He made it quite clear he was willing to not only support express protections of slavery via a constitutional amendment, but he was also willing to strengthen fugitive slave laws.
He never recanted or changed his position on the fugitive slave laws."
x post #753: "Of course he did.
That was what the Emancipation Proclamation was about.
If that's not enough, Congress repealed the Fugitive Slave Act on June 28, 1864, presumably with Lincoln's approval and signature."
jeffersondem #767: "You make it sound like Lincoln preserved the pretext until there was no longer a need to preserve the pretext.
By June 28, 1864, most of the 600,000 had already been safely buried."
DiogenesLamp #773: "They were ignoring it anyway.
Rule of law didn't really mean much to someone invading other people to force them into subjugation."
For anyone hoping to keep score, here is it: FLT-bird is confused & confusing, jeffersondem is highly deceptive and DiogenesLamp is simply repeating from rote something random from his Lost Causer textbook.
The exchange began with Lincoln's 1854 Peoria Speech, an anti-slavery speech which addressed specific issues of that day, including fugitive slaves.
Lincoln says (DiogenesLamp would claim: "craftily"):
- "When they [slave-holders] remind us of their constitutional rights, I acknowledge them, not grudgingly, but fully, and fairly; and I would give them any legislation for the reclaiming of their fugitives, which should not, in its stringency, be more likely to carry a free man into slavery, than our ordinary criminal laws are to hang an innocent one."
It did in fact "carry a free man into slavery" all too often.
But FLT-bird wishes to believe Lincoln is saying in 1854 he endorsed Fugitive Slave laws and combines that with Lincoln's alleged endorsement of the 1861 proposed Corwin Amendment, and concludes, in effect: "see, see, Lincoln supported slavery, so Civil War was "all about" something else."
No, even in 1854 Lincoln acknowledged the Constitution and laws as they existed, but believed slavery should be restricted or abolished wherever possible.
So next jeffersondem jumps in, ignoring the actual discussion, and claims some sort of "pretext" which had something to do with "600,000 safely buried".
And just to further muddy the waters DiogenesLamp piles on with some random verbiage selected from his Lost Causer textbook.
The facts are, the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law was effectively repealed in Confederate states by the 1861 Confiscation Act and officially repealed in Union states, as x reported, on June 28, 1864.
Six months later the 13th Amendment passed Congress.
So, there was no hypocrisy, no pretext and no violations of Constitutional law, regardless of what DiogenesLamp's textbooks say.