Gotta love all those different 13th amendments. This is yet another one Lincoln supported.
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
Sticks & stones.
“Unrevised history tells us is the 13th Amendment freed the slaves.”
What happened between April and December of 1865? Were all the slaves who fell under the EP (some 4 million) returned to their masters? Is it your position that they would have been had there been no 13th amendment? Please, think it through. Your position is preposterous.
“But alas, if the intent was the freedom of all slaves,”
I’ve never said it was the intent to free all slaves. That may be what public schools teach, expressly or by implication. but I don’t care what they say. However overrated is Lincoln’s achievement in the popular consciousness, just because he didn’t live to see all slaves free does not mean we are free to dilute the credit he deserves for for freeing 4 million of them.
“’Great Emancipator’ was totally cool with slaves in the areas he still controlled.”
Funny how the same people who call Lincoln a bloddy, mad, fascist Constitution burner fault him for limiting emancipation to those over whom he had authority to free only as commander in chief, if that (there were lingering doubts over the peacetime legality of emergency war measures). And your “totally cool” line is pretty thoroughly demolished by his having been instrumental in pushing through the 13th amendment.
bloddy = bloody
No, they could ratify their constitution, but until that ratification was voted on by Congress, it had no effect. There was no time, between the ratification of the state constitution and president signing the bill admitting the state to the union, that the state was an independent nation.
The Enabling Acts (now we're down to what, a 25% rule)
30 out of 50 states passed through formal US territorial status. Maybe that qualifies as 25% in your math. For the record, there were the 13 original states. Five states were formed out of other states, one was an independent country annexed at their request, and one was admitted to statehood shortly after being ceded by Mexico, before a territorial government was organized.
were the owner's authorization to allow formation of a state (the owner being the U.S. in the case of the territories - i.e. all states had to agree...
Well, a simple majority, but I guess in the world were 60% equals 25%, it should be expected that 50%+1 equals "all."
Once they've codified their state powers (as every other state had), they are admitted as an equal.
Colorado ratified its state constitution in 1865. Their admission as a state, however, was vetoed by Andrew Johnson and it wasn't until 1876 that they entered the Union. What was Colorado's status during those 11 years?
“History doesn’t support your contention that the Emancipation Proclamation freed four million slaves”
If by “history” you mean “Erroneous But Effectively Unbalancing Talking Points By Which To Confuse Yankees,” 146th edition, by John Q. Lostcause, then yes.
“you account for the fact that executive orders do not equal laws (thus the need for amendment)”
More of your sophistical loop-de-loops. Just because there were lingering doubts about future legality which the 13th amendment laid to rest does not mean the EP wouldn’t have held in any case. Also, even if SCOTUS had declared the EP unconstitutional or limited its “henceforward” to mean until such time as the rebellion ended instead of forever after, that still doesn’t mean Lincoln didn’t free 4 million slaves, however briefly. I’ll admit that’d be faint praise, but, hey, I’m just following where the argument leads.
Finally, nevermind that it was just an executive order and a wartime emrgency one at that. On a practical level I just don’t understand how anyone can seriously believe the EP would’ve been overturned and the slaves returned to bondage after the war. Come on. The barn door was open; they weren’t getting back in.
Gotta love all those different 13th amendments. This is yet another one Lincoln supported.
First, Lincoln didn't have 4 million under his control when he issued the Proclamation. And to get really technical, he didn't free any slaves where he did have control. Second, if all the slaves were already free, why was an Amendment necessary?
The risk we take when trying to reduce a complex issue down into sound-bytes is inaccurately conveying the essence of the truth.
We know (or should know) that the Emancipation Proclamation was not intended to emancipate all blacks everywhere. I won’t insult your intelligence by asking if you’ve actually read the proclamation, but a quick review would show us that the Proclamation was rather precise in describing the specific affected areas. The area in question comprised of the states in rebellion.
The symbolic and effective consequence of this proclamation was the immediate freeing of some 55,000 slaves and more as the union troops encountered them. The net effect was that remaining slaves virtually everywhere in America were freed.
The task of complete emancipation of blacks nationwide was undertaken and achieved through the 13th Amendment.
There is no revisionism at play here. Why persist in such nit-pickery?
“Only if it would be totally undemolished by his support for the Corwin Amendment”
You’ve really studied your talking point playbook, haven’t you?
First of all, I’d like to point out that among rather stiff competition the “Corwin Amendment” is one of the silliest laws ever proposed. You can’t declare that future amendments can’t be made concerning X and Y issues. That’s ridiculous. The only way to prevent future amendments would be to abolish the amendment process. In the meantime, your amendment could be washed away like sand on the beach by passing a further overturning amendment, as the 21st did to the 18th.
Which brings me to my second point. I suppose your argument is something along the lines of had the Corwin amendment would’ve prevented passage of the 13th amendment. Well, in reference to the paragraph above, I think it’s clear that it’s hubristic for any amendment to say that particualr kinds of future amendments can’t be passed. Article V of the Constitution still would’ve held firm; amendments could still be made. And if the 13th would’ve passed with a section declaring the Corwin amendment null and void, I don’t see why that wouldn’t have been the new law.
If Lincoln supported it at the time, and I believe he did, does that mean he doesn’t get any credit for the 13th? No. Unless you take the no future amendments poart seriously, and you shouldn’t, he could change his mind. As I might remind you, a rather extreme series of events occured between his support in ‘61 and his death in ‘65, during which time he switched from a free soiler to a full abolitionist.
“First, Lincoln didn’t have 4 million under his control when he issued the Proclamation”
Duh. He didn’t have them under his control because the South had seceded, which is why he was fighting a war with them, which is why he had the authority to free any slaves at all.
“to get really technical, he didn’t free any slaves where he did have control.”
Not true. Aside from the border states, Virginia, New Orleans, and various other exceptions, there were in fact areas of federal control (or quasi-control) where the EP held sway. Some 20,000 or so slaves were manumitted immediately.
“if all the slaves were already free, why was an Amendment necessary?”
Is this a serious question? Because of: A) the border states and the variosu exceptions outlined in the EP, and B) to smother possible doubts as to the EP’s legitimacy after the emergency was over.
If the slaves were free, why the need for an Amendment?
There is no revisionism at play here. Why persist in such nit-pickery?
That the 13th Amendment freed the slaves, not Lincoln's war Procolmation, is history as it is.
“I think even your friends with half-brains can point out how 4 mil is a terribly uneducated revision.”
I did say “about” 4 million. Subtract the border states and that reduces it by about a half a million. Take out the exceptions, and that’s, what, another couple or few hundred thousand? Which leaves us with more than 3 million.
Okay, fine, I was rounding up. 3 million is still a lot more than the zero slaves freed hypothesis of southernsunshine. Who’s revising now?
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