confederacy.
The Northern states needed a war to fuel their economy and stop the pending recession. The North needed rebellion in the South to cause havoc in the Confederate states. The North wanted the hard foreign currency being generated by Southern trade.
I hope this year not only marks the celebration of the brave actions of Southerners to evict the Northern Army at Fort Sumter but leads to the truthful revision of history about the war. Future generations should know the truth.
Al Mccray is a Tampa businessman and managing editor of TampaNewsAndTalk.com
So you obviously saw that other response and I guess you just crept back under your rock - because thar was nun.
If so, southern investors were remarkably stupid. Slave prices peaked in 1860.
What you are saying is similar to saying that "everybody knows" today that gold will be completely worthless in 10 years or so. Therefore the price is hitting its highest point ever.
Yeah, that's the ticket! Investors always sink money into commodities they expect will lose all value in 10 years.
“Lincoln repeatedly assured the SC governor and Southern delegates in D.C. that Sumter would be abandoned as were the other internal forts in their territory, and would “under no circumstance” be reinforced. While they waited, he sent ships, troops and militia with orders to supply the fort. Cassus belli, indeed.”
All that was after the unilateral seige began. I don’t really care what Lincoln said, frankly. He was within his rights to reinforce it.
“Not to mention that FL was attacked prior to SC, while there was still a “promise” of peace.”
Confederates started it there, too. If you want to move the casus belli back to that, fine. Same circumstances.
Thank you. Mea culpa re. Colonel West.
And my fellow Georgian Herman Cain is a fine, fine man and a staunch advocate of the Fair Tax replacement of the current INSANE Marxist income tax.
“No, it was a compromise between North and South.”
And why was one necessary? Didn’t the States have any voting or polling rights? Were General Grants slaves any different than the huge number of slaves owned by Northeners? Gosh, it was awful nice of those boys to grant such a concession to a bunch of slave owners like themselves.
Article IV section 3
"In all such territory the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected be Congress and by the Territorial government; and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories shall have the right to take to such Territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the States or Territories of the Confederate States.
“What a joke. How many broke powerful folks you know?”
Yeah, yeah, fine. I know. I was speaking glibly. It was Power and Money, not just money. My formulation, though, was still less ridiculous than yours, which has them gaining power to impose tariffs and fund internal improvements for the sake of...what? Rubbing the South’s nose in it? Why did they care so much, if not for the filthy lucre?
“Not Southern people, no. It prevented slaves from being represented.”
Oh. I thought we were a Representative Republic, based on numbers of representatives according to populations in areas. Sorry, I mistook you for someone who was interested in a factual argument.
Sorry about that, I’ll let you dither uninterrupted and stop insisting on your cluttering your argument with facts.
Well, if they happen to be queer and wish to be wed, then they'd be "protected persons" in Unionville.
If so, then how does one have a non-slave territory?
Anymore then an escaped slave escaping into a non-slavery state.
If true, what's to prevent a SC slaveowner from moving to OH and ignoring the laws against slavery in that state? The state cannot take his property without compensation, so the slave remains a slave?
There was a widespread belief among Republican-leaning northerners that there was a southern conspiracy to accomplish exactly this, using the Supreme Court to declare slavery legal nationwide. It's somewhat difficult to see why the legal "reasoning" used to legalize slavery in territories wouldn't also apply in states.
Had the war not intervened, an interesting case would probably have come before the court shortly to settle this issue. Some have claimed Taney was conspiring to use it to force slavery on the entire nation.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0SAF/is_1_33/ai_n31329722/?tag=mantle_skin;content
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What a joke. How many broke powerful folks you know? How many rich powerless? Yeah, me either. And since the power was shifting, it wasn’t going to be long before “King Cotton” wasn’t going to need slavery anyway. It was already dead just about everywhere on the planet and would have been so here in another decade or so. Mechanization was going to change everything anyway. And the South knew it had a world market. They were getting too big and too rich and too powerful.
While they enjoyed the manufacturing advantage, the North jumped ugly on them. Read the Republican (Progressive) Planks for 1856 and 60 and tell me the poor Yankees were just defending themselves from the murderous onslaught at that little Fort. What Bullshit the winners get away with when they rewrite history. Pathetic”
I don’t know about what would have happen, All I can tell you with certainly is that technologically the slaves would have been gone prior to the 1940’s cause around that time mechanization made even the sharecroppers labor non-economical.
The institution of slavery which of course required a vast mobilization of the States entire population in constant preparation for both slave escapes and revolts, was astronomically expensive.
This leads me to beleive it would have been gone by the turn of the century if not sooner. Ironically exactly how soon it would have died out depends upon southern independence.
Reason: If the south had become independent slavery would have died much sooner due to the south no longer being able to take advantage of the resources of the North to both put down slave revolts and capture escaped slaves. Hence the direct costs of slavery upon the southern people would have been a great deal more.
That of course naturally translates into a sooner death as the cost of alternatives(like mechanization) price curve is more quickly exceeded.
This is all putting aside the already existing moral reservations of the southern people against the institution.
The source of much of the difficulty in the legislative chambers may have begun on the pretext of slavery, but much also degenerated into legislative bullying by the north that imposed tariffs, lopsided laws, price fixing, competition control and the like. In many cases it was just meddling and imposition simply because liberal politicians could impose their will because of their power.
It was as is today - all about power, control and money in the end.
I’d be glad to answer your questions if I had a clue what you are trying to say.
What does Grant have to do with it? We’re talking about the Constitutional Convention in 1783. Hardly anybody alive then was still around when the war started.
The American Revolution was about the preservation of Natural Rights; secession was about preserving the ability to deny those rights to others. During the Senate debate on the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, Senator John Pettit argued in favor of expanding slavery to Kansas, and famously said that Jefferson's idea that "all men are created equal" was not a "self-evident truth" but instead "is nothing more to me than a self-evident lie."
The American Revolution was about the preservation of Natural Rights; secession was about preserving the ability to deny those rights to others. During the Senate debate on the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, Senator John Pettit argued in favor of expanding slavery to Kansas, and famously said that Jefferson's idea that "all men are created equal" was not a "self-evident truth" but instead "is nothing more to me than a self-evident lie."
Oh, to be sure Lincoln also planned to send freed slaves back to Africa. He was talked out of it. By freed black slaves who visited him in Washington during the war. The argument made by many Southern apologists is that Lincoln created the Emancipation Proclamation only because he wanted to use it as a weapon against the South. True, he did want to use it as a weapon. But if it was true that the North really wasn’t serious about abolishing slavery, they would have reintroduced after the war was over. But they didn’t reintroduce it. All other conjecture is ridiculous.
“Why did they care so much, if not for the filthy lucre?”
It’s called politics and ideology = power. Stick around and you’ll learn something about the subject. Cripes.
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