Posted on 06/25/2018 3:28:41 PM PDT by Mariner
What “nitpicking” have I committed?
The Constitution was written to protect FREEDOM not slavery.
A country which is based on Natural Law cannot accept slavery. The compromise was never intended to be permanent.
At the time of the Founding almost all the significant actors believed that slavery would die out if no more could be imported.
Then came the enormous wealth after the Cotton Gin and all of a suddenly it changed from a necessary Evil to a positive good.
It's been beaten to death on another thread. I think RustBucket is the one that pointed it out, but it might be someone else.
I think I know how to find that thread where it was discussed, but i'm not going to do it right now. Ask me again later down the road when I'm not busy responding to the current discussion.
Almost all harbor improvements to Southern ports was paid for by the United States Government.
There is that "Front side of the Horse" versus the "back side of the horse" argument again. As the Southern states were paying 80% of the taxes, they easily covered the costs of all money spent on improving Southern Ports, and Northern ones too! :)
Your fantasy scenario of millions being poured into Southern port facilities is just that a fantasy.
Really? Well perhaps you can explain then why the Confederacy would still have their 200 million dollars in import value continue going to New York instead of to their own ports? I'd like to hear this one.
That’s the best you got?
“No one felt the deaths more than Lincoln.”
I would have thought the wives, mothers, fathers, children and other family members might have taken it even harder.
Nothing was switched the fight was still to protect the Union.
And now you are nitpicking over nitpicking. You objected to the word "enshrined" when I pointed out that Article IV section 2 was made a permanent part of the US Constitution.
The Constitution was written to protect FREEDOM not slavery.
In a roundabout way, and mostly only the freedom of white males above the age of 21. It also protected slavery.
A country which is based on Natural Law cannot accept slavery.
Well here now I agree with you. Thomas Jefferson almost singlehandedly triggered the entire subsequent debate over the continuation of slavery with his "All men are created equal" Christian doctrine written into the Declaration of Independence.
However it is clear that the legislators of that era had no intention of applying this idea to slaves, and Thomas Jefferson himself didn't do it either.
At the time of the Founding almost all the significant actors believed that slavery would die out if no more could be imported.
Well they were wrong about that. Very wrong.
Then came the enormous wealth after the Cotton Gin and all of a suddenly it changed from a necessary Evil to a positive good.
D@mn Massachusetts Yankee! Seriously, making slavery profitable is how they got more slavery.
I actually have a D@mned interesting story about slavery and intrigue set in 1807 of which most people are completely unaware, and it greatly involves the issue of "natural born citizen" and the Louisiana Purchase.
It isn't fiction. It is a true story I found doing research on "natural born citizen". James Madison was quite upset about it.
Someone should write a book, or at least an article about it.
We were not voluntarily a part of the “United Kingdom”, we had never assented to being incorporated in any Kingdom. We were subjects of the King even though we were not a “Kingdom”.
The colonists did not object to being subjects of the King as long as they were represented in his government. Initially they fought to achieve the rights of Englishmen.
No Kingdoms declared their independence from the UK although Scotland tried.
The South controlled the federal government until it took its ball and tried to go home.
How could Virginia expect to remain the same when they had removed their representatives from Congress?
Truth is always the best defense. You can read what it says in clear and simple language.
It protects slavery. I believe Lincoln himself says in his first inaugural that Article IV, section 2 does in fact protect slavery. If you like, I'll go check and if I have remembered correctly, i'll give you Lincoln's words telling you the same thing that i'm telling you.
Perhaps Lincoln's words are the best i've got. I'd say for most people, the mere text is good enough to grasp the meaning.
"It is scarcely questioned that this provision was intended by those who made it for the reclaiming of what we call fugitive slaves; "
He says some more stuff you won't like on the other side of the above link.
He had all them constantly in his mind even the Rebel mothers.
Those goods would have been taxed twice. Once by the Confederacy and once by the Union. So they would not have been any cheaper than domestic manufactured products.
Moreover, you've got a very skewed view of things. Ohio and Illinois were industrializing. They couldn't and wouldn't rely wholly on farming to provide for their people. So a flood of foreign goods wouldn't be any favor for the growing industrial workforce of those states and others.
If the Confederates had put their tariffs up around 40% like the Union, they would have probably been allowed to leave in peace. The North wouldn't have perceived it as a great reduction in their trade profits, and may have left the South alone.
You contradict yourself. Was it the loss of tariff revenue or the coming flood of foreign goods that so angered the Yankees? Was their government going to collapse because of the loss of tariff money, or where they willing to live with that but only upset about some more distant developments?
I think both scenarios are wrong and foolish, but the new one may be even wronger and foolisher. As it was, the Union survived the loss of the cotton trade and so did the Northern manufacturers. That manufacturers would actually want neighboring countries to impose high import tariffs on the products they make is something so self-defeating as to be nonsensical.
No one recognized Haiti until 13 years after their revolution began in 1791. American revolution fighting had been going on for 3 years before France recognized the US.
I'm not aware that independence movements have to ask outside permission. Or that they aren't real until someone officially recognizes them within a set amount of time.
You are supporting this principle of an involuntary Union, so why would you object to the United Kingdom's involuntary Union? I thought you were okay with forced Unions?
we had never assented to being incorporated in any Kingdom.
What does consent have to do with it? If it were a consensual Union, people would be allowed to leave when they withdrew their consent to being a part of it.
“BTW the word “slavery” is not in the Constitution much less “enshrined” in it.”
Every school boy knows that the original constitution required a national census every ten years after the first census.
But did you know the word “census” does not appear in the original constitution?
And now you tell me slavery is not found in the original constitution.
Is that something you believe, or something you want me to believe?
I know exactly what it says. It dealt with more than... “persons held for service or labor” ...Compromising in the present does not mean the future would be the same. I also know that the section addressed other people than just them.
Why do you think Congress would have been able to act after 20 years?
Why do you think that the importation of slaves could be prohibited?
It is clear that the Founders were ashamed to even use the word “slavery”, most believed it would die a natural death as the nation evolved economically.
Nonsense. The various northern newspapers lamented that it would be impossible to levy taxes on the products that would have streamed across the long borders between the two. They recognized that the Northern imposed tariffs were effectively repealed, because they would be unenforceable with an independent South. (Think Mexico and Drugs.)
You contradict yourself. Was it the loss of tariff revenue or the coming flood of foreign goods that so angered the Yankees?
Embrace the healing power of "and."
I do not contradict myself. The potential losses of money for the northern manufacturers were many and varied. I only mention a few, but in deeper contemplation of this scenario, I see many ways in which the wealthy men of the North east (and Chicago) would lose out financially if the South set up regular direct trade with Europe.
The power brokers of that era could see it too. They were shrewd businessmen with an inherent understanding of their markets, even their captive markets like the Railroad shipping monopoly for farmers.
Jefferson was terribly conflicted about slavery and he treated his slaves like family. If one ran away he made little or no effort to get them back. Since they were better treated and more well off than almost all others slave and non-slave, they rarely ran away.
Correcting your use of the word “enshrinement” is hardly nit-picking. But you used it for its rhetorical value.
I raised the issue on a prior thread. You were unable or unwilling to substantiate your claim then either. You can rest assured that every time you claim Government subsidization of Northern railroads or shipping activity, I will ask for the legislation that authorized that action.
I will also continue to use the statistics on the slave trade from “slavevoyages.org” every time you make the claim that Northern ships carried all the slaves to the Western Hemisphere.
“I’d like to hear this one” Because the Confederacy lost the war and ceased to exist. Any nattering about what the Confederacy might have done if they had not lost the war is in the realm of pure speculation. I can speculate that if they went their own way. that the 200,000,000 would have been spent to buy more slaves and land to grow more cotton and tobacco. That money would not have been spent to improve harbors, expand the railroad system, build steel mills, textile factories or shipyards. Chattel slavery would have continued on until into the early twentieth Century.
Your sophistry won’t work here were people have some knowledge.
The Southern states were never conquered and forced into an illegitimate union. They were the principal reason there was one and they understood that the union was to be perpetual.
You know it means slaves. You are just whistling past the graveyard here. Lincoln even admitted it meant slaves, just as I have shown you his words.
Why do you think that the importation of slaves could be prohibited?
Because all the states agreed to it. That's why. They agreed to the other too, but then the Northern states one by one refused to honor it.
It is clear that the Founders were ashamed to even use the word “slavery”, most believed it would die a natural death as the nation evolved economically.
It would have done so but for the invention of the Cotton gin by that clever Massachusetts Yankee. :)
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