Confederate plaque in Texas Capitol to come down after vote

WFAA ^ | January 11, 2019 | Jason Whitely

[TexasGunLover]

AUSTIN, Texas — A historically inaccurate brass plaque honoring confederate veterans will come down after a vote this morning, WFAA has learned.

The State Preservation Board, which is in charge of the capitol building and grounds, meets this morning at 10:30 a.m. to officially decide the fate of the metal plate.

[central_va]

It obvious you idiot. The Republican party was trying to destroy the south, it's economy and it's people. That was even before the war started. For possible cranial penetration here is the definition of the word "conservative"

[kuh n-sur-vuh-tiv]

See more synonyms for conservative on Thesaurus.com adjective

1. disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc., or to restore traditional ones, and to limit change.
2. cautiously moderate or purposefully low: a conservative estimate.
3. traditional in style or manner; avoiding novelty or showiness: conservative suit.

How does this in anyway define what the Republican Party of the mid 19th century? It does however describe the Democrats of the mid 19th century perfectly.

[rockrr]

You're even dumber than you look general. If (as idiot lost cause losers such as yourself) "the north" were trying to exploit the wealth of the south, how could it do any good to "destroy" it? The only point at which it could be arguable that the union was trying to destroy the rebels was when they were in pitched battle.

disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc., or to restore traditional ones, and to limit change.

You mean like turning your backs on your foundational documents and your country's law so that you can initiate and wage war against your countrymen? That kind of preservation?

[DoodleDawg]

Of course as everybody at the time knew and as even his hagiographers today admit, Abe orchestrated the writing and passage of the Corwin Amendment.

I've gone back through the relevant parts of my Lincoln biographies by David Herbert Donald, Ronald C. White, and Doris Goodwin, and in none of them do I find anything about Lincoln orchestrating the Corwin Amendment. Nothing at all. Can you please point me to the hagiographers biographers that detail Lincoln's involvement? Thanks in advance.

[central_va]

You posses an average to below average IQ. How do I know this? Because all I was doing was defining CORRECTLY defining the terms of the debate. I was not passing any value judgement on the North's or South's cause bellum or political stand, I was just defining the two major political parties philosophy at the time ( mid 19th century ). You could give them any name you'd like: Party A and Party B. The fact remains, as I have proven by simply posting the definition of the word conservatism and you should agree, that the Democrats were the Conservatives and the Republicans were the Liberals i.e., the change agents.

Someone with highly refined debating skills and a high IQ would see that this is true, agree to it and proceed to defend the Republican cause. For some reason you cannot perceive the Republican Party racialism in the cultural milieu of the time.

You should also realize that agreeing to the proper terms that I laid out would not delegitimatize the liberal Republican cause. It simply sets the table correctly. You need to convince me that their cause, the radical change at the time, was justified in the mid 19th century.

You are low brow loser, an infantile debater.

[rockrr]

Spoiler alert: None exist.

[central_va]

Because all I was doing was defining CORRECTLY defining the terms of the debate.

Fixed.

[rockrr]

I don’t need to convince you of anything. In fact, I doubt that anything short of a .308 round would change your mind. But that’s OK because you do serve a purpose. You illustrate the vacuity of your lost cause.

Don’t go changing general!

[central_va]

Ok convince me John Brown was a Democrat. LOL.

[BroJoeK]

redmen4ever: "Texas and the other states of the confederacy and the Indian nations seceded to defend slavery.
They said so in their Ordinances of secession:"

DiogenesLamp: "God!
I keep seeing this lie repeated over and over again.
About three or four states made secession statements claiming slavery as an issue, but the other 8 did not."

Says one of the greatest liars on Free Republic.

So... every state which declared reasons for secession before Fort Sumter said slavery was their number one issue, if not their only reason.
Five states said slavery:

• South Carolina
• Mississippi
• Alabama
• Georgia
• Texas

Two states: Virginia & Arkansas seceded after Fort Sumter and claimed "injury", "oppression" or "coercion" their reasons.
Four states: Florida, Louisiana, Tennessee & North Carolina gave no official reasons for secession.

Even South Carolina's Robert Rhett, who spent three short paragraphs complaining about taxes spent four long paragraphs on slavery.
But Rhett's major complaint can be summarized in his own words:

"The one great evil from which all other evils have flowed, is the overthrow of the Constitution of the United States.
The Government of the United States is no longer the government of a confederate republic, but of a consolidated democracy.
It is no longer a free government, but a despotism.
It is, in fact, such a government as Great Britain attempted to set over our fathers, and which was resisted and defeated by a seven years struggle for independence."

Remember, Rhett wrote in December 1860, when Democrats, especially Southern Democrats had ruled over Washington, DC, almost continuously since 1801.
So Rhett here is complaining about what his fellow Democrats did to our Founders' Constitution, things Southerners were happy to accept so long as they ruled in Washington, but found intolerable when such power was in the hands of anti-slavery Republicans.

Typical of Democrats then & now.

DiogenesLamp: "It suits the revisionism people have been taught to claim these 3 or 4 spoke for all 11 states of the Confederacy."

Five Deep South states said secession was in whole or part over slavery.
Two Deep South states gave no official "Reasons for Secession" -- Florida & Louisiana.
Four Upper South states refused to secede over slavery, but did secede (as they promised) after Jefferson Davis started Civil War at Fort Sumter -- Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee & Arkansas.

DiogenesLamp: "You can't make an immoral action "moral" after the fact, especially when it was clear they never had any intentions of doing this when they first invaded, and did in fact do so only for political and military benefit to themselves."

When Confederates formally declared war on the United States, May 6, 1861, all issues of "morality" disappeared, just as they did in 1941.
Their declaration of war is what sealed the Confederates' fate.

DiogenesLamp: "They didn't free the slaves because they loved black people, they freed the slaves because they hated the people who owned them.
What's more, they didn't free any slaves in the Union, so it was just a lot of hypocritical posturing."

Complete nonsense -- Republican abolitionists believed slaves should be freed because they met the Declaration's definition in "all men are created equal", not out of hatred for white Southerners.
Of course, "contraband of war" was a separate matter -- a military necessity which reduced Confederate man-power and increased Union man-power in one act.
It was not a matter of "hatred" but of defeating the rebellion.

As for Union slaves, most were freed by Union states (Maryland, Missouri, West Virginia) by the time of Appomattox, the rest soon after and the balance of about 10% (in Kentucky & Delaware) by the 13th Amendment in December 1865.

Here is a nice analysis of Deep South "reasons for secession" documents.

[BroJoeK]

FLT-bird: "Anybody who has read Lincoln’s Inaugural Address or who has read the Corwin Amendment knows slavery was not threatened in the US."

rockrr:"The southern slave owners thought differently."

DiogenesLamp: "And we know this because countless northern history writers keep telling us this, even though it doesn't make any real sense when you look at the facts."

It's complete nonsense to claim the Deep South seceded for any major reason other than protecting slavery.
Slavery is what they said at the time and any other reasons listed are clearly secondary, clearly just "politics as usual", nothing powerful enough to motivate millions of otherwise loyal Americans to declare secession.
Only slavery could do that, and so that is what Fire Eater leaders emphasized, regardless of what else might be their hidden "real reasons".

[rockrr]

Why would I do that? You’re the one playing with strawmen - and illustrating your paucity of understanding.

In truth John brown was a radical extremist - much like you. He had no time for political affiliation and he was critical of Lincoln because he knew that Lincoln would try to find some common ground with the south. If anything Brown was utterly impatient with accommodationists. Brown was a supporter of John Quincy Adams who was of the Democratic-Republican Party, which was nominally more to the right of the Democrat party, which was led by Andrew Jackson.

You are aware that just being an abolitionist didn’t automatically make one a Republican - or even a northerner, right? Although there weren’t nearly as many southern abolitionists as there were northern abolitionists they did exist and they were active in the south.

A partial list of southern abolitionists:

Moncure Conway
Reverend John Rankin
James Birney (freed slaves)
Levi Coffin
Charles Osborn
Angelina and Sarah Grimke
Hinton Helper
John G. Fee
Reverend James Gilliland
Alexander Campbell (freed slaves)
Thomas McCague
Revered Jesse Lockhart
Colonel James Poage (freed slaves)
William Dunlop (freed slaves)
William Williamson (freed slaves)
Rev George Bourne
John Fairchild
James Thome
Arthur Thome (freed slaves)
William T Allan
John van Zandt

[central_va]

This is funny. Brown was a terrorist, and had Brown voted in the 1860 election I am sure it would have been for Lincoln. That is no stretch.

[BroJoeK]

FLT-bird: "Of course as everybody at the time knew and as even his hagiographers today admit, Abe orchestrated the writing and passage of the Corwin Amendment."

DoodleDawg: "I've gone back through the relevant parts of my Lincoln biographies by David Herbert Donald, Ronald C. White, and Doris Goodwin, and in none of them do I find anything about Lincoln orchestrating the Corwin Amendment. Nothing at all."

Right, it's complete nonsense, like so much of our Lost Causers' mythology.
In fact, the proposed Corwin Amendment began with Democrats like Senator Jefferson Davis as an effort to reassure Southerners slavery was safe in the Union.
It was pushed by Democrat President Buchanan, passed by Democrats in Congress, with Republicans opposed, and signed by Buchanan.
It was strictly a Democrat effort to preserve the Union by protecting slavery.
Lincoln didn't oppose it because, as he said, Corwin didn't really change anything already in the Constitution.
So Corwin was ratified by just four states -- two Northern and two Border states.
By stark contrast, the 13th Amendment with Lincoln's full support passed Congress with Republican support and Democrat opposition and was soon ratified by the 3/4 of states constitutionally required.

[Redmen4ever]

If I might chime in about Kentucky and Delaware:

Kentucky provided for gradual emancipation prior to the 13th Amendment and Delaware was debating what to do with old slaves, which almost all their few remaining slaves were. Under the slave system, old slaves, like child slaves and sick slaves, were taken care of by their fellow slaves. Abolition (immediate emancipation) would throw them into the poorhouse, which would burden the taxpayer and also rob them of the dignity they had earned through their years of work. So, the exceptions to the Emancipation Proclamation weren’t really exceptions.

I would like to return to the topic of the difficulty of freeing the slaves in states like South Carolina, which would throw a mass of uneducated and poor persons into the body politick and upset the balance that is needed for democratic government to actually work.

At the Founding, most states had a moderate property qualification (the exceptions were Rhode Island which had universal adult male qualification; and, South Carolina which had a 1,000 acre qualification instead of either 100 acres or a city plot). With a property qualification, emancipation would have had no immediate impact on the body politick; but, over time, as freemen rose up the economic ladder, they would gain voting qualification. Of course, those freemen gaining the qualification to vote would no longer be poor and uneducated.

Things changed during the 1840s. To promote race solidarity, Southern states moved to universal white adult male qualification. Eventually, universal adult qualification became the expectation regardless of race. As a result, democracies need to be anxious that the majority of their citizens actually accumulate property such as equity in their home and their (private) pension. The composition of the electorate is not simply an historical problem of the reconstruction period, but is a perennial problem.

[rockrr]

I am amused by the poster at your link. It doesn’t say “We are peacefully leaving the Union” It proudly and provocatively proclaims “The Union Is Dissolved!”

So much for “we just want to go our own way”

[rockrr]

Except that you are wrong. He would not support or vote for Lincoln.

[BroJoeK]

robowambat: "I am curious, how in circa 1860 did the Fedgov refuse to honor the Constitution as written? Real question,"

DiogenesLamp: "Article 4, section 2.
They absolutely refused to enforce it.
It may be an immoral clause, but the legal system is supposed to enforce the law as written, even when they don't like it."

More lies from DiogenesLamp.
In fact the 1850 Compromise moved enforcement of Fugitive Slave Laws from the states to the Federal Government and empowered Feds to force states compliance.
And from 1801 onwards, Federal government was under the nearly continuous control of Southern Democrats.
From 1853 to 1861 Democrats ruled the Presidency, Senate & Supreme Court so could dictate whatever terms they wanted.
In four of those eight years they also controlled the House and so had no excuse if Federal government didn't give them what they wanted.

[central_va]

He would not support or vote for Lincoln.

Goodness, you are mentally retarded.

[DoodleDawg]

Spoiler alert: None exist.

You mean FLT-Bird is...exaggerating?

[rustbucket]

I noticed Magness doesn't detail the "three short resolutions" of Lincolns. In the online collection of his works I found this letter which appears to give the three resolutions in full.

Here is an excerpt from the footnote to that letter you referenced:

... "three propositions which seemed to me to cover the ground of the suggestion made by you through Mr Weed as I understood it. First. That the constitution should never be altered so as to authorize Congress to abolish or interfere with slavery in the states. This was accepted."

From Wikipedia: "The Corwin Amendment is a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution that would shield "domestic institutions" of the states from the constitutional amendment process and from abolition or interference by Congress. Although the Corwin Amendment does not explicitly mention slavery, it was designed specifically to protect slavery from federal power."

So, Lincoln's first proposition as transmitted through Weed was agreed to by the Republicans and ultimately became the Corwin Amendment.

The footnote continues to the other two propositions Lincoln transmitted through Weed:

Second. That the Fugitive slave law should be amended by granting a jury trial to the fugitive. . . . '' This was amended so as to name the jury from the state which the fugitive had fled, and was voted down by the Republicans. The third resolution --- that Congress should recommend that the states revise legislation concerning persons recently resident in the state and repeal all in conflict with the constitution --- was rejected. At another meeting on December 26, Seward continued, he had offered a fourth proposition to the effect that Congress should pass a law to prevent invasion of a state, which was amended and rejected.

IIRC, Seward did publicly state that states should repeal any of their laws in conflict with the Constitution. He apparently was parroting Lincoln at that point. A number of states did change their personal liberty laws after states started seceding so as to make their personal liberty laws not be in conflict with the Constitution. I didn't realize that Lincoln had suggested it (a wise suggestion on his part).

Here is an old post of mine concerning what Seward said publicly in January 1861 (the old newspapers are very interesting and useful): link.

I do see the following in The Daily Mississipian newspaper of January 16, 1861:

Washington, Jan. 12. Hon. Wm H. Seward, of New York, addressed the Senate to-day, on the President's message. He said Congress ought, if it can, redress any real grievances of the offended States, and then supply the President with all the means necessary to maintain the Union. He argued that the laws contravening the constitution, in regard to the escape of slaves, ought to be repealed. He was willing to vote for an amendment to the constitution, that Congress should never have the power to abolish or interfere with slavery within the States.

He said that he was ready to vote for any properly guaranteed laws to prevent the invasions of the States by citizens of other States. (I think here he was talking about one of the grievances of the Southern states, that people from the North were coming down and invading farms, etc., to take away slaves. I've seen reference to this in some of the secession ordinances. Also, Southerners had been killed in the North trying to get their slaves back, but I don't know how frequent that sort of thing was. Rare probably.)

I checked in the Congressional Globe for Seward's exact words to the Senate. They were as follows:

I agree that all laws of the States, whether free States or slave States, which relate to this class of persons, or any others coming from or resident in other States, and which laws contravene the Constitution of the United States, or any law of Congress passed in conformity thereto, ought to be repealed.

Secondly ... I am willing to vote for an amendment of the Constitution declaring that it shall not, by any future amendment, be so altered, as to confer on Congress a power to abolish or interfere with slavery in any State.

Thirdly, (long paragraph follows) ... when the eccentric movements of secession and disunion shall have ended, in whatever form that end may come, and the angry excitements of the hour shall have subsided, and calmness once more shall have resumed its accustomed sway over the public mind, then, and not until then -- one, two or three years hence -- I should cheerfully advise a convention of the people, to be assembled in pursuance of the Constitution, to consider and decide whether any amendments of the organic national law ought to be made. ...

Fourthly, I hold myself ready now, as always heretofore, to vote for any properly-guarded laws which shall be deemed necessary to prevent mutual invasions of States by citizens of other States, and punish those who shall aid and abet them.

That fourth item probably stems from John Brown's invasion of Virginia.