Posted on 06/25/2018 3:28:41 PM PDT by Mariner
Republican Senate nominee Corey Stewart said that he doesn’t believe that the Civil War was fought over the issue of slavery, arguing that it was mostly about states’ rights.
In a Monday interview with Hill.TV’s “Rising,” Stewart, who recently won the GOP nomination in the Virginia Senate race, said that not all parts of Virginia’s history are “pretty.”
But he said he doesn’t associate slavery with the war.
“I don’t at all. If you look at the history, that’s not what it meant at all, and I don’t believe that the Civil War was ultimately fought over the issue of slavery,” Stewart said.
When “Rising” co-host Krystal Ball pressed him again if the Civil War was “significantly” fought over slavery, Stewart said some of them talked about slavery, but added that most soldiers never owned slaves and “they didn’t fight to preserve the institution of slavery.”
“We have to put ourselves in the shoes of the people who were fighting at that time and from their perspective, they saw it as a federal intrusion of the state,” he said.
Stewart also said he doesn’t support a Richmond elementary school named after a Confederate general deciding to rename it after former President Obama.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
States right’s = political power. The civil war was fought over which “powers” belonged to the Fed and which to the states.
The right to own another human being was but one of many powers the states believed had been delegated to them by the Constitution. Others being, The North subjugating the southern states to Federal “Land laws”, The national “draft” as opposed the the southern states belief that troops could only be raised thru requisisition to each of the individual states, protective tariffs and nullification, the “Tariff of Abominations, and above all the Souths belief they had the unilateral right to secede from the union.
There are plenty more.
The most conservative men I know from the World War II generation have almost to a man told me that they believe the Civil War had little to do with slavery and everything to do with Abraham Lincoln being a lousy federalist totalitarian.
If not about slavery, why did the various Declarations of Secession obsess on their right to own slaves?
Correct. The North could not afford to lose the enormous tax income from the south. Lincoln adopted the abolitionist perspective to get the ball rolling.
It doesn’t even matter whether he’s right (he’s not)
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He is absolutely correct! State’s Rights was the Great Issue. Those who have been brainwashed into believing otherwise need to educate themselves and not depend on the lies taught in our schools over the years.
That is an interesting comment; about the “Slavers” I mean.
Now, let's name the American slave states that voted to enshrine slavery into the United States constitution: New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Delaware, and Maryland.
Oh yes - Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia were slave states too.
Now a question: did the Union slave state of Delaware send soldiers to fight the Confederate slave state of Virginia in order to end slavery or to protect slavery?
Did the Union slave state of Maryland send soldiers to fight the Confederate slave state of North Carolina in order to end slavery or to protect slavery?
Did the Union slave state of Kentucky . . . and so forth and so on.
I’ve heard a number of people in Arizona say the Civil War was not about slavery.
“Correct. The North could not afford to lose the enormous tax income from the south.”
If the South had such large tax revenues, why couldn’t the Confederacy afford to finance their war effort.
The South was a big exporter of cotton. They weren't necessarily big importers. The North had more people, bigger cities, and more industry, and imported more. And the tariff was levied on imports, not exports.
But Southern cotton planters believed that their exports "paid for" the Northern imports, and that every tariff fell heavily on them, even though it didn't. They wanted to have their cake and eat it too. That is to say, they wanted the money from foreign cotton sales and they wanted to use that money to buy things from the North and they wanted to claim that somehow the money was still theirs. But actually, they bought things from Northerners, or paid for services like shipping, insurance and banking, and Northerners could use that many to buy foreign goods which the government taxed.
You are unlikely to fight over something you don’t own but you will fight over tax dollars.
People who own nothing will still go to war, either because they are drafted or because the quarrel becomes a fight of "us" against "them" and you don't want "them" to win.
People in the slave states who did own a lot, owned slaves. A large part of their wealth was tied up in slaves. They were worried about losing power in the federal government,and one big reason they were worried was that losing power might eventually mean losing control over their slaves. It would also eventually mean losing the kind of society they lived in, a society that was largely founded on slavery.
When you believe in your society enough to fight for it, you take it as a whole, and don't always think about every aspect of it. Some secessionists fought for their right to own slaves (or to acquire slaves eventually). Others were fighting for their state or region. They wouldn't necessarily say that they were fighting for slavery, but slavery was a major part of the economy and social structure of their state or region. Those who felt that their region was being threatened weren't talking about 20th century big government. They were talking about abolitionists.
This subject has been thoroughly and academically discussed with 753 replies. Before everyone gets all knotted up, check it out:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3644092/posts
The slavers failed that test. The election of Lincoln did not constitute any "destructive to these ends" condition. They weren't on the right side legally, historically, or morally.
All legitimate secessions occur bilaterally.
The Vice President of the CSA said the Civil War was about Slavery.
“The new Constitution has put at rest forever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institutions—African slavery as it exists among us—the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution.”
“There is no right to secede.”
That is an interesting comment.
Is it a reference to something found in the Declaration of Independence?
That’s gonna trigger a lot of people.
You really don’t know much about the Civil War, do you?
Just a couple of points about your farrago of nonsense, there was no draft for the Union Army until 1863. Nor were federal land laws threatening anyone unless you speak of the inability to legally take slavery into the new states and territories. Since the South had controlled the federal Congress and government for decades (thanks to the votes not allowed the slaves} it is clear there was no oppression from the Union.
Don’t take my word for it look it up, the only prior president not from the South who opposed Slavery was John Adams.
The CW was fought for ONE reason. Slavers were terrified that Lincoln would free the slaves. The Firebrands had been itching for separation for at least 10 years and conspiring to bring it about.
Your idea of the CW is from a bad Cliff’s Notes version of history but less accurate.
Can there be a better source than Jefferson Davis himself, regarding the reason for secession?
Jefferson Davis’ Farewell Address
Senate Chamber, U.S. Capitol, January 21, 1861
Transcribed from the Congressional Globe, 36th Congress, 2d Session, p. 487.:
https://jeffersondavis.rice.edu/archives/documents/jefferson-davis-farewell-address
“It has been a conviction of pressing necessity, it has been a belief that we are to be deprived in the Union of the rights which our fathers bequeathed to us, which has brought Mississippi into her present decision.”
“She has heard proclaimed the theory that all men are created free and equal, and this made the basis of an attack upon her social institutions”
“just what the North has been endeavoring of late to do—to stir up insurrection among our slaves”
“for there (the Constitution) we find provision made for that very class of persons as property; they were not put upon the footing of equality with white men”
“when you deny to us the right to withdraw from a Government which thus perverted threatens to be destructive of our rights....we proclaim our independence, and take the hazard.”
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