Posted on 06/17/2017 6:14:26 PM PDT by plain talk
The Emancipation Proclamation was issued three years into the war, and it only applied to the territory Lincoln’s government didn’t control. It did nothing to free a single slave.
The North wasn't a monolithic entity, so of of course it wasn't "against slavery" in terms of total unity.
But it's the height of deceit to assert that the abolotionist movement wasn't growing in strength—particularly in the North—in the decades leading up to the Civil War, and it's outright absurd to think that Northern parents would send hundreds of thousands of their young men to die in a Civil War, absent a "righteous cause" to unite them.
By the time the Civil War was well underway, there can be no doubt that the abolition of slavery was that righteous cause, and it's absolutely ridiculous to assert otherwise.
While very few wars are fought over only a single issue or concern, any attempt by Confederate apologists to minimize the importance of maintaining slavery as a Right (in the South), or to dismiss the desire to abolish slavery as a righteous cause (in the North) is patently ludicrous.
--A. Lincoln. 1862
Had the slavery clause not been removed from the Declaration of Independence, South Carolina and some of the other Southern states would have voted against independence, and the Continental Congress had adopted a rule that it required a unanimous vote.
“I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races.”
“There is a natural disgust in the minds of nearly all white people to the idea of indiscriminate amalgamation of the white and black races … A separation of the races is the only perfect preventive of amalgamation, but as an immediate separation is impossible, the next best thing is to keep them apart where they are not already together. If white and black people never get together in Kansas, they will never mix blood in Kansas…
--A. Lincoln.
Segregationist!
Lincoln was the original proponent of Jim Crow!
Little Crow was the chief of the Santee-Dakota Sioux in Minnesota. He was a Christian convert, attended church, and lived quietly on the reservation land given his people by treaty. They were sold an allotment of rations by the U.S Bureau of Indian Affairs agent Andrew J. Myrick. The costs of the rations began to increase, be delayed, and eventually his band was sold nothing but rotting meat and mealy grain and flour at inflated prices. When his band was starving and he complained to the agent there in charge (who was getting rich skimming profits) Myrick reportedly told Little Crow his people could “eat grass”. On August 17, 1862 that agent was one of the first to die in the uprising that followed, and was found with his mouth stuffed full of grass. Minnesota records state that 644 citizens and 757 U.S. troopers died in the fighting. Little Crow was killed a year later by deer hunters in northern Minnesota while the surviving Santees fled west to the Teton-Dakota Sioux.
That was Lincoln's opinion, and he was the Commander-in-Chief.
But that doesn't change the fact that there were coiuntless other Northerners—military and civilian—who adopted a significantly more zealous attitude than Lincoln's comparatively mild one.
Many of those people did think the conflict was about slavery—as the South itself also clearly did, as evidenced by the plethora of references to slavery which were included in the justifications for secession which were promulgated by many Southern states...
And if they can get it posted in news/current events on Free Republic, so much the better. < /sarc>
West Virginia which stayed with the North. Session from pro Confederate Virginia.
U.S. Constitution (since repealed by 13th Amendment):The two excerpts don't come close to conveying the same meaning.
Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.Confederate Constitution:
No ... law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed.
The fact that many middle class, non-slave-owning Southerners were manipulated into shedding their blood so that wealthy elites could buy, sell, rape, and kill other human beings—without incurring any legal liability—is a crying shame.
That is not to cast aspersions on your ancestor(s). They doubtless fought honorably and bravely—something to be proud of—but the cause for which they fought—and "right of property in negro slaves" which was codified into the Confederate Constitution—should certainly be sufficient to induce sober-minded reflection...
Finally some logic and sanity. I would only add that there was probably not even an ounce of manipulation in convincing Southerners to fight against Northern Invaders. Put it in reverse. If Rebel butternut soldiers had taken over Northern Cities and States what wild madness would that have instilled in people no matter the reason they were there?
As for codifying slavery in the Confederate Constitution, Our Constitution did not need to in 1787 because it was fully understood by all at the time and documented in the three fifths of a person apportionment in Article. I. Section. 2. What is the greater "malicious motive?"
would you happen to know the names of those internal tariffs
Burke, (On The Border With Crook) stated that the real problem was with Indian Agents who cheated the Indians at every chance.
J R Dunn jr (Massacres of the Mountains) had nothing good to say about Indian agents at that time.
Custer exposed the later Indian “Rings” of Grant’s cronies stealing from the Indian allotments.
It was John Adams who opined that the U.S. Constitution was inadequate to the governance of any other than a moral people, and—while Adams's point might be debatable—it at least suggests that perhaps morality is a more legitimate distinction to be considered when considering separation—not the arbitrary consideration of what might be the color of one's skin...
You cannot judge the people of the 19th century with 21st century knowledge, hindsight and sense of morality. That applies to both Confederate and Union citizens of the 19th century.
Stupid.
Thwt ain’t what happened and removing content to create new context is dishonest...to Abe...
Of course not. But we can judge them while taking into consideration the mores which prevailed during their time period, as well as according to Christian principles which have existed for over 2000 years.
To say that people who lived in the past are completely immune to our evaluation is simply a gross oversimplfication—indeed, it's a copout, IMHO.
I'm not saying we need to impose the harsh strictures implied by applying the mores of our time period to theirs, but I am saying that it's possible to subject people of the past to fair-minded analysis without being guilty of blatant ethnocentrism.
LOL...
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