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
“”As a result simply going into a non-slavery territory does not liberate you.”
If so, then how does one have a non-slave territory?”
I beleive that was the point. The Feds can’t have non-slave territories merely territories in which one cannot buy or sell slaves.
“If true, what’s to prevent a SC slaveowner from moving to OH and ignoring the laws against slavery in that state? “
Ohio State and local law enforcement. Perhaps you miss understood I was saying that Dred Scott should have made his case on the basis that his master choose to live in Illinois(a state at the time) rather then a Federal territory.
If he had gone to Illinois’s courts he probably would have been freed. But he didn’t instead he made a contention regarding his residency in a Federal Territory that claimed to be non-slavery.
That brought the 5th amendment(which only applied to the Federal Government and thus Federal territories) into the question.
Non-slave territories predated the Constitution, FWIW.
Here is what Lincoln said:
"Why should people of your race be colonized, and where? Why should they leave this country? You and we are different races. We have between us a broader difference than exists between any other two races. Whether it is right or wrong, I need not discuss; but this physical difference is a great disadvantage to us both, as I think. Your race suffers very greatly, many of them, by living among us, while we suffer from your presence. If this is admitted, it affords a reason, at least, why we should be separated."
territories become what?
I guess the confederate soldiers were blowing rose water through cornstalks at the union soldiers at Fort Sumter?
Lincoln's own quotes documented for future generations coming back to reveal the true story of the so called great emancipator.
Lincoln and racial equality is there for anyone who wants to read it. In the Lincoln-Douglas debates, for example, he said, “I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races, and I have never said anything to the contrary.” He went on in the same speech in Ottawa, Ill., in 1858 to say that he was not in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor qualifying them to hold office and not to intermarry with white people. Also, he supported the Illinois constitutional change in the 1840s that prohibited the immigration of black people into the state of Illinois. And his career-long position on the race issue was colonization. He advocated sending every last black person in America back to Haiti, Central America, Africa – anywhere but here. In his eulogy of Henry Clay in 1852, he said, “There is a moral fitness to the idea of returning to Africa her children …” He repeated that in a message to Congress in 1862: “I cannot make it any better known than it already is that I strongly favor colonization.”
When I'm on the verge of epic fail I feign blindness too.
I have to disagree. Look at the contrafactual:
If there had been no slavery, or had the Southern states endorsed a "phase-out," would there have been a Civil War?
Absolutely not.
While early in the 1800's there were leading Southerners who spoke openly about phasing out slavery, by the time we got to 1860, all such talk had disappeared.
At the time slavery was legal. They were bought and paid for as personal property.
If slavery was the cause of the Civil War, it was state and individual rights that we were fighting for.
The history of this war was written by the winner. Textbooks have been and are printed by the winner of the WoNA. Most folks seem to have been indoctrinated successfully by the winner’s lackeys. It took me many years to learn what really happened in those years, and I live in SC. Al Mccray and I agree on the facts. But how on earth did he ever find out the truth about this subject, considering his background?
Furthermore, if Lincoln had been alive during the Revolutionary War and had used the same kind of reasoning that he used against Southern secession, he would have sided with the British.
“Now irrespective of the moral aspect of this question as to whether there is a right or wrong in enslaving a negro, I am still in favor of our new Territories being in such a condition that white men may find a home—may find some spot where they can better their condition—where they can settle upon new soil and better their condition in life. I am in favor of this not merely (I must say it here as I have elsewhere) for our own people who are born amongst us, but as an outlet for free white people everywhere, the world over."
"I was an old Henry-Clay-Tariff Whig. In old times I made more speeches on that subject than any other. I have not since changed my views."
"My politics are short and sweet, like the old woman's dance. I am in favor of a national bank ... in favor of the internal improvements system and a high protective tariff."
"You will take possession by military force, of the printing establishments of the New York World and Journal of Commerce... and prohibit any further publication thereof... you are therefore commanded forthwith to arrest and imprison in any fort or military prison in your command, the editors, proprietors and publishers of the aforesaid newspapers... and you will hold the persons so arrested in close custody until they can be brought to trial before a military commission." ~ Order from Lincoln to General John A. Dix, May 18, 1864
War Between the States about slavery? No way Monday, April 25, 2011 12:19:20 PM · 142 of 166 Sherman Logan to jessduntno
It was already dead just about everywhere on the planet and would have been so here in another decade or so.
"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.
Well, here's a refresher for your convenient memory loss. I like your gold comparison...kind of ...wellll....nothing. The slave trade was dying around the world, certainly had it's detractors everywhere (yes, dear boy, even in the south) and would have given way with more money, more trade and the increase would have changed the economy. You have heard of population and work skills shifting in dynamic economies?
But no, the geniuses in the Northeastern, lilly white uptight frigid New England states (who wouldn't let a black man anywhere near their towns and burghs for another hundred years) had to get a half million Americans killed because they wanted what they could take. Oh and they wanted to make sure they kept it taken, so they burned, killed and looted everrything in sight when they got down to Dixie.
They were cognizant of the fact too. Poor Gens. Grant and Sherman fretted that they were doing such a good job, the earth might be unable to sustain life...but what the hell, those black folks (with the exception of Grant's slaves) would be free, Damnit! Who cared if they had no where to go.
And you took it all. So much so, its' almost all still there. Won't have it all for long though as the labor and work shifts to (guess where? Hint; they have right to work laws and states that insist on their rights) and the money and banking centers and the unions will throw us into another war for power over that.
This time the "slaves" will be the poor "exploited working men and women" of America defended by Obama the brave and the gallant unions. Hey ... the Union will be responsible for another war! Gee, I love irony...don't you? How do you think third Manassas will turn out?
And prevent Congress from imposing punitive tariffs and abolishing slavery.
“Uhhh, wrong. That was all in reference to the several weeks PRIOR to Sumter, dating back to mid-March.”
Oh, yes, I see. I was mistaken, and your position is that what Lincoln said in the short period between his inauguration and the April 12th outbreak of hostilities somehow tricked the South into war. He said he wouldn’t reinforce, they took it as permission to seize Sumter, then Lincoln double-facedly snapped back at them. Which somehow, I don’t know how exactly, makes Lincoln’s words, not the South’s actions, cause for war.
Reminds me of how revisionists, wackily enough, blame everyone but Germany for WWI. Germany’s fear was justified and the allies’ wrong, I guess, even though the allies ended up being correct since Germany’s the one that actually struck first, not France or Russia. What nonsense. Whatever Lincoln said, the South struck first. Same way no matter whether France and Russia mobilized their armies, Germany invaded first. Is that honest enough for you?
“As for being ‘within his rights’, not by any ‘rights’ delegated to him through the constitution or the laws, though he definitely professed otherwise.”
I suppose being commander in chief of the armed forces, sworn to defend the U.S. against all enemies foreign and domestic has no bearing on the case. I can’t believe it was legal at the time to fire upon a federal fort, but I’ll check the statutes.
You forget that secession by seven states occurred a full month BEFORE Lincoln was President:
1. South Carolina (December 20, 1860)
2. Mississippi (January 9, 1861)
3. Florida (January 10, 1861)
4. Alabama (January 11, 1861)
5. Georgia (January 19, 1861)
6. Louisiana (January 26, 1861)
7. Texas (February 1, 1861)
The Union was already dissolved. By definition it was too late to "preserve the Union," when Lincoln took the reins. The Southern states had already taken action, which they referred to as "irrevocable."
Did they have to leave the Union? Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland and Delaware didn't think so.
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